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Old 08-04-2014, 03:12 AM   #31
Peter Knutsen
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Acute Senses

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Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ View Post
So how do you represent the difference, and how do you make sure people can't sense things outside what is physically possible? How do we mechanically represent the resolution limits of human sight, hearing, smell, proprioception, etc.? Can someone with Perception 15 and Acute Vision 2 see things the human eye can't physically see? What's going on there?
I don't know that it's possible to simulate such distinctions in GURPS. You cannot have the situation where a cinematically perceptive Sherlock Holmes is unable (zero chance) to perceive, because it is absolutely below his threshold of sensory perception, but which a very keen-nosed blood hound can perceive (and may in fact have a very high probability of perceiving).

That's due to having everything on the same linear scale, the roll and the sensory acuity. Most RPG systems do it that way, if they even allow for differentiated senses (some just have a single Perception attribute of skill, and allow for no embellishments).
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Old 08-04-2014, 03:22 AM   #32
vicky_molokh
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Acute Senses

BTW, anyone paid any attention to / had experience with the option of buying Acute Sense for more inhuman senses: Scanning Sense, Vibration Sense, Detect?
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Old 08-04-2014, 04:47 AM   #33
Peter Knutsen
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Acute Senses

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BTW, anyone paid any attention to / had experience with the option of buying Acute Sense for more inhuman senses: Scanning Sense, Vibration Sense, Detect?
It seems an obvious thing to me to do. Anything that's sense-like ought to be able to be made more Acute. I'd immediately fire a GM who said "no" to such a suggestion. No mercy, no second chances, fired!

The only argument against it is that in some cases 2 CP/lvl might be too expensive, e.g. for a 10 CP Detect. In some cases it might be better to use an Enhancement. But that's not the same as saying "no".
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Old 08-04-2014, 04:50 AM   #34
Peter Knutsen
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Acute Senses

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An example of that is Robert Evans an amateur astronomer who found something like 50 supernovae. I can't quiet remember the quote from his mention in Bill Bryson's "a short history of nearly everything" but it was along the lines of "scatter salt over 100 tables, now add one grain and Mr Evans could spot it"
I once zapped past a TV docu which seemed to feature an astronomer with unusually good eyesight. I even vaguely seem to recall that he may have had an unusual eye anatomy, with some blood vessels being placed behind his retina instead of in front of it as with normal people. Although that does sound rather extreme. And it was shown on the Discovery Channel, which isn't always as editorially selective as, e.g., DR K or DR2.
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Old 08-04-2014, 08:58 AM   #35
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Acute Senses

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The only argument against it is that in some cases 2 CP/lvl might be too expensive, e.g. for a 10 CP Detect. In some cases it might be better to use an Enhancement. But that's not the same as saying "no".
The thing to use for that is the Reliable enhancement, which gives +1 to the roll for +5% cost (Power-Ups 4). I think this is what you use for anything where you're buying a complete ability, rather than improving a sense that you have by default.
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Old 08-04-2014, 09:59 AM   #36
Peter Knutsen
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Acute Senses

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The thing to use for that is the Reliable enhancement, which gives +1 to the roll for +5% cost (Power-Ups 4). I think this is what you use for anything where you're buying a complete ability, rather than improving a sense that you have by default.
Well, yes, that's what I'd assume too, but I don't see anything particularly wrong with the GM instead insisting on 2 CP/lvl for Acute Danger Sense or the like, functioning as a sub-attribute of PR, similar to Acute Vision.

On something like Detect (Gold) from DF3, which IIRC is base cost 10 CP, paying 20% extra per +1 to effective PR is rather expensive, but it's only objectively wrong if the GM says "no" and completely refuse the player to make the better.
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Old 08-04-2014, 10:07 AM   #37
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Acute Senses

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Well, yes, that's what I'd assume too, but I don't see anything particularly wrong with the GM instead insisting on 2 CP/lvl for Acute Danger Sense or the like, functioning as a sub-attribute of PR, similar to Acute Vision.

On something like Detect (Gold) from DF3, which IIRC is base cost 10 CP, paying 20% extra per +1 to effective PR is rather expensive, but it's only objectively wrong if the GM says "no" and completely refuse the player to make the better.
I don't think that Reliable quite fits in this case. It would kind of work for a system that performs one invariant function, like a burglar alarm, where the issue is "do you or don't you notice the little man behind the curtain." And that would suit, for example, Detect Gold or Detect Poison or Detect Intruders. But full-on Detect can give you not just presence, but intensity/amount, direction, possibly distance, and kind and composition. Calling all that "reliable" strikes me as a bit much.

And for Scanning Sense, of course, there's also the ability to measure speed and direction of motion.

What I'd do is have Acute Detection, Acute Scanning, and Acute Vibration Sense, I think, at 2/level. Maybe Scanning could be split up into Radar, Ladar, Sonar, Para-Radar, and so on.

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Old 08-04-2014, 10:23 AM   #38
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Acute Senses

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Really, part of this is a convention of heroic fiction. GURPS says that a spider has IQ 1, a lizard has IQ 2, a dog has IQ 4, a baboon has IQ 5, and a chimpanzee has IQ 6—and a man can have IQ from 6 up to 20. Why the huge variation? Because people don't want to play characters who all have species-normal IQ, or even characters limited to ±1.
By and large, we don't don't care about the range in variation between my exceptionally smart cat and my cat that kept forgetting how to stay out of traffic so that my exceptionally smart cat had to go out and keep rescuing him. It's not that the variation isn't there.
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Old 08-04-2014, 11:01 AM   #39
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Acute Senses

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By and large, we don't don't care about the range in variation between my exceptionally smart cat and my cat that kept forgetting how to stay out of traffic so that my exceptionally smart cat had to go out and keep rescuing him. It's not that the variation isn't there.
If people were going to play cats more often we'd want rules for that sort of thing. Or bunnies. . . .

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Old 08-04-2014, 11:28 AM   #40
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Acute Senses

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If people were going to play cats more often we'd want rules for that sort of thing. Or bunnies. . . .

Bill Stoddard
In particular, if people were going to play cats or bunnies of realistic intelligence rather than boosting them to human range.
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