Making Skills Matter More

[AlexanderHowl]

Sex Appeal-24 is almost unavoidable if someone possesses HT 12+, Allure 4, Appearance (Very Beautiful), and Voice because it only requires 2 CP on top of 66 CP worth of broadly useful attributes and advantages. The fact that you also receive a reaction bonus of +8 from people attracted to your sex (+12 from people attracted to your combination of sex and race) also makes your effective skill when influencing people Sex Appeal-32 or Sex Appeal-36 (because you add reaction modifiers to base skill to determine effective skill when using influence skills).

That means that a 100 point NPC can give your PCs a massive penalty if they are attracted to the NPC (an average of -22 if they are attracted to the sex of the NPC and an average of -26 if they are attracted to the sex and race combination of the NPC). With Empathy added, even Indomitable does not protect the PC from the influence skill of the NPC, meaning that the NPC can distract any PC attracted to his or her gender who possesses functional equipment. A PC build with that combination of advantages depends on their reaction modifier rather than their Sex Appeal, but I doubt that anyone would decline putting 2 CP to get a skill at 24.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

In my experience (drawn from a singular incident) it isn't always 'new skills'.

When the (supposedly 'not social') Ritualist with an IQ of 20+ has defaults equal to the 'social' Character's paid for skills, there is a problem.

Agreed. My post talks of what is for me the common case where most people have around the same, relatively high DX and IQ, and are distinguished by skills, with at most a modest bump (+1 or +2) for the "agile" or "smart" archetype. If defaults (on average attribute-5) are better than paid-for skills (on average attribute -1 at even the one-point level), then the bump is +4, +5, or greater, which is an astronomical difference – especially between characters whose defining attribute is the same, as IQ is for a ritualist and a social engineer. In that case, I'd have to wonder what the social expert put points into instead of IQ for such a huge disparity to occur. In my campaigns, this has happened only when somebody changed direction mid-course, like a social character deciding to focus on fencing instead of being a witty and incisive thinker.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by whswhs

That's not a question I would ever worry about in one of my campaigns, unless the PCs were gods or high-end supers. I think that skills higher than 20 (a) should be extremely rare and (b) are mostly a waste of points. And I think my players mostly agree with me, as they don't go for skills that high, even in campaigns based on several hundred points.

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

I see skills above 20 or well above 20 fairly frequently, there are a lot of penalties in GURPS and if you want to be awesome at something you need skill enough to tank them

There are a few categories of skills that can use 20+. They are:


Melee weapons. Between hit locations, parries, deceptive attacks, and rapid strikes, you can spend that skill for awesome effect. I usually see this in monster-hunters style settings, and the wielders can cut through foes like butter. High sword skill isn't just beneficial, Its an excellent use of points -- if the player knows what they're doing.



Ranged weapons. I see less of this, but the ability to fire while moving with a decent chance of hitting something at 100 yards is pretty awesome. I suspect I don't see more of this because most games I've run with very high point totals don't have highly effective firearms.



Ritual Path Magic. Its got a nice e^x^2 power scaling with skill. Its intentionally made very hard to get that high, but I've seen it for single rituals, particularly with grimoires.



Invention skills. These do top out, but its often above 20.

[Kalzazz]

The biggest thing I can recall the 'default better than bought skills' is mages sneaking better than sluggers or shooters

IQ 20, ST 10, DX 10 mage with IQ-5 default 15 Stealth, alongside a ST 21 DX 14 Stealth 13 slugger/shooter type of deal

Admittedly while mages are not renowned for being super stealthy, neither are living forklifts so I guess it isn't to weird

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by ericthered

There are a few categories of skills that can use 20+. They are:

And anything that's routinely at -5 to -10 for "hard" to "impossible" task difficulty, half-normal-time or instant use, improvised or no equipment, or working by touch or blind – maybe several of those at the same time – on top of skill-specific penalties. Or anything that's rolled as a Quick Contest uncapped by the Rule of 16 (which affects only supernatural skills), which ought to be a lot of things in a campaign where the opposition is meant to be a meaningful challenge. Or both.

It's always peculiar when a GM who hasn't a second thought about challenging fighter PCs by giving enemies ever-increasing levels of skill, damage, defenses, and DR – and an upward spiral of deadlier weapons and superior armor – isn't also making people use skills in horribly challenging situations where penalties can reach into the -20s and -30s, possibly contested by foes who have their own astronomical skill levels, not always as heavily penalized. When challenges get tougher, that should mean all challenges. Picking the world's best lock (-10) in combat time (i.e., instantly, -10), by touch in the dark (-5), with only improvised tools (-5), for a net -30, is only really worth trying for people with Lockpicking in the high 30s or better, so in a campaign where fighters are trading blows at such skill levels, thieves should be trying such stunts. If not, certain skills won't seem as useful not because of the rules but because of the GM.

[Kalzazz]

The problem is that while 'I'm skill 30 in rapier' may be pretty groovy as a stand alone thing, your the guy who hits things with a rapier and that's your ecological niche

It's hard to get The same with 'I'm lockpicking man' because people view that ecological niche as also being trap man and climbing man and so forth

[dataweaver]

I note that the common thread here is overcoming large penalties. Personally, I prefer to favor lower skill levels overall but with penalties bought off through Techniques — but that only works under the rules as written so long as Techniques are cost-effective, which generally isn't true unless you only have one or two of them per skill.

It's why I'm generally in favor of a house rule where capped Techniques get replaced by Perks: for one point, you raise the Technique from its default to its cap. Mostly, this means eliminating penalties — though in some cases (such as Targeted Attacks) it merely halves them. Techniques that start at no penalty and increase without a cap remain the same: one point per +1.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Kromm

In that case, I'd have to wonder what the social expert put points into instead of IQ for such a huge disparity to occur.

Charisma. If I recall correctly he didn't bother with IQ at all as he had almost no skills (outside of social ones) that were based on it, and two that weren't (Intimidation and Sex Appeal).

At chargen he was the social one of the group, he had skills in the 14-16 range (with Sex Appeal hitting 18-20 I think).

Then... well... the majority of his points were in DX and Powers being as his primary role was 'water-bender'/fighter.

The Ritualist started off with defaults in the 9-11 range which was fine. The problem came in as the campaign rolled on and the Ritualist continually pumped IQ and the "social"* Water-bender/fighter never bumped up his social stuff (he thought 15+ was fine, and for the most part it was).


* I put social in small quotes as it was a secondary role for the character, but one the Player thought should be his 'niche' as the other two Characters had very strong niches of their own (Broad Ritualist and Druidic/Warp Ritualist) and were 'secondary' in front-line combat (even the generalist Ritualist was a sword-swinger). So when the Ritualist starting making social rolls as well as him... the Player got huffy. I told him to just buy more Charisma and Talents...

But it was a moment I've seen crop up elsewhere. The 20+ IQ Wizard in DF. The Dx 20+ Martial Artist. Basically any time you can get a Character with an Attribute at 20+ you will start encroaching on other peoples 'secondary' turf as everything for the 20+er becomes 'secondary'.

Mostly the problem is IQ (sometimes DX) above a certain power mark in a campaign. Above 14 in most 'down to earth' games, above 16 in a cinematic game, and 20+ in a high power game.

In my campaigns, this has happened only when somebody changed direction mid-course, like a social character deciding to focus on fencing instead of being a witty and incisive thinker.

That's exactly what happened to me. The 'social' Character ignored his secondary role (because it was high enough for almost all uses) and the IQ guy just eventually caught up.

Originally Posted by Kromm

It's always peculiar when a GM who hasn't a second thought about challenging fighter PCs by giving enemies ever-increasing levels of skill, damage, defenses, and DR – and an upward spiral of deadlier weapons and superior armor – isn't also making people use skills in horribly challenging situations where penalties can reach into the -20s and -30s, possibly contested by foes who have their own astronomical skill levels, not always as heavily penalized.

Another reason I use B.A.D.† It makes upscaling non-combat challenges not even require a second thought, it's baked right in!



† Yet another of my love shout-outs for GURPS Action 2: Exploits. Available at Warehouse 23.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by hal

Otherwise, use a rule from GURPS 3e...

Once game play starts, attribute costs are doubled.

Wasn't one of the major complaints over this rule that it greatly incentivized building all starting characters as high attribute generalists and specializing with points earned in play?

[dataweaver]

I'm also a fan of basing interaction skills on 10+Charisma instead of IQ, and in general spreading what are currently IQ and DX defaults over a wider variety of bases. I go with eight instead of three: I diversify IQ skills among IQ, Will, Per, and Charisma, and I diversify DX skills among DX, Speed, Manual Dexterity, and Per. (I also divorce Will and Per from IQ.)