Capping Skill Default Levels

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Just going by GURPS Basic Set: Characters, there are some combat Techniques that it is ignoring reality to claim you cannot use at a "double default" and/or are lacking a straight-up DX based Default. Several Techniques are pretty general weapon uses like Feinting; it seems pretty silly to disallow using a Broadsword at default to not Feint... even more so if it isn't the DX default but from another weapon like Shortsword!

I did say "in most cases". Exceptions are usually easy to spot. Feint isn't really one, because the ability to feint is built into the weapon skill. The guy defaulting his Broadsword from his Shortsword-2 gets to Feint with the same skill level as his attack because of that assumption in the rules.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

I'm not talking about weather or not you should change stuff, balance is subjective anyway even if it worth worrying about in the first place.

I'm making the point that you seem to be ignoring the effects that different defaults has on different skills.

When you started about skills not being utility costed, you seemed to be talking about the system as RAW not theoretical changes you might be making.

Balance is always worth worrying about.

It's not like I would be getting rid of defaults. Everything would still have those defaults and still probably give expert levels of skill in them. Comparatively skills with lots of defaults would still have better defaults than those with few.

Well RAW is important because it is the foundation upon which I will be making changes. If things aren't priced by utility already then messing up the utility you get per unit of price isn't much of a problem.

Originally Posted by DangerousThing

As far as I know it is RAW to *use* techniques with a defaulted skill. But techniques don't seem to be inherited from the prerequisite skill, though I'd

However, unless you have at least a point in the skill, you cannot improve the technique. BA 229.

For example, if you have Brawling as a learned skill, then you could perhaps improve the technique "Kicking" which is at a -2 normally. Kicking is a Hard technique with a maximum equal to the Brawling skill level in this case.

Though if you want to improve a lot of techniques, it's usually more efficient to improve the prerequisite skill.

If the technique requires TbaM or WM then you must have one of those advantages.

Does this make sense?

As you will note in the previous posts on the subject the RAW is contested. My post was an explanation of how the "you can't use techniques without a point in the skill" school allows for the use of things like kicking and feinting. I posted my argument against techniques from defaulting skills after rereading the rules above.

Originally Posted by pfharlock

What I'm about to say is no kind of answer because I realize this is a conversation about rules, buttttt...

At some point common sense has to rule out. If a technique very clearly is something anyone who knew the skill could do, then as a GM I would likely allow it, on the other hand, if the technique in question were something highly specialized that would need special training or preparation to pull off, well maybe in that case I wouldn't allow it unless you had specifically trained the skill.

The default rule of not allowing techniques unless you have a point in the skill seems reasonable enough to me.

There is no rule system that can cover all of reality because reality is more nuanced and multi-faceted than a fixed rule system can ever be. At some point you just have to apply common sense.

Honestly I wouldn't even want to play a rule system that modeled everything (reality) perfectly, there would be so many exceptions for edge cases I'd never be able to remember the rules. A simplistic rule system that covers 80-90% of reality is good enough for me, I can use common sense for the rest.

No. It is not easier to house rule a list of techniques that can be used while defaulting than it is to use a system with that prebuilt. It is harder. A rules system is there to preempt the necessity of GM calls but that does not automatically necessitate a perfect modeling of everything. Abstractions exist that GMs are willing to allow to exist. GMs are different so a system requires optional rules or house rules to customize it to reflect the nature of abstractions they want and that they want for the campaign and so it can be reasonable for a specific rule to not exist in the normal rules but the existence of common sense is not an excuse for less good rules.

Note that GURPS already has methods for people to use things that happen to also be techniques as options which do not require points in the skill. This covers things like kicking and feinting.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

I did say "in most cases". Exceptions are usually easy to spot. Feint isn't really one, because the ability to feint is built into the weapon skill. The guy defaulting his Broadsword from his Shortsword-2 gets to Feint with the same skill level as his attack because of that assumption in the rules.

The thing is... as I read through the Techniques in Base Set, "the exceptions" seem more common than "the rule".

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Sindri

Balance is always worth worrying about.

It's not like I would be getting rid of defaults. Everything would still have those defaults and still probably give expert levels of skill in them. Comparatively skills with lots of defaults would still have better defaults than those with few.

Well RAW is important because it is the foundation upon which I will be making changes. If things aren't priced by utility already then messing up the utility you get per unit of price isn't much of a problem.

.

That's fine, all I'm saying is if you reduce defaults you will reduce the value of skills that have lots of low defaults more than you will over skills. This will have an effect on the current balancing of these skills.

Take the melee skills it's a general consensus that there's too many of them (not an unreasonable one IMO similar to the point about guns in Pyramid 65) but if that is an issue it is currently somewhat mitigated by the fact that they tend to have lots reasonably low of cross defaults . If you reduce defaults for them you will need to spend more points on them to get to what you'd have now.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

That's fine, all I'm saying is if you reduce defaults you will reduce the value of skills that have lots of low defaults more than you will over skills. This will have an effect on the current balancing of these skills.

Take the melee skills it's a general consensus that there's too many of them (not an unreasonable one IMO similar to the point about guns in Pyramid 65) but if that is an issue it is currently somewhat mitigated by the fact that they tend to have lots reasonably low of cross defaults . If you reduce defaults for them you will need to spend more points on them to get to what you'd have now.

True. I am going to reduce the number of skills and possibly make other tweaks though.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Otaku

The thing is... as I read through the Techniques in Base Set, "the exceptions" seem more common than "the rule".

If you list the ones you have trouble with, maybe we can resolve any differences.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

If you list the ones you have trouble with, maybe we can resolve any differences.

I was debating starting another thread for that; probably bad enough I brought it up here... because even if people try to help me, I'll probably get confused by the main discussion. XD

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Sindri

So one thing that I've been considering is whether the skill levels possible through defaulting should be capped. Should any level of skill with one skill give you a 20 in another skill without any training in the second skill?

Yes. If you are the God of Broadswords, to you a shortsword is just a stubby broadsword. You can use the same technique, just with a little added difficulty in that you have to compensate for your lack of reach.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Yes. If you are the God of Broadswords, to you a shortsword is just a stubby broadsword. You can use the same technique, just with a little added difficulty in that you have to compensate for your lack of reach.

And do you also think that broadsword and shortsword should be different skills?

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by Sindri

And do you also think that broadsword and shortsword should be different skills?

Perhaps you should suggest two where David Johnston2's comment doesn't make sense, if only to save us time; it really is tricky as there are many Skills that I think might work best if the Optional Specialization/Technique/Familiarity rules were tweaked, instead of subdividing them how it actually is. Given my level of competency in GURPS, I wouldn't place any bets on me being correct. XD

With what I do understand about your concerns, if anything it seems like Skills in general just needs a cap to avoid "weird" things like a Skill 30-just-about-anything having a 19+* default for related skills... and that particular issue with the GURPS Skill system was an issue in 3e as well, and there doesn't seem to be a good solution.

*If there is a Skill with more than a -11 default (before other Modifiers), let me know.