01-03-2016, 09:35 AM | #31 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Knot-Tying
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(Unless he's actually been seen tying knots while blindfolded and on fire, a 20 is highly unlikely, yes.)
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I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. |
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01-03-2016, 10:26 AM | #32 | |
Join Date: Apr 2010
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Knot-Tying
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Seems clear that the rules envision knot-tying on adventures as a dex activity, not an int activity. Let's say we have a int 8, dex 14 giant sentient squirrel character with climbing/dex at 16-. If knot-tying defaulted to climbing/int -4, his low intelligence would explain why he is bad at knots. But why is he required to float it to int? No one else is. |
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01-03-2016, 11:18 AM | #33 | |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Knot-Tying
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01-03-2016, 09:24 PM | #34 | |
Join Date: Apr 2010
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Knot-Tying
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As with many dex-based skills there is a mental element. Gymnastics routine or martial-arts kata or dance routine--gotta remember the routine. Piloting? Lots of technical facts about the aircraft's capabilities you need to know. But for game purposes it gets subsumed into the dex-based skill. I think your suggestion of a familiarity penalty covers most of this when it comes to our high-dex, high-skill climber who has never seen a rope. Once introduced to ropes he'll pick up their application fast, quickly seeing their application to his area of expertise. Is it exactly realistic that he'll quickly intuit how to properly rig a belay, anchor, or rappel? No, but it's below the resolution level of the game. If the player really wants his character to be a great raw climber but have no ability with ropes, a quirk or skill-incompetence disadvantage would be appropriate. |
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01-04-2016, 01:55 AM | #35 | ||
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Knot-Tying
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01-04-2016, 10:27 AM | #36 |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Knot-Tying
I've had plenty of players choose Knot-Tying because they wanted their PCs to be good at working with rope without being experts at Climbing, Lasso, Seamanship, Traps, and the like. The primary use is indeed binding prisoners . . . but for those who've actually spent points on the skill, I also allow a Knot-Tying roll to be complementary to their own or someone else's Climbing when using lines, Freight Handling when securing cargo, Seamanship when rigging or securing a vessel, Traps when setting a tripwire or snare, and so on. I also allow a Knot-Tying roll to improvise a lariat (for Lasso fans) and in place of Traps for simple stuff like a cord tied across a path. And it's the go-to skill whenever someone proposes a cockamamie scheme for hoisting, towing, or otherwise getting friends or gear from A to B using ropes.
I've also had people argue to use Knot-Tying as a complementary skill to Erotic Art, the details of which should be obvious without stating. Oh, and it's hard to be a decent hangman without Knot-Tying.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
01-04-2016, 10:29 AM | #37 |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Knot-Tying
Because to most readers, that would imply the Lasso skill, which definitely isn't included. The operative aspect of rope use is tying knots in the rope, which makes "Knot-Tying" less prone to misinterpretation.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
01-04-2016, 10:36 AM | #38 | |
Join Date: Apr 2010
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Knot-Tying
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That would require a gm with a lot of real-world climbing and knot-tying skill who wants to determine exactly what the rope setup and required knots will be. (Or fudge it arbitrarily, but then what's the point?) I don't think most people play that way, nor does the game envision it. Instead, the gm assigns the task an abstract difficulty level, expressed as a bonus or penalty to skill, and then players roll. So in practice your idea that certain knot-tying tasks require both IQ-based and Dex-based skill is going to be expressed by two rolls. I certainly cannot think of Gurps mechanics where the game says, rather than "action X takes a skill penalty of -Y," "Action X requires a minimum skill level of Z." For instance, in real life you might have a very competent driver who never learned how to pull a bootlegger's reverse, or a good helicopter pilot who never learned how to land under certain emergency conditions. But the game doesn't impose hard limits on whether you can do those things. Whether you can do them is expressed by whether you can make a skill roll with the appropriate penalty. The gm doesn't say, "A bootlegger's reverse requires manipulating the brake, wheel, and accelerator in a certain pattern, which you don't know unless you have IQ-driving at 12+." The gm says, "Bootlegger's reverse, driving -5." |
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01-04-2016, 10:53 AM | #39 | |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Knot-Tying
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01-04-2016, 10:56 AM | #40 |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Knot-Tying
That's why you'd use Engineer to plan the job and then assign the labor to your trained IQ 1 spiders to do with their spinnerets and Knot-Tying skills. This is a textbook example of Long Tasks (p. B346). Field Engineering (GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 16: Wilderness Adventures, p. 33) works much the same way.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
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