Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

Looking at characters I play, and others of which I have copies, there seems to be a strong tendency for them to have a large number of IQ-based skills with 1-4 points in each, and a smaller number of DX-based skills, many of whom are in the 1-4 points range, but a few of which have rather more: 8, 12, or more points. IQ skills with more than 4 points invested seem very rare.

This doesn't seem desperately surprising to me, since most of those DX skills with lots of points are the character's primary combat skill, or some other important specialisation, like Stealth on a sneak-artist. But I wondered if it was an artefact of my groups' play styles, or something that occurs widely?

Re: Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

I have definitely seen 'my favorite weapon' skill hiked to the skies

It isn't uncommon on say a gadgeteer to see 'my favorite engineering skill' hiked to the skies, or say Alchemy on an Alchemist etc

Usually once you get to 4pts a level though people start looking for talents or raising the Stat. There are a lot more Talents with 'my favorite IQ skill'

Re: Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

It's not just your group.

I think part of the effect is simply that the combat skills are seen as (literally) life-or-death matters. Failure there is a hard failure, whereas the IQ skills are more of a "soft" failure. You can fail that research roll or knowledge check and just suffer a bit of delay.

In some cases, it's a matter of numbers. Those DX specialists probably only need a handful of skills to implement their schtick -- a melee weapon or two, Stealth, Acrobatics, Throwing. For a space game, I made a chart showing the techy skills for running a starship, of which there were 40 after I consolidated a few. Scotty the Chief Engineer has to spread the points around a lot more than Dai Blackthorn, or even Sulu the Helmsman.

Re: Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

Part of it is that IQ-based skills don't normally need to soak as many penalties as DX-based ones, so topping them out at the 12-14 range is common except for the ones that are "core concept" (Alchemy, Engineering, Thaumatology, etc) or combat-useful (look at how many skills requiring TBaM are IQ, Will, or Per as opposed to DX). You kinda need Bow-30 to reliably hit someone in the jaw at 50 yards (I did that in play once o/`)... you don't really need Mechanic-30 to get the seaplane engine fixed before the storm front hits or Lockpicking-30 to rig the electronic lock to stay closed long enough to get away from the soldiers chasing you through the space station. Yeah, they help, but they're not exactly vital for those tasks.

Re: Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

I tend to see the skills used most getting lots of points. If the GM gives you a place to feel good about the points, the players tend to stuff them in.

I played a char who had the most points in Smithing stuff, just so I could make awesome low-tech masterwork swords and such. Plots revolved around the char's reknown with smithing. An invasion at their home village just to try to kidnap my char, nobility coming to hicksville with custom weapon orders. It was great!

I think that it's EASIEST to just focus on combat, but if the nob-combat gets focus, giving the player making the char ideas of how these IQ skills can benefit them, they will definitely go for it.

Re: Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

There are a two categories of skills that attract a small (1-2 point investment):

1. Skills which you don't think you'll use, but which your character would logically have based on their concept/characterization: (e.g. Area Knowledge (Home Town), Current Events, Connoisseur (any), Hobby Skills).

2. Skills which are great to have at some level, but which you don't usually need to have at a high level (Computer Operation, Swimming).

Certainly more IQ skills fall into these two categories than DX skills.

Re: Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

True.

It's also probably worth noting that the combat rules are full of common penalties and options like Deceptive Attack that make it clear that high skill has value. It's much less obvious that Biology-20 is going to let you do anything that Biology-16 didn't, and Biology-14 is probably good enough to making most rolls.

Re: Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

Exactly. When you look at alchemy, for example, and realize the potion you want to brew is -7 to the skill and you could be losing all your resources failing, you're going to be upping alchemy.

The burden is on the GM to get a broader view of the skills people are interested in and how they can make their use more enjoyable. Then you will see players spending more points and maybe missing a couple times in combat to afford to employ the skills.

Re: Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

Taking time is often an option for the academic IQ skills. Taking time in combat is often not an option. Accomplishing a difficult academic task can often be done at lower skill levels, whereas combat competency requires "raw" skill.

Re: Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

Basic task in those situations you describe is often -9 or -10 for doing it faster so you really want the skill after that to be good, so optimally about 25 for 16- or 15-, but few points less is likely ok. Occasionally you kind of need that 30 for when you do not have the proper tools for the extra -5.


But as to the OP: yes, there as just so many IQ based skills that you "need" to have at least that one point in..

But in general I find that most players quickly find that raising IQ is better than raising IQ based skills beyond that 1 point, except for some very specific single skills precisely because they quickly have 20+ skills that would benefit from a skill raise.. That seems less common in DX.

Re: Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

Do you happen to have a link to that? I'll be playing in a space game soon, and making sure we don't forget to cover something would be nice.

Re: Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

Yes. It's a very good thing that GURPS finally got official working-faster rules with the publication of the core 4E books.

Re: Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

Taking time is called "Aim" or "Evaluate" as maneuvers.

Re: Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

Certainly -- for what it's worth: Design / Repair / Use chart (MS Excel format)

I made this in prep for an GT:ISW game, so it's not all-inclusive. My goal was to make sure I understood which skills matched up with which other ones in the Design / Repair / Use triads.

Changes from RAW include:

- Contragrav and maneuver drives are closely-related tech, so one Gravitics specialty covers both for design and repair

- The "Plant Operation" skill was invented as the skill to run power plants. (Doesn't exist in RAW as far as I could tell.)

- Electronics Operation has a couple of merges: "Security" and "Surveillance" are combined. "Medical" and "Scientific" are combined, along with other unnamed specialties, and dubbed "Application". One skill is sufficient to operate whatever electronic instruments and tools are usual for other skills that you also have (Physician, Astronomy, Archaeology, etc). I'm tempted to do away with this category and just declare that it's part of the other skills.

- Pilot (Jumpspace) is the skill for "using" the jump drive. (RAW has Mechanic (Jump Drive). Pros and cons here related to giving multiple crewmen something to do. I was also trying to complete the the triad.)

Re: Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

Thank you :)

Re: Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

Looking at my current GURPS campaign's PCs, I see that Bengta Gannet has 4 points each in Leadership, Merchant, Ritual Magic, and Shiphandling (Ship); Hanno has 8 points in Ritual Magic and 4 points each in Diplomacy and Merchant; Kenbash Nergul has 8 points in Leatherworking and 4 points each in Artist (Bone and Ivory), Expert Skill (Thanatology), Gesture, Musical Instrument (Flute), and Observation; Raintooth has 4 points each in Sleight of Hand and Stealth; and Sangmu has 8 points in Ritual Magic and 4 points each in Esoteric Medicine, Knot-Tying, Surgery (Field-Expedient), and Survival (Woodlands). That's not mentioning path and book skills, or cinematic martial arts skills. So it is possible to have players create characters who aren't combat-focused. Hanno, indeed, has almost no combat skills; he has a loyal bodyguard, but he relies primarily on persuasiveness, and secondarily on having a troll and four selkies traveling with him.

Re: Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

In my campaign only the full-fledged warriors have high DX-skills. The mundane warrior has spent many points directly on the DX-skills (24pts on his main unarmed combat skill and 8-12pts on ranged weapon skills, Acrobatics, Fast-Draw) while the other two had Talent bonuses.

There's one engineer who has spent alot of points on Talents (Artificer) and an Engineer! (Wildcard skill). He's the one maintining the ship and building his own droids.

Two other have spend the main points on Will-based spells and the appropriate Talents to enhance these.

The group in general has spend some points in Piloting, Electronics Operations (Shields, Sensors), Navigation (Space and Hyperspace) so they can replace each other when someone is too badly hurt to act as a crewmember of their starcruiser.

Lesser used skills are Area Knowledge, Survival, Armoury (as needed).

Because survivability depends alot on high DX combat skills, there are more points spent on these than other attribute-based skills. After a while, Will-based skills (spells) will have more points invested in them because of the the Force users who can (after spending a lot of points to buy-off the limitations on their advantages) now spend points on their Force abilities.

Re: Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

It depends entirely on what challenges the GM throws at the players.

In my secret-agents campaign (currently on hiatus), just about all of the NPC foes met in combat are less capable than the PCs. Most are low-skill conscripts or criminal goons, poorly trained fanatics sent forth to sell their lives, or just desperate people snatching up weapons. Besting them almost never relies on outmatching them point-for-point in DX and combat skills – that's a special challenge I pull out once in a rare while, and noteworthy when it happens. The overwhelming majority of conflicts are won by getting the jump on someone via guile or planning. Consequently, the impressive skill levels are in areas like Acting, Camouflage, Fast-Talk, Holdout, Observation, Shadowing, and Tactics. I'll grant that Stealth is pivotal, too, but it's the one exception.

Most of the time in that campaign, however, the PCs aren't fighting – or sneaking using Stealth – at all. They're gathering information via social skills or Interrogation, using surveillance gear with Electronics Operation and Photography, looking for clues with skills like Forensics and Search, or digging around with Research. They're very often messing with specialized gear that calls for Armoury, Computer Programming, Electronics Repair, Mechanic, etc. And of course they're sneaking into places using Lockpicking and Traps. Because so much of the social stuff is resisted while the technical stuff has penalties for either improvised tools or enemy equipment quality, these levels are high.

My experience, then, is that there are campaign types where high IQ and IQ-based skills (and Per and Per-based skills, especially) are more important than high DX and DX-based skills, and where most of the PCs have lots of IQ-based skills at high levels.

Re: Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

Absolutely. Thinking a bit more about this, I think the phenomenon I'm experiencing is that characters commonly find that they need enough IQ-based skills at high levels that raising IQ is the economic way to improve. However, the number of DX-based skills for which they need high skill levels is small enough that buying up the skills individually is often cost-effective.

Re: Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

That fits – and it goes double for Per-based skills. High Per is really, really effective for secret agents, who almost always end up with Observation and Search; can find many uses for Body Language, Detect Lies, Lip Reading, Scrounging, Tracking, and Urban Survival; and regularly make Per-based rolls against the likes of Poisons and Traps. Team members who provide DX-based capabilities can usually be described in terms like "the sniper with remarkable Guns (Rifle)" and "the wheel man with impressive Driving (Automobile)." The notable exception in the secret-agents context is the intrusion expert, whose mix of Climbing, Forced Entry, Stealth, etc. with Electronics Operation, Lockpicking, Traps, and the like pushes up both DX and IQ while driving down points in any one skill.

Re: Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

Hey, I did something similar for my Star Trek game if you want to take a look. You'll need to click the "Tech Skill Triads" switch towards the bottom of the display.

Re: Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

To the other good points here, I think it's worth adding that while we've discussed skill overlap in the past, it feels like it comes up more often with academic skills. My go-to example is economics, finance, market analysis.

Re: Width vs depth, IQ vs DX skills
 

Oh, no, those are clearly distinct skills with almost no overlap.

Economics is primarily a theoretical science. If you got a job doing it you would be working as a teacher or researcher; or perhaps as an advisor to a large business on the likely economic situation several years hence, or to a government agency on the likely outcomes of a new regulatory policy or law, in which case you would most likely be giving bonuses to Merchant, Finance, Law, Politics, or Administration rolls with a complementary skill roll.

Finance is an applied science. Its main focus is on raising funds for large projects; secondarily it looks at investing funds well to gain a good return. It's largely strategic in application. There actually seem to be two subbranches: in business you would be getting funds from investors; in government you would be taking them in through taxes—and you might consult an economist about the social impact of those taxes, a politician about whether they could be enacted, a lawyer about whether the courts would strike them down, or even a philosopher about whether they were just; a Finance roll would tell you whether they were collectible and how much revenue they would raise. But none of that is the main focus of economics.

Market Analysis is a very specialized applied science: It guides you in playing the high-stakes game of buying and selling, particularly of commodities and commodities futures, but more generally in any market where investments turn over regularly and you need to bet on the right ones. This has very little to do with finance, and it's not clear that economics is a big help in it; I don't think being an economist will train you to do it right. This is the one of those three skills that I think could most readily have been cut, as it's rarely a thing PCs will do other than as a boring job, PCs who do it aren't likely to have time for adventuring, and I'm not really seeing much interesting game mechanics for it.

Those are a lot more distinct than Knife, Shortsword, Broadsword, Two-Handed Sword, Force Sword, Rapier, Smallsword, and Main-Gauche.