Re: Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?
 

When I was looking at capping skills at some level, I was looking more at having Attributes cap in the 14-16 range and Skills cap between Attribute +5 to +10, most likely with extra costs (similar to UBs) to reach the higher end.
But this was for a cinematic game with "common" humans (no magic, psionics, superpowers, aliens or stuff like that).

So, someone could actually reach a skill of 26 but it would be a lot more expensive than it is under the normal rules.

Re: Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?
 

If you want it to produce rules-legal characters (which may not be a concern), you can just have a skill cap with a leveled unusual background to exceed that cap.

Re: Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?
 

Pretty much the official answer, by the way.

—

GURPS is a toolkit. To get the look and feel you want – in terms of genre, realism level, and power level – you must turn the dials to suitable settings.

Skill levels don't have a hard cap because unlike, say, self-control rolls or rolls for Patron, skill rolls have no hard floor on penalties . . . a skill roll at -10 or even -30 is perfectly possible under the rules. Which said, p. B172 is fairly clear on pointing out that skill 20+ is masterful, and suggests a cap of 20-25. There's also ample advice there and on pp. B447-448 that "normal" people have skill 12-14, whatever the rules allow in theory.

So . . . the observed behavior in the example isn't surprising. The example depicts a moderately realistic professional warrior vs. a cinematic peasant-hero type. Power level might be comparable, but realism level sure isn't!

I see those 58-point heroes and raise with this. That's an example where both realism level and genre are out of whack. You can get similar results by creating a 0-point person with enough disads to afford the Wealth to own a nuke, then setting it off remotely.

The point being that the original example, while less extreme than mine, isn't comparing like with like at all.

Re: Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?
 

Yes, I've done this too. I find that everyone reaches the cap very quickly and then starts contemplating buying the UB, depending on the cost. My "house rule" is essentially this, but the "cap" is 8 points in the skill, and the UB is 4 points per level after that.

Re: Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?
 

It's honestly meant as a somewhat high fantasy game like D&D, closing on MMO's. My first set of combat trials were against two 'Goblins' with HP 5 versus our Spear Guy (who, at the time, only had a skill of 10). Thinking about it more, I may 'soft cap' it at 16. Part of the issue is there is going to be magic in the system, and I'm thinking of making it a lot easier to get to higher end spells (basically fewer prerequisites) to allow for characters who can do high end stuff without having to sink 70 points into prerequisites to do it, and then slowly grow a larger repertoire of things over time. Though that might turn out to be a disaster.

On the plus side, my player is a) not very familiar with GURPS rules, and b) doesn't have a min/max/munchkin mindset nearly as much as I do. It's the first game we've done in a loooooooong time, so it'll likely be adjusted as we go, and my player isn't planning to get attached to their character (since 'oops, you died' is a serious possibility while tinkering around with all this).

One of the other rules going in will be that one can purchase HP and EP freely with earned points. Again, sort of like D&D/MMOs, this should mean that a few dozen points down the line, where our hero is first taking on a couple goblins and it's a tough fight (simulator says they win against 2 goblins only 66% of the time), they're now taking them on in positive hordes and winning, even if it's just Spear Guy on his own (hopefully with some armor by then).

Doing this, though, with the simulator, I've learned that even a point or two of difference in a stat can mean a lot, while HP isn't as valuable, but skill comes out on top.

Re: Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?
 

"Power" in Gurps Magic is seldom "knowledge of advanced spells" and prerequisites are seldom a meaningful barrier to that.

What "power" usually means is having the energy(FP or other) to _cast_ the spells you've got and everything can revolve around that.

Re: Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?
 

One thing I've noticed about Gurps is that ST is optional for a warrior, while DX/Skill is required. The one place this breaks down is in unarmed combat, and even then just a little ST or buying up the kicking technique goes a long ways. HT is similar: its not where you should be spending your combat points first.


I do think there is a point where buying ST and HT rather than skill become worth it. Especially if you are facing a well-rounded roster of supernatural enemies. It'd be curious to do some stats on that.

Re: Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?
 

First off, wealthy dude is built really badly, and you're exploiting all his weaknesses. You've given him armor he won't be allowed use and very limited combat abilities while sending him against the best spear master to ever grace the planet. He should lose horribly given this situation.

Wealthy guy would do much better with a shield skill and no broadsword. Shield bashes would likely break the spear before an eye hit (33% chance of breakage parrying the shield vs 25% chance of failing a block).

Wealthy guy would also benefit from a warhorse more broadsword as well while replacing broadsword with riding. The strategy here is to have the warhorse trample the peasant. Trying to "parry" the horse is possible, but even more likely to result in the loss of a spear (5/6 chance of breakage?). Once the spear is out of play, wealthy guy can punch him the peasant to death with armored gauntlets while the peasant effectively can't hurt DR4 wealthy guy.

Mostly, though, wealthy guy should pay some archers or knife throwers to make an example of this unruly peasant.

Re: Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?
 

In actual gameplay I've never found any issue with insane weapon skill, sure, you are awesome when weapon skill helps and less awesome when it doesn't. Insane weapon skill character hasn't shown brighter than characters who spent CP differently

Re: Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?
 

Deceptive-10 to the Eye (-10) is a -30 penalty, so to keethe effective skill at the minimum (12) for a deceptive attack you need Spear-42, not 'merely' Spear-27. That's another 60 points that I'm sure the knight could do something useful with.