Re: Odd Question in raising IQ.
 

It's a question of play style. Infinite Cabal was probably not a "normal game" but the Cabal Lodge that the PCs belonged to had a social prohibition on IQ above 20, because their Grand Master wanted to retain an advantage. When two of the PCs decided to break that limit, it was taken as a declaration of independence. And yes, it was worthwhile. IQ 21 makes the various bonuses for skills of 20 easy to get, and having (IQ+Magery-2) at 25 gives you another energy point off spell costs.

In somewhat more normal games, I've found working characters up to IQ caps of 15 or 16 worthwhile. When lots of IQ/H skills are useful, high IQ is the easy way to raise them.

Re: Odd Question in raising IQ.
 

Except you aren't charging for a trait they aren't getting. IQ costs 20 per level, that it also happens to raise Perception and Will for free is secondary and not a part of paying to buy up IQ*.

Same thing would happen if someone bought up HP separate from ST, but there was a HP cap that matched the ST cap and the Player then bought ST up to cap. Unless the GM is allowing the Player to buy down Secondary Characteristics and get the points back, it's points that are wasted. Same as if a PC loses a limb, they don't suddenly get points to spend elsewhere.

The whole "buy down IQ" thing is actually rather unsupported by RAW as "buying down Per" is the same as "taking a Disadvantage", and you don't get points for Disads gained during play.


* Unless the GM is using the optional "buy down" thing which I consider a nonsensical point crock. IQ should not be 10 points per level, it shouldn't ever be a better choice than a 10 point Talent (ignoring that it's almost always better than a 10 point Talent already).

Re: Odd Question in raising IQ.
 

In fact, there is an old discussion about talents not being worthwhile in many cases precisely because of this. Because if you don't raise Will and Per, in practice IQ ends up being 10/level. The "problem" is that you have a limit on how much you can reduce from Will and Per (4 below IQ, normally). That's why people have been complaining for years that some 15/level talents just aren't worth it (Smooth Operator is the most famous one, I think). Because precisely with this, you can pay 10 per IQ and have more benefits (unless the Talent has many skills with different attributes).

As for paying the difference to match IQ, Per and Will, I don't see any problem. I don't think it's fair for the player to charge for something he won't use. This point being thrown away makes no sense to me in this case. If you don't want this situation in the game, then it's easier from the start to unlink Per and Will from IQ, charging each one separately (that's it, IQ alone costing 20, without both Per and Will). Otherwise, I think it's unfair.

EDIT: If the player paid 50 points to have Regeneration 1HP/minute , and wants to go to Regeneration 1HP/second throughout the game, which costs 100 points, he will not have to pay another 100 points, he will simply pay the difference of what he already paid for what he wants to get. For me it's similar in the case of IQ, when the person wants to match with Will and Per.

Re: Odd Question in raising IQ.
 

My, currently resting, once-was-Traveller campaign has characters in the 1000-1200+ point range, and the higher point value ones tend to have all their stats in the 16-20 range, with them working on capping out the secondary stats as well. This is probably not the optimal build strategy (DX and IQ aside), but it's what the players ended up at.

Re: Odd Question in raising IQ.
 

Yeah I'd allow a bonus point of Per or Will (or both) to be sacrificed to buy IQ at 15 (or 10) points.

Surprised it's not even a base rule to allow this.

Same thing for sacrificing bonus HP or Lifting ST or Striking ST to get a discount on baseline ST purchases.

Re: Odd Question in raising IQ.
 

You can actually do this. At least the HP thing.

It's even an option mentioned in Psonics. There you can buy ST without HP. In the specific case there, it goes with a -10% limitation on top of being psionic, but it is presumed that outside of that, you could buy it without a problem.

But yes, for me it should be better written or have certain parts rewritten to be able to better level up each separate aspect.

Re: Odd Question in raising IQ.
 

Personally I almost agree with ST or HT, as there are almost no skills associated with them, reducing their cost at the expense of HP/FP isn't as big a deal.

But for IQ or DX? Ah, no way I'd agree with it. Makes them too valuable to boost for skill increasing purposes. As it is I'm still contemplating raising IQ to 40 points per with Per and Will stripped out. But there are other ways to "
solve" my 'high IQ is a problem' problem, so it's still just at the weighing options stage.

Re: Odd Question in raising IQ.
 

If you don't want high IQ characters, just don't allow them. It's simpler than setting prohibitive or punitive prices for other types of players. Most of the games I played had initial and maximum stat caps during the game. It's even a solution suggested by How To be a GURPS GM. It's not because the player has points and XP that he can buy everything until infinity. It's not how it normally works, save for maybe some Supers games.

Re: Odd Question in raising IQ.
 

I think it's still subject to the limitation of the secondary attributes being unable to vary more than 4 points in either direction from the primary

Re: Odd Question in raising IQ.
 

(nods) My own hack is to charge double XP for raising Attributes after character creation; players expect that what they start with is what they've got. IQ bumps happen every rare once in a while, there've been a couple of DX bumps over the decades, and one fellow saw the error of his ways when he took HT 9 against me saying "That'll really bite you in the ass, trust me on this one." An expensive lesson.

With that, I don't think anyone's bumped a stat more than once.