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Old 06-09-2021, 07:56 AM   #68
bocephus
 
Join Date: Apr 2019
Default Re: Skill Advancement

Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
I'm fairly confident that's already the default.
I'm not as confident as you are that this is well understood. As you can see I did a whole post having forgotten it again. Especially since the OP has admittedly not played GURPS yet, so pointing out what might be obvious to you might not be to new user (nor was it me till just last year).

Snipped from B556
A roll of 3 or 4 is always a critical success.
A roll of 5 is a critical success if your effective skill is 15+.
A roll of 6 is a critical success if your effective skill is 16+.
A roll of 18 is always a critical failure.
A roll of 17 is a critical failure if your effective skill is 15 or less; otherwise, it is an ordinary failure.
Any roll of 10 greater than your effective skill is a critical failure: 16 on a skill of 6, 15 on a skill of 5, and so on.


I myself have only recently experienced my first game where skills above 20 were at a thing and not at all uncommon. Prior to this specific setting skill 16 was always the sweet spot (it negates the crit fail of a 17) and more than Skill17 was unheard of. Imagine my surprise when the "rules" don't actually say what I always thought they said.
When I read the rules decades ago I took away: if 'Any roll of 10 Greater than skill is a crit fail' then it stands to reason 'Any roll of 10 Less than skill is a crit success' (see examples for skill15 & 16). I had been playing 'my' way since 2e. The periods at the end of those lines about skill15 and skill16 are there for a reason :)

It seems nit picky and even a little obvious once its pointed out, but I had to have a side bar conversation with the GM to try and understand how he was going to handle "crit success" for this PC I have with some ungodly skills of 20 and 21, its really easy to roll an 11 or better.
He probably thought the same thing you did... but he had to explain this interpretation to me, and two of the other players ended up making the same mistake (though one was relatively new). I assume there are others out there that may require this explanation. I still tend to forget it, I played so long the other way (thought it really didn't matter because no one had such legendary skill levels).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
This is situational, but Deceptive Attack can be scaled up to any skill (it's -2 to hit per -1 to defend, with the only requirement being that you not drop below skill 10)
I can say with 100% confidence of accuracy that the below portion of the Deceptive Attacks rule is the only one I have ever actually gamed with (as player, or GM):

The GM may opt to speed play by limiting Deceptive Attacks to a flat -4 to skill, giving the target -2 on his active defenses.

As I have said many times, in many posts GURPS offers a vast array of variability in how a game is structured. It's difficult for me to even conceive of a game that has a char with your Skill40 example. I don't mean to say it cant exist according to rules, just that the way such a char comes into existence is such a foreign idea to my thought process, that it doesn't even feel like a real thing. I have never experienced such a char, and no one that I have played with has ever tried to design or play such a thing.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Kallatari View Post
I personally advise against ever-increasing cost of skills because it throws off the "character creation balance" elsewhere.

No matter how you cost out the increasing skill cost, it will eventually reach a point where increasing the underlying attribute will be cheaper than raising the skill. At that point, your problem won't be the "DX 10, Broadsword DX+30" characters, it will be the "DX 30, Broadsword DX+10" characters.. or whatever the min/max threshold ends up being according to the used pricing method. That threshold becomes even lower if they have multiple skills based on the same attribute they want to increase.
You are quite right, and I should have taken care to also post the other House rule as well (Im just so used to it existing, I forget its really not the norm for everyone)... which I often use even in games where I don't use the modified skill progression. This is just because of how I tend to design my worlds (150pt starting chars). This may not work for worlds that have a huge amount of race options for PCs, Im not big on that so its not really a factor for my world design. This obviously wouldn't work for supers or highly cinematic type games.

House Rule 3 PC stat caps:
Base stats below 9 must be approved ahead of time.

At creation Max Cap IQ and DX=13, ST and HT=15.
After creation IQ and DX are capped at 25% of starting value, ST and HT are capped at 40% starting values. These caps do not include magical enhancements.

So IQ/DX 13 at Creation could be increased via char points to 16 max and ST/HT 15 could go to 21, a DX 10 char could go to 13, a ST 10 could go to 14.

My thinking here is, even though you are exceptional "people" there is a limit to the amount your innate abilities could conceivably increase in terms of your body/mind maximum potential. A tiny person can lift weights to get stronger, but will never be able to get as strong as someone born with an naturally powerful physique who commits the same effort. IQ and DX much more difficult to "increase" so I cap their max potential more than ST and HT, IQ/DX also have a disproportionate value on the bulk of the skill system which in essence gives a double bonus.


My way of doing things probably seems very boring to some, but I prefer for the players to focus on the story as if they were "anyone" in this world that could have been chosen, and that every "person" they encounter will have similar restrictions. No this wouldn't apply to non-people creatures. Players are exceptional because they get more points to work with, just like in real life only a very few people get to be a 'Hafthor Björnsson', and players are one of those lucky few but they are still limited by the max potential of their species. I like PCs to be broad and well rounded, and try to challenge them with situations that need multiple skills and abilities to resolve, and challenge my imagination to design. Though the occasional solution via brute force does occasional pop up.
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