Quote:
Originally Posted by RyanW
Though, a GM can, and probably should, put his foot down if a player takes a bunch of talents that heavily overlap just for the purpose of gaming the rules. For example, Born Sailor, Mariner, and Seafarer are, effectively, three versions of the same basic talent. I wouldn't allow a character to have them all.
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Frankly, I don't think it's that much of a balance issue. In the specific case you mention, perhaps it's a bit abusive to take all those Talents, but if a Talent doesn't overlap by more than two skills or so, I'd be inclined to allow them both. Consider someone who's taken, say, 1 level each in 4 5-point Talents, with two skills in each common to all of them. For 20 points, they have +4 to two skills, and +1 to about 9 or 12 other skills. If they spent the same 20 points in DX or IQ, they'd have +1 to
hundreds of skills, plus the other benefits of DX or IQ, and if they spent 20 points on one of the skills, they'd have it at something like Attribute+6. And given the way that talents and skills that default to each other often overlap, odds are pretty good that that level in one skill would be providing a decent level to a couple of the other skills the various talents would be covering. Since GURPS already has a problem with encouraging players to either dump all their points into attributes, or one good skill and just default from that, anything that encourages other builds is a good thing, in my book.