Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman
No, none of this makes any sense. People with IQ 13 don't learn four times faster. People with IQ 13 who go to college don't do so at age 9. Child prodigies have something more like an highly specific and narrow Talent, and are very rare.
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Indeed. Note the only trait (that I'm aware of) that speeds up learning in GURPS is Talent, and there it's only -10% to learning time per level, to a maximum of -40%, which isn't even learning at twice the rate (it's about +67% to learning rate). If we were to assume learning is instead something that calls for an IQ roll, even then IQ 13 only succeeds about 1.67x as often as IQ 10, again for around +67% to learning rate (this matching the maximum for talent is a coincidence; indeed, they're actually just close, not exact matches). So I have no idea where x4 to learning rate comes from.
People who graduate significantly early are an
extremely rarified few. And note it's not just that they need to have markedly above-average academic intelligence - they also need to be fortunate enough to be in a position to have their talent recognized and capitalized upon, they (and their parents) have to be willing to go through school at an accelerated pace (and their school needs to be capable of handling bringing them through at such a pace... or there needs to be some way for them to transfer to a school that
can handle this), etc. And the more rare a person is, the greater their presence stretches one's sense of disbelief,
particularly if they opt for going into the workplace in a manner that is "against type" (like an academic savant going into the combat arm of the military).