Perk Limit

[Dragondog]

Originally Posted by Jarreth

I have three questions regarding perk limits.

A: Reading Tactical Shooting regarding Style Perks (Page 37) "...a shooter who knows a style (snip) can buy one of its listed perks per 10 points spent on its skills and techniques.

It doesnt state if a perk that comes in levels (EG: Dead Eye) counts as "one" perk choice or one per level of said perk. Is it one perk, and then it doesnt matter how many levels you buy in it, or one level=one perk?

B: Under Style Familiarity (Tactical Shooting page 37) "You can acquire the style´s Style Perks, improve its techniques whenever you have enough points, and buy any optional traits that would otherwise be off-limits.

Does this mean, I can ignore perk limits if I got the Style Familiarity?

C: On a sidenote, why have a cap on perks? I mean we got a point limit in how many points given for character creation (disads included), and I might be wrong, but thats how I see the caps in GURPs. The cap on perks seems...D20-ish in nature. X perks at every Y level. Plus, it seems the cap is soo high, it hardly matters in the end (if its one perk per X points and not perk levels).

Made a 300 pts NPC for my Black Ops campaign and he turns out to have this many perks availible:
12 General Perks (300 point character)
3 Combat Perks (68 points)
8 Style Perks (86 points)

Thats a perk limit of 23. Seems really high to me, and begs the question why the need for the additional math (there is enough of that in GURPs already)?

A. 1 point in perks per 10 points in skills and techniques.
B. No. If you don't have Style Familiarity, you cannot buy style perks at all.

[Jarreth]

Originally Posted by Dragondog

A. 1 point in perks per 10 points in skills and techniques.
B. No. If you don't have Style Familiarity, you cannot buy style perks at all.

Okay, makes sense. Thanks :)

Originally Posted by Dragondog

B. No. If you don't have Style Familiarity, you cannot buy style perks at all.

Isnt that what I pay the Style cost for (EG: Sharpshooter has a cost of 5 points)? Style Familiarity is a perk.

[Dinadon]

Originally Posted by Jarreth

Okay, makes sense. Thanks :)



Isnt that what I pay the Style cost for (EG: Sharpshooter has a cost of 5 points)? Style Familiarity is a perk.

Style cost includes the cost of the perk.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Jarreth

Isnt that what I pay the Style cost for (EG: Sharpshooter has a cost of 5 points)? Style Familiarity is a perk.

The style cost is the minimum that has to be spent to have the style, not a fixed price. It consists of 1 point in each of the style's main skills, plus the Style Familiarity perk for the style.

So if you already had all the style's skills, you've already paid most of the style's cost, and all you have to add is the Style Familiarity perk.

[Jarreth]

Originally Posted by johndallman

The style cost is the minimum that has to be spent to have the style, not a fixed price. It consists of 1 point in each of the style's main skills, plus the Style Familiarity perk for the style.

So if you already had all the style's skills, you've already paid most of the style's cost, and all you have to add is the Style Familiarity perk.

Ah, havnt seen that. Only have Tactical Shooting which has a note to Martial Arts & Gun Fu. I assume the explanations for styles are found in there?

Can I take Style Familiarity as a perk in a style I havnt spent points on?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Jarreth

Ah, haven't seen that. Only have Tactical Shooting which has a note to Martial Arts & Gun Fu. I assume the explanations for styles are found in there?

Martial Arts is the book for this. Gun-Fu is a book that fills the same niche as Tactical Shooting, for a rather different kind of campaign. While they have some common content, neither TS nor G-F depends on each other.

Can I take Style Familiarity as a perk in a style I haven't spent points on?

No. Now that I look at the detail in Martial Arts, pages 146-148, you do need to spend the style cost on learning the style. You spend that on the skills unless you already know them, the SF perk, and points from the style cost that are left-over because you already know some or all of the skills points must go into purchases (of your choice) for the style: raising skills, or buying optional skills/techniques.

[sir_pudding]

I'm not sure that anybody actually cares about this other than me, but just in case:

Originally Posted by Kromm

The answer is (b). It's just that Style Perks that aren't Combat Perks happen to appear in some shooting styles.

Note that this seems to solve the Archer problem. Strongbow is the only perk that's going to count as a Style Perk here. The Special Exercises are Unusual Background Perks.

[Anaraxes]

It would be nice if Perks weren't overpowered to the point of needing extra rules to limit the number of them you can take. Styles wind up doing double duty as Unusual Backgrounds to balance the underpriced Perks.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

It would be nice if Perks weren't overpowered to the point of needing extra rules to limit the number of them you can take.

I don't think that (most) Perks are overpowered. "Pet" for example is nigh-useless. I think the limits are mainly to:
a) Help reward stylists
and
b) Do the same thing that the quirk limit does. Keep the level of fiddly complexity down.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

It would be nice if Perks weren't overpowered to the point of needing extra rules to limit the number of them you can take. Styles wind up doing double duty as Unusual Backgrounds to balance the underpriced Perks.

Perks aren't overpowered; they're just cluttery. Letting a 150-point character have 150 perks wouldn't break much, if anything, but it would mean a messy character sheet and a five-minute wait before every task and decision concerning that player. Limits exist to curb this, and we phase in more perks at higher point totals and levels of investment in styles because (hopefully!) the player will have grown into the character and learned what's on the sheet.

It's a bit like letting someone take 50 quirks in a campaign with a -50-point disadvantage limit. Forbidding that is less about "unfair" than it is about "annoying and hard to roleplay." It's related to the reason why we got rid of half-point skills, too: Extreme generalists aren't overpowered or unfair, but they are rather sloggy in actual play. Most of the ones I saw were created by the sort of player who treated character design as a minigame and couldn't follow it up by actually acting out another personality in play.