Skills and skill levels for building an army, intelligence service, bureaucracy

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Seems extremely generous, particularly at the early levels. Also, probably will require changing the way Efficient and whatever the time-reduction Technique is called work.

The early levels are generous compared to the existing system, in that it no longer requires being twice as good to work slightly faster. The later levels are actually restrictive compared to the existing system, in that instead of a -1 serving to halve the time required at the last levels for the RAW, it requires a -2 to halve the time at all levels.

It seems off to me that with the same level of quality of work, a skill 12 character is slightly faster than a skill 10 character (+25% speed), but a skill 19 character will be twice as fast as a skill 18 one.

Also, a -2 penalty is huge for regular people. A -5 penalty makes something more or less impossible at normal human skill levels. Do you really think that being twice as fast a worker than someone else requires skill 15 to his skill 10?

I find it much more plausible that this is the difference between an expert of skill 14 and a normal professional at skill 12.

I'm not familiar with a time-reduction Technique, so if you know where I'd find it, please share. As for Efficient, I'm not sure I would change it. A lot of Perks are extremely useful for sedentary non-adventuring types, but still only cost 1 point.

I don't see that doubling the output of a character for a single skill is any more or less unbalancing than having him get a +N to most grappling rolls for Power Grappling or get a +5 to all skill rolls within his narrow professional niche for Hyperspecialisation.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Icelander

The early levels are generous compared to the existing system, in that it no longer requires being twice as good to work slightly faster. The later levels are actually restrictive compared to the existing system, in that instead of a -1 serving to halve the time required at the last levels for the RAW, it requires a -2 to halve the time at all levels.

It seems off to me that with the same level of quality of work, a skill 12 character is slightly faster than a skill 10 character (+25% speed), but a skill 19 character will be twice as fast as a skill 18 one.

Also, a -2 penalty is huge for regular people. A -5 penalty makes something more or less impossible at normal human skill levels. Do you really think that being twice as fast a worker than someone else requires skill 15 to his skill 10?

Assuming that an untrained person rolls IQ-5, or roughly 5, while a professional beginner rolls at IQ+0, or 10ish, the comparison seems okay - a beginner can be twice as fast as someone who's not trained. Seems okayish. Of course realistically, each task has its own curve of skill and time modifiers, but we can't afford that.

Originally Posted by Icelander

I'm not familiar with a time-reduction Technique, so if you know where I'd find it, please share. As for Efficient, I'm not sure I would change it. A lot of Perks are extremely useful for sedentary non-adventuring types, but still only cost 1 point.

I think the Technique can be found under the hood of some DF supplement. As for Efficient, that makes me want to take it much more eagerly for many adventurish skills.

Originally Posted by Icelander

I don't see that doubling the output of a character for a single skill is any more or less unbalancing than having him get a +N to most grappling rolls for Power Grappling or get a +5 to all skill rolls within his narrow professional niche for Hyperspecialisation.

Speaking of Hyperspecialisation, people seem leery of it even when it is a specialisation in a single person for a skill which can be used on anyone (e.g. Psychology).

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Icelander

That actually seems like a good idea.

So:

-1 ___ 70% normal time
-2 ___ 50% normal time
-3 ___ 30% normal time
-4 ___ 20% normal time
-5 ___ 15% normal time
-6 ___ 10% normal time
-7 ___ 7% normal time
-8 ___ 5% normal time
-9 ___ 3% normal time
-10 __ 2% normal time or effectively instant in most cases

Thanks! But why not expand the concept to cover the other side of the zero, the taking-extra-time choice, as well? Or are you happy with those rules?

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Assuming that an untrained person rolls IQ-5, or roughly 5, while a professional beginner rolls at IQ+0, or 10ish, the comparison seems okay - a beginner can be twice as fast as someone who's not trained. Seems okayish. Of course realistically, each task has its own curve of skill and time modifiers, but we can't afford that.

No, you can't extend this down to untrained people, because both by the rules and realistically, they simply can't do as good a job as professionals. By taking a lot more time to do their work, they might reach 'okay' levels of quality, but that's not the same as being able to do as well as someone who knows the skill, but merely operating at half the speed.

I was assuming a fairly easy job, above, so that you'd get a TDM of ca +4 to +5 and you'd need 14+ effective skill so that you were working steadily and not failing a significant percentage of the time. This allows anyone better than a beginner (skill 10) to use the rules for reducing the Time Spent. Anyone with less than skill 10 can't really do that, because that would mean failing far too often. With skill 5, forget about it.

Realistically, someone who knows how to type can type far more than twice as fast than someone who has no idea how to do it. And a really good typist really can get speeds that are more than twice as fast as normal person, even if that person can be assumed to have a skill which includes typing at TL8 at professional levels. The same applies for sewing, carpentry and pretty much any skill where progress can easily be measured in how much you accomplish over time.

I get that a lot of this will be lower skill people spending twice as long or even thirty times as long as they really have to on tasks in order to justify a bonus of +1 to +5. But it seems odd to me that penalties stack up so much faster than bonues at the first few levels of trying to improve speed and then, instead of further speed increases being progressively more difficult to achieve, they get easier again.

The simplistic rule for -1 for every -10% yields results that don't seem to match real-world experience and it doesn't fit very well with the scaling of the rest of the system either. If -2 to skill means a doubling of speed or distance with anything else, why does it only mean a +25% increase of working speed at normal human levels of skill? And why does it suddenly go up to +100% working speed at top human skill levels?

Is the difference between the two best people at their craft huge and easily noticable even by amateurs, but the difference between a journeyman (skill 12) and a master (skill 14+) not really worth measuring? I think that goes against how skill levels are defined in GURPS.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

As for Efficient, that makes me want to take it much more eagerly for many adventurish skills.

As far as I'm concerned, that's a feature, not a bug. Efficient, as it stands, is not worth 1 point. Going from 60 seconds to 48 seconds for a First-Aid attempt, for example, does not usually make any practical difference in most adventuring situations. In both cases, you can't do it in combat, but you can do it afterwards.

I don't think it's unbalancing or out of tune with what many other Perks do to allow someone with Efficient to go from 60 seconds to 30 seconds instead. At that point, it starts to be noticable, which is good. If no one ever notices a character has a given trait, that trait doesn't serve much of a purpose.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Speaking of Hyperspecialisation, people seem leery of it even when it is a specialisation in a single person for a skill which can be used on anyone (e.g. Psychology).

Well, I'm not those people. I think Hyperspecialisation for Pyschology on a single person is perfectly reasonable.

Potentially useful? Sure. Why else would someone take a Perk? But there are Perks that are much more useful to typical adventurers, such as Power Grappling, Strongarm or Weapon Adaptation.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Thanks! But why not expand the concept to cover the other side of the zero, the taking-extra-time choice, as well? Or are you happy with those rules?

I'm happy with those rules. They reflect the fairly realistic idea that you rapidly run into diminishing returns when you spend more time tinkering with a task in order to do the absolute best you can. You can do it, of course, but it's not all that efficient and not supposed to be.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Icelander

As far as I'm concerned, that's a feature, not a bug. Efficient, as it stands, is not worth 1 point. Going from 60 seconds to 48 seconds for a First-Aid attempt, for example, does not usually make any practical difference in most adventuring situations. In both cases, you can't do it in combat, but you can do it afterwards.

I don't think it's unbalancing or out of tune with what many other Perks do to allow someone with Efficient to go from 60 seconds to 30 seconds instead. At that point, it starts to be noticable, which is good. If no one ever notices a character has a given trait, that trait doesn't serve much of a purpose.

So far throughout this half-year, I've seen opportunities where it would be useful for:

• Propaganda and Expert Skill;
• Psychology;
• Research and/or Intelligence Analysis;
• Computer Hacking, Operation and/or Programming;
• Interrogation;
• Forensics;
• Mechanic and Electronics Repair.

The only reason I haven't took it for my character's skills is that my concept was IQ- and Talent-driven, with too little points spent on skills (thus it's to early to invest in such Techniques or Perks).

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

So far throughout this half-year, I've seen opportunities where it would be useful for:

• Propaganda and Expert Skill;
• Psychology;
• Research and/or Intelligence Analysis;
• Computer Hacking, Operation and/or Programming;
• Interrogation;
• Forensics;
• Mechanic and Electronics Repair.

The only reason I haven't took it for my character's skills is that my concept was IQ- and Talent-driven, with too little points spent on skills (thus it's to early to invest in such Techniques or Perks).

Note, I want Efficient to be useful for such skills and to be competative with other traits when it comes to spending points.

But in the RAW, particularly if you go by the written text and rule that it only helps when you perform a task at 80% speed (and not if you want to reduce it more), it's not worth taking. If you extend it to removing -2 from all haste penalties, it's worth it, but only if your character regularly expects to perform tasks at -50% or faster and has the skill for that. That is, only if he has skills near the human maximum.

It's generally not worth it in a realistic campaign to take a trait which helps you with removing -10% or -20% of the time requirements, because those penalties are so steep to beging with that no realistic character will attempt them.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Note, I want Efficient to be useful for such skills and to be competative with other traits when it comes to spending points.

But in the RAW, particularly if you go by the written text and rule that it only helps when you perform a task at 80% speed (and not if you want to reduce it more), it's not worth taking. If you extend it to removing -2 from all haste penalties, it's worth it, but only if your character regularly expects to perform tasks at -50% or faster and has the skill for that. That is, only if he has skills near the human maximum.

It's generally not worth it in a realistic campaign to take a trait which helps you with removing -10% or -20% of the time requirements, because those penalties are so steep to beging with that no realistic character will attempt them.

"This lets you ignore up to -2 for haste;"
I read it as providing a compensation of two levels for rushed tasks, whether this is a task rushed by -9 or by -0.
I'm considering buying it if I eventually reach a state of having 4+ points in appropriate skills.

Cutting your work time by 20% under most circumstances (since, e.g., GMs are frequently leery of spending 30-120 hours and getting +5 to Psychology) is a non-ignorable benefit for [1].
Spending -50% time is temptation enough to buy it for any sort of skill where the outcome depends only on you - you get the same output through ½ the workhours! At this point, it would become a temptation for Caine to abandon his work as a negotiator/analyst and become a freelance analyst only, despite lower skill level, as it would let him do twice the jobs with only a 10-20% reduction in salary per job done.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

"This lets you ignore up to -2 for haste;"
I read it as providing a compensation of two levels for rushed tasks, whether this is a task rushed by -9 or by -0.

I read it that way too, because the other interprentation would make it nigh-useless, but I note that 'ignore up to -2', strictly speaking, means that you can ignore any penalty of -2 or less, but it has no effect on any higher penalty.

But that's a matter of unclear wording. I'm quite sure it's not meant to be that useless.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I'm considering buying it if I eventually reach a state of having 4+ points in appropriate skills.

Cutting your work time by 20% under most circumstances (since, e.g., GMs are frequently leery of spending 30-120 hours and getting +5 to Psychology) is a non-ignorable benefit for [1].

Perks are supposed to give benefits. Keep in mind, though, that this is a benefit which effectively grants +2 to a single skill in certain, usually non-adventuring, situations. As such, it's pretty much a textbook Perk.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Spending -50% time is temptation enough to buy it for any sort of skill where the outcome depends only on you - you get the same output through ½ the workhours! At this point, it would become a temptation for Caine to abandon his work as a negotiator/analyst and become a freelance analyst only, despite lower skill level, as it would let him do twice the jobs with only a 10-20% reduction in salary per job done.

The fact that it would really help his career does not make it too good to be a Perk. After all, Hyperspecialisation can be the foundation for a lucrative career in a specialised field, but it's not worth multiple points because points measure adventuring utility.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Perks are supposed to give benefits. Keep in mind, though, that this is a benefit which effectively grants +2 to a single skill in certain, usually non-adventuring, situations. As such, it's pretty much a textbook Perk.

I disagree that it's a mostly non-adventuring purpose. IMO it's actually quite useful under adventuring conditions, since that is when you're often forced to take haste penalties.

Originally Posted by Icelander

The fact that it would really help his career does not make it too good to be a Perk. After all, Hyperspecialisation can be the foundation for a lucrative career in a specialised field, but it's not worth multiple points because points measure adventuring utility.

Hmm. Do you think [1] is a fair cost for +5 to Job Rolls in a given career? Because +5 to Job Rolls is either a boost of a promotion chance (assuming below-16 non-freelancer) or a +50% earning potential (any freelancer).