Talents & Martial Arts

[vitruvian]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Indeed!

The merituous approach might be to move one's attention away from the game mechanics, and look instead at the character as envisioned and described and defined by the person (author, GM or player) who created the character, and decide whether that character is appropriate or munchkinny.

It's probably the case that the GoT character in question is not suitable for a standard GURPS campaign, standard being RAW-defined as 150 CP, but would be perfectly legit in a higher-powered campaign.

He'd be legit in my Ärth setting, of course, a place for gifted heroes with great or broad competences. It's just that if all he can do is fighty fighty, he's likely to be boring or end up bored. But perfectly legit (assuming the players don't vote for a low or moderate point level) and - I have reason to believe - also perfectly creatable.

The character's not munchkinny, there being nothing munchkinny about somebody who is skilled in the fairly broad area in which he or she's experienced and trained, but not just in one or two skills within that area, or in all DX-based skills. Talents exist precisely to allow for competence in that middle ground without the expenditure of beaucoup points out of order with the utility to the character of being good with, in this example, all knightly weapons rather than just one or two. So, coming up with a Talent to fit, rather than spend dozens of points on each skill, is no more a munchkin thing to do than to buy up DX for a character who is, according to the source material, in fact graceful and accomplished with all physical skills.