By Default (Douglas Cole, P3/65)

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Also: since double-defaulting from Skill-25 would be first Skill-12 and then Skill-6, I have no problem with it. In fact, one might, under this paradigm, halve the usual default penalties. So if something usually defaulted to Physician-2, it would instead default to Physician/2 -1. Something that defaulted to Physician-5 would instead become Phys/2 - 3 (rounding down).

Of course, Physician-25, even on top of IQ14, is still a lot of points. Dabbler, in this case, would still be beneficial, since you would either be buying up from a usual default of 7 (IQ/2), or your Physician/2 or 12.

I didn't delve too deeply here, since the By Default rules are an edition-level switch that could really use a full playtest and a lot of armchair quarterbacking to tease out real and imagined edge cases.

(Yes, this usually bothers me. Not in this case.)

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Actually, one more thing:

If you really, really find yourself thinking "but if I'm Physician-25, then my XXX skill should be way better than 12!" then you've just found out that XXX is really a Technique based off of Physician, which should be treated as such.

Hmm. This seems like two competing, totally different approaches: make the defaulting skill default at (attribute/2)+new_modifier, or making it into a Technique.
Some examples of skills to be considered:

• Different Specialisations of Law (-4 to -6).
• First Aid defaults to Physician+0 or Esoteric Medicine+0; Surgery defaults to First Aid -12; etc.
• Guns specs (-2, some at -4).
• Performance and the skills defaulting to it: Acting (-2), Public Speaking (-2), Stage Combat. And a few reverse defaults.
• Combat/Art/Sport skills.
• Shortsword and Broadsword (-2). And others like them.

On the example of Shortsword and Broadsword, I'm not sure which of the choices is better.
Say Broadsword is the base, Shortsword is default.
RAW: BS at 10 gives SS at 8, BS at 20 gives SS at 18. Kinda makes sense, IMHO.
As a Technique: as above, but it's kinda funny what happens if you then want something else to default to Shortsword, creating chains of Techniques. And which skill is a Skill and which one is a Technique depends much on what you learned first. Swapping defaults gets extremely fussy.
By Default (halved+mods): uh, Shortsword = (Broadsword/2)-1, Spear = (Staff/2)-1, Surgery = (First Aid/2)-6? I find it weird if sharpening the end of a stick (or both ends) will suddenly halves skill. I probably just misunderstood how it's meant to work.
----
Still love the idea of halved-attribute defaults for fully untrained attribute-defaulted skills. Many systems do that; I'm not sure why GURPS never had that idea until you came along. ^_^