Talents vs Psionics

[Hanzorigami]

Hi, I am new at GURPS, so I apologize in advance if this is a very basic question. I heard about RPG games and thought my nephew and niece would love to play some, so I dedided to read about RPG and prepare an adventure to play with them. I found out GURPS and liked it from the start. Now I am preparing an adventure, but I have run into some problems.
Basically I want to include Psionic powers in the adventure.
I bought the 2 Basic Set and the Psionic Powers Books. I read the Psionics chapter in the Basic Set, and I thought I understood it, but when I started to read the Psionics Book, things turned confused.
In the Basic Set, all Psionic Powers are associated to Advantages, but in Psionics they are associated to an Advantage and then to certain skills. That's when I got confused. I remembered reading about Talents in the Advantages Section of the Basic Set, so I went back to it and found out that Talents were pretty much handled the same way (an Advantage turned into a Talent and with some skills associated), however I failed to figure out how to use them.
I looked into the Iconic Characters section and found some characters with Talents/Psionic powers (Dai and Louis), however the Psionic powers were just advantages and had no associated skills (as mentioned in the Psionics chapter). Talents, on the other hand (I assume) had the skills associated, but non of them were in the skill list. My guess is that the Talent included all of the skills and that's why they were not written in the skill section (am I right about this?), however when I saw William Headley's Character Sheet, I noticed he has Talent (Healer) 1, and some of the skills associated to the Talent were in the skill list (Diagnose, First Aid, Pharmacy, Physician, and Psychology).
Now I am not sure I understand how Talents work (do all of the associated skills to a talent are acquired automatically, or you have to buy the desired associated skills?) or how Psionics work (Can they either be associated to a single Advantage as in the Psionics chapter of the Basic Set, or can they also work as a Talent, which by the way I am not sure I understand the way they work)?
Any help would be appreciated and once again, I apologize if this is a very basic concept that I just failed to catch.

[RyanW]

The skills associated with psionics in Psionic Powers are an added detail (using rules originally introduced in Powers). Most of the powers would originally require a roll on IQ (or occasionally Will or Per) to use. Using the rules in Psionic Powers you roll against the associated skill for all purposes. The fact that the skill starts out lower is balanced with the fact that you can raise it cheaper than the underlying stat.

There are two types of Talents that function similarly, but not identically: skill talents and power talents.

Skill talents (like Healer) give a bonus to the associated skills (and a few other benefits), but you otherwise have to purchase the skills normally.

Power talents boost the rolls associated with using a power that falls under the appropriate talent. For example, if you have Psi Sense as part of the ESP power, you would get +1 per level of ESP Talent to attribute or skill rolls to use it.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Hanzorigami

Hi, I am new at GURPS, so I apologize in advance if this is a very basic question. I heard about RPG games and thought my nephew and niece would love to play some, so I dedided to read about RPG and prepare an adventure to play with them. I found out GURPS and liked it from the start. Now I am preparing an adventure, but I have run into some problems.
Basically I want to include Psionic powers in the adventure.
I bought the 2 Basic Set and the Psionic Powers Books. I read the Psionics chapter in the Basic Set, and I thought I understood it, but when I started to read the Psionics Book, things turned confused.
In the Basic Set, all Psionic Powers are associated to Advantages, but in Psionics they are associated to an Advantage and then to certain skills.

In beginner's terms:

If you have GURPS PSIONICS, that's an obsolete supplement from a previous edition, and it will not match up with 4th Edition GURPS books.

The 4th Edition Basic Set CHARACTERS book presents psionic abilities mostly as Advantages controlled by IQ rolls, and each level of Talent adds 1 to the IQ rolls for the associated abilities.

The 4th Edition supplement GURPS PSIONIC POWERS presents heavily modified Advantages that are controlled by IQ-based skills and come in levels that provide the amount of raw power, range, weight capacity, and other parameters. This is similar to the way things worked back in the previous edition.

If you are a first-time GM and want to include psionic abilities in an adventure for first time players...this may be biting off more than you can chew. I'd recommend starting with the free GURPS Lite pdf and one of the freebie adventures with pre-made characters you can get at e23.sjgames.com .

[Anaraxes]

You're missing one link: the book "Powers". Powers has expanded rules, Advantages, Limitations, and Enhancements for building abilities. "Psionic Powers" is a big worked example of how you can build abilities (powers) around a certain theme. The Basic Set has the same concepts, but Powers takes it further, with additional rules, examples, and possibilities. Psionic Powers does the work of choosing among all those options for you for psi.

A Talent is a kind of advantage that gives a bonus to a set of skill rolls. One of the basic assumptions in Psionic Powers is that psi powers should have associated skills. (Some abilities in some game worlds might not need skill rolls, so that's not a given.) So the psi abilities are built on a base Advantage, but also consistently have a Limitation added that requires a skill roll. Power talents add to the effective skill of those psi skills in the same way that, say, Smooth Operator talent adds to many social / "face" skills. The Talent doesn't do anything on its own.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Hanzorigami

Hi, I am new at GURPS, so I apologize in advance if this is a very basic question. I heard about RPG games and thought my nephew and niece would love to play some, so I dedided to read about RPG and prepare an adventure to play with them. I found out GURPS and liked it from the start. Now I am preparing an adventure, but I have run into some problems.
Basically I want to include Psionic powers in the adventure.
I bought the 2 Basic Set and the Psionic Powers Books. I read the Psionics chapter in the Basic Set, and I thought I understood it, but when I started to read the Psionics Book, things turned confused.
In the Basic Set, all Psionic Powers are associated to Advantages, but in Psionics they are associated to an Advantage and then to certain skills. That's when I got confused. I remembered reading about Talents in the Advantages Section of the Basic Set, so I went back to it and found out that Talents were pretty much handled the same way (an Advantage turned into a Talent and with some skills associated), however I failed to figure out how to use them.

In the basic set, the assumption is that the characters will not normally use skills. They'll just use IQ rolls modified by Talent. GURPS Psionic Powers does things differently.

[Hanzorigami]

Thanks for your response, Ryan.

Originally Posted by RyanW

The skills associated with psionics in Psionic Powers are an added detail (using rules originally introduced in Powers).

Unfortunately I do not have the Powers book, so I am not familiar with the original rules... :(

Originally Posted by RyanW

Most of the powers would originally require a roll on IQ (or occasionally Will or Per) to use. Using the rules in Psionic Powers you roll against the associated skill for all purposes. The fact that the skill starts out lower is balanced with the fact that you can raise it cheaper than the underlying stat.

This is precisely part of my problem. I do not quite understand how the skills are associated to the Psionic Abilities. If I get a psionic ability do I automatically get access to all the skills associated to it? Does it work just the same with Talents?

Originally Posted by RyanW

There are two types of Talents that function similarly, but not identically: skill talents and power talents.

Skill talents (like Healer) give a bonus to the associated skills (and a few other benefits), but you otherwise have to purchase the skills normally.

Power talents boost the rolls associated with using a power that falls under the appropriate talent. For example, if you have Psi Sense as part of the ESP power, you would get +1 per level of ESP Talent to attribute or skill rolls to use it.

So, if I get a skill talent is it useless unless I also buy at least one of the skills associated to it? I mean, suppose I get Animal Friend 2. If I do not get any of the associated skills, what is Animal Friend 2 good for?
About power talents, I understand that the Power Talent (ESP Talent, PK Talent, etc.) applies a bonus to all the rolls related to that specific Power abilities, but such abilities are Advantages (Basic Set), not skills.

[Hanzorigami]

Seems like while I was replying I got more answers! :) Thanks to all for your responses, I'll read them and reply accordingly.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Hanzorigami

So, if I get a skill talent is it useless unless I also buy at least one of the skills associated to it? I mean, suppose I get Animal Friend 2. If I do not get any of the associated skills, what is Animal Friend 2 good for?

Each level of a talent is good for 10% off of the hours of study required to learn the associated skills. Animal Friend 2 will let gain a point in Animal Handling skill with 160 hours of supervised study instead of 200.

IIRC, you can get the +2 bonus to some other relevant rolls as well, like an IQ roll to recognize a particular animal is the same one you encountered long ago.

[Diomedes]

Originally Posted by Hanzorigami

Thanks for your response, Ryan.

Unfortunately I do not have the Powers book, so I am not familiar with the original rules... :(

I think most of what's necessary in Powers is recapitulated in Psionic Powers; SJGames' general philosophy is that supplements shouldn't require anything beyond the core books.

This is precisely part of my problem. I do not quite understand how the skills are associated to the Psionic Abilities. If I get a psionic ability do I automatically get access to all the skills associated to it? Does it work just the same with Talents?

No, you buy the skill separately. You don't have to buy it, you can use them at default, but it's hard to be good at using such an ability without it.

So, if I get a skill talent is it useless unless I also buy at least one of the skills associated to it? I mean, suppose I get Animal Friend 2. If I do not get any of the associated skills, what is Animal Friend 2 good for?
About power talents, I understand that the Power Talent (ESP Talent, PK Talent, etc.) applies a bonus to all the rolls related to that specific Power abilities, but such abilities are Advantages (Basic Set), not skills.

You don't have to buy any of the associated skills; the Talent bonus also improves your skill defaults.

[Edges]

There's many ways to handle psionics in GURPS. Since you have GURPS Basic and GURPS Psionic Powers, you might as well use what they put forth.

My advice:
Don't worry about what Basic says about Psionics. Use it for all the other stuff.
Use GURPS Psionic Powers for Psionics. Don't get caught up in the "statistics" section of the abilities. Just go with the descriptive text.

On GURPS Psionic Powers:
Every psionic ability lists a skill that you need to use the ability (unless you want to roll on defaults in a our-characters-don't-know-how-to-use-their-powers campaign). The player buys that skill for the character just like any other skill. The skill needed is listed with the ability (i.e. the Interruption ability on pg. 23 uses the Cancellation skill). Note, some psionic skills can be used for more than one psionic ability (the Cancellation skill can be used for 3 abilities as you can see).

After you've bought up all your abilities and the skills to use those abilities, pick out any Psionic Talents you might like. Psionic Talents add to all the Psionic skills in a power. For example, if you have Anti-Psi Talent level 2, you get +2 to the cancellation skill and +2 to the Psionic Shield skill and +2 to the Screaming skill. But this Talent doesn't add to the Cure skill on pg. 46, for example. You need the Psychic Healing Talent for that.

Don't be confused by the mundane (i.e. not psionic) Talents in Basic. The Healer Talent in Basic, for example, does not add to Psychic Healing skills. A good psi healer might have some levels in Psychic Healing Talent for her Psychic Healing abilities and some levels in (ordinary) Healing Talent for skills like First-Aid and Physician.

One final point. Talents (whether mundane or psionic) don't come with their skills. They only give bonuses to the skills. You still have to get the skills separately. Talents are a good way to be good at a bunch of skills without paying a whole lot of points. If you have a bunch of skills in a Talent, you can actually save points by getting a few levels of the Talent rather than buy a whole bunch of levels in each skill.

I hope that helps.