Reducing the number of weapon skills

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by smurf

You could use exclamation skills like Sword!?

Wildcard skills are based on the presumption that regular skills are properly priced, which is mostly false; there's a fundamental problem when training more than 2% of all skills is worse than raising attributes, and deleting 90% of them would be a good start.

[AlexanderHowl]

That is due to the benefits that come from taking skills. I find that reducing specific skill penalties by one for every 4 CP invested in a skill (and specific technique penalties by one for every 1 CP invested in a technique) tends to encourage people to purchase skills (defaults are not considered penalties). That way, a character with DX 10 who spends 44 CP on Karate receives a much better result than a character with DX 18 who spends 12 CP on Karate.

[Gnome]

I already have a problem with weapon skills being very cheap to raise as opposed to DX, where a fighter with DX 10 and Broadsword-25 can easily defeat almost any opponent, despite spending "only" 60 points for the privilege of being the greatest. Capping points allowed in one skill or requiring UB above a certain level can fix this, and there are other fixes as well, but in my mind making a more general skill for the same cost exacerbates this issue. Part of the problem might come from the fact that skill gives you better attacks, better defenses, and even the potential to do more damage (by targeting locations), so there's really a lot in that one package of melee weapon skill. Further separating these components would be a more radical change...

Perhaps there is room for something in between a basic GURPS skill and a Bang! skill? Like a "highly general" skill that costs double instead of triple?

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Gnome

I already have a problem with weapon skills being very cheap to raise as opposed to DX, where a fighter with DX 10 and Broadsword-25 can easily defeat almost any opponent, despite spending "only" 60 points for the privilege of being the greatest. Capping points allowed in one skill or requiring UB above a certain level can fix this, and there are other fixes as well, but in my mind making a more general skill for the same cost exacerbates this issue. Part of the problem might come from the fact that skill gives you better attacks, better defenses, and even the potential to do more damage (by targeting locations), so there's really a lot in that one package of melee weapon skill. Further separating these components would be a more radical change..

I mean, if you want to separate the components - feel free. An old Swedish RPG had separate skills for attacking and parrying, to reflect whether your style was offensive or defensive. It was an interesting idea.

And I would not allow a person to buy up a skill to DX+15, unless I was running an over-the-top campaign.

[Rolando]

It's a house rule and seems reasonable as that.

As long as it applies to everyone during the campaign it is balanced.

I can see it done across the board with the guns and gunnery skills, also the sciences, armory, engineer, electronic operation, electronic repair, etc. But most of these are for modern and sci-fi campaigns, you may not have to deal with them right now.

The only concern I would be looking for your weapons skills consolidation is if this will make non combat characters cost more than combat characters. As combat skills are being reduced and made more broad your non combat characters/players will be paying more for the same in their own area of expertise.

So you may think about consolidating musical instruments skills, social skills (fast talk+diplomacy?), other specialists skills (stealth+shadowing), etc.

Do it across the board, not just for combat skills and you will be good.

[Anders]

Yeah, speaking of Guns...


Musket, Rifle, and Shotgun can be collapsed into Long Arm. Pistol and SMG can be collapsed into Sidearm (is there a better name?).That's probably all I'd do with the Guns skills.

I have no problem with Artillery or Gunner skills. Or unarmed skills - they all seem to fill a niche (if I had to remove one it would be Boxing). And for Innate Attack I'd remove the mandatory specialization but make it DX/Average.

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by Anders

Musket, Rifle, and Shotgun can be collapsed into Long Arm. Pistol and SMG can be collapsed into Sidearm (is there a better name?).That's probably all I'd do with the Guns skills.

There's a Pyramid article somewhere that collapses Guns into three skills (Pistol, Long Arm, and LAW) that mutually default at -4.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Gnome

I already have a problem with weapon skills being very cheap to raise as opposed to DX..

While this is true, reducing the number of melee weapon skills won't change that -- people already only pick a single melee weapon skill to focus on, because raising multiple redundant melee weapon skills is almost completely useless.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Anthony

While this is true, reducing the number of melee weapon skills won't change that -- people already only pick a single melee weapon skill to focus on, because raising multiple redundant melee weapon skills is almost completely useless.

This is my experience as well. They then build a monstrous combo-weapon that will allow them to deal cr, cut and impaling damage. :)

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Anders

This is my experience as well. They then build a monstrous combo-weapon that will allow them to deal cr, cut and impaling damage. :)

Or you just carry two weapons; you can get all three types out of axe/mace (axe, mace, pick), broadsword (thrusting broadsword, club), polearm (halberd, poleaxe), shortsword (baton, shortsword), two-handed axe/mace (maul, great axe, warhammer), two-handed sword (staff, greatsword).