Chart of time for skills?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

At out TL Biology is so broad that it's IQ/VH. Optional Specialization (reducing things to only Hard)is said to be much more common.

It's still a single skill; it does have a required specialization, but in the form of an entire planet. Being IQ/VH just means you're at -2 to skill relative to an equal point investment in an IQ/A skill - which can be significant (depending on where on the bell curve you're at), but getting it to Attribute+2, for example, only costs [16], while getting several Melee Weapon skills to Attribute+2 costs around [8] per skill.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

As for your others, Tonfa covers tonfas and sometimes fictional equivalents like the sharp ones in the first Hellboy movie. Jitte/Sai covers mostly just two weapons and the fencing weapons skills are only a little broader.

Broadsword and Shortsword though are only narrow compared to Sword!. We'd be here a _long_ time if I started typing out lists of distinct historical weapons covered by one or the other of them.

A Tonfa is a balanced club (maybe sword if you allow for sharp ones) that is held with a side handle (but while Tonfa's nonstandard grip calls for a different skill, the nonstandard grips for large katars and patas don't, using Shortsword and Broadsword, respectively). Jitte/Sai is a balanced club (or sword) that has a prong on it (unless it's actually a balanced club or sword that is normally used with Shortsword or Broadsword and has had a prong added on, in which case it's still usable with Shortsword or Broadsword). Shortsword is a balanced(-ish, it also covers the Falchion) club or sword that is too long to be a Knife and too short to be a Broadsword. Broadsword is a balanced(-ish, it also covers the Large Falchion) club or sword that is too long to be a Shortsword. Smallsword is a balanced club or sword that is too long to be a Main Gauche and too short to be a Rapier or Sabre and that is used with fancy footwork. Rapier is a straight balanced club or sword that is too long to be a Smallsword and that is used with fancy footwork. Sabre is a curved balanced club or sword that is too long to be a Smallsword and that is used with fancy footwork. Sure, some of those cover a lot of weapons - like the various Oakeshott classifications of swords - but ultimately you're looking at several different skills to cover a lot of very similar weapons. Oh, but while Tonfa's nonstandard grip calls for a different skill, the nonstandard grips for large katars (Shortsword) and patas (Broadsword) don't.

... but I've complained enough about the weird weapon skill divisions in other threads, and it's quite the tangent here. Suffice to say, some GURPS skills are very broad, while others are incredibly narrow, and while the former are typically higher difficulty, that doesn't really make up for the difference.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by briansommers

Is there any chart/table that would show time for different skills?

I’m having a hard time wording what I’m wanting to ask.

The more difficult the skill is and the higher the points you get in that skill should effect the characters age. Are there rules in place that do this or some sort of guideline.

It would be nice to know how many skills and what level you could get say with a 4 yrs of college. I’m looking for a bit of a lifepath…

Say the character is 17 or 18 yrs old and for every 4 hrs of school they get x amount of skills and or y amount of points in that skill but the character ages by 4 years every degree if you will.

Bachelors, Masters, Doctors, etc….

Do you mean time to learn skills? GURPS gave that up after 3e because skill difficulty is not a good measure of how hard something is to learn in the real world, because GURPS divides skills for adventures more than other skills, and because it forces a decision on questions like 'did that education translate to skill points or attributes?' and 'did that character learn the hard way or be gifted by a fairy / naturally talented?'

What people get out of education is also very individualistic. Some people devote their energy to studying, others do the bare minimum (and some have ineffective teachers).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Do you mean time to learn skills? GURPS gave that up after 3e .

No it didn't. 200 hours of study with a teacher equals 1 cp is still in Characters. It's expanded on quite a bit in Social Engineering:Back to School too.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

No it didn't. 200 hours of study with a teacher equals 1 cp is still in Characters. It's expanded on quite a bit in Social Engineering:Back to School too.

It did ditch the 3e rule that you could only start with 2 points in skills per year of age though (with an explicit exception only for Artistic skills), mostly for the reasons specified. Which seems to be what the original post is looking for.

I don't enforce it too hard, but I do expect you to have some sort of back story that makes sense of when and how you learned any skills that are at all out of the ordinary. You don't really need to tell me when you found time to earn that 1 point in Swimming or Hobby (Stamp Collecting), but if you have 24 points in adventuring skills you learned from a master you met last year, I might insist on some further depth for that part of your background.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by malloyd

... but if you have 24 points in adventuring skills you learned from a master you met last year, I might insist on some further depth for that part of your background.

Of course, that's when you simply look at the GM, clear your throat, and start singing "Montage" from Team America: World Police.

[BaHalus]

If I remember correctly, in 3ed the suggested was 2 points per year.
So a 30-year-old person would have up to 60 points invested in skills.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by BaHalus

If I remember correctly, in 3ed the suggested was 2 points per year.

That wasn't a bad rule for ordinary human characters in realistic campaigns, if you ignore things like Intensive Learning or Talent. Isn't appropriate for all campaigns, however, which is why it was dropped.