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01-24-2021, 08:25 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Nov 2020
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Skills - maybe this game isn't what I'm looking for
I have just started playing GURPS and really thought it would be the RPG for me but now I am not sure. I have DX 11 and Riding Horses as a skill. Every time I mount a horse I need to check my skill? 1 in 3 chance to fail and then what happens if I fail? Dang, a normal person without the specific skill fails to even mount the horse 95% of the time? I am starting to be afraid to do anything in the game.
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01-24-2021, 08:28 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Yukon, OK
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Re: Skills - maybe this game isn't what I'm looking for
Routine use generally gets a +4 bonus. Also look at the Riding skill.
Modifiers: +5 if the animal knows and likes you; +1 or more for a mount with the Mount skill (p. 210); So its pretty easy to ride any trained horse and trivial one you know well and your used to each other.
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01-24-2021, 08:31 PM | #3 |
Join Date: Nov 2020
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Re: Skills - maybe this game isn't what I'm looking for
Where is the +4 if it is a routine situation rule? Thanks - edit: found it.
Last edited by adaman14; 01-24-2021 at 08:36 PM. |
01-24-2021, 08:32 PM | #4 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: Skills - maybe this game isn't what I'm looking for
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01-24-2021, 08:51 PM | #5 | |
Join Date: Nov 2020
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Re: Skills - maybe this game isn't what I'm looking for
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P242 is something about spells so I will take your word for it. P325 is the second page of the quick combat rules, so again I will take your word for it. |
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01-24-2021, 09:09 PM | #6 | |
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Yukon, OK
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Re: Skills - maybe this game isn't what I'm looking for
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The Table of Context is useful but GURPS supplements have awesome indexes and you can find most things that way too. As long as you recall enough about the thing your looking for to use the right keyword. I have a blog and much of it is aimed towards GURPS newcomers. https://refplace.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_28.html Just ignore the personal or political stuff if its not to your taste. I divy things up pretty well I think and the political stuff pulls a few new people into GURPS, plus I dont want to manage two separate blogs.
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My GURPS publications GURPS Powers: Totem and Nature Spirits; GURPS Template Toolkit 4: Spirits; Pyramid articles. Buying them lets us know you want more! My GURPS fan contribution and blog: REFPLace GURPS Landing Page My List of GURPS You Tube videos (plus a few other useful items) My GURPS Wiki entries |
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01-24-2021, 09:31 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Re: Skills - maybe this game isn't what I'm looking for
Chapter 10 Success Rolls starting p 343 talks about skill rolls. It refers to bonuses for mundane actions and as mentioned above, riding a trained horse for an hour or so should likely be a +4, equivalent to the book example of a "commute to work in a small town".
Time Spent discusses bonuses for spending extra (or less) time, not usually applicable to Riding but say you are trying to open a lock or tidy up a crime scene, you can swing things in your favour that way. A non-mundane example of checking vs. Riding to mount a horse would be if you are being hotly pursued by armed bandits at the time. That's a +0 roll. |
01-27-2021, 05:51 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Sep 2018
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Re: Skills - maybe this game isn't what I'm looking for
I feel like in all these responses someone had to bring it up but I see most folks talking about routine use skill modifier and pointing out that 11 is a pretty low skill.
Skill checks aren't for every use, It's only when you're struggling or need to make it look easy and only when there's a real consequence to failure. So you'd make a riding check if your horse got bit by a snake or if you're trying to break-in a horse you've never ridden with, or performing on the Dressage Square. 11 is a pretty ordinary skill, what most teenage girls who've been out to the farm a few times have. Those tests are tough for that level of experience and you could fail them very easily. Failure depends a lot on the severity of the circumstances and the margin of the roll. You might fail your riding roll to control your snake-bit horse by one and the horse just wheels around in place in a panic letting the snake strike again. You might fail your roll to break in Mean Butch with a critical failure and he throws you into a ravine. You might fail your roll to perform your dressage routine by 2, but other competitors fail by even wider margins so you win the chance to be rewarded by the Duchess and have a few seconds to speak to her without her handlers. |
01-28-2021, 08:06 AM | #9 | ||
On Notice
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Sumter, SC
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Re: Skills - maybe this game isn't what I'm looking for
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Thaumatology: Urban Magics pg 30 goes at this from the other end: "The standard rules are designed for adventurers, not for ordinary working professionals. Professionals make one job roll a month. On a critical failure, something bad happens, with harmful consequences – but not usually as bad as a critical failure during an adventure. (...) With one roll a month, a mage with effective skill 15 or less goes 54 months between mishaps, on the average; one with effective skill 16 or better could go 216 months (or 18 years)."
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01-28-2021, 02:51 PM | #10 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Cowtown, Canada
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Re: Skills - maybe this game isn't what I'm looking for
Keeping in mind the +4 for routine situations, a skill 9 would roll on a 13 or less under uneventful circumstances, so as a GM I wouldn't make anyone roll if they had a skill over 9 for really routine circumstances as they will probably succeed if they play it safe.
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skills, success rolls |
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