What would it be like to wake up with 20 dex?

[SRoach]

Originally Posted by Bruno

...
Commuting in heavy traffic with bad drivers is likely to be less stressful, although I think PER is such an important factor when avoiding bad drivers that it won't be trivial. But your reflexes when you have to make a correction will be lightning fast.
...

You might notice when you dodge that newspaper-reading, coffee-drinking, cell-phone-texting, driver just a tad TOO fast...right into the next car over. You'd have faster reactions, but they'd be the WRONG reactions.


Personally, I think your chances of noticing would be in direct proportion to the gap between your new abilities and your previous level. If you jump from 16 to 20, you probably wouldn't notice, 'though it may be pointed out to you. If you jumped from 8 to 20, you'd probably catch on while getting out of bed.

Also, I'd say it'd be something you'd have a chance to notice again and again, with a cumulative penalty, since the longer you went without noticing the more the New you would seem the be the Normal you.

I have found myself, sleep deprived, making basic errors in mental arithmetic. When rested and refreshed, I'm rather good at such. I've also noticed, when sleep deprived, my ability to tune out distractions is severely eroded.
That said, outside such little clues, I don't FEEL any different, mentally. It's just when I'm sleep deprived, I can't reliably figure sales tax in my head, and I need a quiet room in which to read.

Or perhaps I'm just oblivious, especially when fatigued.

Also, would having a sudden jump in Dex really improve a PRACTICED skill that much? If you type as a matter of course, your typing is probably high enough that the "improvement" from suddenly defaulting to very high Dex would probably be fairly negligible. I think if your skill is already reasonably high, you'd not be so quick to notice what you could now do it smoother, but you might eventually realize you were improving at an increased rate. I guess you just got over that mental block that you couldn't do that.

You'd probably have an easier time noticing when improving a skill which was previously fairly low. If you dabbled at Darts, and knew that you hit the board, not the bullseye, but the board, 9 times out of ten. Getting all the darts inside the 5 would probably be more noticeable than if you were already pretty good at it.
And again, if your Dex did not improve by much, your default would have already been pretty high, so again, you might not notice.

[DouglasCole]

After some many years of martial arts training (but before getting older and suffering some severe neck injuries - and the second was the prime mover on the first), I remember one thing vividly.

I noticed a glass was about to fall off a counter onto our hardwood floor. I dropped, stepped, and lunged out my hand without thinking, and caught it perfectly about four inches from the floor.

I didn't think about it - I just did it.

With DX 20, that would be routine. Or you could not lunge at all - you'd just do something like these kids do in Star Trek: Insurrection.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by SRoach

Also, would having a sudden jump in Dex really improve a PRACTICED skill that much? If you type as a matter of course, your typing is probably high enough that the "improvement" from suddenly defaulting to very high Dex would probably be fairly negligible. I think if your skill is already reasonably high, you'd not be so quick to notice what you could now do it smoother, but you might eventually realize you were improving at an increased rate. I guess you just got over that mental block that you couldn't do that.

I agree with pretty much everything you say, but as I tend to view DX 14-15 as the highest any real person is likely to have, the improvement perceived in jumping to DX 20 will be dramatic even to an Olympic gymnast who is also a noted amateur stage magician.

DX 20 is Captain America, Daredevil or Batman; i.e. superheroes that are defined as having 'top human performance' in a very cinematic world.

Even if you have DX 12 and perform DX-based typing tasks at DX+4, you would still see a 50% increase in skill level by waking up with DX 20. You'd go from skill 16 to skill 24. You could take a -8 to your skill and still perform as fast and as flawlessly as you did previously. That means, for example, that you could reduce the time it takes to perform a certain typing task by -80% and still have the same effective skill 16. In other words, you could type five times as fast without any drop in quality.

Granted, since you still have the same IQ and same level of Administration, Writing or professional skill, you don't necessarily compose text faster and you would still be tied to the speed someone talked if taking dictation. But if you were, for example, typing handwritten notes into a computer, you'd certainly notice a huge improvement in speed. As for tasks where you were confined to the speed of someone else, you could do them one-handed while playing ping pong with the other hand.

[mr beer]

I'd notice extremely fast, my walking speed would go way up. Also, I go to the gym often, so anything involving running around would be very noticeable plus anything like skipping would suddenly become trivially easy.

I think monetisation would be most easily achieved via sports.

For a younger man who doesn't have athlete levels of ST and HT, something like soccer goalkeeper or baseball pitcher would probably be a good choice. Most people can train to be Fit after all and be able to acquire a base skill of 19 with a few weeks training should more than compensate for most other deficiencies. Several years of professional training and commitment will get you to skill 25, so you'd be the best the world had ever seen. That should be worth big bucks.

A stronger, fitter man could probably be the best quarterback or striker or boxer ever, I imagine there's even more money there.

Older guys could take up darts, pool, snooker etc.

Women are paid a lot less than men of course and I don't even know if they're allowed to compete with guys or not. But given a DX:20 woman could easily become the best in the world at a number of sports, equivalent monetisation should be plausible. It would be very interesting to see what would happen with a game like soccer, should various teams become aware that the best player in the world is free to be hired, there's just this one problem to get past but the first team to snatch her up is going to be hard to beat.

[B9anders]

I think I'd notice the first time I picked up a football and find myself suddenly being Lionel Messi on the ball.

I think I'd get into putting points into Throwing - Purely to be able to throw stuff onto shelves with the same accuracy as putting stuff on shelves.

[cdru]

Originally Posted by mr beer

I think monetisation would be most easily achieved via sports.

Yeah,DX based sports will be easy with high default.15 in sports could make it possible to win almost all non-professional games just by dexterity.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

On the subject of women competing against men in pro sports, there is the real-world example of Manon Rheaume, who played goalie in the NHL, which I hear can get a little rough.

Of course, if we want to be a little more cynical about it, a DX 20 woman with no visible deformities, questionable self respect, and a point or two in Erotic Art can probably help herself to roughly 50% of some very large fortunes without doing what most people would consider work at all...

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Joe

On screen, or in comics, it usually takes a specific incident to reveal this sort of thing - a glass falls off the table and the hero surprises themselves by catching it, or whatever.

I do that all the time. I don't know how many times I've realized I'm holding something before I realized it fell. It's most disconcerting with knives.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by mr beer

For a younger man who doesn't have athlete levels of ST and HT, something like soccer goalkeeper or baseball pitcher would probably be a good choice. Most people can train to be Fit after all and be able to acquire a base skill of 19 with a few weeks training should more than compensate for most other deficiencies. Several years of professional training and commitment will get you to skill 25, so you'd be the best the world had ever seen. That should be worth big bucks.

Even if I were a third my present age, I don't think the income would be worth the tedium of playing any sport professionally, let alone the prolonged tedium of training in such an arcane skill.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Even if I were a third my present age, I don't think the income would be worth the tedium of playing any sport professionally, let alone the prolonged tedium of training in such an arcane skill.

Hmm I get your point but there would be some attraction for doing so for a few years which is the professional life span of the highest paid proportion of a lot of sporting careers, and then retiring on the proceeds. Giving myself an extended and well financed retirement to do what I want (which would not be presenting "Match of the Day" I hasten to add)

In fact given the horror stories l've heard regarding young chaps squandering vast amounts of money, I can't help but think having the brain with 15+ years finance management experience and a DX20 body might actually be a good combo!