Bang Skills

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

(Actually, I rather feel that Science! is defined a bit too widely compared to other bang skills. It’s described as covering a lot. But maybe that’s just me.)

I agree about Science! though Martial Artist! is about as insane. Bang! skills can be too broad for some games.

A key component with GURPS to remember is that many skills default to other skills. So if you know Disguise – 14 then you have Make-Up – 12 as a default.

The conversion of 1e Sherlock Holmes has Criminology — 18 which gives him Forensics — 14

Physician gives one of the largest set of official defaults outside of the melee skills: First-Aid (-4), Diagnosis (-4), Poisons (-3), Surgery (-5), Veterinary (-5) and shows that that having one skill at a modestly high level (14 to 15) give access to several other skills at a modest

I should mention that Task Difficulty Modifiers can provide bonuses as well as penalties. High quality equipment also provides bonuses (+1 for 5x normal cost, +2 for 20x normal cost, +(TL/2) for best there is.)

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by maximara

I

Physician gives one of the largest set of official defaults outside of the melee skills: First-Aid (-4),

Nope, you've got to watch the punctuation. First Aid defaults to Physcian at -0. In other words anything you can do with First Aid you can do with Physician too and Physicians don't need to study First Aid unless they want their First Aid to be better than their Physician.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Nope, you've got to watch the punctuation. First Aid defaults to Physcian at -0. In other words anything you can do with First Aid you can do with Physician too and Physicians don't need to study First Aid unless they want their First Aid to be better than their Physician.

Ah I see it now. Sometime ago someone talked about a player that bought up First Aid to some insanely level so the First Aid-11 default for Physician was reasonable.

[Emerikol]

I think in a SUPERs game bang skills would make a lot of sense. Tony Stark and Batman both need to be able to come up with about anything given time.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by maximara

Sometime ago someone talked about a player that bought up First Aid to some insanely level so the First Aid-11 default for Physician was reasonable.

Well, if anyone really did take insane amounts of intensive First Aid training, they might actually be able to impersonate a proper physician fairly well. The numbers have to get rather cinematic, though.

And it's a poor minimax. To get Physician-12, the minimum to count as reasonably reliable an plausibly professional, you need First Aid-23. Putting the same number of points into Physician instead gets you Physician-21, which is not only a really good doctor, but gets you effective First Aid-21 -- and honestly, how often does the difference between 21 and 23 matter for First Aid? Plus, you get Diagnosis-17, Physiology-16, Surgery-16, and Veterinary-16.

Which, by the way, dragging things back on topic, is why any kind of Medical Stuff! bang skill tends to be a very bad deal. The points that will get you that at reasonable levels will get you Physician at insane levels, and all the defaults therefrom.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Which, by the way, dragging things back on topic, is why any kind of Medical Stuff! bang skill tends to be a very bad deal. The points that will get you that at reasonable levels will get you Physician at insane levels, and all the defaults therefrom.

That's true if you treat Medic! or whatever you call it as "I have the following N skills at level X." But I don't think that's a useful way to approach them. This doesn't seem to have made it clearly into 4/e—at least, I can't find it in either the Basic Set or Power-Ups 7—but my recollection is that ! skills in 3/e had penumbras of skills that weren't named explicitly. On one hand, if you were a Medic!, you could roll against it for skills that weren't normally part of being a doctor, but that would help you be a doctor in a particular case: Electronics Repair (Medical) if your diagnostic equipment had stopped working, or Animal Handling if you had to treat a sick animal and needed to calm it down so you could examine it. On the other, if it could be said that you were using your medical knowledge and skills to help you accomplish some normally nonmedical task, you could roll against Medic! for that too: Erotic Art if you were using your knowledge of physiology to gratify a lover, or Finance if you were trying to convince a bank that you were a good risk for a loan to start your practice. Of course this calls for a lot of judgment calls. But if you allow free interpretation like that, the ! skills become better deals.

[Kromm]

Vast chunks of Power-Ups 7 – Template Wildcards, Ultimate Template Wildcards, Ultimate NPC Wildcards, Off-Label Use, Negotiations, etc. – are devoted to treating wildcard skills as being tied to roles rather than skill lists. To quote myself: "If the goal of using wildcards is to simplify character design and accelerate game play, a good start is to avoid bean-counting!" All of which said, there's also Skill Overlap, p. 9, which explicitly tackles the issue of keystone or master skills to which every likely related skill defaults. Really, it's all covered.

[Kromm]

Also, Medic! is far broader than just "Physician and some stuff that defaults to it." In the rules as written, it covers fully general Bioengineering, Biology (Biochemistry), Diagnosis, Electronics Operation (Medical and Scientific), Esoteric Medicine, Expert Skill (Epidemiology), Hazardous Materials (Biological), First Aid, Hypnotism, Physician, Physiology, Psychology, Surgery, and Veterinary; Administration, Diplomacy, and Law (Criminal) when dealing with medical personnel, institutions, and legal cases; Chemistry, Herb Lore, Naturalist, Pharmacy, and Poisons when dealing with drugs or toxins; Computer Operation for medical systems; Current Affairs (Science & Technology) and Research for medical research; and Forensics for autopsies. It also serves as a generic Influence skill when dealing with medical professionals. This is not my personal, creative interpretation – that's right from the pages of two published supplements (Monster Hunters 1 and Power-Ups 7).

[thrash]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Consider a GURPS Action-style campaign. The GM requires that everybody have three wildcards:

1. A personal wildcard, named for them. ...
2. The ultimate template wildcard for their role. ...
3. A wildcard for general action-adventure tasks, named BAT! in homage to GURPS Action 4: Specialists. ...

And that's it for skills!

How do you imagine assigning levels to these? Do the players select how many points to invest in each, as usual, or are there campaign standards or guidelines?

It's hard to see how one character could have a higher personal wildcard skill than another. Is the former "more themselves" than the latter? More self-actualized? Or just older or more experienced?

Similarly, what do differences in BAT! skill level represent? A greater or lesser inclination towards polymathy or dabbling, or perhaps what Traveller used to call Jack-of-all-Trades skill?

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by maximara

I agree about Science! though Martial Artist! is about as insane. Bang! skills can be too broad for some games.

Agreed. Were I GMing a game that allowed Bang! skills, I would be far more inclined to allow a Style! skill (e.g. 'Jujutsu!' or 'La Verdadera Destreza!') than Martial Artist! or anything too close to that.