Skill Mastery

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

A DX 16 character with Blade!-16 is going to be a much less effective fighter than a DX 16 character with Shortsword-22.
The character with Shortsword-22 can use techniques much more effectively, as well as having a superior parry (15 versus 12, assuming Combat Reflexes). If the two characters have Weapon Master, the character with Shortsword-22 can attack three times a turn at skill 16 while the character with Blade! can only attack once per turn at 16, and the character with Shortsword-22 gains +2 damage per die.

True, true and true ... as long as your character have a shortsword in hand.
If the only weapon on hand is a spear or an axe however... Blade!-16 is still in the game while Shortsword-22 is suddenly at skill-11

If you know you will always have your favorite weapon available, wildcard skills are far less interesting than in a setting when you may have to do with what is available on site.

Moreover, any one with WM is going to take the relevant skill at DX+2 if at all possible. So, for your DX 16 character, a better comparaison would be Blade-18 vs Shortsword-28.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

A DX 16 character with Blade!-16 is going to be a much less effective fighter than a DX 16 character with Shortsword-22. The character with Shortsword-22 can use techniques much more effectively, as well as having a superior parry (15 versus 12, assuming Combat Reflexes). If the two characters have Weapon Master, the character with Shortsword-22 can attack three times a turn at skill 16 while the character with Blade! can only attack once per turn at 16, and the character with Shortsword-22 gains +2 damage per die.

Originally Posted by Celjabba

True, true and true ... as long as your character have a shortsword in hand.
If the only weapon on hand is a spear or an axe however... Blade!-16 is still in the game while Shortsword-22 is suddenly at skill-11

If you know you will always have your favorite weapon available, wildcard skills are far less interesting than in a setting when you may have to do with what is available on site.

Moreover, any one with WM is going to take the relevant skill at DX+2 if at all possible. So, for your DX 16 character, a better comparaison would be Blade-18 vs Shortsword-28.

This is the point I raised right before AlexanderHowl gave us the above statement. I think he may be confusing Blade! with Sword! and I agree that Sword! is far less impressive even though it too grants Fast draw with every weapon as part of its package. And Acrobatics and Jumping are part of Sword!'s package as well.

That said, Blade also grants IQ rolls against "Holdout to conceal a blade, and for skills like Armoury, Connoisseur, Current Affairs, Merchant, and Streetwise when it comes to buying, pricing, recognizing, repairing, or selling bladed weapons."

That is the one thing about Wildcard skills - they include skills beyond the obvious.

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by maximara

This is the point I raised right before AlexanderHowl gave us the above statement. I think he may be confusing Blade! with Sword! and I agree that Sword! is far less impressive even though it too grants Fast draw with every weapon as part of its package. And Acrobatics and Jumping are part of Sword!'s package as well.

That said, Blade also grants IQ rolls against "Holdout to conceal a blade, and for skills like Armoury, Connoisseur, Current Affairs, Merchant, and Streetwise when it comes to buying, pricing, recognizing, repairing, or selling bladed weapons."

That is the one thing about Wildcard skills - they include skills beyond the obvious.

In a short MH campaign I ran, the Guns! player perhaps fired a dozen shots at foes, at most.
Most point blank, except for a couple trick shots using the bank shot / bend the bullet perks.
If I recall correctly, he only missed once.

The one truly impressive sniper shot at 6 km was made by the Techie, with his higher Rifle skill, custom build weapon and magic bonuses.
(The Guns! player would have made the shot, but he had run out of wildcard point to buy a crit success)

But the Guns! player enjoyed immensely using his Guns! skill in the most convoluted way possible (including an hilarious seduction of a visiting NRA activist, with Guns! standing in for Sex-appeal and Erotic arts ... ) and an acrobatic fight on a running roller coaster using only Guns! for everything (it started with him succeeding at starting the roller coaster by firing at the right spot after 3 other player failed easy rolls and snowballed from there).

He didn't use his Wildcard points to buy success, but instead to activate bullet time (his favorite option), for player guidance (finding a weapon in a secure facility locker after a strip search, mandatory shower and change of clothes; making sure a key NPC was a guns afficionado), and twice for flesh wounds.

He also used Guns! to use a improvised smoke grenade mortar, to use effectively an antique short blunderbuss (his signature weapon) both to club several people into unconsciousness or to fire various weird load at monsters.

He had and used the area defense, bank shot, bend the bullet and trick shooter perks.

Background wise, his character was an antique weapon dealer and restorer, a profession in which his Guns! skill gave him a nice edge.

Certainly, if he had put the 60 cp into gun(pistol) and a few other skills, with the same perks, he would have been a *much* better shooter.
Which wouldn't have mattered, since he would still have missed the one shot he crit failed.
But he would have been far less versatile.

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by maximara

That is the one thing about Wildcard skills - they include skills beyond the obvious.

The GURPS_Power-Ups_7_Wildcard_Skills book really give lots of idea for benefits and bonuses, making easy to give players differents styles and roleplay options, as well as powerful game effect.

[dataweaver]

I have a certain fondness for allowing Wildcard Skills to have different breadths (and cost multipliers) depending on how many skills they cover, using Talents as a guideline: if a given collection of skills would count as a 15-point Talent, a Wildcard Skill that covers that same range gets the usual ×3 cost multiplier; if it would qualify as a 10-point Talent, reduce the cost multiplier to ×2; and if it would qualify as a 5-point Talent, eliminate the cost multiplier entirely — with the only constraint being that this “cheapest level” of Wildcard Skill can't contain any Very Hard skills.

There would also have to be a tweak to account for cases such as Guns, where multiple skills that default to each other at a sufficiently small penalty (-2? -3?) count as only two skills for the purpose of how expensive a Talent is. With this, Guns! would easily be a “narrow” Wildcard, costing the same as a normal VH skill.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

I have a certain fondness for allowing Wildcard Skills to have different breadths (and cost multipliers) depending on how many skills they cover, using Talents as a guideline: if a given collection of skills would count as a 15-point Talent, a Wildcard Skill that covers that same range gets the usual ×3 cost multiplier; if it would qualify as a 10-point Talent, reduce the cost multiplier to ×2; and if it would qualify as a 5-point Talent, eliminate the cost multiplier entirely — with the only constraint being that this “cheapest level” of Wildcard Skill can't contain any Very Hard skills.

There would also have to be a tweak to account for cases such as Guns, where multiple skills that default to each other at a sufficiently small penalty (-2? -3?) count as only two skills for the purpose of how expensive a Talent is. With this, Guns! would easily be a “narrow” Wildcard, costing the same as a normal VH skill.

That's a very interesting idea. I may have to steal it.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

Can you explain how it changed so much? What solid options came into reach?

Shooting the vampire's hearts from 20 yards way goes from a 9 to an 11, which is a huge upgrade (-6 range, +2 gunslinger, -5 heart). Shooting the hearts when their up close and in your face goes from an 13 to a 15. 15 lets you reliably get past their dodge with an average of three hits. 13 isn't terrible, but when I'm trying to keep a blood sucker off of my techie, it makes me nervous.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Celjabba

The GURPS_Power-Ups_7_Wildcard_Skills book really give lots of idea for benefits and bonuses, making easy to give players differents styles and roleplay options, as well as powerful game effect.

I brought this up before but it was brushed off under the "it's optional" provision so I went with the Wildcard skills as they are "out of the box" as it were.