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Old 04-27-2013, 07:16 AM   #171
Gnome
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Cambridge, MA
Default Re: Are Talents overpowered?

Quote:
Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ View Post
Yeah, but then you get into things like the barbarian spending fifty or so points on outdoors abilities that aren't useless, they're just less useful than other stuff he could get for that same price. And that's something important enough to put on a template.

I've been houseruling Outdoorsman down to 5/level and I haven't had any problems with that. It hasn't been enough to get people to play a barbarian (since they're still straddled with Gigantism), and the scout and druid still don't bother loading up on it. I think at that price it's a good deal if you really want those outdoor abilities, though.

If Outdoorsman gives skills that are at least somewhat useful, then what happens when it's a Talent that's even less useful than that? It might be fine conceptually, but just too expensive in comparison to what else you could get with those points.
Outdoorsman is an easy punching bag. It's a weak talent because it's ten points and only includes 7 skills, not because the skills are no good. My house rule is to add 4 or 5 more skills to the talent.
Quote:
On the other hand, some of the racial Talents are really incredibly good. Forest Guardian and Pickaxe Penchant are in that category. On the other hand, Elder Gift is a good ability. It's just not good enough for anyone to pay the price for, because of the way those skills work, if you already have a high IQ they're high enough, and if you don't have a high IQ your template doesn't include the skills in the Talent, and you wouldn't be good enough at them anyway even if it did, and it would still cost too much for those skills.
Pickaxe Penchant isn't that great, since you usually only want to raise one axe skill. Forest Guardian might be too good--and you can tell because the included skills really have no relation to each other. Elder Gift is fine, IMO, but it depends what kind of game you run. In my DF games, PCs often need "knowledge" skills to be able to complete the adventure, find the monster's weakness, etc., and MOS matters. For example, straight Hidden Lore (Demons) might tell you that the demon has a fire attack, while Hidden Lore (Demons)-5 will tell you he has a fire attack, he flies, he has incredibly tough skin, he has a vulnerability to cold attacks, and his vitals are located just behind his left shoulder. Also, finding magical traps requires a Per-based roll against Alchemy or Thaumatology, often at a large penalty for hard-to-find traps. If you're a Wizard with a high IQ but not such a high Per, the Talent can give you just the boost you need.
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Old 04-27-2013, 09:15 AM   #172
Xplo
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Default Re: Are Talents overpowered?

You know what, now that I've run the numbers myself, I take back what I said about Business Acumen. It is overpriced; you're always getting higher skill levels by buying high levels of Merchant and defaulting to it, and conveniently this results in you having what's typically the best skill of the group at expert-to-master level.

The proper value for Business Acumen is probably about 5/level, which makes it roughly competitive with high Merchant skill, and even then it's more of a characterization tool if you want to make a character who's a bit of a financial wiz but not necessarily a world-class trader and haggler.
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Old 04-27-2013, 12:08 PM   #173
ErhnamDJ
 
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: OK
Default Re: Are Talents overpowered?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gnome View Post
Outdoorsman is an easy punching bag. It's a weak talent because it's ten points and only includes 7 skills, not because the skills are no good. My house rule is to add 4 or 5 more skills to the talent.
You can make a weak Talent by filling it full of skills that aren't very good. Let me see if I can find four skills to add to Outdoorsman and see how much that increases its usefulness.

Area Knowledge (Outdoor areas only)
Professional Skill (Forester)
Prospecting
Weather Sense

It's better, but I still don't want to take it all that much.

The issue I'm seeing is that even if you're paying 1/level for each skill... that's still 1/level for some of those skills. If you buy Outdoorsman 4 and put a single point into Mimicry or Fishing, then you're spending five points on Mimicry or Fishing. Or, if you count Mimicry and Fishing as being only a miniscule portion of those points, then you're paying even more than that for the two best ones, Survival and Naturalist.


Quote:
Pickaxe Penchant isn't that great, since you usually only want to raise one axe skill.
That hasn't been my experience. It raises both a melee and a ranged combat skill. All the dwarfs I've seen have focused on throwing axes for their ranged skill. So it is very nice in that regard. It also gives them Forced Entry, which isn't useless.

Look at it this way: if there was a skill that include nothing more than a melee skill and a ranged combat skill, it would still be worthing taking for 5/level, since what it does is give you a ranged skill for only 1/level over the 4/level you'd pay anyway for the melee skill, which is a great deal.

Also, Pickaxe Penchant is incredibly good in DF because you can buy it with your advantage points. You usually can't increase your skill levels with your advantage points. That's why swashbucklers and knights don't just start with skill 35. But if you're a dwarf, you can do that by buying Pickaxe Penchant, which is why just about every knight I see is a dwarf.


Quote:
If you're a Wizard with a high IQ but not such a high Per, the Talent can give you just the boost you need.
Maybe, but you could have spent those points on Per instead. And all the wizards I've seen have had the highest Per in the group, since it's free with their IQ. Everyone has opted to ignore that -3 Per that's on the template, since there's a disad limit anyway.
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Last edited by ErhnamDJ; 04-27-2013 at 12:40 PM.
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