High Attributes

[Vernon King Avaritt III]

Dudes and Dudettes
I was joking when I said that I would lower DaVince's IQ. I even put XD and
X3 on some of my comments.

Riddle Me This
What is the highest IQ that you would give the world's smartest person of all time? Do you think that 17, 18, 19, 20 are totally out of reach and are just in the GURPS books for show. If someone made a character with an IQ 20 would you have them lower the IQ score?. Should anyone get an IQ score higher than 16? Inquiring minds gotta know. Thank all of you for your valuable opinions.

[mr beer]

Originally Posted by Vernon King Avaritt III

Riddle Me This
What is the highest IQ that you would give the world's smartest person of all time?

It would depend on the person, different plausible 'smartest persons of all time' are renowned for different feats and abilities.

Originally Posted by Vernon King Avaritt III

RDo you think that 17, 18, 19, 20 are totally out of reach and are just in the GURPS books for show.

I think IQ: 17+ is out of reach for a real world human, depending upon the precision of the model.

That does not make them 'just for show', since precise, real world humans form only a tiny subset of the possible characters available with GURPS.

Originally Posted by Vernon King Avaritt III

If someone made a character with an IQ 20 would you have them lower the IQ score?.

It would depend on the character and the campaign.

Originally Posted by Vernon King Avaritt III

Should anyone get an IQ score higher than 16?

Yes, for some characters and campaigns. Certainly some NPCs (especially Patrons, campaign mastermind enemies etc.) in many campaigns.

[Kalzazz]

I have played 20 IQ characters and DMed 20 IQ characters and haven't found them particularly issue causing . . . . 20 IQ is certainly a cool shiny thing, but given its 200pt cost this isn't to surprising

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Vernon King Avaritt III

Riddle Me This
What is the highest IQ that you would give the world's smartest person of all time? Do you think that 17, 18, 19, 20 are totally out of reach and are just in the GURPS books for show. If someone made a character with an IQ 20 would you have them lower the IQ score?. Should anyone get an IQ score higher than 16? Inquiring minds gotta know. Thank all of you for your valuable opinions.

DX and IQ are mostly skill bases, so I typically buy them up to a level useful for the skill levels I want.

The real question is what you're going to do with it. IQ20 without skills is good at most (mental/social) things, but still only an "expert". He wouldn't rock any fields. IQ20 with quite a few skills, gadgeteering (as it's presented in basic), and money will "invent" revolutionary tech that could be game breaking. Likewise, as an alternate to magery, it might make him a pretty amazing mage.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by Vernon King Avaritt III

What is the highest IQ that you would give the world's smartest person of all time? Do you think that 17, 18, 19, 20 are totally out of reach and are just in the GURPS books for show. If someone made a character with an IQ 20 would you have them lower the IQ score?. Should anyone get an IQ score higher than 16? Inquiring minds gotta know. Thank all of you for your valuable opinions.

There are excellent guideline tables for attribute and skill levels in How to be a GURPS GM (as well as a lot of other hints to really understand how GURPS works).

To quote a little excerpt about attributes:

"13-14: Exceptional (highest you’ll likely meet on the street, above-average for adventurers).
15-16: Amazing (highest you’ll likely see or hear about, strongly defines an adventurer).
17-18: Legendary (historical “bests” and remarkable fictional heroes).
19-20: Mythic (astounding even among great heroes in fiction and folklore).
21 or more: Superhuman (off-limits to humans, barely suitable for great heroes, okay for deities)." (page 12)

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Vernon King Avaritt III

Dudes and Dudettes
I was joking when I said that I would lower DaVince's IQ. I even put XD and
X3 on some of my comments.

Well, at least part of the people seems to want to lower Da Vinci's IQ without jokes. Though given Gollum's quote:

Originally Posted by Gollum, quoting How to be a GURPS GM

17-18: Legendary (historical “bests” and remarkable fictional heroes).

It seems like 18 is the historical best level, and I don't know whom to propose other than Leonardo for the historical best in IQ.

Originally Posted by Vernon King Avaritt III

What is the highest IQ that you would give the world's smartest person of all time? Do you think that 17, 18, 19, 20 are totally out of reach and are just in the GURPS books for show. If someone made a character with an IQ 20 would you have them lower the IQ score?. Should anyone get an IQ score higher than 16? Inquiring minds gotta know. Thank all of you for your valuable opinions.

See above - both How to Be A GURPS GM and Who's Who seem to suggest 18 as the historical maximum; I'm guessing anything above that needs some sort of eugenic or gengineering boost in addition to happening to be the best of the bunch.

If someone made an IQ20 character, I would look very carefully at other areas. I don't tend to run point totals at which IQ20 is an easy expense. (I'm also currently playing in a campaign where one PC has DX>=16, and play a Per 19 character. Oh, and while not GURPS, I'm also in an Exalted campaign where several characters have 5 out of 5 in some attributes, so I see IQ 20 out of 20 as a possibility in GURPS if the character is supposed to be that good.)

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Well, at least part of the people seems to want to lower Da Vinci's IQ without jokes. Though given Gollum's quote:
It seems like 18 is the historical best level, and I don't know whom to propose other than Leonardo for the historical best in IQ.

Someone who apparently was able to master any field of endeavour he wanted with ease. Anyone who didn't make much of a mark on his world while he lived is suspect unless we have evidence that that person lacked any desire for riches, fame and glory. Da Vinci achieved comfortable wealth, but if he'd really had IQ 18, how do we explain that he was apparently unable to use it to learn skills that would have made him incredibly rich and elevated him socially? Why did he not succeed in building any of his revolutionary designs? These are goals he apparently had and with IQ 18 even small effort would have allowed him to achieve them.

C. Iulius Caesar was a notorious polymath who had the ability to be good at all his interests, all his professional skills and everything he needed to accomplish all the goals someone of his culture was likely to have. Much better candidate for maximum human GURPS IQ, though I'd peg it at 15 or 16, as that's quite enough to replicate even such legendary accomplishments.

To find the maximum human GURPS IQ, look for historical people who had the personal gifts to accomplish their every goal. They might have been cut short trying, but they'll never have lacked the skill to shape their world around them.

Someone who clearly didn't have the social, mercantile or political ability to turn his designs into reality and become as succesful as he wanted, is a pretty poor example of GURPS IQ. Someone good at some aspects of IQ, but not others, is an example of Talent.

[Snaps]

Originally Posted by Vernon King Avaritt III

I see that a mega intelligence may be too high. As for 10,000 point supers here is a little paper that I wrote for the cons

GURPS 500 Point Supers

I remember when we played GURPS Supers 3E: We all made up 500 point supers and had a good time. The rules favored a 500 point character and you could build a good one. Then GURPS 4E came out and Steve Jackson Games changed the rules. The rules didn't favour 500 point characters. Now the best hero you can make is a Good "Watchman" character with 500 points. In 3E having ST100 made you like Spiderman but in 4E having ST100 allows you to lift 1 ton. GURPS Supers characters are considerably weaker now. Supers lists several levels of super (on page 18) and they are: Wild Talents [100 point to 250 points]; Low Powered [250 points to 400 points]; Moderate Power [400 points to 1600 points]; and High Power [1600 points to 6400 points]. Nowhere does GURPS Supers mention 500 point heroes. You can have fun with 100 point supers and I know someone who runs 250 point super characters and they have a good time. In my opinion a 10000 point character is not out of line. High powered characters can cost 6400 points so I don't think I'm out of line. Now lets get to playing.

I've actually thought Supers are a lot more powerful in 4e vs. 3e. With things like Super Effort, God-like Extra Effort, Ultrapower, etc. It seems like they can accomplish a lot more!

Take the Hulk for example, I'd imagine you could build him for about 1500 points, maybe less. Super ST 20, and Damage Reduction 1000 should be enough for him. Hell, Unkillable is only 100 points! Throw in an Energy Reserve for some rage fueled Godlike effort and he's pretty scary.

Let's not forget the example of the 4000 point character in GURPS Supers who can destroy planets with one punch, or take a shot from the Death Star on the chin and keep smiling...

[weby]

Originally Posted by Snaps

I've actually thought Supers are a lot more powerful in 4e vs. 3e. With things like Super Effort, God-like Extra Effort, Ultrapower, etc. It seems like they can accomplish a lot more!

Take the Hulk for example, I'd imagine you could build him for about 1500 points, maybe less. Super ST 20, and Damage Reduction 1000 should be enough for him. Hell, Unkillable is only 100 points! Throw in an Energy Reserve for some rage fueled Godlike effort and he's pretty scary.

Let's not forget the example of the 4000 point character in GURPS Supers who can destroy planets with one punch, or take a shot from the Death Star on the chin and keep smiling...

Just basic super strength starts to get quite high once you put few hundred points in it, super strength 17(475 points) is about a tank gun in base damage. At super strength 27(725 points) you do more damage than the TL 12^ Super dreadnaught "Adversary" in Space ships 3(the highest power warship in the space ships series)

But because of the scaling of super advantages a 500 total point character will be a LOT less powerful than a 1000 total point and that 1000 pointer will be a LOT less powerful than a 2000 pointer. They are not simply double the effect.

As example take the brick who has used 1/2 their total points on super strength(rest going to things like injury tolerance to take equivalent damage and whatever else as the example "brick" has used 47%.)

At 500 point campaign that 50% is 10d damage, being in damage between a .338 sniper rifle(9d) and .50 sniper rifle(6d*2)-> so heavy personal weapon range.
At 1000 point campaign that 50% is 205d damage, having more damage than the 125mm Motovilikha D-81TMtank gun from High tech.
At 2000 point campaign that 50% is 500005d damage, not quite yet in the "destroy planets with single hit" category, needing to hit earth more than 1000 times to destroy it.
You would need to use about 1250 points to get to the "destroy earth with one strike" category and about 1750 points to destroy the sun with single strike...

and those are just with raw super strength, nothing else.

[weby]

Originally Posted by Vernon King Avaritt III

Riddle Me This
What is the highest IQ that you would give the world's smartest person of all time? Do you think that 17, 18, 19, 20 are totally out of reach and are just in the GURPS books for show. If someone made a character with an IQ 20 would you have them lower the IQ score?. Should anyone get an IQ score higher than 16? Inquiring minds gotta know. Thank all of you for your valuable opinions.

Realistic:
Smartest person of all time: About 18
Most historically "astonishingly smart people" about 16 with talents to support their specialty.

Gaming:
It depends a lot on what I want to achieve.

Realistic: I would not allow any attribute above 12/13 in a campaign to simulate real people who are not "best in history" as 13 is already kind of cinematic when you add couple of levels of talent for effective score maybe 15 in what they are good at.

Low power "super heroic levels": For super heroic things like "I can keep fighting until I die at -5*HT", "I can routinely do things I am trained at in 1/10 normal time","I can break world records with ease" and similar: about 15 base+talent for effective base maybe 18 in their specialty.

High power "super heroic": for things like "I can routinely do very difficult things that am not trained in" I would go for 20+talents.

For silly high power thing a DX/IQ 25 with wild talent would allow that character to do things like: "I have never before used any weapon, but I can pick up any weapon and hit you in the eye since I have seen people use weapons on TV", and to do things like " A Driving roll to steer a car with the
knees while firing a bazooka two-handed during a chase through a blizzard." without having ever driven before..