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Old 12-18-2015, 03:09 AM   #11
scc
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Default Re: Changing techniques to just 1pt leveled perks

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Originally Posted by Langy View Post
Hard Techniques are 2/level. Maybe what you mean is to just remove Hard Techniques from the game entirely, and shift all of them onto normal Techniques.
Um, no Hard Techniques are 2 points for the first level, but 1 point thereafter, B230

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Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen View Post
GURPS, or at least many very prominent GURPS writers, also seem to want to impose limits on how many Perks characters can have, whereas no such limits are ever proposed for Advantages or points in them, nor for points in Skills.

This indicates that those writers must either feel that Perks are (often) overpowered, tending to give at least slightly more bang than their 1-point cost warrants, or else that too many Perks on any character's sheet complicates the game as each is - at least to some extent - a special case that must always be kept in mind during relevant situations.

Techniques don't have that problem, in in fact similar to points in Advantages and Skills I've never seen any indication that anyone has any desire to impose limits on number of Techniques on a sheet or the amount of points in them.
There are many different limits on Perks and Techniques play a role in calculating one of them, so changing which side of the equation they're on would be big.
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Old 12-18-2015, 04:57 AM   #12
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Default Re: Changing techniques to just 1pt leveled perks

Quote:
Originally Posted by Langy View Post
No, it does not save one point. Techniques are already 1/level.

Hard Techniques are 2/level. Maybe what you mean is to just remove Hard Techniques from the game entirely, and shift all of them onto normal Techniques.

(And 1/level Techniques are different from Perks, since there's a limit to the number of Perks you're allowed to take and there is no limit to the number of Techniques or number of levels of Techniques)
As has been noted, all techniques are 1/level, only the hard is 2 for the first level.

That said, I'm really not sure what is gained by having a hard/average technique split. I prefer simplicity except where complexity gets you something. Techniques represent an added complexity atop skills, but one I welcome (being able to define how I, specifically, fight is useful to me). I also don't mind that different techniques have different prerequisite levels that you're buying off (Counter Attack is -6 but Feint is +0? That makes sense). But that this one costs one point extra because... reasons? Why not just make everything Average? Why have that extra layer of complexity? It ends up creating a situation where people either won't invest, or will invest all the way to get the most out of that one extra point they had to pay, and also that they have one more piece of information to look up ("Actually, Arm Lock is Average, not Hard!"), and it makes the already questionable utility of Techniques even more questionable. I don't see what is gained by the hard/average distinction.
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Old 12-18-2015, 07:32 AM   #13
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Default Re: Changing techniques to just 1pt leveled perks

Quote:
Originally Posted by Langy View Post
No, it does not save one point. Techniques are already 1/level.

Hard Techniques are 2/level. Maybe what you mean is to just remove Hard Techniques from the game entirely, and shift all of them onto normal Techniques.

(And 1/level Techniques are different from Perks, since there's a limit to the number of Perks you're allowed to take and there is no limit to the number of Techniques or number of levels of Techniques)
Wrong in regards to your first paragraph.

In regards to the second there is a hidden limit. When buying a technique is point inefficient which is more than one hard technique for any skill.
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Old 12-18-2015, 07:39 AM   #14
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Default Re: Changing techniques to just 1pt leveled perks

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Originally Posted by Mailanka View Post
As has been noted, all techniques are 1/level, only the hard is 2 fo

That said, I'm really not sure what is gained by having a hard/average technique split.

<Snip>

I don't see what is gained by the hard/average distinction.

Exactly perhaps I should have called the thread this and explained it more as such as it's a better put argument.

It makes a smoother stat > talent > skill > technique progression and really anything that moves the efficiency to the right of that sequence is a good thing.
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Old 12-18-2015, 08:55 AM   #15
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Default Re: Changing techniques to just 1pt leveled perks

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Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
Between two styles of Boxing, one is normally discouraged from fleshing out/differentiating boxers by style, and is encouraged to do it by one or at most two Techniques. I don't like that. I want each fighter to have an advantage in using a half-dozen or even dozen techniques of Style A as compared to a Style B fighter using the same Skill.
I agree with this wholeheartedly: 4E is a vast improvement on 3E for many reasons, but Techniques now look a bit vestigial, since they can't really be used for their most obvious purpose, which is what you describe.

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Originally Posted by Mailanka View Post
I don't see what is gained by the hard/average distinction.
I'm on this train, too.

I'd like a way to encourage differentiation between characters who focus on the same skill, and ideally I'd like it without the added complexity of the Average/Hard distinction. Reducing all techniques to 1pt/level is an option. Calling techniques "perks" perhaps conflates too many things - though it does simplify terminology.
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Old 12-18-2015, 09:18 AM   #16
Peter Knutsen
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Default Re: Changing techniques to just 1pt leveled perks

I think it makes more sense to drop the current A/H distinction on Techniques, since on average it just means that a Hard Technique costs something like 25% more than an Average one, given that most player characters, and most major NPCs, who go for a Technique, are likely to go whole hog with it. And with a 25% differentiation of trait costs not really being something GURPS is usually keen on.

Either just do everything being Average Techniques, or else introduce a new costing scheme with Techniques being either Very Easy, Easy, Average, Hard or Very Hard.

Average ones cost 1 point/level. Almost all existing Hard Techniques should be changed to Average.

Easy ones cost 1 point/level but gives +2 to effective skill per level.

Very Easy ones give +3 to effective skill per level, and should only be used for usages so strongly specialized that an Easy Technique isn't good enough.

Hard Techniques cost 2 points/level for each +1 bonus, and should only be used for very broad Techniques, covering a significant fraction of the usage of the overall skill.

Very Hard Techniques cost 3 points/lvl for each +1, and should only be used in extreme cases, with it being quite possible that there aren't any cases extreme enough to warrant the VH grade.
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Old 12-18-2015, 09:29 AM   #17
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Default Re: Changing techniques to just 1pt leveled perks

This is out of left field, but.
How about letting a person trade in points spent on techniques for higher levels of the skill. Saying they mastered that part first, but then went on to broaden their skill. No reason they'd have to do so with the next skill improvement, but letting them keep it as an option, means the points are never "wasted", but also less often banked.

Karate is a DX/Hard skill. So raising it from DX+1 to DX+2 costs 4 points. If you have 3 points, you might spend 2 on Jump Kick, and 1 on Elbow Strike, with the intention of rolling both over into the base Karate skill once you get 1 more point to spend. Sort of how reorganizing Short Sword and Broad Sword points, and which is a default of which, is described.
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Old 12-18-2015, 09:36 AM   #18
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Default Re: Changing techniques to just 1pt leveled perks

If the actual intended thrust of this thread is that Hard Techniques being removed as a concept and all of them made into Average Techniques instead, that sounds fairly reasonable. Techniques already live in a really confined pricing space where that one point may do a lot to let you do interesting things with them while in the larger scheme of things still being just one point.

Merging Average Techniques with Leveled Perks seems like a bad idea. Techniques are a good formulation for what they do, simultaneously indicating a move everyone can do and a character-building option in one easy-to-reference, common-layout rules chunk.
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Old 12-18-2015, 09:38 AM   #19
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Default Re: Changing techniques to just 1pt leveled perks

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Originally Posted by SRoach View Post
This is out of left field, but.
How about letting a person trade in points spent on techniques for higher levels of the skill. Saying they mastered that part first, but then went on to broaden their skill. No reason they'd have to do so with the next skill improvement, but letting them keep it as an option, means the points are never "wasted", but also less often banked.

Karate is a DX/Hard skill. So raising it from DX+1 to DX+2 costs 4 points. If you have 3 points, you might spend 2 on Jump Kick, and 1 on Elbow Strike, with the intention of rolling both over into the base Karate skill once you get 1 more point to spend. Sort of how reorganizing Short Sword and Broad Sword points, and which is a default of which, is described.
Like re-arranging the point allocations for skills, you shouldn't be allowed to lower the actual level of your Techniques when you do this.

But taking one level off each of your techniques to defray the cost of the next level of the skill sounds fine to me.
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Old 12-18-2015, 09:50 AM   #20
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Default Re: Changing techniques to just 1pt leveled perks

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
Like re-arranging the point allocations for skills, you shouldn't be allowed to lower the actual level of your Techniques when you do this.

But taking one level off each of your techniques to defray the cost of the next level of the skill sounds fine to me.
I agree. I chose those two examples because Jump Kick was a Hard technique, and Elbow Strike was Average. So one point in each, to +1 the base skill, according to RAW, would be 2 and 1 respectively, summing to 3.
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