Improving through study question

[brianfb]

The rules say 200 per point. Is that a character point or a skill point (eg to get the 3rd raise on a skill does it take 200 hours or 800 hours)

Am I the only one that thinks it's stupid that all skills are equal in this regard? Horseback riding vs physician for example?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by brianfb

The rules say 200 per point. Is that a character point or a skill point (eg to get the 3rd raise on a skill does it take 200 hours or 800 hours)

Am I the only one that thinks it's stupid that all skills are equal in this regard? Horseback riding vs physician for example?

I don't have a problem with it. It has the basic principle that learning the basics is easy but going beyond that gets harder, which I think is right. In fact if I were doing an alternate GURPS I might have all costs go 1, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, . . . . In any case, I take it as a convention, and it doesn't seem to cause any problems in play.

It's a character point. For an Average skill, getting stat-1 is 200 hours, going up to stat is 200 (total 400), going to stat+1 is 400 (total 800), going to stat+2 is 800 (total 1600), and so on.

[ericthered]

Its a useful and rather simple abstraction. I find it overly simple and abstract, but its a nice starting point.

In some games I use the 200 hours as a prerequisite to learn something, then require character points to be spent as well.

In worminghall (which whswhs wrote) it is suggested that the number of hours that count as learning in a month be generated by monthly job roll against will+talent. Figure out some reasonable base number of hours and add +10% per point of success or failure. Learning is hard work.

The break-up, relative cost, and granularity of skills in gurps does not follow a single guiding principle, and so you get some oddities. Hard IQ-based skills (though not spells) tend to be comparatively cheap compared to time spent to get them with skills more suited to adventuring, and I usually apply the 200 hours number to adventuring based skills. I'm also stingy about what counts as an hour of learning.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by ericthered

In some games I use the 200 hours as a prerequisite to learn something, then require character points to be spent as well.

Should that apply to other purchases too, like spending 2000 hours lifting weights to buy +1 to ST?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Plane

Should that apply to other purchases too, like spending 2000 hours lifting weights to buy +1 to ST?

Only if you want to implement such a House Rule. It directly contradicts the Rules As Written. You get the effects of 1 character point for 200 hours of study (with a teacher) _or_ when you spend an actual Character Point. Requiring both is fairly punitive House Rule.

[Boge]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I don't have a problem with it. It has the basic principle that learning the basics is easy but going beyond that gets harder, which I think is right. In fact if I were doing an alternate GURPS I might have all costs go 1, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, . . . . In any case, I take it as a convention, and it doesn't seem to cause any problems in play.

It's a character point. For an Average skill, getting stat-1 is 200 hours, going up to stat is 200 (total 400), going to stat+1 is 400 (total 800), going to stat+2 is 800 (total 1600), and so on.

Gurps 3rd did the double skill points thing. I thought it was too much, but I think it should increase beyond 4 points and incrementally increase the further you go. Maybe by an extra 1 or 2 points each level. 1, 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, etc.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Plane

Should that apply to other purchases too, like spending 2000 hours lifting weights to buy +1 to ST?

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Only if you want to implement such a House Rule. It directly contradicts the Rules As Written. You get the effects of 1 character point for 200 hours of study (with a teacher) _or_ when you spend an actual Character Point. Requiring both is fairly punitive House Rule.

Its also not what I was suggesting. In those games I required 200 hours (or more, depending on circumstance) of training for the FIRST point in something, not the subsequent points. Its meant for things that are completely new, like picking up foreign languages, a mundane learning magic for the first time, or a noncombatant learning how to use a gun.

And in those games learning new skills, languages, and magic was and is a core part of gameplay.

Though I have seen GM's who were did require both earned CP and study.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Boge

Gurps 3rd did the double skill points thing. I thought it was too much.

It's problematic if you don't do the same to stats, but there's actually a decent argument for doubling forever. I think I'm going to create a new thread rather than derailing this one, though.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by whswhs

It's a character point. For an Average skill, getting stat-1 is 200 hours, going up to stat is 200 (total 400), going to stat+1 is 400 (total 800), going to stat+2 is 800 (total 1600), and so on.

Considering 200 hours gets you +4 to skill (relative to Default), breaking it up is also an option. The easy one (and the one implied by Dabbler) is +1 per 50 hours. A decent alternative that roughly maintains the scaling of later levels (until you reach Default+7) would be 15 hours for Default+1, 50 hours (+35 hours) for Default+2, 100 hours (+50 hours) for Default+3, and the standard 200 hours (+100 hours) for Default+4. Of course, if you want times that work better with a 24-hour clock, changing the default to [1] per 192 hours (8 days, or 24 8-hour sessions) wouldn't break anything, and would change the previous to 16 hours for Default +1, 48 hours (+32 hours) for Default +2, 96 hours (+48 hours) for Default+3, and 192 hours (+96 hours) for Default+4. Beyond this is 384 hours (+192 hours) for Default +5, 768 hours (+384 hours) for Default +6, 1536 hours (+768 hours) for Default+7, and then +768 hours for each additional +1. It's not as pretty, but it divides better by the likely 4, 8, 12, or 16-hour sessions one is likely to train in.

[Kromm]

Also, it's prudent to compare like to like. When you learn how to cook, dance, ride, swim, etc. for your own amusement, you're generally learning a specific skill like Cooking, Dancing, Riding, or Swimming. For instance, the kind of cooking instruction ordinary suburbanites might take one night a week is unlikely to teach you how to shop for ingredients (or grow, harvest, or slaughter your own) and manage a restaurant, nor the history, social importance, chemistry, and so on of cooking, or even much more than the bare basics of wine pairings; it teaches you how to follow recipes to create pleasing dishes, and perhaps to improvise a little.

You could decide to become a chef, however. You would go to an academy that teaches you not merely Cooking but also Administration, Connoisseur, Gardening, Merchant, and some sort of Expert Skill (Gastronomy) that can stand in for Anthropology, Chemistry, History, Psychology, Sociology, and all other academic skills as they pertain to food. A "culinary arts" education like that would take four years. Becoming a chef would involve paying your dues in actual restaurants – something like 2-5 years to make sous chef, and at least that much more, and an opening, to make chef – for a total of 8-14 years.

Similarly, you could take a first-aid course and learn First Aid, but you won't learn to be a doctor. It probably isn't even possible to learn Physician on its own; you'd have to learn that plus Diagnosis and Physiology (a lot more than you'd think, apparently), and at least some level of Electronics Operation (Medical), Pharmacy, Psychology, and Surgery (even if you're not going to become a surgeon). You'd learn that stuff at medical school after your undergraduate degree taught you at least some basic Biology, Chemistry, etc. In Canada, where I live, the sequence is a four-year BS, then four years in med school, and then 2-6 years of residency, or 10-14 years . . . comparable to that chef.

So the correct comparison is "all the stuff required to do X" vs. "all the stuff required to do Y." Just because individual skills exist and could in theory be learned on their own, in any order in the game doesn't mean learning them separately, in whatever sequence you like is possible in any believable game world. The closest formal structure to this in the game is the "style," originally introduced in GURPS Martial Arts. But if a skill is available separately, it's important not to compare it to an entire style or profession.