Alt GURPS Attributes

[Refplace]

Something I have pondered for awhile now is making all Basic Attributes cost double points.
This makes Skills and Talents as well as sub attributes more worthwhile and can lead to both stat normalization and charecter variety.
Opinions?

[Phantasm]

ST and HT at 20 per, IQ and DX at 40 per....

Not really seeing the benefit for the first two, given there's so few skills that use them, and the second two can make some concepts extremely expensive.

Not sure a straight doubling will do what you want, to be honest, though I'm uncertain what will. (Then again, I'm the kind of guy that doesn't mess with the underlying system because I don't trust myself to not "fix it until it breaks", so to speak.)

[ericthered]

Leave ST out of it: it doesn't behave like other attributes and is expensive enough as it is. If you double it, double advantages excluding talents and very talent like advantages) and disadvantages as well for consistency.

HT I can see going either way. IQ and DX at 40 ... I could see that. I'd personally go for IQ at 40 and DX at 30, but I'm that sort of guy. If you do that you may want to make combat talents more accessible.

[evileeyore]

Instead of doubling cost this is what I do:

1 - Separate Will and Perception from IQ, leave IQ at 20 points. This 'effectively' doubles the cost of IQ! So beware, and remember to increase campaign points by at least 20-50 (I give +10%, so a 200 pt campaign becomes 220).
2 - Cap defaults at 16. This ends the IQ 20 and every IQ skill at 14+ for free characters. It also does this for DX 20 characters too.
3 - Stats no longer apply to skills past 16. This also stops the IQ 20 1 point in 50 skills types.


Note: I only do this for games where I want lower (max 16) stats. I don't do it for DF or any high ACTION! type games.


Why? Because even at double cost, if the character has more than 10 skills on one stat it's cheaper to still just raise the stat and take those skills at 4 points. And it's a very rare character that has only 10 skills on their primary skill.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Something I have pondered for awhile now is making all Basic Attributes cost double points.
This makes Skills and Talents as well as sub attributes more worthwhile and can lead to both stat normalization and charecter variety.
Opinions?

Alternately, leave them the same cost but base skills on half the deviation of the attribute from 10 (e.g. if your IQ is 14, treat it as 12 for purposes of learning IQ based skills) - which effectively doubles the attribute cost for purposes of learning skills but leaves it the same for everything else. Or just don't base skills on attributes at all (buy them from 10 + any Talents instead). There's no particularly strong reason skills need to be coupled to attributes, if the main goal is to make skills and talents more important, just do that.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Alternately, leave them the same cost but base skills on half the deviation of the attribute from 10 (e.g. if your IQ is 14, treat it as 12 for purposes of learning IQ based skills) - which effectively doubles the attribute cost for purposes of learning skills but leaves it the same for everything else. Or just don't base skills on attributes at all (buy them from 10 + any Talents instead). There's no particularly strong reason skills need to be coupled to attributes, if the main goal is to make skills and talents more important, just do that.

That might be a better way. To me the issue is one of granularity, where

1. DX/IQ are too desriable as skill bosters
2. Talent is a reasonable Offset, Happy there
3. Techniques are too devalued

I want Attributes to contribute to skills so dont like them not having an effect at all. However 1/2 Deviation would improve the situation.

[mhd]

There's also the half-stat default option from Pyramid #65. I've been using that, and about the only thing where it bothers me a bit is shock penalties...

[zoncxs]

For me, I think it is best to determine what is the cheapest thing and work up from there.

SO for me, the order of cheap to expensive:

Techniques
Skills
Attributes

If techniques are 1pt per level raised, I put skills at 1,2,4,8,+8 scale. so that getting techniques is a good idea.

I would put DX and IQ at a similar progression:
11 - 20pts
12 - 20pts
13 - 25pts
14 - 25pts
15 - 30pts
16 - 30pts
17 - 35pts
18 - 35pts
19 - 40pts
20 - 40pts
20+ - +40pts

[Blind Mapmaker]

I use 25 pts./level for DX and IQ, separate out Basic Move from DX and WILL and PER from IQ. And for HT I use 15 pts./level, not because of skills but because it really is useful if you plan on staying in fights (see Douglas H. Cole's excellent The Price of Fitness)

You can read my blog entry on this topic. It really makes characters with multiple skills above DX/IQ more worthwhile. While you're at it you might want to tweak the costs of techniques too (got a blog post for that too).

[wellspring]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Something I have pondered for awhile now is making all Basic Attributes cost double points.
This makes Skills and Talents as well as sub attributes more worthwhile and can lead to both stat normalization and charecter variety.
Opinions?

If attributes now cost significantly more than the sum of their components, then I don't see the point of buying them at all. Then you have the same problem, only with the game overall shifted towards more complex and specialized characters. Also, it means that it's a better use of points to "specialize" in everything rather than flat-out buy up a stat.

Right now, the game rewards simple characters, while offering the option of customization. There's enough of a discount for a narrow specialization to justify doing it if that's really what you want to focus on. Plus, attributes are (more or less) points balanced for secondary attributes and other Advantages.

If you want your players to have characters with lower attributes, then just make restrictions and require unusual backgrounds.