05-14-2014, 03:26 PM | #21 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Capping Skill Default Levels
Realistically, two skills that default to one another probably have a shared core of common fundamentals, and then there are specific details that you only learn under the one skill. To give a sports example, epee and foil fencing have a great deal in common, but someone who's only learned epee won't have learned the right of way rules in foil. The question for defaulting, then, is what portion of skill improvement comes from improving shared fundamentals, and what portion comes from learning tricks that are specific to the narrower field; the first will improve all your defaults, the second won't.
The only method GURPS has of representing this sort of thing is Techniques; there is no generic group skill bonus (which would represent training the fundamentals). However, simply capping defaults doesn't really help, many skills really are mostly about fundamentals. |
05-14-2014, 03:43 PM | #22 | ||||
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Re: Capping Skill Default Levels
One thing that occurs to me that I should mention is that I intend to change Improving Skills from Default at some point. I haven't mentioned house rules because I don't have any yet and I haven't been thinking of them right now but I don't intend that it will take 4 points to increase and make trained a high skill level achieved by default so pushing our nigh-unparalleled master to learn the skill he has been neglecting won't cost him as much. I'm sorry if failing to mention this was significant to anyone's points.
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Last edited by Sindri; 05-14-2014 at 03:55 PM. |
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05-14-2014, 03:55 PM | #23 |
Join Date: Mar 2008
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Re: Capping Skill Default Levels
I use Familiarity penalties to deal with them not knowing that sort of thing. So give them an hour or so practice to learn the rules, be shown the trick and they have full default.So you Epee fighter that gets sent in to replace the Foil that twisted his ankle. If it happened just now -3, -4 off the default. If it happened this morning and they had a few hours to get ready full default.
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05-14-2014, 04:03 PM | #24 | |
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Re: Capping Skill Default Levels
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05-16-2014, 03:42 AM | #25 | |
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: South Dakota, USA
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Re: Capping Skill Default Levels
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I originally had a wall of text but the short version is... some of this feels like improper GMing. I know that sounds harsh, but this is not some proclamation from on high: personally I'm a lousy GM (hence why I rarely do it!). I also may have just space off some important point while reading some of the responses: 25 posts isn't long, but it isn't short especially when discussing GURPS. XD Otherwise... if there is a situation where using a Skill from default should be more challenging than using the Skill having properly trained in it, the GM needs to assign an appropriate penalty to the roll and/or use any of the other approaches already built into the game to help mitigate this situation... but when there are no such extraneous circumstances, don't sweat it.
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05-16-2014, 03:56 AM | #26 | |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Re: Capping Skill Default Levels
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(For context, this scene was filmed a few years after the mass suicide at Jonestown)
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“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...” Marcus Aurelius Last edited by Anders; 05-16-2014 at 03:59 AM. |
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05-16-2014, 04:31 AM | #27 | |
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Brighton
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Re: Capping Skill Default Levels
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I have no problem with saying that when it come to closely related skills being an expert in one means it pretty likely you'l be really, really good at another. This is is especially true of the probably overly precise family of melee skills. As to your general point about it not being about the points, a skill of 24 brought up from base attribute 10 is what 67 for an average skill. A cost that is based on the current assumption of how defaulting works as well. So if you do decide to further penalise defaulting you have just given that person less for their 67 pts. I.e the points cost is already includes the familiarity defaults and isn't just to be an expert in one specific area. Accordingly if you were to makes defaults worse, I think you need to reduce the number of skills to counter balance that. |
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05-16-2014, 08:50 AM | #28 | |||
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Capping Skill Default Levels
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Secondly, and the reason I don't see a problem with this situation (as well as part of why I had all skills with at least some level of default in my Overhaul), is the case of one Miyamoto Musashi. Musashi was a master swordsman who traveled Japan challenging other masters of combat - and consistently winning. He used everything from swords (two handed, one handed, or even dual wielding) to improvised polearms to a metal fan. If you have PC's with skills comparable to Musashi, the idea that they could pull off feats similar to him hardly strikes me as a flaw in the system. Another thing to consider - and germane to the topic of Musashi - is that nobody with any high skill (particularly in a combat skill) is likely to have trained in a vacuum. A character with high Broadsword skill has probably spent some time practicing with some two handed swords, with shorter blades, with swinging his own sword by the blade (using Axe/Mace skill to strike with the hilt), and even in fighting unarmed. I don't think it's necessary to actually charge points for such, instead simply relying on defaults to show that, yes, the character has dabbled a bit in other combat skills. As noted, some of the defaults there are probably overly generous. Something I didn't mention in that thread was how I envisioned buying up from default - you can buy up a single skill at half price so long as you are within "default range" - so if you had Sword at 20, "default range" for 2H Sword is between 18 (where it's at from defaulting) and 22 (where it becomes the dominant skill, with Sword defaulting from it). How to deal with multiple defaults would probably be a bit hairy (and having not fully worked this out is one of the reason I never got around to posting the defaulting rules in that thread). |
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05-16-2014, 03:23 PM | #29 | |
Join Date: Nov 2010
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Re: Capping Skill Default Levels
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05-16-2014, 03:35 PM | #30 | ||||||||||
Join Date: Nov 2011
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