New Talents

[AlexanderHowl]

I was curious if anyone had any new talents (beyond those in PU3), that they would want to share. I will share a couple:

Natural Farmer 5 CP/level

Skills: Animal Handling, Farming, Gardening, Meteorology, and Veterinary

Reaction Bonus: Fellow farmers

Alternative Bonus: +1/level to HT rolls of animals and plants under your care to survive disease

Wise Woman 5 CP/level

Skills: Diagnosis, Esoteric Medicine, First Aid, Pharmacy (Herbal), and Veterinary.

Reaction Bonus: Former patients and other wise women

Alternative Benefit: -1/level penalty for using improvised equipment

[aesir23]

I have a few I've created throughout the years:


Animal Instincts: 10 points/level. You retain an animal's natural sense of how to fend for itself and survive in the wild.

Skills: Brawling, Climbing, Intimidation, Jumping, Running, Sex Appeal, Stealth, Survival, Swimming, Tracking and Weather Sense.

Reaction bonus: naturists, uplifted animals and pre-historic men.

Graceful: 5 points/level.You move with uncommon fluidity, efficiency, and grace.

Skills: Acrobatics, Dancing, Light Walk, Performance, Sex Appeal, Stealth.

Reaction Bonus:Anybody who has just seen you perform or compete in athletics.

Wolf Talent: 5 points/level A racial talent for a species of sentient wolf.

Skills: Area Knowledge (Hunting Territory), Brawling, Running, Intimidation, Survival, Tracking).

Reaction bonus from: Wolves and other pack-hunters.
Or Alternative Benefit: Gives its bonus to rolls to memorize scents as described in Discriminatory Smell.

[tbone]

I collected my original and revised Talents (over a dozen) onto one page:
http://www.gamesdiner.com/gurps-dfrp...e-new-talents/

I'd be happy to copy-paste here, but the whole thing would make for a pretty big paste. Pop on over if interested, and nab any you like –

[Astromancer]

Any Talent can be shaped for a social role. It lets you smuggle those aspects of "Character Classes" You might like into the game.

[Donny Brook]

Here's a couple I just came up with:

That Would Be Kewl talent:

Stealth, Power Blow, Body Language, Fast Draw, Lariat, Sex Appeal


What This Character Needs talent:

Leadership, Ship Handling, Fast-talk, First Aid, Swimming, Diplomacy, Fast Draw, Observation, Climbing, Savoir Faire.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Here's a couple I just came up with:

That Would Be Kewl talent:

Stealth, Power Blow, Body Language, Fast Draw, Lariat, Sex Appeal


What This Character Needs talent:

Leadership, Ship Handling, Fast-talk, First Aid, Swimming, Diplomacy, Fast Draw, Observation, Climbing, Savoir Faire.

Those are thematically rather problematic.

Specifically, Talents are not meant to be a list of skills that a character wants bonuses to. If that is allowed, spending points on skills and Attributes is definitely suboptimal and there is a perverse incentive for all characters to be mechanically the same (with a Talent for every skill they need). Also, to me, a character that can't meaningfully be described in real world terms (i.e. 'has high emotional intelligence' or 'good hand-eye coordination'), is less interesting, so I prefer Talents that believably group together tasks that correlate with each other.

[Phantasm]

Some talents from the Marvel Reboot thread/document/not-a-wiki:

Classic Homemaker: Animal Handling, Artist (Pottery), Cooking, Gardening, Housekeeping, Professional Skill (Brewer), Professional Skill (Distiller), Professional Skill (Dyer), Professional Skill (Tanner), Professional Skill (Vinter), Professional Skill (Weaver), and Sewing. Reaction bonus: Folks that value "traditional family values" and clean homes in general. 10 points per level. (Intended for a low-TL world, TL0 to 2.) (Originally built for Athena.)

Gamecrafter: Connoisseur (Games), Current Affairs (Sports), Gambling, Games, Mathematics (Applied and Statistics), Professional Skill (Game Designer). Conditional Bonus to Body Language, Carousing, Computer Programming, and Writing when dealing with making, modifying, and playing games. Reaction Bonus: Gamers, fellow game/sport enthusiasts. 10 points per level. (Originally built for the Grandmaster.)

Martial Artist (Military): Broadsword, Judo, Karate, Knife, Shield, Shortsword, Spear, Staff, Stealth, and Wrestling. Reaction Bonus: Military leaders. 10 points per level. (Intended to represent combat training for low-TL soldiers and some special forces. Originally built by someone else whose name I can't remember for Red Guardian, also useful for Captain America.)

Natural Swordsman: Broadsword, Force Saber, Force Sword, Knife, Main-Gauche, Rapier, Saber, Shortsword, Smallsword, Two-Handed Sword. Reaction Bonus: Swordsmen, swashbucklers, swashbuckler wannabes, sword-fighting movie enthusiasts. 10 points per level. (Originally built for my Ranoc setting, used by Matador and will eventually see use on Swordsman.)

Perfect Throw: Bolas, Dropping, Innate Attack (Projectile), Lasso, Sling, Spear Thrower, Throwing, Throwing Art, Thrown Weapon. May also give a conditional bonus to various Sports skills that use throwing, such as Sports (Baseball) and Sports (American Football). Reaction Bonus: Sportsmen, fans of sports involving throwing, warriors of pre-TL4 cultures. 10 points per level. (Originally built for Bullseye.)

Psychotronicist: Electronics Operation (Psychotronics), Electronics Repair (Psychotronics), Engineer (Psychotronics), Expert Skill (Psionics). Reaction Bonus: other psychotronics experts. 5 points per level. (Originally built for the White Queen.)


Several of these should probably have alternative benefits.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Those are thematically rather problematic.

Specifically, Talents are not meant to be a list of skills that a character wants bonuses to. If that is allowed, spending points on skills and Attributes is definitely suboptimal and there is a perverse incentive for all characters to be mechanically the same (with a Talent for every skill they need). Also, to me, a character that can't meaningfully be described in real world terms (i.e. 'has high emotional intelligence' or 'good hand-eye coordination'), is less interesting, so I prefer Talents that believably group together tasks that correlate with each other.

I agree; those Talents lack a unifying theme. There is an option for "Job Training" to cover somewhat disparate skills - provided they apply to a given job or you can justify them being trained concurrently. I cannot find any justification for Fast-Talk, Fast-Draw, and Shiphandling in the same talent.

It sometimes makes sense to add multiple Talents to a character to cover all the angles.

[AlexanderHowl]

Dominatrix: 5 BP/level

Reaction Bonus: Submissives who are attracted to your gender.

Skills: Judo, Intimidation, Knot-Tying, Psychology, and Whip.

Alterative Benefit: +1/level effective damage when inflicting pain from locks using Judo or Whip.

Notes: Men and women are equally capable of taking Dominatrix despite the name, though it is more common in women than men.

[Donny Brook]

Here's another one I just thought up:

Who Wouldn't Want a Cheap Bonus on These talent:

Acrobatics, Autohypnosis, Blind Fighting, Breath Control, Detect Lies, Diplomacy, Intelligence Analysis, Judo, Mind Block, Naturalist, Physician, Psychology, Staff, Sleight of Hand, Sling, Tactics.

And this one:

Point Crockadile Dundee talent

Climbing, Jumping, Running, Hiking, Throwing, Stealth, Swimming, Driving (or Riding depending on TL), Brawling, Wrestling.