Which skills are worh raising really high?

[maximara]

From the GURPSwiki:

Extremely High Skill Not Needed

At first glance a mythological hero able to skewer foes while fighting from his back, with the wrong hand, while dealing with poor lighting, and injuries would seem to require a 40+ skill but there is a saner (and cheaper) way to do this.

The warrior should be a master (level 20) in their base weapon skill, have the Blind Fighting skill (which negates darkness penalties), High Pain Threshold, and the techniques Ground Fighting, Hit Location and Off-Hand Training (removing penalties for position, hit location and off-handedness respectively).

"The essential point here is that highly-skilled character concepts can be realized in GURPS through the artful use of reasonable skill levels that do not break the system." - Compendium I p. 114-115

Sending skills or attributes into orbit IMHO ignores all the other ways that can produce similar effects. The fan made GURPS Mummy did this and the wiki provides ways to not do that...and the original was using attribute 40+ (yes that is forty plus) to do its thing.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by maximara

Why not use Cinematic Rule Flesh Wounds instead?

* ignore all but 1 HP (or FP) of damage... at the cost of one unspent character point fits the tone of of an Action setting.

You can't spend a character point usually to do Flesh Wounds for someone else. It also costs a character or impulse point, which means you need one to spend.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

You can't spend a character point usually to do Flesh Wounds for someone else. It also costs a character or impulse point, which means you need one to spend.

Everyone start with a "reserve" of character points or have Healing (can only be used to heal injuries, can only be used in conjunction with First Aid) which likely will reduce the cost of Healing to where it is cheaper than sending the relevant skill into orbit.

There are plenty of tools in the GURPS rule toolbox other than the 'send attribute/skill into orbit' method.

[kirbwarrior]

I've seen a few posts that cover some of what I thought, but I'll write it all out;

In my games there are skill groups of what should be the minimum skill level in something based on the word "reliable";

Regular skills - 12
Melee combat skills - 14
Ranged combat skills - 16
Contested skills - 16

Those last two are that high because of the sheer amount of effective "penalties" that can crop up. Ranged combat can easily get -30 in penalties, giving a skill 40 person trouble. Contested skills, especially influence skills, are really easy to fail because their roll has an effect on things (even a skill 10 difference is fairly unreliable from what I've seen).

For other skills, you'd want to look at the maximum penalties they can receive. If a given skill can get a -10, then 26 is a good upper limit. If it can get -32, then 48 is a good upper limit.

This is all ignoring things like Magic and supernatural effects. There's a weird Rule of 16, but also many Magic skills largely can scale indefinitely, meaning that a 70 in a given spell might still not give you everything that spell can do.

But, that's also in a vacuum. Characters generally get much more out of wide investments than high investments. DX20 is going to do so much more than a 58+ in any given skill, even though both are 200pts. However, if we are looking at budgets where you can casually bring all skills you want to 30+ and you want to know which ones actually mean something that high, then this all makes sense.

[Farmer]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Ranged combat can easily get -30 in penalties, giving a skill 40 person trouble.

At -30, it should be extraordinarily difficult, and that's why there are so many things you can do to counteract range. Aiming, scopes and/or other targeting methods, Zen archery/marksmanship/etc.

What "easy" to obtain -30 situations are you seeing regularly?

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by maximara

From the GURPSwiki:

Extremely High Skill Not Needed

At first glance a mythological hero able to skewer foes while fighting from his back, with the wrong hand, while dealing with poor lighting, and injuries would seem to require a 40+ skill but there is a saner (and cheaper) way to do this.

The warrior should be a master (level 20) in their base weapon skill, have the Blind Fighting skill (which negates darkness penalties), High Pain Threshold, and the techniques Ground Fighting, Hit Location and Off-Hand Training (removing penalties for position, hit location and off-handedness respectively).

That's all very well and good, but that's enough in techniques that it's not much cheaper than buying skill, and it's far more limited in application. Also, Blind Fighting requires TbaM, so it's really not a cheap solution at all. Using Blind Fighting to target specific locations draws an extra -2, and hit location techniques are highly specific (they must specify Skill, the exact type of attack, and the exact location) and only remove half the base penalty. Thus you still need a pile of skill to make them work reliably, especially with Blind Fighting's extra -2.

You're looking at about 10 points in perks and techniques for your suggestion, plus the TbaM [30] advantage. That won't pay for a skill of 40, but it will pay for skill-30 (counting the skill-20 your build suggests). In certain situations your build is better, but in a great many others it is not - it lacks flexibility. It also requires a lot more system mastery to build and run - it's not nearly as simple, and some players would find it fiddly.

Originally Posted by Farmer

At -30, it should be extraordinarily difficult, and that's why there are so many things you can do to counteract range. Aiming, scopes and/or other targeting methods, Zen archery/marksmanship/etc.

What "easy" to obtain -30 situations are you seeing regularly?

Zen Archery requires either Trained by a Master [30] or Weapon Master [20+], both cinematic. I'd assume you'd take the latter, as TbaM has no direct bonus to bows. It also requires a 1+ points in Meditation. Assuming Zen Archery-20 (so as to have 16- after two turns of prep and thus not take too long to use it), and noting that Zen Archery is IQ/VH and thus likely to cost 28 points (assumes IQ15, which seems fairly generous for what's probably a DX-based character) or more. That's 49+ points spent to avoid having to have an extremely high Bow skill. If the build has Bow-18 (minimum for Zen Archery), spending all this on Bow would get Bow-30. You'd lose out on the +2 damage from WM, but in return you'd find everything else easier. Where such a build might be useful is a cinematic campaign where TbaM and/or WM grants the use of some techniques otherwise unavailable, or a game where there are caps on skills. In most situations where you're shooting a bow, Bow-30 will beat Zen Archery (and where it doesn't, it's probably the extra damage from WM that's doing the work).

As for -30 in ranged combat... Well, aiming at chinks that aren't on the torso (probably eye-slits) is -10. Move and Attack using a bow or longarm is -4 to -7. Lighting penalties are common. Light cover/concealment is -2. That's an easy -20 so far. Range and Size can bring the rest. Now, a GM might well say "that sort of shot shouldn't be possible anyway), and that's fine, and for their game they'd want to cap skills and limit cinematic options that would allow such a shot. Other groups find this reasonable for very (very, very) skilled characters, and will allow it.

My SF game has PCs running from 800 to about 1300 points, and some have gun/beam skills in the 30-39 range. Honestly, the high skill level isn't the major problem with them. The primary problem is from the stats lasers have in Ultra-Tech - RoF 10, Rcl 1. Heck, with Acc 6 for pistols and Acc 12 for rifles, user skill is very much not the problem as even mediocre shooters can put most shots into a target when they get +14 (Acc + RoF bonus) from the gun (though their enormous skill levels do let them not Aim, and still spread fire across multiple targets whilst shooting them in the Vitals at range).

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Rupert

That's all very well and good, but that's enough in techniques that it's not much cheaper than buying skill, and it's far more limited in application.

Well it is from Classic when DX based skills were twice what they are now from the 8 point into skill level (8 more points per level). Also the GM should ask themselves how often with the character be running into situations where they need skills past 20.

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by maximara

Well it is from Classic when DX based skills were twice what they are now from the 8 point into skill level (8 more points per level). Also the GM should ask themselves how often with the character be running into situations where they need skills past 20.

They're not going to be "running into" those situations. They're going to be actively seeking them out.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by maximara

Well it is from Classic when DX based skills were twice what they are now from the 8 point into skill level (8 more points per level). Also the GM should ask themselves how often with the character be running into situations where they need skills past 20.

3e's rules for skill costs absolutely hosed physical characters compared to mental based ones.

In both 3e and 4e combat skills over 20 are really useful. They let you retain your high hit chance (and thus crit chance) while shooting at range or whilst aiming for small hit locations (or using Deceptive Attacks in 4e) in melee. With skill-20 you sacrifice hit/crit chance simply by aiming for the skull (-5), for example.

I'd say skills over 20, and certainly over 25 are cinematic in their effect in the game, though in a way that's a bit different to using the various cinematic advantages, techniques, optional rules, etc.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Farmer

At -30, it should be extraordinarily difficult, and that's why there are so many things you can do to counteract range. Aiming, scopes and/or other targeting methods, Zen archery/marksmanship/etc.

What "easy" to obtain -30 situations are you seeing regularly?

Rupert said a lot of it, but ranged combat has the highest number of penalties of any skill that I've seen;

Even 100yds can sometimes be too close and that's -10. It can easily climb up much higher.
You don't always have time to aim. Or use the normally readily available tools.
Getting 100+yds away isn't always a matter of horizontal distance. Sometimes you've got bad footing from being in a helicopter your friend is fighting for control over.
Distraction is fairly common. Getting ONE shot off before taking time to put out is generally better than waiting to put out the fire and being too late.
Fighting in the day gives away your position. -5 to -8 for lighting isn't unusual
How many bullets do you need to hit with? RoF gives a tiny bonus compared to how well you have to roll to hit with those bullets.
Sometimes leaving the target alive isn't an option. If they have kevlar or other chest protection, you're looking at -7 to -10 for brain shots
Sometimes you don't have a good angle. Concealment has penalties but so does trying to shoot through a window at a sharp angle (where you might effectively only have a couple inches to shoot through). This is at best -2
Are you able to stand still to take the shot? Or are you sliding down a hill? Getting pulled along by chains behind a car, trying to shoot the driver so you don't take much damage? Falling down a building because there's literally no other way to get to your target?

In ranged combat where both sides know the other is there and things tend to be fair for both sides doesn't accrue giant penalties. It's when being found and being dead are synonymous that they do. Or when the world is falling apart around you and you have to take the shot NOW.

Now, that can be pretty extreme. But I've definitely seen situations where the player thinks they need to take a shot and the GM says "Okay, -25 from all these things." and the player rolls because sometimes you need a one in a million with your 28 skill.

*I didn't add Deceptive Attack to the list because I frankly can't recall if you can do that with ranged weapons. Otherwise, that's another giant penalty sink