06-23-2021, 08:20 AM | #51 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Transient Advantages
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Any dichotomy that has Skills being what you learn and Attributes being what you were born with is a false one as far as Gurps is concerned.
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Fred Brackin |
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06-23-2021, 08:27 AM | #52 | |
Hero of Democracy
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
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Re: Transient Advantages
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I'm in this camp: cybernetics that cost points often run into trouble when compared to wealth. For a different version of the problem, look at guns and blaster supers. I've often seen people suggest that iron-man type suits in supers games should be paid for with points, not cash and wealth, because that's the currency and paradigm the game is playing in. Conversely, in most cyberpunk games, I don't charge character points for most cybernetics, because they are just gear you happen to attach to your body, and we're working in a gear paradigm*. I find that in most settings and campaigns, it makes sense to classify effects as paid for with points, or as paid for with cash. This is a setting choice, and every-time I play with cybernetics, its one of the first decisions I make. *I do make exception for a data jack that provides capabilities that gear really can't come close to matching. I also will charge Legal Powers points for innate abilities that can be taken places gear cannot... but that's usually magic or a racial template, not cybernetics.
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Be helpful, not pedantic Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one! |
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06-24-2021, 12:02 PM | #53 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Sweden, Stockholm
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Re: Transient Advantages
I've also pondered doing the exact same with cybernetics in my own campaign. We've got PSIs and stuff as well though, and not everyone may want to cyber-up themselves. Probably the Cybernetics will remain advantages, and I'll have to restrict really high-power stuff like advanced power armor to those who buy it with as an advantage with Gadget limitations. Not quite decided on how to approach it yet yet.
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"Prohibit the taking of omens, and do away with superstitious doubts. Then, until death itself comes, no calamity need be feared" |
06-24-2021, 05:54 PM | #54 | |
Join Date: May 2021
Location: Eastern Kentucky
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Re: Transient Advantages
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Now lets go to IQ. I know people that no matter what you did with them they will never be smart. They will never be able to just spend a tiny amount of time and suddenly be really good at something. Tons of those people exist. Once your born with a certain level of intelligence you can advance it by working your mind some. And the smarter you are the easier it would be to improve. If you are dumb as a coal bucket then your going to struggle to improve it a lot. I think it's pretty similar for DX though perhaps a bit more flexible than IQ. Now I agree you can take any old nobody off the street and build up their ST. The only limit would be their body frame. So a limitation on ST is perhaps not so good. HT is similar but again I think it has it's limits. A generally healthy person can really push up their HT but someone who is really sickly by nature is going to struggle there. Now if they aren't sickly by nature you can perhaps cure them and push it up. This one is the hardest for me to judge. So I could see varying my system proposed on another thread. You can improve IQ and DX as much as you improved it at the campaign start or +2 whichever is greater. Maybe strength and health can be improved more. Maybe by triple the initial improvement or to 20 whichever is greater. |
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06-24-2021, 06:59 PM | #55 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
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Re: Transient Advantages
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Two people with identical brainpower might have different IQ scores. One of them might just know more than the other. |
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06-24-2021, 09:00 PM | #56 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Transient Advantages
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You shouldn't even be trying to say things like "I want to play a character with an average intellignece who has gained a lot of IQ-based Skills." Once a character has put so many pts into IQ-based Skills that it would ahve been cheaper to build him with a higher IQ he probably should be re-built with that higher IQ. The condition of "I am very good with many IQ-based Skills." is basically indistinguishable in Gurps from having a high IQ.
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Fred Brackin |
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06-25-2021, 06:11 AM | #57 | |
Join Date: May 2021
Location: Eastern Kentucky
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Re: Transient Advantages
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I find it unsatisfactory though from a gaming perspective that you can spend the points to raise IQ which is the equivalent of raising 5 skills (at higher levels) and raise 20 instead. It seems in this situation that anyone playing an IQ based player would just push up IQ and forget entirely about skills. This is probably why I am on the fence about whether the "cost" to advance a stat should keep getting more expensive each time you improve it. So it's easy at lower levels (it is easier) and harder at higher levels (realistically impossible for most people). So if you are going to focus on IQ based skills then you would push up your IQ to a reasonable limit but at some point it would still be better to advance your skills. I would not say my players are munchkins but I would say that within their character concept they are optimizers. I don't really see anything wrong with that. |
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06-25-2021, 07:31 AM | #58 | |||||
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
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Re: Transient Advantages
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Ask yourself, "How generally capable are the PCs compared to NPCs?" Then look at the "How to Select Basic Attributes" table on page B14. If you've got Template Toolkit 1, look at the expanded table on page 9. These give you "power levels" for each attribute, and what kind of person they describe. If you read "strongly defines the most capable of adventurers" and think, "The PCs shouldn't be that good... yet," then the Amazing level of 15–16 is probably too high for now, and you should limit attributes to 14. Not because it's impossible for a human being to reach higher, but because that's not the sort of character you want in the game. Maybe you'll raise the limit higher later as you think characters are allowed to enter the Amazing level. Quote:
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06-25-2021, 08:14 AM | #59 |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Transient Advantages
Well, almost. If using Familiarities, how many you get for free is based on how many points you've spent on the skill - someone with IQ 10 and Armory (Body Armor) at 15 has invested [20] in the skill and is thus familiar with up to 40 armor designs (assuming that's the way you handle Familiarity for Armory, I don't think there's any guidance there) from the beginning, while someone with IQ 16 and Armory (Melee Weapons) at 15 has only invested [1] in the skill and is thus familiar with up to 2 armor designs. It can also be important if floating to another attribute, although I think it's more common to float to IQ from something else than it is to float from IQ - for our Armory example, you might float to Per for searching for a particular tool in a workshop (or noticing something important about the anvil), but Per is based on IQ anyway. Floating to DX or HT for certain jobs might be appropriate, such as with some artistic embellishments or to work on a long project, but I'd expect such to be rare. This is more noticeable for DX-based skills, of course, as Familiarity is a bit better defined for those and it's more common to need to float to other attributes.
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GURPS Overhaul |
06-25-2021, 08:44 AM | #60 | |
Join Date: May 2021
Location: Eastern Kentucky
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Re: Transient Advantages
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So you are arguing with my stated reasons but not my approach. My approach was no more than double your initial buy in any stat or +2 whichever is greater. That means if you start out as a 15 you can go to 20. If you start out as a 14 you can go to 18. 10 and 11 can still go up by 2. Again with HT and ST I might have a different system. I will have to think that through. |
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