11-30-2020, 09:00 AM | #21 | |
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: earth....I think.
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Re: Outdoorsman seems overcosted
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I have, in my own games, changed the cost of several advantages because they are either irrelevant or something that is very helpful OR something that everyone should have. Irrelevant advantages and skills tend to get the cost cut by a lot. You want your character to have the fishing skill? even though that may never pop up in the game? Ok, sure, take it as a perk and if there is ever a moment where your character can fish, just describe what happens, no need to roll. Combat heavy game, ambidexterity gets a bump up in cost since it is very helpful. Same with fit/very fit, etc. everyone is capable of using imbuement skills? 0 points, its a feature of the setting. If something costs too much (or too little!) in YOUR game, then ask if it would ever come up? Do you want players to take it? |
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12-06-2020, 12:59 AM | #22 |
Join Date: Sep 2018
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Re: Outdoorsman seems overcosted
If you don't think the advantage is worth it.. don't buy it?
None of the talents are very economical unless you think you'll get use out of the skills. Outdoorsman has a number of pretty useful skills adventure-wise. It's also skills mostly based on IQ, which a lot of Nature type characters often sacrifice for DX. If you're going to put points into three of the skills in a 10 pt talent then you're making CP back plus getting a good reaction mod, another thing nature-type characters can end up short on. |
12-07-2020, 08:24 AM | #23 | |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: Outdoorsman seems overcosted
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— The game isn't about optimization but characterization. Barbarians and scouts are meant to be outdoorsmen because those are archetypes found in tons of fantasy. If you want to make other archetypes (like a consummate archer who isn't a ranger, or a hulking brute warrior who isn't a tribesman), just do it . . . it isn't hard. That said, most of those roles are doable with the knight template and suitable use of discretionary points and options; a by-the-book knight can have ST 18, Weapon Bond (Bow), Weapon Master (Bow), and effective Bow-18, for instance. Also, once you move beyond "use the game in the box" to "mess with all the dials and switches in GURPS, including writing your own templates and trying to optimize characters," you might as well use it all. GURPS Power-Ups 3: Talents is full of alternative benefits that might better satisfy the needs of your gaming table: +1/level to all Influence rolls with plants, animals, and nature beings; +1/level to all default rolls to use any skill in outdoor survival situations; +1/level to all Per rolls made outdoors; remove -1/level for lack of outdoor survival gear; the equivalent of Danger Sense that only works in wilderness areas, rolled at Per-4, +1/level; etc. You could even let each buyer of Outdoorsman pick one benefit from the list.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
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10-02-2022, 10:59 AM | #24 | |
Join Date: Jan 2008
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Re: Outdoorsman seems overcosted
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If a Scout were allowed to swap Outdoorsman for IQ +1, they'd get a +1 boost instead to the following mandatory ten skills: Camouflage, Cartography, Gesture, Mimicry (Bird Calls), Navigation, Observation, Shadowing, Survival, Tracking, Traps. Also any of these optional skills: Armory, First Aid, Prospecting, Seamanship, Search, Weather Sense. At least for Scouts, it doesn't take off-template investment to make IQ pay off. Nevertheless, I think it's fine for Scouts to be tied to the Outdoorsman idiom: it's fine to have inefficient investments. My only complaint is that so many of the Outdoorsman skills are inexplicably off-template for Scouts: Disguise (Animals), Fishing, Mimicry (Animal Sounds), and Naturalist are 100% idiomatic for scouts in my opinion. Of course it's easy to add them as optional skills to the template, which also gives Scouts more of a reason not to just invest all 8 optional points in Bow instead. |
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10-09-2022, 06:36 PM | #25 | |
Join Date: Dec 2004
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Re: Outdoorsman seems overcosted
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If that's not enough, make the bonus apply not just to HT but all Attribute rolls in the wilderness - DX to avoid tripping over undergrowth, Per to hear an animal in the distance, etc. That should make it a good deal. |
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