GURPS Back to School

[Solomon Draak]

From Back To School - Body Training (pg 12 ):

* GURPS distinguishes “learning” – improving skills, IQ, and DX – from training functional strength and fitness to develop more purely physical traits. The latter includes raising ST, HT, HP, FP, Basic Speed, and Basic Move; gaining physical advantages and perks; and losing physical disadvantages and quirks. It’s an option even for individuals with Cannot Learn (p. 14). Anyone may make such improvements incidentally while practicing athletic or martial-arts skills, or skills used in physical labor, or directly through focused efforts like weightlifting or functional strength training. There are several ways to represent this:
• If you make monthly study rolls with a primary focus on physical skills, the GM may let you assign study time to physical traits, especially buying off Unfit or adding Fit.
• If you put time into learning physical skills, the GM may also allow such time to count toward gaining appropriate physical traits.
• After an extended time acquiring physical skills, the GM may award points earmarked for a specific trait. Five points per six months is usually a reasonable ratio.
• Taking anabolic steroids (p. 14) lets you apply study time to ST or FP at double the normal rate – but with a risk of side effects.
• Point Conversion (pp. 10-11) can improve HT, just as it can DX or IQ. At least four different HT-based skills must contribute points. Direct training of physical traits – particularly ST, HT, and Fit (or removing Unfit) – is a common goal of athletes and movie actors.

There are two sentences that I find less than clear and mutually contradictory.

First:

• If you put time into learning physical skills, the GM may also allow such time to count toward gaining appropriate physical traits.

What does that means exactly? For example, if I spend 6 months 4 hours a day learning the Strength based skill Sport - powerlifting ( more or less 800 hours of self study = 2 character points ) do I get 2 points to spend in the skill AND ALSO 2 points to spend in my Strength trait ( so 4 points total )?

Second:

•After an extended time acquiring physical skills, the GM may award points earmarked for a specific trait. Five points per six months is usually a reasonable ratio.

So, if I spend 6 months doing powerlifting ( as above ) do I get 5 earmarked points too?

- - -

In short, using these rules, if I spend 6 months doing powerlifting how many points I get, and how can I spend them?

[zoncxs]

Using your example of doing 800 hours over 6 months and being a reasonable GM.

You get 2 cp to spend on your powerlifting skill. this also gives you 2 cp to spend on lifting ST.

Since you did this for 6 months straight, as a reasonable GM, you would also be rewarded with an additional 5 points to spend on Lifting ST.

So you would have 2cp for the skill and 7 for the Lifting ST.

[Solomon Draak]

So, if I want to train "pure" Strength:

• Point Conversion (pp. 10-11) can improve HT, just as it can DX or IQ. At least four different HT-based skills must contribute points. Direct training of physical traits – particularly ST, HT, and Fit (or removing Unfit) – is a common goal of athletes and movie actors.

Barring using steroids, what must a character do?
I guess training four ST based skills, but how much, how long?

From the basic manual 3rd edition, to go from average ( ST 10 ) to weightlifter ( ST 16 ) takes 80 points.
So, let's say, the character trains four Sport skills based on ST ( powerlifting, body building, shot put, hammer throw ), and trains nostop, how much does it takes?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Solomon Draak

From the basic manual 3rd edition, to go from average ( ST 10 ) to weightlifter ( ST 16 ) takes 80 points.

If you're still using the 3e rules it takes twice as many pts after character creation. So for an existing character that would take 160 pts and it's all very much a House Rule in 3e.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Solomon Draak

There are two sentences that I find less than clear and mutually contradictory.

Those come from a list of several options for ways to having acquiring physical traits via the skill-learning mechanic. I wouldn't assume that they're all applicable at the same time. But I think the apparent contradiction is due to interpretation of those two sentences.

In this specific case (points earmarked for ST), the text is suggesting a rate for a plausible amount of in-game time the character should have spent working on acquiring the trait even if they've accumulated the CP for it and assigned those to improving the trait. That is, using this rule, merely coming up with 10 CP after, say, two gaming sessions, is not all that it takes to buy that +1 ST. There might be additional requirements than just having the CP before you can spend them; in this case, the character having put in six months of training to maintain some degree of verisimilitude rather than just "poof, I'm stronger now than I was yesterday". The points in this case aren't earned for the training. They came from elsewhere, the player stated an intent to spend them on ST as they were earned, and the time is a second gate that must be cleared.

What does that means exactly?

It means that you can use study hours accumulated while studying a skill to be spent instead on the underlying attribute or other related trait. That's not the same thing as getting double CP. It means you can (under this rule) spend the study points on something other than what the Basic rules allow -- which is just a skill, not any other kind of trait.

(Wandering off into English grammar, the exact position of adverbs often creates subtle differences in meaning. Not that the GURPS rules claim to be intentionally written to be parsed with this degree of precision hair-splitting.
But compare

"the GM may also allow such time to count toward gaining appropriate physical traits" (The GM may give you another choice for allocating that time when you normally just had one -- "also allow".)

to

"the GM may allow such time to count toward also gaining appropriate physical traits" (The GM may let that time count for two things at once, for double CP -- "also gaining".) Generally those adverbs want to affect the word closest to them.)

[Mr_Sandman]

Originally Posted by Solomon Draak

So, if I want to train "pure" Strength:

Barring using steroids, what must a character do?
I guess training four ST based skills, but how much, how long?

From the basic manual 3rd edition, to go from average ( ST 10 ) to weightlifter ( ST 16 ) takes 80 points.
So, let's say, the character trains four Sport skills based on ST ( powerlifting, body building, shot put, hammer throw ), and trains nostop, how much does it takes?

I don't believe there are any ST-based skills. Most skill rolls for sports skills would be made on DX or HT, even for sports that have a significant strength component. ST is odd man out among the basic attributes in a few ways.

My reading of the rules is that you can study physical skills that have some relation to strength and gain ST as a byproduct, OR just train ST directly. By default, it looks like the rate of CP gain should be same for training physical traits (ST, HT, Fit, etc.) as it is for learning skills.

These rules have a lot of options, depending on how the GM wants things to work. So the GM could use the system where you have to assign separate study time to body training, or use the system where hours applied to physical skills also counts for body training, or the system where after 6 months of studying physical skills, you are awarded 5 points earmarked to a physical trait. Or something else, since these are just recommendations and example alternatives, and GURPS really lets GMs do things like this any way they want.

In 4e, which Back to School is based on, it would take 60 points to go from ST 10 to ST 16. In theory, this could be done with 12,000 hours of training with a teacher (coach or trainer), but the connection between hours of learning or training and CP is a tenuous guideline at best. A character could have high ST or even high levels of a particular skill without any training, just due to natural aptitude or other reasons.

To make a long story short (too late), if you are a player, ask your GM how they want to do it. If you are a GM, decide what makes sense to you and what works for your campaign.

[Solomon Draak]

Oh my.
I didn't notice it was 4th edition, I just checked the first page.
I erroneously saved "Back to School" in the 3rd ed folder.

Sorry.