House Rule: Fixing 'High' Attributes?

[evileeyore]

One of the things about GURPS attributes that bugs me is that once it becomes cheaper to just raise a stat than the individual skills... the character begins to become better at everything connected to the attribute, not just those skills.

As a GM (and to some smaller degree) as a player this annoys me. To this end I propose and (and ask for commentary on) two possible house rules:


So I'm proposing "The Skill Rule of 16": When buying and defaulting skills attributes are capped at 16.

This actually gives Talents a place to shine and stops the obnoxious "With IQ 20, I have almost every skill at 14-16 for 'free'."


Your opinions? Will this break things? Will it solve my issue or am I missing something fundamental?

[Flyndaran]

There's already the rule of 20. Lowering it to the still obscenely high 16 shouldn't break anything, in my opinion.

[David Johnston2]

Or you could just not let people buy attributes (except ST) higher than 16.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Or you could just not let people buy attributes (except ST) higher than 16.

That's avoiding the problem rather than fixing it.
Kind of like suggesting setting a campaign in the desert to avoid broken swimming rules.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

That's avoiding the problem rather than fixing it.
Kind of like suggesting setting a campaign in the desert to avoid broken swimming rules.

Avoiding-rather-than-fixing is a widespread tradition among GURPS GMs.

[Anthony]

I'd recommend solving the problem by just changing the price of attributes, probably in a nonlinear manner. To be RAW-legal, just tack it on as an unusual background.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Avoiding-rather-than-fixing is a widespread tradition among GURPS GMs.

That's because a fix can deprecate all your supplements. I really want to run GURPS Cabal, for example, but if I substitute another magic system for vanilla magic, then I have to throw half the templates out the window, because they're all built from the assumption of GURPS Magic. So it's better to sort of avoid the problems I have with GURPS Magic than to actually address them.

(You get similar problems when working in programming frameworks: Rather than fix the underlying problem and throwing out all the support the framework gives you, you need to sometimes work around the quirk while hoping that the framework designers find a way to fix it)

[Ashtagon]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

That's avoiding the problem rather than fixing it.
Kind of like suggesting setting a campaign in the desert to avoid broken swimming rules.

No really. "Can't buy characteristic X" is a campaign setting feature. In a reasonably realistic setting, you wouldn't let a PC have the option of buying up magic or psionics skills; buying up core attributes above whatever level you specify should be no different.

I suppose you could say a character must have at least $number skills that are keyed off an attribute to raise it above a certain level. That kind of gets a little rules-lawyery for my tastes though.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by Ashtagon

No really. "Can't buy characteristic X" is a campaign setting feature. In a reasonably realistic setting, you wouldn't let a PC have the option of buying up magic or psionics skills; buying up core attributes above whatever level you specify should be no different.

I suppose you could say a character must have at least $number skills that are keyed off an attribute to raise it above a certain level. That kind of gets a little rules-lawyery for my tastes though.

There is even an optional rule with buckets of points (I think it is a Pyramid article, but I'm not sure - I don't have it - and I neither remember if "buckets" is the correct term)...

It allows to decide how many points the player can spend on attributes, how many he can spend on skills, and so on. Brief, it allows to create more realistic characters with higher starting point total without having to dictate: "You must not have basic attributes above 16!"

Now, as said by Ashtagon, every GM is free to dictate that Magic, Psionic or Super-powers are not allowed in his campaign (even if Magic, Psionic and Super-powers are in the rules). So, dictating that attribute scores above 16 are not realistic in a game world is just exactly the same thing.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

That's avoiding the problem rather than fixing it.
.

The proposed house rule simply creates a situation where there is no advantage to raising stats above 16. I see no difference between creating a situation where there is no advantage and just not allowing it except that not allowing it prevents stupid character design.