Extended Secondary Attributes

VIVIT · 07-06-2019, 09:43 PM

One of the things I thought was really clever and elegant about GURPS when I first started to really closely examine its rules was the idea of secondary attributes: Per is by default equal to IQ, but you can buy down Per to build an intelligent but absent-minded professor! Will is by default equal to IQ, but you can buy up Will to build a dimwitted but stouthearted warrior! FP is by default equal to HT, but you can buy up FP to give your feebly-constituted wizard more energy to work with! The concept was simple, yet added a lot of depth to character creation. I was confused as to why the option to adjust secondary attributes was omitted from GURPS Lite!

Once I got to reading advantages and disadvantages, and I noticed some pairs of advantages and disadvantages that were symmetrically opposite to one another. The first that comes to mind is Easy/Hard to Kill/Subdue. I wondered why these weren't secondary attributes, since they work more or less the same way, and they're both pretty useful if you're building a fighty character and want to not die. Then I realized that Easy to Subdue doesn't even exist! Many similar traits existed, having no effect except for a bonus or penalty applying only to specific uses of a basic attribute: Acute Senses, High Manual Dexterity even Magery and the various talents. I got to wondering how some of these might be turned into Secondary Attributes. Here's a list I came up with:

Cha [10*] - "Charisma", based on IQ, derived from Charisma. This should be comfortably familiar to newcomers from a background of D&D.
Mag [10] - "Magic", based on IQ, derived from Magery. Magery 0 becomes its own advantage, simply called Magery without any number after it. Without this advantage, you have no Mag attribute at all!
Man DX [2**] "Manual Dexterity", based DX, derived from High Manual Dexterity and Ham-Fisted.
Vig [2] - "Vigor", based on HT, derived from Hard to Subdue.
Vit [2] - "Vitality", based on HT, derived from Hard to kill and Easy to Kill.
Heal [1] - "Healing", based on HT, derived from Rapid Healing.

*The point cost is [10] rather than [5] firstly because buying down Cha would be mechanically equivalent to buying an Odious Personal Habit, but with the penalty that isn't dependent on culture and also applies to influence rolls, and secondly because buying up Cha would be bit like buying a medium-sized talent that applies its reaction bonus to literally everyone you talk to.

**This one was tricky. As an advantage, it's simple enough: it applies a bonus to DX for the purposes of any task involving fine motor skills with your hands, but as a disadvantage it comes in two levels and imposes a penalty of -3 per level rather than a -1 penalty. First we granularize Ham-Fisted by dividing the penalty and the point cost per level by 3 and round nearest for a disadvantage worth [-2] per level. We then lower the cost of High Manual Dexterity to [2] to match. (High Manual Dexterity is already overcosted; it's a lot like small Talent that only applies to DX-based rolls where more than one of its affected skills isn't based on DX, and also provides neither a reaction bonus nor a decrease in the time it takes to learn any of those skills, yet it costs as much as a regular small talent.)

For realistic campaigns, Will and Per both have a recommended buydown limit of 4 levels. It seems best to apply this rule differently to differently for different attributes. To match the limit of Ham-Fisted to two levels of -3 each, Man DX should have a buydown limit of 6 levels. And, of course, for the vast majority of campaigns, Mag should not be bought down at all!

Historical note:

Spoiler:

I don't have nearly as much experience with the system as I would like (scheduling is a bitch) so I'd appreciate it if some more experienced people could give their thoughts on this. Most of this is all theorycrafting on my part. What does experience say? What do you think players would be inclined to do when faced with these rules, and how do you think it would turn out?

07-06-2019, 09:43 PM	#1
VIVIT Join Date: Jun 2018 Location: The Wired	Extended Secondary Attributes One of the things I thought was really clever and elegant about GURPS when I first started to really closely examine its rules was the idea of secondary attributes: Per is by default equal to IQ, but you can buy down Per to build an intelligent but absent-minded professor! Will is by default equal to IQ, but you can buy up Will to build a dimwitted but stouthearted warrior! FP is by default equal to HT, but you can buy up FP to give your feebly-constituted wizard more energy to work with! The concept was simple, yet added a lot of depth to character creation. I was confused as to why the option to adjust secondary attributes was omitted from GURPS Lite! Once I got to reading advantages and disadvantages, and I noticed some pairs of advantages and disadvantages that were symmetrically opposite to one another. The first that comes to mind is Easy/Hard to Kill/Subdue. I wondered why these weren't secondary attributes, since they work more or less the same way, and they're both pretty useful if you're building a fighty character and want to not die. Then I realized that Easy to Subdue doesn't even exist! Many similar traits existed, having no effect except for a bonus or penalty applying only to specific uses of a basic attribute: Acute Senses, High Manual Dexterity even Magery and the various talents. I got to wondering how some of these might be turned into Secondary Attributes. Here's a list I came up with: Cha [10] - "Charisma", based on IQ, derived from Charisma. This should be comfortably familiar to newcomers from a background of D&D. Mag [10] - "Magic", based on IQ, derived from Magery. Magery 0* becomes its own advantage, simply called Magery without any number after it. Without this advantage, you have no Mag attribute at all! Man DX [2*] "Manual Dexterity", based DX, derived from High Manual Dexterity* and Ham-Fisted. Vig [2] - "Vigor", based on HT, derived from Hard to Subdue. Vit [2] - "Vitality", based on HT, derived from Hard to kill and Easy to Kill. Heal [1] - "Healing", based on HT, derived from Rapid Healing. The point cost is [10] rather than [5] firstly because buying down Cha would be mechanically equivalent to buying an Odious Personal Habit, but with the penalty that isn't dependent on culture and also applies to influence rolls, and secondly because buying up Cha would be bit like buying a medium-sized talent that applies its reaction bonus to literally everyone you talk to.* *This one was tricky. As an advantage, it's simple enough: it applies a bonus to DX for the purposes of any task involving fine motor skills with your hands, but as a disadvantage it comes in two levels and imposes a penalty of -3 per level rather than a -1 penalty. First we granularize Ham-Fisted* by dividing the penalty and the point cost per level by 3 and round nearest for a disadvantage worth [-2] per level. We then lower the cost of High Manual Dexterity to [2] to match. (High Manual Dexterity is already overcosted; it's a lot like small Talent that only applies to DX-based rolls where more than one of its affected skills isn't based on DX, and also provides neither a reaction bonus nor a decrease in the time it takes to learn any of those skills, yet it costs as much as a regular small talent.) For realistic campaigns, Will and Per both have a recommended buydown limit of 4 levels. It seems best to apply this rule differently to differently for different attributes. To match the limit of Ham-Fisted to two levels of -3 each, Man DX should have a buydown limit of 6 levels. And, of course, for the vast majority of campaigns, Mag should not be bought down at all! Historical note: Spoiler: Until 4e, Will didn't exist as secondary characteristics, and Per didn't exist at all. The core traits of a character were the four primary attributes, plus Mvmt (Basic Speed and Move) and Swing/Thrust damage rolls. Basic Lift did not exist. Everything else was expressed through advantages, disadvantages, and skills. The Will attribute was split into the advantage Strong Will and the disadvantage Weak Will. Even the rules for buying up HP were listed among the advantages. This greatly simplifies the central rules of character generation. New players building only need concern themselves with spending their points on basic attributes, looking up some die rolls in a table, and performing, in sequence, the mathematical operations of addition, division, and truncation. GURPS Lite 4e had the right idea when it omitted the rules for buying Will and Per, but it didn't omit the Will and Per attributes themselves -- they just say that Will and Per are equal to IQ. This seems liable to cause confusion for the very sort of player for which GURPS Lite is intended: if Will and Per are equal to IQ, why not just use IQ? Well, 3e does just that, and modifies the roll by your levels in Strong/Weak Will. This unfortunately means that there are lots of rules in 3e say "roll IQ (Strong/Weak Will counts!)" where 4e would just say "roll Will". My idea is to solve both problems by making more attributes out of applicable advantages and disadvantages. I don't have nearly as much experience with the system as I would like (scheduling is a bitch) so I'd appreciate it if some more experienced people could give their thoughts on this. Most of this is all theorycrafting on my part. What does experience say? What do you think players would be inclined to do when faced with these rules, and how do you think it would turn out?