Outdoorsman seems overcosted

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Black Leviathan

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.

Pretty much this.

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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.