Price for a Universal Talent?

[JulianLW]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

The problem is with the brief, or unspoken implicit requirements within it. Talents are not for what you're looking for, and you don't like the pricing of doing with with Attributes. Oh well, GURPS won't let you price true invulnerability either.

Well, nobody has yet offered a trait that is Attributes minus everything but skills. And all the other ideas have some pretty serious flaws. Modular abilities would cost MORE than all the attributes at +1, so that's clearly wrong.

What about this:

IQ [20] + DX [20] + HT [10] - Speed [-10] - FP [-3], Accessibility: Skills Only -20%, for 30 points total?

That actually seems intuitively right to me. But I still suspect very few players in *actual games would take such a trait.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by JulianLW

Well, nobody has yet offered a trait that is Attributes minus everything but skills.

Sure we have. It's attributes (-0%, skills only). "Everything but skills" is simply not a meaningful limitation, at least when applied to DX and IQ.

[JulianLW]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Sure we have. It's attributes (-0%, skills only). "Everything but skills" is simply not a meaningful limitation, at least when applied to DX and IQ.

Hard disagree.

[JulianLW]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Sure we have. It's attributes (-0%, skills only). "Everything but skills" is simply not a meaningful limitation, at least when applied to DX and IQ.

There are so many places in GURPS where you have to roll against raw Attributes or where you get bonuses for Attributes. Even an Easy skill, you have to spend 2 points to get a bonus over the Attribute. For most skills, you have to spend 4 CP before you get a bonus over the Attribute.

Set aside rolls to avoid falling down, resistance rolls vs. poison or mental attacks, the bonus to Acting you get for having a higher IQ than your audience, rolls to smell things, hear things.... And on and on.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by JulianLW

Well, nobody has yet offered a trait that is Attributes minus everything but skills. And all the other ideas have some pretty serious flaws. Modular abilities would cost MORE than all the attributes at +1, so that's clearly wrong.

What about this:

IQ [20] + DX [20] + HT [10] - Speed [-10] - FP [-3], Accessibility: Skills Only -20%, for 30 points total?

That actually seems intuitively right to me. But I still suspect very few players in *actual games would take such a trait.

[30] sounds about right for me. I've previously suggested an Advantage called Training, which is specialized into DX or IQ, and costs [15] per level. Each level gives a +1 to skill level for trained skills that are nominally based on DX for the first, IQ/Will/Per for the second (Will and Per skills are rare enough, and Will and Per useful enough on their own, that I'm willing to lump them in - particularly considering IQ! is only [10]). The idea is so you can build a character who has high levels with a variety of same-attribute skills without being punished for not just making a DX-monkey or genius. Combining the two would cost [30] and cover everything but HT-based skills... but considering the argument for lumping Will and Per in with IQ also makes sense for lumping HT in with DX (few HT-based skills, HT useful on its own), just renaming the above to Training (Physical) and Training (Mental), with Physical covering all DX- and HT-based skills while Mental covers all IQ-, Per- and Will-based skills and keeping the [15]/level for each should work... and again, the two together would cost [30].

That is meant to explicitly be for trained skills (those with [1] or more in them), so it's not quite all skills. But the difference is small enough I'd be inclined to use [30] for all skills, even those operating from a default - requiring the skills be trained for the trait is more for flavor than balance.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by JulianLW

Well, nobody has yet offered a trait that is Attributes minus everything but skills. And all the other ideas have some pretty serious flaws. Modular abilities would cost MORE than all the attributes at +1, so that's clearly wrong.

What about this:

IQ [20] + DX [20] + HT [10] - Speed [-10] - FP [-3], Accessibility: Skills Only -20%, for 30 points total?

That actually seems intuitively right to me. But I still suspect very few players in *actual games would take such a trait.

I can see some merit in that, although it would leave out the one or two ST based skills I think exist.

Also, it's in the same ballpark as the Modular Abilities build would be if adjusted with a some kind of Accessibility Limitation to address your earlier point about excess levels in skills you don't have.

[dataweaver]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Even if you assume -20% eliminates 20% of all uses, "skills only" is still not -20%; DX and IQ rolls that either do not involve a skill, or cannot be replaced by a skill if you have that skill, are extremely rare.

The core problem with this concept is that it's trying to force a square peg into a round hole. Talents are intended to be narrower than attributes.

But that's not what I'm doing.

Originally Posted by Anthony

Now, I think this is trying to fix a real problem with GURPS: building a character who is broadly competent (including both DX and IQ) rather than tightly focused does not work well. However, I would not try to patch around it by inventive cost accounting with the talent system, I'd just house rule the base system, probably by totally rewriting attribute costs.

This it's what I'm doing. Look up Jack of All Trades in PU3:Talents and you'll see what I mean.

[dataweaver]

Originally Posted by Varyon

[30] sounds about right for me. I've previously suggested an Advantage called Training, which is specialized into DX or IQ, and costs [15] per level. Each level gives a +1 to skill level for trained skills that are nominally based on DX for the first, IQ/Will/Per for the second (Will and Per skills are rare enough, and Will and Per useful enough on their own, that I'm willing to lump them in - particularly considering IQ! is only [10]). The idea is so you can build a character who has high levels with a variety of same-attribute skills without being punished for not just making a DX-monkey or genius. Combining the two would cost [30] and cover everything but HT-based skills... but considering the argument for lumping Will and Per in with IQ also makes sense for lumping HT in with DX (few HT-based skills, HT useful on its own), just renaming the above to Training (Physical) and Training (Mental), with Physical covering all DX- and HT-based skills while Mental covers all IQ-, Per- and Will-based skills and keeping the [15]/level for each should work... and again, the two together would cost [30].

That is meant to explicitly be for trained skills (those with [1] or more in them), so it's not quite all skills. But the difference is small enough I'd be inclined to use [30] for all skills, even those operating from a default - requiring the skills be trained for the trait is more for flavor than balance.

This is where I'm at. A 30-point “Talent!” to cover skills you have points in, plus the 10-point Jack of All Trades to cover skills you don't have points in, gives you 40 points per +1 to every skill in the game. That's comparable to DX+1 and IQ+1 (which would cover most skills), but replaces the non-skill uses of DX and IQ with the skills that DX and IQ miss. Seems a fair trade to me.

[malloyd]

Another way to think about this might be to price it from the other end. Suppose you bought 15 levels of it, for a +15 to all skill rolls. If you could attempt a skill roll at all without your "talent" you automatically succeed.

Super Luck lets you do that once per hour for 100 points. Abusing Game Time and inverting Limited Use 1/day suggests that being able to call all your rolls automatic successes is a 167 point advantage, divide by 15 and it's worth 11 or 12 points/level. Mind you I don't particularly agree with some of that chain of logic either (no [way] would a I rate Super Luck, any time you want, that low) but it's as fair as any of the other rules twists to get a price proposed in this thread.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by JulianLW

Accessibility: Skills Only -20%.

Note that Luck offers -20% for limitation to a particular [theme], a much more limited set than "all skills", on something that starts off applying to more than just skills and non-skill attribute rolls. I honestly think -0% is right, but it's definately not as high as -20%. Consider also accessiblity, which pegs -20% as half the time or so, no way are non-skill attribute rolls equally as common as skill rolls. I might believe 1/5 as common, which would put you near the line for -5% accessibility.