4e Revised

[Donny Brook]

I'll second the remarks about computers and electronics.

Electronics Operation seems sort of appropriately divided, tbut the divisions don't hold up well for Electronics Repair. Is it really that different to repair security vs. surveillance vs. communications gear?

[acrosome]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

I'll second the remarks about computers and electronics.

Or any soldier, if your GM doesn't understand Soldier skill and tries to give all of them Savoir-Faire (Military), Armoury (Small Arms), Hiking, Gesture, Camouflage, Electronics Operations (Commo), Heraldry, Hazardous Materials, Engineer (Combat), NBC Suit, Tactics, Scrounging, Forward Observer, Survival (whatever), Explosives, etc., etc., etc.

This results in ridiculously high point totals for anyone who has ever been in the military. So just give them some Soldier skill and move on.

[dataweaver]

Originally Posted by Maz

I agree with a lot of the suggestions others have made about including some of the newer rules in a core book.

But mostly I would like a revised skill list. Cut down to half or less with more modular skills. And a system that allows for more specialisation if you want it.
What I mean is the same as was done for Guns. Where there used to be Pistol, SMG, Shotgun, Rifle, LMG and so on. It's reduced down to "pistol or longarm" and then with optional specialities. This would make it much easier for new people (and veterans as well).


I am also tired of the 1-sec combat turns. It turns into weird situations where a combat that took 1 hour around the table was just 5 seconds of ingame time.
But mostly my problem is with the actions not being equal. So if you get into melee. You can in one turn: take a step, make two attacks (using rapid strike), which is then defended against, and maybe you hit and roll damage. Then get attacked back, make an active defense, maybe get wounded and having to make a HT roll to avoid stun... Or you can start loading your gun (which takes 3 turns.).
So one player might have 3 turns of making 3-4 die rolls each turn. And another player does effectively nothing for those 3 turns (realoading), or getting up from prone. Or trying to shake a mental stun or similar situations.
My point is, you can both too much and too little in 1 sec. I like all the posibilities. I like the die-rolling. I like the action. But I would like for it to be more evened out.
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I know there are probably many ways I can change the rules to be more to my liking. If you have suggestions, then lets start a new thread about that instead of derailing this one. But I would prefer the core system to be more like that.

I'm not sure how much of this would be appropriate to a 4eR, as opposed to a 5e; but at the very least I would be in favor of the skills being grouped more like they are in GURPS Lite. And I wouldn't mind, say, a GURPS Action supplement that implements some sort of "longer combat rounds" optional system.

[Professor Phobos]

I would like to see the skill system be cleaned up a bit and reorganized.

Maybe every skill is in a nested hierarchy from "broad professional competence" to "specific training" with costs based on that.

So you can both grab "hey my guy knows a little first aid" for cheap and "I'm a doctor" - and the "Doctor" skill for not so cheap, and "Doctor", like "Soldier" basically covers the character concept in a one-stop shop, but you still have the ability to go more precise and granular as well.

Then Wildcards kills can be the optional cinematic "no, even broader than that!" super-skill level.

It's kind of tedious to have to go shopping around for every conceivable skill component of a character concept, sometimes.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Professor Phobos

Maybe every skill is in a nested hierarchy from "broad professional competence" to "specific training" with costs based on that.

And the great thing is, 4e already has the relevant rules for this, it would just require grouping appropriate skills together and then using the Optional Specialization rules - possibly allowing for specializations of specializations of specializations, allowing you to go all the way from a broad Very Hard skill to a narrow Easy skill. So in theory you could have a Very Hard skill that covers most of what a doctor does, with that being possible to split into multiple Hard skills, one of which would be Physician, then you can split Physician up into several Average skills, one of which could be something like Trauma Care (basically, Physician, but only for wounds), and then finally you can split Trauma Care into several Easy skills, one of which would be First Aid.

Doing that for every skill would certainly be a daunting task, however!

[Professor Phobos]

Could also help organizing/streamlining how defaults are handled, which is also a lot more tedious than it probably needs to be. You just always default up/down as needed on the relevant skill tree.

[Donny Brook]

I see the merit in these last few suggestions, but I don't think specialization is the answer for the portmanteau skills (Hobby, Professional and Expert). They basically work in the opposite direction -- superficial generalization rather than narrow specialization.

[Professor Phobos]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

I see the merit in these last few suggestions, but I don't think specialization is the answer for the portmanteau skills (Hobby, Professional and Expert). They basically work in the opposite direction -- superficial generalization rather than narrow specialization.

The Wild Talents supplement "Kerberos Club" had a build-your-own skill mechanic. I've always wondered what a GURPS equivalent would be; you'd presumably pick from a menu of "core topic areas" and then go with broad-but-shallow or deep-but-narrow interpretations from there.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Maz

I am also tired of the 1-sec combat turns. It turns into weird situations where a combat that took 1 hour around the table was just 5 seconds of ingame time.

The one-second turn fits well with the tactical rules, but can be grindingly slow at the gaming table.

The simple thing to do is incorporate the lulls in combat rules from Martial Arts and extend them to melees.

In real life, however, most unarmed or melee fights involving more than one person per side are over very quickly, as is any close range gun battle.

There will be a build up to the fight where everyone is doing Evaluate maneuvers and psyching themselves up, followed by a quick rush to combat in melee or unarmed combat.

Originally Posted by Maz

So one player might have 3 turns of making 3-4 die rolls each turn. And another player does effectively nothing for those 3 turns (reloading), or getting up from prone. Or trying to shake a mental stun or similar situations.

This is a valid complaint. If a player is effectively doing nothing for some or all of the fight, they've got little reason to remain engaged in the action. ("It's going to take Blackhand at least 10 seconds to pick that lock. Jason can temporarily play him if anything happens. I'm going to get the pizza.")

There are multiple solutions to this problem, but I'll reserve them for the spin-off thread.

[ehrbar]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

I'm not sure how much of this would be appropriate to a 4eR, as opposed to a 5e

Based on the level of revision that was involved going from GURPS 2nd to 3rd, almost every rules change that has been suggested in this thread has actually been a call for a 5th edition.