Are proliferating perks a danger to GURPS?

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

I haven't seen it in play, but to me the issue isn't whether its imbalancing (it's probably too small to make a huge impact), but whether it's correctly priced/constrained, and sensible.

It seems to me that "too small to make a huge impact" is part and parcel of the definition of a 1pt Quirk. You start upping the prices for the perks, and people don't take them. They are supposed to be neat little things. They are also limited by how many points you've spent on combat skills, which is one of their balancing factors. In order to have three points of Armor Familiarity if it isn't in your style, you need 75pts (!) of combat skills...which makes you so badass that those 3 perks is really not even an issue.

[Harald387]

Originally Posted by Lupo

Again: the same is true of Broadsword skill, or any other weapon skill, yet it still costs 4 points per level to increase.

No. A character with Broadsword skill at 18 who is disarmed can use a Shortsword at 16, or pick up a light club and use it at 18; he can take a broadsword from an opponent and use that at 18, too. If you pick up an improvised weapon that uses Broadsword-2, you're at 16.

A character with Broadsword skill at 17 and Weapon Bond who is disarmed can use a Shortsword at 15, or pick up a light club and use it at 17, or take a broadsword from an opponent and use that at 17. If you pick up an improvised weapon that uses Broadsword-2, you're at 15.

This is why Weapon Bond is cheaper than Broadsword skill.

Originally Posted by Lupo

Moreover, GURPS rules *always* assume the worst case scenario - e.g., they price traits assuming you will make good use of them.

How is 'getting good value for the points you spend' a worst-case scenario? How does pricing a trait so that it's worth taking make it a bad thing?

Originally Posted by Lupo

Many Perks do not "buy off a penalty" - they improve a skill or defense. E.g. Grip Mastery (Spear/Staff) that gives +1 to parry.

This is one of those examples of where I believe your understanding of the perk's mechanics are flawed.

Grip Mastery lets you switch between available grips for the weapon you're using, once per turn, on your turn. It does nothing to directly affect your parry, it merely removes the 'penalty' of requiring a Ready action to shift grips.

Shifting to a Defensive grip gives a +1 to parry attacks from the front, and a -1 to parry attacks from the sides. Against an opponent who can flank you, this is a disadvantage rather than a benefit!

Earlier, you mentioned 'freely being able to shift back and forth from defensive grip to attack', and this is also not true. You can, indeed, attack once and shift to a defensive grip - but the turn after that, you need to use your free grip shift to go back to normal attack mode, and can't use Grip Mastery a second time that turn to go back to a defensive grip.

Originally Posted by Lupo

So SWT gives you +2 to skill, nearly always. That's not a "Perk" and most definitely it isn't worth 1 point.

No. This is why I said that 'removing a penalty' is not the same as 'adding to skill'. In this case, Shield-Wall Training removes a -2 penalty to attack. This is NOT the same as +2 to skill.

+2 to skill would give +1 to parry, +2 to resist feints, +2 to attack at all times, and 8 more points spent in combat skills (in games where 'number of skill points' determines 'number of available style perks, this is relevant).

Further, it removes this penalty only when you are using a large shield. If he is using a medium shield, he doesn't suddenly get a bonus. If he is awakened in the middle of the night and doesn't have the 10 seconds or so it takes to strap a large shield onto his arm, he's not getting a bonus. If his shield is destroyed by a greataxe-wielding barbarian, he doesn't get the bonus. If he decides to use a second weapon in his off-hand instead of a shield, he doesn't get a bonus.

Is the player going to design the character to take advantage of his combat abilities? I hope so; that's the point. That doesn't mean he's getting the bonus of the perk 'all the time', and doesn't make the perk unbalanced.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Lupo

Of course I am 'cheating' a little in that respect, since by the RAW you cannot buy as many Perks as you like; you are limited to 1 for each X points.
That's why I said that those increased prices are meant for a campaign where you have no "hard limit" on how many Perks you can buy.

I feel, though, that even if you use such limit, Perks should be better balanced. I see little reason for using "unbalanced" Perks - if they all cost 1 point, they should all be more or less equivalent; and if some are clearly more powerful than others, they should cost more.

I agree. No Perk should be overpowered, nor underpowered. If a Perk is incorrectly powered, it should be temporarily disallowed for PCs and NPCs, then fixed to become balanced, and then re-allowed.

[Pip Boy]

I don't see nothing wrong with any of those perks.

Reverse-engeneering traits isn't a fail-proof way to prove the ditto trait is badly priced. Combat Reflexes is a exemple (that I started on a thread myself about CR). I can think a lot of other exemples as that.

And as other have pointed, I see perks more as penalty offshooting other than skill bonuses. Form Mastery, when used with a staff/spear, only gives you the right to use your skills altogheter. Grip Mastery gives you a +1 to parry -- in case you use a Defensive Grip -- but there are penalties, like a extra -1 to side attacks, or -2 to skill when using a one-hand weapon, and reduced swing damage, AND the perk is specialized by weapon type. Harald387 said it above.

There are subtleties that you're putting aside, but actually enter on perks relevancy. And on its cost.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by malloyd

The ancient excuse is it has too many characters for any of the default code pages (which are 8 bit). Just because the space taken up by your text encoding has been of no importance at all since, oh, 1990, is no reason to change anything is it?

Isn't that what 'Disable advanced text services' is for in Windows? While I like modern codepages (like the hated Windows-1251*) to be at least vaguely DOS-compliant, they aren't in the first place, so there's no gain in making them oldstyle. Unicode seems to be the way to go anyway.

Originally Posted by malloyd

Besides, if you made it the default you might lose backward compatibility with software that expects 300 baud 7 bit ASCII teletype terminals.

Huh? I'm describing a generally hardware-independent choice of software. It shouldn't care whether your keyboard is a wireless ultimate, or a classical tty. You can still hit the ^ and then e on a tty to make the software produce a ê, or whatever Compose combo you might need.

* == Because many applications, and even some OEMs of Windows don't expect it, nor do most GNU programs expect it . . .

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by c2h5oh

Because the Windows US-Intl layout is poorly designed. Have you used it? It has been some years since I looked at it, but my memory is that it introduced dead keys, ligatures, and key modifiers in such a way that a standard US layout was not extended, but radically modified. Typing US-only character sequences required different key stroke sequences. I had a look at building an alternative key layout, but it was going to take a while to design, and for various reasons my need passed fairly quickly.

I am using it. It doesn't move around the standard 'US-only' characters. But it supports useful Compose combos and Right-Alt characters.

[SuedodeuS]

Originally Posted by Lupo

This is nonsense...
1) every fighter type can benefit from Heroic Charges or Flurry of Blows. This has nothing to do with "Armor Familiarity"
2) I well know the consequences of encumbrance on Move, Dodge and Fatigue. Every fighter suffer from those. This has nothing to do with "Armor Familiarity".
3) Fencers, Judokas and Karatekas suffer from an additional penalty: -1 to all attacks and defenses for each level of encumbrance (-3 at Medium and so on). Therefore those characters almost never wear heavy armor.
4) Armor Familiarity allows them to wear armor reducing the special penalty.
5) If they choose the Armor Familiarity perk, it's SURE they will have already decided to wear heavy armor. Therefore the AF perk will basically grant them +1 to attacks AND defenses for each point they spend on it. (e.g. +3 for 3 points).

I should have stated my stance more clearly. Or, you know, at all. Basically, Fencing characters tend to have low ST (compared to those using non-fencing skills). They need to rely more heavily on Extra Effort and general mobility, as well as raw skill (to attack high-point targets, and unarmored sections), than higher ST characters. I think armor, even with the Armor Familiarity Perk, is rather self-limiting for such characters. They can get away with a small bit of armor normally. They can partially get away with a bit more armor with the Perk, but those dodge, movement, and fatigue penalties mean they generally won't be as effective as their high ST counterparts (who can wear heavier armor, have more HP to withstand hits, and can use raw strength to dish out damage more effectively). The first level of the Perk is probably useful, but beyond that the character's mobility has dropped so much he isn't going to be in very good shape.

AF is kind of like an extremely limited version of Lifting ST. It's effectively several levels of Lifting ST (Only for determining encumbrance penalties to skill x). The modifier is less than -80%, but it's so limited use this might be considered acceptable.

[Lupo]

Originally Posted by Pip Boy

There are subtleties that you're putting aside, but actually enter on perks relevancy. And on its cost.

So some Perks (such as Grip Mastery) are not uber-munchkin... yet they are definitely worth more than 1 point.

SWT does not grant a bonus to weapon skill for defending and feinting, but it does grant a +2 bonus to attacks when you wield a Large Shield. And this IS worth more than 1 point.

I agree that the Perks impact can be quite minor, but this doesn't mean they are not unbalanced.

Anyway, I think I've made my point... some people agree that Perks are overpowered, (many) other people do not. I will stop here my rant :)

Truth is, for some people if a Perk has been officially published in a GURPS book, then it HAS to be fairly balanced and priced. Publication grant an automatic legitimacy to Perks.
I'd be ready to bet that if somebody on this forum proposed a Perk like Shield Wall Training *before* it was published on Martial Arts, 90% of those who now insist it's not underpriced would have said "That Perk is too powerful, Perks are for minor bonus, SWT grants +2 to attacks! Look at the Perks on Basic Set for comparison".

It's adamantly clear to me that published Perks have become more and more powerful (compare Basic Set to Martial Arts to Magical Styles), not for 'game balance' reasons but to make new books more attractive.

Perks in GURPS are similar to those very rare and very powerful cards in Magic the Gathering... by paying, you get to cheat :)

[vicky_molokh]

Well, SWT could've been made into a Technique, but the problem with that is that Techniques cost 25% of what skills cost, and often more because they're Hard. Realistically, a fighter with a meaningful style should have many more 'fav moves' than is reasonable to buy at this cost. Here come Perks.

Seriously, would you buy 3-6 Techniques to characterize your fighter's style?

[Celjabba]

Also, most of your complain seems to concern character that live, sleep, shower and travel in full armor, the large shield strapped on the arm and the bonded polearm in hand ...

celjabba