Perk Limit

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

If it helps, I suppose it's worth breaking it down in even more detail by saying that if a 150-point PC has 40 points in the skills of a fighting style and 20 points in the spells of a magical style, he can have six general perks, two unrestricted Style Perks, four additional Style Perks specific to his fighting style, one unrestricted Magic Perk, and two additional Magic Perks specific to his magical style.

Are those six general perks restricted to non-Style perks. In other words if this character has 6 Style perks already is he not able to take say Unlimited Ammo? Or can he count it as a general perk?

Also does Style Familiarity count against any of these limits?

EDIT: What if the character didn't have a style but still has 40 points in combat skills, does he still get 2 Style perks?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

Because the GM says you can't. Such rules are optional. If the referee chooses to use them in its' game, attempting to bypass the spirit of those rules is unlikely to go over well.

Apparently I'm talking Martian. I'm still trying to comprehend what the actual rules even are supposed to be to begin with. Every time I think I have a handle on it an author tells me I'm wrong.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

There are rules, however, for a limit in PU2. Why not just not have a Style and take them as General Perks, which apparently (at least according to Doug Cole and Shawn Fisher) you always can. It seems to totally disincentive Styles. I am confused. Of course this is all terribly off-topic. Apologies.

I know there are. But I have enough trouble explaining the in-style and out-of-style perk limits to newbies (and the self-admitted 'blonde' guy).
So I just say that non-combat perks have no limits. And combat perks can only be gained by MA limits.

My game. *shrug*

(I'm currently designing a 200-point character, and I doubt I can come up with more than 4 perks I'd actually buy. I'm currently settled on 3.)

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Apparently I'm talking Martian. I'm still trying to comprehend what the actual rules even are supposed to be to begin with. Every time I think I have a handle on it an author tells me I'm wrong.

The actual rules are supposed to be "whatever limits the GM wants to set".

As I understand the suggested rules though, I think part of your problem is wanting to divide the *perks* among Magical, Style and General. AFAICT that's not the intent. Your *slots* are divided among those categories, but any particular perk might conceivably go into any of three kinds of slots, if a Martial Arts and Magical Style you belong to both happened to list it.

Suppose for example you've taken the Onyx Path. DR is on the Lich template so Special Exercises (DR 1) is a legitimate magical perk for that style. It's also a reasonable style perk for many martial arts, Shaolin has it, albeit with the Tough Skin limitation, presumably a more cinematic version would allow it straight. In some settings it might be possible to acquire it through religious deprivation exercises taught by the Order of Desert Hermits, which wouldn't be either kind of style, so in this model would be a general perk. If you are an Onyx Path initiate with a Rainbow belt in Greater Shaolin who once studied with the Desert Hermits you can take it in any of those perk slots.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by malloyd

The actual rules are supposed to be "whatever limits the GM wants to set".

As I understand the suggested rules though, I think part of your problem is wanting to divide the *perks* among Magical, Style and General. AFAICT that's not the intent. Your *slots* are divided among those categories, but any particular perk might conceivably go into any of three kinds of slots, if a Martial Arts and Magical Style you belong to both happened to list it.

Suppose for example you've taken the Onyx Path. DR is on the Lich template so Special Exercises (DR 1) is a legitimate magical perk for that style. It's also a reasonable style perk for many martial arts, Shaolin has it, albeit with the Tough Skin limitation, presumably a more cinematic version would allow it straight. In some settings it might be possible to acquire it through religious deprivation exercises taught by the Order of Desert Hermits, which wouldn't be either kind of style, so in this model would be a general perk. If you are an Onyx Path initiate with a Rainbow belt in Greater Shaolin who once studied with the Desert Hermits you can take it in any of those perk slots.

Then when does the 1 Style Perk per 20 points in combat skills and techniques actually kick in? Why can't I just take those as General Perks?

[Langy]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Then when does the 1 Style Perk per 20 points in combat skills and techniques actually kick in? Why can't I just take those as General Perks?

Makes sense to me.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Langy

Makes sense to me.

What makes sense?

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Then when does the 1 Style Perk per 20 points in combat skills and techniques actually kick in?

Always. These are intended to allow people who didn't specify a style at all access to some perks.

Why can't I just take those as General Perks?

You often can take stuff you are calling General Perks. You can take anything in those slots you can make some sort of plausible connection to your combat (or magical) skills for. Unlike the 1/10 slots, the 1/20 slots aren't limited to anything listed under the Styles you bought Style Familiarities for. You get them even if you have no Style Familiarities at all.

Mind you I think the whole scheme of linking number of perks to skill points is ridiculous, and it does lead to some nonsensical results, but Kromm's description seems fairly clear. I think you're trying to read too much into the various names. "General", "Style" and "Magical" aren't being used as reserved words, which perks you can buy into which kinds of slots are judgement calls in except the 1/10 points ones, which are limited to those listed with the Style Familiarity under consideration.

Incidentally, it appears to be intended that you can buy that 1/10 for each style for which you have a Style Familiarity, counting the skill points in each. Suppose you buy Karate [10] and Judo [10] and buy two style familiarities out of your general allotment, say SF (Hsing I Chuan) and SF (Jeet Kune Do), both of which list Judo and Karate as skills. You can buy one perk you can convince the GM is somehow related to Judo or Karate (the 1/20 points), both perks listed under Hsing I Chuan (the 2 you get from that 20/10) and two chosen from the list of 6 under Jeet Kune Do (from that 20/10).

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Always. These are intended to allow people who didn't specify a style at all access to some perks.

If you can just take them as one of your 1/25 total character points Perks instead, how is the 1/20 of Combat Skills even really a limit? Except in the unlikely event you already have 6+ perks and want more?

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Should combat (and style) perks count against the suggested perk limit on page 3 of Power-Ups 2 or are they additional?

I can see two or three reasons why the designer (Sean Punch, AFAIK) might have chosen to suggest an imposed limit on Perks:

1. They are underpriced for what they do. If the real cost is between 0.7 and 1.2 CP per Perk, then an actual cost of 1 CP is fine, and there's no game balance need to impose limits on Perks. But if a significant subset of them are actually undercosted and ought to cost between 1.5 and 2.5 CP then imposing a limit makes sense.

2. They make the game more complicated, so the designer saw it as desirable to put in (suggested) mechanics to reduce their per-character prevalance.

Many Perks are simple in nature, you buy it, it lets you do X, or it does X on its own.

But Perks can also be complex, by adding extra rules such as an FP cost per use, or the necessity of a skill or attribute roll. Such "implicit Limitations" can be added to Perks in order to counter-act item #1 above (if you add an FP cost per use to a Perk whose true value is 1.7 CP then its true value will drop to something that's less than 1.7 CP), but adds to the complexity of the game, and so in turn the number of Perks-per-character gets limited in order to avoid high complexity.

I admit I haven't looked much as the Perks in Power-Ups nor in Magical Styles. 1 CP stuff has a tendency to fall "below my radar". If it's so cheap, my assumption is that it probably won't make a difference except once in a quite rare while. But what I do seem to recall points to most Perks being fairly simple, rather than laden down with usage Limiations or other usage restrictions. Even nonLimited Perks adds a slight degree of complexity to the character, for each Perk, although much less so than if item #2 is in force.

3. It's GURPS' old problem of getting players to actually invest appreciable amounts of CPs in skills of their own free will, during character creation, instead of buying high Attributes (and in 4E also Talents). So the various rules on Perk limits are there in order to reward for and encourage the practice of actually purchasing high skills.