📚 Skill System

Half-Stat Defaulting

Source: Pyramid #3/65, p.30 — Douglas Cole (March 2014)

Overview

One of the nice parts of GURPS game mechanics is the ability to do many things "by default." Your basic coordination (DX), ability to resolutely process and act on information (IQ, Per, Will), and power and fitness (ST and HT) enable you to execute nearly any task, given a calm environment and enough time.

Those last two considerations are important, because for average folks (stats in the 9-11 range), defaults are based on your controlling attribute at -4 (for Easy skills) to -6 (Hard skills). You'll be rolling anywhere from 3 to 7 in stressful conditions (always less than 15% chance of success), necessitating taking extra time or searching for ways to gain bonuses to the roll.

This turns around at high attribute levels. Spend enough points for DX or IQ 18 (160 points!), and you're defaulting to a professional level of skill even on Hard skills, under stress. Among some gamers, this has led to a strong belief (sometimes referred to as "stat normalization") that high attribute levels should be curtailed in all but the most cinematic games.

Finally, the difference between the broadest Talents (15/level) and raising all of your physical or mental skills via DX or IQ (20/level) just isn't that large. The temptation to pump up your attributes is pretty high.

Half-Stat Defaulting

Changing how skills default doesn't alter the fairly satisfying results at average attribute levels, but tamps down the power of very high attributes — and gives a boost at lower levels, making reduced scores a bit more palatable.

Instead of the usual default attribute values for Easy, Average, and Hard skills, convert these defaults to half-stat by changing the basis for all defaults to Attribute/2 (round fractions down) plus a modifier. The modifier equals the normal default penalty (expressed as a negative number) plus 5.

Examples: Thaumatology has a default of IQ-7, and (-7 + 5) equals -2, so the half-stat default is Attribute/2-2. For Bicycling, with a default of DX-4, because (-4 + 5) equals 1, it would instead default to Attribute/2+1. Throwing, with its default of DX-3, would now default to Attribute/2+2, since (-3 + 5) equals 2.

This alteration has no impact at all on average human attribute levels of 10. Most Average skills default to Attribute/2 using the rules in the Basic Set, and Attribute/2 with this tweak — both produce a default of 5. At high attributes, the change is significant. An Average skill defaults to only 9 given IQ 18, instead of 13. Where the IQ 18 person could get and hold a job in almost any field based on his IQ alone using the rules in the Basic Set, using the half-stat system, the about the only way he can get that same job is to have some amount of training in it.

This change unifies the cost of skills as well; consult the Half-Stat Skill Cost Table (below) for new values. If the skill has no default, then for skill-cost purposes only, the "default" value equals Attribute/2 (round fractions down) plus a modifier: +1 for Easy skills, 0 for Average skills, and -1 for Hard and Very Hard skills. The GM may adjust this based on skill rarity. For example, Lasso is a common Hard skill with no Basic Set default. It would have a skill-cost default of (Attribute/2)-1.

Half-Stat Skill Cost Table

Skills are purchased by level above the half-stat default.

Impact of Half-Stat Defaulting

While the transformation of the defaulting rules is easy to do, the implications of the changes are large enough that the value of basic character building blocks are altered.

Attributes

The most obvious change is in the benefit of attributes! Half-stat defaulting effectively doubles the cost of a +1 to all derived skills. Prior to the change, you could effectively get a boost to all skills covered by IQ or DX at 20 points per +1, the rounding of half-stat defaulting increases this to 40 points for DX and IQ, and 20 points for HT and ST. Given the sheer value of such a large improvement, this might be considered "fair," but no matter what, it's a huge change. Players will also likely avoid starting at odd-numbered attribute levels, or even improving attributes, due to attribute defaults rounding down.

If the GM wishes to see more attribute improvement, he should consider increasing the frequency of raw attribute rolls by adding more challenge that rely on skills that the protagonists do not have. Do this enough, and the value of high (and odd-numbered) attributes will be preserved.

Skills

Two important side-effects occur when using the half-stat system as the basis for a default: Skills become more desirable, and the concept of relative skill level changes.

Points in Skills: In the Basic Set, it's always cheaper to focus on skill over attribute until you're interested in five or more skills, at which point it's better to focus on attributes. With half-stat defaulting, that balance point shifts to 10 or more skills.

Example: An acceptable heroic level in a melee combat skill such as Broadsword is 16, which is enough to give a decent Parry and for the occasional Deceptive Attack to the torso, with a decent chance of attacking the vitals (-3) or neck (-5) if the adventurer elects Committed or All-Out Attack. With a warrior-like DX 12, getting to 16 (or Attribute+4) in Broadsword costs 40 points in the attribute and 16 points in the skill, for a total of 56 points. Using the half-stat system to get the same stats, you must spend a total of 60 points: 40 points for DX 12 (which gives a default value of only 6) and 20 points for a 16 in Broadsword (which is bought at Default+10). Similarly, if you want DX 14 and a Broadsword of 16 in the half-stat system, you would need to spend 96 points, or 80 points for the attribute (which gives a default value of only 6) and 16 points for the skill (which is bought at Default+9), compared to 88 points under the Basic Set rules.

Because it is much more expensive to push a set of skills into the cinematic territory of 18+, the half-stat system may not be as appealing to such genres as GURPS Action, GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, and GURPS Monster Hunters. The knight template (GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 1: Adventurers, pp. 8-9) offers weapon skills in the range of 19 and 20; using the standard 250-point template, all DX-based skills will drop by 2 points due to increases in skill cost.

Relative Skill Level and Attribute Basis

Many concepts in GURPS use the relative skill level (p. B171) as a figure of merit. Wrestling, Karate, and Weapon Master (among others) give bonuses when reaching a minimum value. Likewise, when shifting the attribute basis of a skill (such as an IQ-based Guns roll), you use the relative skill level.

Shifting the attribute basis of a skill using half-stat defaulting works as normal. If you purchased a skill at Default+8, that +8 will move to any attribute just fine — just recalculate the default value of the new controlling attribute. (Don't forget to round down; moving from DX 12 to IQ 11 as the basis of a skill will result in a -1 to that skill.)

When looking at bonuses that apply when skills reach certain thresholds — such as the damage bonus for Weapon Master, or the boost to ST given by Wrestling — the new default values often mean that players spend more points to receive fewer benefits. To keep point expenditures in line with the spirit of the Basic Set, figure a proxy for comparative value as follows: Take the number of points spent in the skill and divide by 4. Modify that number based on the skill difficulty: +1 for an Easy skill, no change for Average, -1 for Hard, and -2 for Very Hard. Finally, drop fractions. Use that number as a proxy to determine when you get bonuses triggered by relative skill level.

Example: You have DX 13 and Karate-12. Karate is a hard skill with no listed default, so you bought it from a base of 5 (half of DX 13, minus 1 for the Hard skill) and spent 8 points to know it at Default+7. Technically, your relative skill is DX-1, which would mean no damage bonus. But to be fair, we instead use the formula above: 8 points divided by 4, minus 1 (because it's a Hard skill) equals 1, so you have a proxy relative skill of DX+1 and you do get a bonus.

This method keeps "relative skill" bonuses consistent (for the points spent) across the two methods, which is fair for things meant to represent benefits earned due to extensive training.

Talents

Large Talents are probably the big winner using Half-Stat defaults. The 10- and 15-point Talents especially become an excellent way to boost a group of relevant skills that are germane to your character, and take more levels before the cost compares unfavorably to just increasing your base attribute.

One outcome of the shift to half-stat defaulting is that the GM may wish to allow a certain number of levels in weapon-related Talents to offset what would otherwise be a drop in overall effectiveness of characters in certain genres.

Putting It in Practice

The entire point of this change is to decrease the value of high base attributes when it comes to influencing skills, making attributes less dominant in character creation. This opens up a broader range of attribute scores, since even with DX or IQ 20, your default for Average skills is only 10; you've spent 200 points to be meh at all skills, while Joe Average with DX and IQ of 10 can best you in any individual skill with only 4 points spent per skill. Of course, those same 4 points (Default+6) with an attribute of 20 jump you quickly to skill 16, which is credible, if not astoundingly heroic.

Due to the far-reaching nature of it, changing to the half-stat system would be devastating applied mid-campaign, as it would likely result in an overall decrease in character competency. The switch would likely increase niche protection for genres that require it, since you'll only see high scores in areas in which you overlap Talents with skill points, even in campaigns with large character point totals. In fact, using this concept would likely encourage starting point values for characters to go up by about 50-75 points, to compensate for a broad loss in competency by allowing a commensurate skill boost in niche-specific areas. Thus, this system is probably not a good idea for campaigns in which broad, overlapping competencies are required for success: It would be difficult to imagine the point cost of James Bond or Batman using this rules tweak!

Application to This Campaign

This campaign uses half-stat defaulting as a core rule. Combined with the flat 10-points-per-level attribute cost and the 10-attribute system, it ensures that skills matter far more than raw attributes. Characters in the encouraged attribute range of 11-13 will find that investing in specific skills is always more efficient than pumping attributes. The system rewards specialists and makes every skill point feel meaningful.

Worked Example: Broadsword (Melee Base 13)

• Character has DX 14, HT 12 → Melee Base = (14+12)÷2 = 13
• Broadsword is an Average skill with default penalty −5
• Half-stat default = (13÷2) − (5−5) = 6 (untrained skill level)
• Spend 1 pt → Default+4 → skill 10
• Spend 2 pts → Default+5 → skill 11
• Spend 4 pts → Default+6 → skill 12
• Spend 8 pts → Default+7 → skill 13
• Spend 12 pts → Default+8 → skill 14
• Spend 16 pts → Default+9 → skill 15
• Spend 20 pts → Default+10 → skill 16