Skills

Skill List | DX-Based Skills | IQ-Based Skills

Skills

A "skill" is a particular kind of knowledge; for instance, judo, physics, auto mechanics, or a death spell. Every skill is separate, though some skills help you to learn others. Just as in real life, you start your career with some skills and can learn more if you spend time training. A number called "skill level" measures your ability with each of your skills: the higher the number, the greater your skill. For instance, "Shortsword-17" means a skill level of 17 with the shortsword. When you try to do something, you (or the GM) roll 3d against the appropriate skill, modified for that particular situation. If the number you roll is less than or equal to your modified score for that skill, you succeed! But a roll of 17 or 18 is an automatic failure. For more on skill rolls, modifiers, success, and failure, see Success Rolls.

Each skill is qualified in several ways to indicate what basic attribute represents talent with that skill, how easy the skill is to learn, any special restrictions on who can learn the skill, and whether the skill is broad or narrow in focus.

Choosing Your Beginning Skills

Like attributes and advantages, skills cost points. You should spend at least a few of your starting character points on skills. It would be extraordinarily unusual for anyone – even a young child – to have no skills at all!

Your starting skills must suit your background. The greater your Wealth and Status, the more leeway the GM will allow you in skill choice – the rich and powerful can arrange to learn the most surprising things. You cannot start with inappropriate skills, however. The GM is free to forbid any skill that simply would not be available to someone of your background. For instance, a stone-age hunter could not be a jet pilot, a Victorian gentleman would need an excellent explanation (and an Unusual Background) to start out as a skilled sorcerer, and a futuristic adventurer would have difficulty finding training in "archaic" weapon skills...though a military background would help.

Controlling Attribute

Each skill is based on one of the four basic attributes or, more rarely, on Perception or Will. Your skill level is calculated directly from this "controlling attribute": the higher your attribute score, the more effective you are with every skill based on it! If your character concept calls for many skills based on a given attribute, you should consider starting with a high level in that attribute, as this will be most cost-effective in the long run.

ST-based skills depend wholly on brawn, and are very rare. ST determines the power you can bring to bear with DX-based skills far more often than it affects skill levels directly. DX-based skills rely on coordination, reflexes, and steady hands. This is representative of athletic and combat skills, and most vehicle-operation skills.

IQ-based skills require knowledge, creativity, and reasoning ability. This includes all artistic, scientific, and social skills, as well as magic spells.

HT-based skills are governed by physical fitness. This includes any activity influenced by hygiene, posture, or lung capacity.

Perception-based skills involve spotting subtle differences. This is typical of skills used to detect clues and hidden objects.

Will-based skills hinge on mental focus and clarity of thought. Most allow one to resist mental attacks, bring about an altered mental state, or focus "inner strength."

Difficulty Level

Some fields demand more study and practice than others. GURPS uses four "difficulty levels" to rate the effort required to learn and improve a skill. The more difficult the skill, the more points you must spend to buy it at a given skill level.

Easy skills are things that anyone could do reasonably well after a short learning period – whether because they are second nature to most people or because there isn’t a whole lot to learn.

Average skills include most combat skills, mundane job skills, and the practical social and survival skills that ordinary people use daily. This is the most common difficulty level.

Hard skills require intensive formal study. This is typical of most "academic" skills, complex athletic and combat skills that require years of training, and all but the most powerful of magic spells.

Very Hard skills have prodigious scope, or are alien, counterintuitive, or deliberately shrouded in secrecy. The most fundamental of sciences, and many potent magic spells and secret martial-arts techniques, are Very Hard.

Tech-Level Modifiers

Technological skills work best with the specific artifacts and techniques of their own TL. When you work with equipment or concepts of a TL different from that of your skill, you suffer a penalty to your skill roll.

IQ-Based Technological Skills

IQ-based technological skills represent a studied technical understanding of the specific methods and tools common at a particular TL. There is a penalty to your skill roll when you use these skills with the equipment of a higher TL (which relies on scientific and engineering principles unknown to you) or a lower TL (which depends on principles that were, at best, a "historical footnote" during your training).

Equipment's TL	Skill Penalty
Skill's TL+4 or more	Impossible!
Skill's TL+3	-15
Skill's TL+2	-10
Skill's TL+1	-5
Skill's TL	0
Skill's TL-1	-1
Skill's TL-2	-3
Skill's TL-3	-5
Skill's TL-4	-7
Per extra -1 to TL	-2

Other Technological Skills

Technological skills based on attributes other than IQ let you use technology; they do not assume any real understanding of the science or engineering behind the tools. For instance, a TL5 gunslinger accustomed to firing a Colt Peacemaker might find a TL7 Colt Python a bit strange, but he would have little difficulty shooting it.

For skills like this, apply a flat penalty of -1 per TL of difference between the skill and the equipment. For instance, a TL5 gunman would be at -2 to shoot a TL7 revolver. It is irrelevant whether the equipment is more or less advanced – a TL7 policeman would be at -2 to fire a TL5 revolver, too.

Technological Skills

Certain skills are different at each tech level (see Technology Level). These "technological skills" are desig- nated by "/TL." This means that when you learn the skill, you must learn it at a specific tech level (TL). Always note the TL when you write down such a skill; e.g., "Surgery/TL4" for the TL4 version of Surgery skill. Surgery/TL4 (cut his arm off with an axe) is nothing like Surgery/TL9 (graft on a replacement arm from his clone)!

You learn technological skills at your personal TL. You may also choose skills from a lower TL. You can only learn skills from a higher TL in play – and only if you have a teacher and the skill is not based on IQ. To learn IQ-based technological skills from a higher TL, you must first raise your personal TL.

Technological skills rely on language, tool use, or both. This means that only sapient characters – those with IQ 6 or higher – may learn them.

Exception: Robots and the like can have IQ 5 or less and perform such skills by running programs...but of course programming isn't learning.

Prerequisites

Some skills have other skills as prerequisites. This is the case when an advanced skill is based on, and in some ways an outgrowth of, a basic one. To study the advanced skill, you must have at least one point in the prerequisite skill.

Certain skills also require that you know a prerequisite skill at a minimum skill level. Where this is the case, you must spend the points required to learn the prerequisite skill at the specified level before you can learn the advanced skill.

A few skills have advantages as prerequisites. In order to learn such a skill, you must possess the required advantage. If you do not have the advantage, and cannot acquire it in play, you can never learn that skill.

Specialties

An entry on the skill list may represent an entire category of closely related skills that share a single skill name. Examples include Armoury and Survival. Skills like this are marked with a dagger (†) in the list. The skills within such a category are called "specialties."

When you buy a general skill of this kind, you must specify which specialty you are learning. On your character sheet, note the name of the specialty in parentheses after the general skill name; e.g., "Armoury (Small Arms)" or "Survival (Arctic)."

You may learn skills like this any number of times, with a different specialty each time, because each specialty is a different skill. There is usually a favorable "default" between specialties (see Skill Defaults), which may let you purchase additional specialties more cheaply.

Grouped Skills

A set of distantly related skills that use identical rules may appear under a single heading to avoid repetition. If a skill description does not say that you must specialize, and indicates that it represents a collection of skills, then the subentries represent stand-alone skills – not specialties. Use only the name of the relevant subentry when you refer to such skills.

Example: Hand-to-hand weapon skills are grouped under Melee Weapon, but if you learn to use a shortsword, write "Shortsword," not "Melee Weapon (Shortsword)."

Optional Specialties

Many IQ-based skills – notably "academic" skills such as Literature and Physics – have countless subfields but do not require you to select a specialty. As written, if you learn a skill like this, you are a generalist, knowledgeable about every aspect of the skill. However, you may opt to specialize in a single, narrow area. You may only do this with an Average or harder IQ-based skill, and only if the GM agrees that the chosen subfield is logical given the skill and your TL.

Familiarity

Any skill used to operate equipment – e.g., Beam Weapons/TL11 (Pistol) or Driving/TL7 (Automobile) – takes a penalty when you are faced with an unfamiliar type of item. For instance, if you were trained on a laser pistol, a blaster pistol would be "unfamiliar." Assume that an unfamiliar piece of equipment gives -2 to skill except where an individual skill description specifies otherwise.

In general, if you have the skill to use a piece of equipment, you are considered familiar with a new make or model after you have had eight hours of practice with it. Some skills require more or less practice than this, so be sure to read the skill description.

There is no limit to the number of types of gun, car, plane, etc. you can become familiar with. Each of these items is called a "familiarity." If you have at least six familiarities for a given skill, the GM may roll against your skill when you pick up a new piece of equipment. On a success, you are already familiar with something similar and may use the new device at no penalty. The GM may also rule that a new item is so similar to a known one that it is familiar – for instance, two similar models of Colt revolver should be considered identical.

Equipment from another tech level will usually be unfamiliar. This gives both TL and familiarity modifiers. Practice can eliminate unfamiliarity penalties, but to shed TL penalties, you must relearn the operation skill at the equipment's TL. Exception: Improved or obsolete versions of items with which you are already familiar do not give unfamiliarity penalties.

When you choose an optional specialty, write down the skill and its specialty just as if you were selecting a required specialty. You learn the specialized skill as if it were one level easier. Unless otherwise noted, prerequisites are unchanged. The general skill defaults to the specialized one at -2; roll against this whenever you must answer questions outside your field. Any skill that defaults to the general skill also defaults to all of its optional specialties, but at an additional -2.

Example: Chemistry is IQ/Hard and does not require a specialty. You could learn the optional specialty Chemistry (Analytical) as if it were one level easier, or IQ/Average. Your general Chemistry skill would default to Chemistry (Analytical)-2. Metallurgy, which normally defaults to Chemistry-5, would default to Chemistry (Analytical)-7.

Familiarity for Beginning Characters

Starting characters may specify two familiarities per point spent on a skill. For instance, if you have four points in Guns (Pistol), you can be familiar with up to eight handguns.

Both specialization and familiarity come into play with many skills, but they are not the same thing. Driving (Automobile) is a specialty of Driving: it is a separate skill from Driving (Locomotive), and to know both, you must pay points for both. "Volkswagen Bug" is a familiarity of Driving (Automobile): you can select it for free as one of your starting familiarities.

Buying Skills

Skill Notation When you write down a skill with a single specialty, either required or optional, do so in the form "Skill Name (Specialty)"; e.g., Artist (Painting). If such a skill has multiple qualifiers, follow these guidelines:

Technological skills: Place the tech level after the skill name and before the specialty; e.g., Engineer/TL8 (Civil).

Skills with both required and optional specialties: If a skill that requires you to specialize also allows an optional specialty, write the required specialty before the optional specialty and separate the two with a comma; e.g., Artist (Painting, Oil).

Skills that require two specialties: In the rare case where a skill requires you to select two specialties, separate them with a slash; e.g., Geography/TL7 (Physical/Earth-like).

In order to learn or improve a skill, you must spend character points. When you spend points on a skill, you are getting training to bring that skill up to a useful level. Skills are easy to learn at first – a little training goes a long way! But added improvement costs more.

The point cost of a skill depends on two things: its difficulty and the final skill level you wish to attain. Use the Skill Cost Table (below) to calculate a skill's point cost.

The first column shows the skill level you are trying to attain, relative to the skill's controlling attribute – DX for DX-based skills, IQ for IQ-based skills, and so forth. For instance, if your DX were 12, a level of "Attribute-1" would be DX-1, or 11; "Attribute+0" would be DX, or 12; and "Attribute+1" would be DX+1, or 13.

The next four columns show the character point costs to learn skills of different difficulties – Easy, Average, Hard, and Very Hard – at the desired skill level. Harder skills cost more points to learn!

Example: A warrior with DX 14 wishes to learn |Shortsword (DX/Average) at level 17. Since skill 17 is equal to his DX+3, he goes to the "Attribute+3" row. Then he reads along the row to the "Average" column to find the point cost: 12 points.

There is no limit (except lifespan) to the amount of improvement possible with any skill. However, the useful maximum for most skills is between 20 and 30. Problems to challenge a greater skill are rare!

Skill Cost Table

Your Final	—————————Difficulty of Skill—————————
Skill Level	Easy	Average	Hard	Very Hard
Attribute-3	—	—	—	1
Attribute-2	—	—	1	2
Attribute-1	—	1	2	4
Attribute+0	1	2	4	8
Attribute+1	2	4	8	12
Attribute+2	4	8	12	16
Attribute+3	8	12	16	20
Attribute+4	12	16	20	24
Attribute+5	16	20	24	28
Extra +1	+4	+4	+4	+4

Improving Your Skills

There are two direct ways to increase your skills in play: spend the bonus points you earn for successful adventuring on new or better skills, or dedicate game time to study, which gives you points you can use to add or improve the skills you studied. In either case, the cost to improve a skill is the difference between the cost of the desired skill level and the cost of your current skill level. For more information, see Character Development.

Free Increases in Skills

There is one way to increase many skills at once: pay the points to improve an attribute (see Character Development). If you do this, all your skills based on that attribute go up by the same amount, at no extra cost. For instance, if you raise DX by one level, all of your DX-based skills also go up by one level. Further improvements are based on the new DX value.

You can also base skills on "defaults" from other skills; see Defaulting to Other Skills. Any skill bought up from such a default is likely to enjoy a free increase when you raise the skill to which it defaults.

Meaning of Skill Levels

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