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starrangers:basics_background

Basics/background

The skill packages may not include some of the adventuring skills and/or some of the skills you want to represent your background.

They may also not have some suitable advantages. So you buy them here with the remaining points.

Background Skills

“lacking more than one or two of these items would likely get you marked as a weirdo by most people, and missing three or more would probably suggest an exceptionally abnormal psychology.”

  • Area Knowledge;
  • Current Affairs;
  • Housekeeping;
  • At least one of Carousing, Connoisseur (any), Games (any), Hobby Skill (any), Musical Instrument (any), Singing, or Sports (any).

Everyman Skills

Relying on defaults is rarely fun. In GURPS, certain skills are necessary for adventurers, true action heroes or not, to keep the story flowing without annoying breaks caused by PCs being incompetent at tasks that adventure fiction commonly treats as “everyman” skills:

  • Carousing, Diplomacy, Fast-Talk, or Interrogation – Eventually, everybody wants to interrogate/interact with NPCs.
  • Climbing, Hiking, and Stealth – The party is only as good at these things as its worst party member, and nearly every party has to move around as a unit at some point.
  • Hiking, Driving or Riding – Travel is vital to adventure
  • First Aid – Effective bandaging isn't an unskilled activity
  • Gesture – Sooner or later, communication without making a sound will be vital to almost any party's survival.
  • Observation, Scrounging, or Search – Noticing interesting things takes training, and finding clues and useful items is so central to adventures that no PC should lack at least basic training here.
  • Savoir-Faire or Streetwise – Everybody came from somewhere. It's passing annoying when a player just assumes that her PC would “get on with folks in her element” without having any practical social skills to back up the assumption.

Action

I further suggest – strongly – that action heroes have most of this list as well:

  • Melee Weapon {Axe/Mace, Knife or Staff} – Wielding a stick, knife, or heavy tool to any real effect requires practice. These common improvised weapons are not idiot-proof, trivial, or safe to use without training.
  • Missile Weapon {Guns, beam weapons} – However easy “point and shoot” looks, it's quite tough in reality. No credible action hero lacks competency at all ranged combat.
  • Unarmed Melee {Karate,Boxing, Brawling} – Fisticuffs are the worst place to be untrained. Your fists are the only weapons you always have, so learn to use them.
  • Forced Entry – No, it isn't easy to kick in a door. Actually, unless you know how, you'll hurt yourself.
  • Holdout – “Concealable” equipment only works if you have skill at concealment, and frustratingly few players realize this.
  • Grappling {Judo,Sumo Wrestling, or Wrestling} – The number of people who think they should be able to grab others automatically is astounding. In fact, this is a difficult feat, trickier than hitting people, and absolutely requires training.
  • Throwing – Whether you're tossing things to friends or grenades at enemies, this is a trained skill, so it pays to know it.
  • Spacer, NBC Suit/Vac suit/Battlesuit, NBC Suit/Vac suit/Battlesuit (Skill) Training and different gravity maneuvers(it is just boring to be totally incompetent in such situations)
  • Acrobatics(Astrobatics,Aerobatics,Aquabatics): Not being able to do basic extra combat maneuvering is not only boring, but also dangerous.
  • Breath control and autohypnosis: because there is not always time for a relaxed recuperation.
  • Assess enemy skills: Tactics,Psychology,Observation,Armoury(body armor), Armoury(force shields),Armoury(small arms), Computer hacking, computer programming -5 or computer use -10, Naturalist(correct planet type). To be able to assess enemy capabilities.
  • Using a Payload or strayer weapon: Buy technique to remove the penalty at 2 points/skill.
  • Fast draw(weapon/ammo) – because spending a turn to get into actio is boring.
  • tactics, soldier – Basic combat utility skills are useful for almost any character as combat tends to come up fairly often.

Also note that you rarely need more than one of Vacc suit, NBC Suit and Battlesuit skills, if you have points in more than one you can move them all to the one you use most. The -2 similarity will allow you to use the others if needed at some point.

Group skills

Note Maintaining technology as it is usually a good idea to have one point in the repair skills of items that you use that require maintenance and skill. This is often the case for any large electronics/weapons and power armor.

Spaceship Repair:

  • Armoury (Vehicle Armor)
  • Electronics Repair (Communications)
  • Electronics Repair (Sensors)
  • Electronics Repair (Computers)
  • Computer Programming
  • Electrician
  • Mechanic (Life Support)
  • Housekeeping
  • Electronics Repair(Medical)
  • Armoury (Force Shields)
  • Electronics Repair (Scientific)
  • Mechanic (Spaceship)
  • Electronics Repair (EW)
  • Mechanic (Reactionless Drive)
  • Mechanic (Stardrive)
  • Mechanic (Fusion)

Spaceship Operation:

  • Electronics Operation (Communications)
  • Electronics Operation (Sensors)
  • Computer Operation
  • Electronics Operation(Medical)
  • Electronics Operation (Scientific)
  • Electronics Operation (EW)
  • Piloting (Fast Spaceship)
  • Piloting (Hyperspace)
  • Navigation(Space)
  • Navigation(Hyperspace)
  • Piloting(Remote controlled)
  • Piloting(Aerospace)
  • Gunner(Beams) *3

Other Equipment maintain: (some of the spaceship maintain skills in addition for other equipment too)

  • Armoury (Body Armor)
  • Armoury (Small Arms)
  • Mechanic(Robots)

Science skills, these are optional, but someone having a point in most of these and electronics operation(scientific) could come handy at some point.

  • Archaeology
  • Biology
  • Chemistry
  • Farming
  • Forensics
  • Geology
  • Metallurgy
  • Paleontology
  • Pharmacy

Background/work advantages

  • Appearance [4/12]
  • Fit[5/15] or upgrade fir to very fit[+10]
  • Charisma 1[5]
  • One level of any acute sense[2 each]
  • Absolute Direction[5]
  • Eidetic memory[5]
  • Flexibility[5]
  • Languages[1-6] each
  • Less sleep 1-2[2-4]
  • Lighting calculator [2]
  • Metabolic control [2]
  • Night vision 1[1]
  • Rapid healing[5]
  • Reputation 1-3 levels [1-5/level]
  • Cultural familiarities 1 each: It is good to have at minimum core and colonies.
  • Points for money[1-10] each gives $5,000*wealth multiple freely usable money
  • Drifter [1-3] each allows you to use $10,000*wealth multiple more over the 20% base of your starting wealth on adventurer equipment up to a total of 80% starting wealth.
  • G-Experiences[1 each] (if you did not take the 10 point in suggested)
  • Background Knowledge[1] each

Attributes:

  • Strength: Can buy +1 in one of: strength[10], lifting strength[3] or striking strength[5]
  • Extra hit points 1-2[2-4]: Humans and Mandril can have up to 100% of strength as extra hitpoints. Other races up to 50%.

Bionics

You can buy additional bionics, but they cost both points and money.

Optional style things

If you selected style training above in additional training, up to 5 points can be used for optional traits of the style.

starrangers/basics_background.txt · Last modified: 2018/07/31 23:23 by 127.0.0.1