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<blockquote data-quote="Jürgen Hubert" data-source="post: 4328308" data-attributes="member: 7177">A good question. The best explanation is probably that for a game that tries to cover as many genres as GURPS, it is very hard to figure out how &quot;useful&quot; a particular skill is going to be. I mean, the Crossbow skill can be very useful in medieval fantasy, but it's next to useless in a modern-day setting where guns are much more common and useful. Trying to figure out what a skill should cost for every possible genre would be too much work - for either the authors or the GM of a particular time. So they went with the &quot;ease of learning&quot; angle instead.OK, so you are assuming a weapon skill of 10. Your 50% chance to hit assumes the following:- You don't have time to aim carefully - i.e., you are trying to hit within the space of a single second. If you are attempting to hit a completely unaware target and have time to aim carefully, a bonus would certainly be appropriate (I don't have the book with me, so I can't say what kind of bonus would be appropriate).- You are also watching your own defense - you want to hit your opponent, but also want to avoid getting hit yourself, either by him or someone else. If you don't care about that, you can make an All-Out Attack for a +4 bonus - giving you a 90% hit chance!- Furthermore, someone with a weapon skill of 10 is rather inexperienced - some experience and physical fitness usually translates into a weapon skill of at least 11 or 12, which means to hit chances of 62.5% or 74% - a huge difference in probabilities. True professionals - who have to fight on a regular basis - should probably have weapon skills of 13-14 or more.- Turning Defenses into some kind of penalties doesn't work all that well with the bell curve of the dice penalties - even a small penalty can mean a huge reduction in the odds of hitting someone. Plus it's more math - GURPS has a &quot;roll under&quot; system instead of working with target numbers, so it makes calculating effective skill level an additional chore with which you don't want to deal during combat.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jürgen Hubert, post: 4328308, member: 7177"] A good question. The best explanation is probably that for a game that tries to cover as many genres as GURPS, it is very hard to figure out how "useful" a particular skill is going to be. I mean, the Crossbow skill can be very useful in medieval fantasy, but it's next to useless in a modern-day setting where guns are much more common and useful. Trying to figure out what a skill should cost for every possible genre would be too much work - for either the authors or the GM of a particular time. So they went with the "ease of learning" angle instead. OK, so you are assuming a weapon skill of 10. Your 50% chance to hit assumes the following: - You don't have time to aim carefully - i.e., you are trying to hit within the space of a single second. If you are attempting to hit a completely unaware target and have time to aim carefully, a bonus would certainly be appropriate (I don't have the book with me, so I can't say what kind of bonus would be appropriate). - You are also watching your own defense - you want to hit your opponent, but also want to avoid getting hit yourself, either by him or someone else. If you don't care about that, you can make an All-Out Attack for a +4 bonus - giving you a 90% hit chance! - Furthermore, someone with a weapon skill of 10 is rather inexperienced - some experience and physical fitness usually translates into a weapon skill of at least 11 or 12, which means to hit chances of 62.5% or 74% - a huge difference in probabilities. True professionals - who have to fight on a regular basis - should probably have weapon skills of 13-14 or more. - Turning Defenses into some kind of penalties doesn't work all that well with the bell curve of the dice penalties - even a small penalty can mean a huge reduction in the odds of hitting someone. Plus it's more math - GURPS has a "roll under" system instead of working with target numbers, so it makes calculating effective skill level an additional chore with which you don't want to deal during combat. [/QUOTE]

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