Training Rules

 Training Rules

Most of the core concepts that are required for an AD&D-style game in GURPS are done, and one of the few things left to think about is training. AD&D is a class-and-level-based system, and advancement is done in levels, obviously. GURPS is a wildly different beast, with advancement rules being different as well. As a rule, the GM gives players some character points at the end of the session, and the players improve their characters using them. Sounds simple, right? On one hand – yes, it is simple. On the other hand, is it really that simple and do I want it this simple?

Before I start examining the different training and character advancement rules, I’d like to outline the goal. I want to have character advancement to be more restricted, but not artificially. In addition, I’d like it to require spending money and time. For example, you earn some character points by recovering treasure from a dungeon and bringing it to civilization, but to spend them, you have to find an appropriate teacher, pay him or perform some kind of service, and spend some time. Obviously, not everything should require a teacher, and not all teachers are available everywhere. I’ll probably have to assign certain rarity categories, tie them to Market Classes, and, for example, roll against 6 to see if there is a rare teacher.

This is very similar to the rules in AD&D, but I wanted it to be this way even before I read AD&D DMG. I’m a big fan of the Might and Magic video game series. In these games, at least in some installments, when you earn enough experience to be eligible for a level-up, you have to find a training center, pay a progressively increasing sum of money, and spend a week of game time per level. After leveling up, you gain a number of skill points that you can spend to improve skills you have. To learn new skills, you have to find teachers. But even then, each skill not only has a numerical level, but also a proficiency grade that goes like this: basic -> expert -> master -> grandmaster. Each step greatly improves the effects of the skill. However, to upgrade, you have to meet the skill level requirement, find a specific teacher, and, possibly, finish a promotion quest because some skill progressions are locked behind them. Now I realize that this probably was inspired by the AD&D training rules.

The guidelines for awarding character points can be found in page 498 of GURPS Basic Set. In short, the GM should assess how well each character performed and if he was appropriately roleplayed, and award character points accordingly. This is somewhat similar to AD&D player grading that makes many people upset. If you do something totally outside of your character’s personality, you get no points. Of course, this also means that points are awarded separately to each player.

Then, the book tells you that you shouldn’t just let players buy whatever they want, which is something I agree with. I’ve had a player who wanted to buy the Sure-Footed (Uneven) perk in the middle of a combat because the fight was on a staircase. The guidelines here say that you should make it difficult to learn new skills because eventually characters will become too similar and it will break up the party.

However, that was about awarding points. The guidelines for spending character points are found on pages 290-294. However, these rules were changed a bit and expanded greatly in GURPS Social Engineering: Back to School, so let’s ignore the Basic Set and go straight to that other book. I’m not going to read the book for you – you should do that yourself, and I can say that the book is excellent.

While the book does have many different ways to earn character points by training or learning, the rates of learning are a bit too slow for my tastes. There is a way to use unspent character points to double this rate, but that’s still a bit too slow – about 2 points per month. I could try to work out some complicated formula, but I don’t think it’s really needed here. Spending character points here is supposed to represent heroes gaining new abilities rather quickly. I’d say that a character has to spend 1 week + 1 week per full 5 character points he’s spending. In addition, he has to pay a tutor/teacher/trainer ~$1,500 per spent character point. Alternatively, a character may double the training time to spend character points via self-study, but only for traits that were used under stress during adventures, including default skill uses.

Anyway, I better stop blabbing about it, and present it as a clear procedure.

1.       You have accumulated unspent character points.

2.       If you do not know a teacher for a skill/ability you’d like to learn or improve, you have to find the teacher. You may attempt an IQ roll once per week to find a teacher of the desired type. Specialized skills may be substituted, where appropriate, such as Streetwise for finding a teacher of thieving skills. Failures allow repeated attempts at a cumulative ‑2, but if accumulated penalties ever reduce the required roll to 2 or less, there’s no teacher to be found.

a.       Apply the usual modifiers for City Size, Advertising, Money Offered, Risk, and Legality (pp. B517-518).

b.      The GM should apply a rarity modifier from -10 to +10. For example, it should be much more difficult to find a teacher of Hidden Lore (Dragons) than a teacher of Housekeeping.

c.       For skills, apply a modifier equal to (12 – desired skill level). For example, when looking for a teacher with Skill-14, your search roll takes a -2 penalty. For non-skills, apply a penalty equal to -1 per full 5 character points. For example, a teacher of Burning Hands [7] would impose a -1 to your search roll.

d.      The base monthly pay for a teacher is $2,000. However, the GM make it more expensive to learn rare or illegal skills/abilities.

e.      Determine the teacher’s Teaching skill by rolling 1d+11.

3.       You pay $100 per spent character point. The training process takes one week per 5 character points spent, rounded up. If the Teacher makes a successful Teaching roll, halve the training time (one week is halved to four days).

a.       If you study without a teacher, double the training time. You still are limited to training only those traits and skills that were used under stress during an adventure, or those skills and traits for which you have training manuals or other similar materials.

4.       In any case, you cannot improve your skill to a higher level than that of the teacher.