GURPS - Basic Set 3r..

When you improve a skill, the cost is the difference between your current skill leveland the cost of the new skill level. Example: You have a DX of 10 and a Shortswordskill of 13. This is DX+3 level, which, from the table on p. 43, costs 16 points for aPhysical/Average skill. The next level of skill, DX+4, costs 24 points. The differencebetween 16 and 24 is 8, so it will cost you 8 points to raise your Shortsword skill to alevel of 14.MoneyYou may also trade your earned character points for money. Each point is worthone month's income at your current rate, whatever that is (see Jobs, p. 192). The GMshould provide a reasonable explanation for your windfall: tax refund, buried treasure,inheritance, gambling winnings or whatever seems appropriate. Be creative. If a characteris a spy, and his cover is "professional tennis player," you could tell him that he earnedthe money by making a commercial for cornflakes.AGE AND AGINGHeroes, just like other people, eventually grow old . . . though they are less likely to diein bed.A character is assumed to be 18 years old when created, unless the player specifiedotherwise. Youth is a slight "disadvantage" - see p. 29. Age is not a "disadvantage"unless the character is over 50 when created - see p. 27. A character who is older than 18when he is created can put more character points into skills, because he has had longerto learn. (He does not get any bonus points unless he is over 50 - he is just allowed tospend more on education. See Choosing Your Beginning Skills, p. 43.)Decline Due to AgeBeginning on his or her 50th birthday, each character must roll yearly to see if oldage is taking its toll. If you do not wish to keep track of a character's exact birthday, justassume it as January 1, and roll every game-year as needed. Starting at age 70. roll every6 months. Starting at age 90, roll every 3 months!Roll 3 dice vs. Health for each of the four basic attributes; add your world's medicaltech level (see p. 186), minus 3, to your HT for the purpose of this roll. Thus, in amedieval (TL4) world, a person with HT 10 needs an 11 or less to succeed. A failed rollmeans that the attribute in question is reduced by one point - and a roll of 17 or 18 automaticallyfails and causes the loss of two points. Roll in the following order: ST, DX,IQ, HT.Obviously, if the last roll is failed, HT itself goes down by one . . . and the next "oldage" roll is more likely to fail. Thus, the decline accelerates. When an attribute is reducedby age (or by anything else, for that matter), all skills involving that attribute are alsoreduced. Thus, if aging reduces your IQ by 1, all your mental skills are lowered by 1. Ifany attribute reaches 0 from aging, the character dies a natural death. In a "real life"situation, a person would be carried away by a "minor" disease or accident long beforeHT reached zero, and this would still be considered as natural death.Certain magical and technological processes can halt aging, or even "set the clockback" to make a character younger. These devices, potions, etc., are extremely valuable,and will be described in specific game world books. If lost IQ (for instance) is restored,lost skill levels in mental skills are also restored.The timetable above is for humans. Aging for other races is described in the appropriategame world books.ImprovementThrough Study(Continued)Self-TeachingMost skills can be self-taught under theproper circumstances. If a skill cannot beself-taught, this will be indicated in theskill description. In any case, double thetraining time for a self-taught skill. A goodteacher - one who can guide your studiesand answer your questions - is tremendouslyvaluable in any field of learning.JobsIf you have a job, that counts as "study"of the skill (if any) used in the job.However, since most of the time on the jobis spent doing what you already know,rather than learning new things, time onthe job counts only 1/4 for learning. If youput in a 40-hour week, you can count it as10 hours of training in the work you'redoing. That works out to 500 hours oftraining in a year. If a job requires morethan one skill, you can split the trainingtime between them as you like.SchoolOn the other hand, if you go to school,you might spend three to six hours a weekin each class, plus another three to six inhomework - say an average of nine hoursper week. A semester is 21 weeks - so asemester of classroom study equals around200 hours per subject.Adventuring TimeAdventuring time can also count as"study" of the appropriate things; GMsshould be generous in allowing this. Forexample, a trek through the Amazon wouldcount for every waking moment - say 16hours a day - as study of Jungle Survival.You may study any number of skills atone time, but each hour of time onlycounts toward study of one subject unlessthe GM allows an exception. Languagestudy is a good example of an exception: Ifyou already speak French well, going toschool in Paris would count both forimproving your command of the languageand for study of the classroom subject. As arule, time spent in a foreign country,speaking the native language, counts asfour hours per day of language study nomatter what else you are doing, until yourskill with the language is equal to your IQlevel.