Jeff Wilson's GURPS Skills Supplement

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This is a GURPS supplement. While not intended for specific world, most of these skill are not appropriate in all campaigns. Be sure to check with your GM to make sure what skills are allowed in your game.

Clarifications

Note that the standard GURPS skill check is in circumstances of some stress and conflict such as are found in most adventuring situations. Under non-stressful or supportive conditions skill bonuses are in order. Under highly chaotic or stressful circumstances skill penalities are in order.

EXAMPLES: Using a rope to climb to a higher cave on the edge of a chasm when being pursued by hostiles requires no modifiers to climbing skill. Climbing a rope to a cave entrace from ground level with prior preparation would get a skill bonus if a roll was required at all. Climbing a burning rope to higher cave on a chasm while in meelee combat would call for an extreme penalty.

GURPS skills are very broad. It should be possible for a non-specialist to think of possible maneuvers (or specializations) and familiarities for all skills. If a suggested skill does not have potential maneuvers, it is almost certainly being defined too narrowly.

EXAMPLES: A character wishes to take "Japanese Tea Ceremony" as a skill. This skill wouldn't seem to have any manuevers, so likely fits as a maneuver under a broader skill such as "Savoire-Faire (Japanese)." A skill such as "Polo" would find no problems as there are many potential maneuvers under that skill.

The following table shows how GURPS skill ranks generally work for normal people in a "standard" GURPS campaign. For most ordinary people these skill ranks will be in specializations or maneuvers, not in the full skill. These numbers can vary by race (races with a DX over 10 will have higher physical skills), culture (those with "learning tapes" will have higher skills in general), and difficulty of the individual skill (Guns and Gunner skills, for example, are typically higher by 2).

Player Characters will tend to have the full GURPS skill and often have higher skill levels than the above would indicate. If these skill levels seem low, consider that "normal" circumstances for ordinary tasks typically include bonuses which are not normally recieved when a skill is used while adventuring. Also remember that a "master" of a particular art will likely have breadth across several associated maneuvers and skills in addition to his primary skill.

Modified Skills

Alchemy

Elixir recipes may be taken as mental maneuvers of the Alchemy skill. If a formula is taken as a maneuver, the creator does not need references and does not take an additional -2 penalty.

Astrogation

Separate skills are used to navigate through Wildspace and the Phlogiston. They do not default to each other. Non-standard means of maneuvering (like a psionic kinetic drive or a torch) will require further specialization (i.e.Astrogation (Wildspace Psi Kinetic) or Astrogation (Phlogiston Torch). Such specializations will default from the standard Wildspace or Phlogiston Astrogation at -3.

Free Fall

Free Fall skill is needed when a character isn't in another object's gravity field. It is also used when a character is directly on another object's gravity plane. In this case the skill is at -2. Also see Gravity Bobbing under maneuvers.

Seamanship

This skill is basically the same for both sea and spelljamming craft. Characters unfamiliar with one or the other will receive a -4 penalty. 8 hours work aboard a craft of the appropriate type lowers this to -2, one week lowers the penalty to -1, and there is no penalty after one month.

New Skills

This specialization of the Hidden Lore skill in CI147 deals with legendary, forbidden, and cutting edge psionics.

This magic skill is required in certain campaigns to activate non-continuous magic items.

The shiphandling skill for spelljammers, this vehicle skill involves directing the crew of a spelljammer in the tasks necessary to control the speed and direction of the ship. Rolls should be made when maneuver for battle, and at the midpoint of every trip. Note that shiphandling defaults from jammer handling at -6.

This skill enables a character with Discriminatory Smell and the emotion sense enhancement to tell what an individual of another race is feeling by analyzing their changing body chemistry. This skill does not work through protect gear. A character mustspecialize in an individual race.

This psionic skill is needed to use psionic devices.

This psionics skill used to create psionic devices. No specific rules have yet been written.

This Esoteric skill may be used to produce a psionic skill even if the user is not trained in that ability.

I don't care for the current literacy rules in GURPS. In my campaigns, literacy is a based on knowing the skill to understand a particular form of writing. Each style of writing (Latin, Greek, Cherokee, etc.) is a separate language skill. Most scripts can be used to write any language, however a few (Cherokee) can only be used for a single (or a few) spoken languages. Most scripts are M/H skills (Greek, Latin, Cyrillic), but some are M/VH (Chinese, Hieroglyphics), and some are M/A (Cherokee).

Softechnics is required to maintain or repair artificial or synthetic organs or lifeforms. It has the same relation to scientific biology skills as Mechanics does to Engineering. A character must specialize in a particular type of Softechnology including:

Pseudolife: Living materials like bioplastic, living filters, etc. (default: Biochemistry-4)

Bio-Psi: Psionic-affecting biological implants. (default: Physiology-4)

Grafts: Artificial organs which add or increase capabilities. (default: Physician-4)

Symbionts: Independent organisms from viruses to tapeworms intended to give other organisms particular abilities. (default: Diagnosis-4)

This vehicle skill enables a character to interface with a Spelljamming helm and maneuver a ship appropriately. Note that a character must still have the advantages appropriate to the helm in question. For purposes of Spelljamming, this skill is the same as Piloting. In addition to piloting, a spelljammer can increase his SR by 1 for 10 minutes at a cost of 1 fatigue and a successful Spelljamming roll.

Maneuvers

Normally a character directly in a gravity plane is at -2 to his Free Fall skill. This maneuver allows a character to eliminate that disadvantage.

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