Splitting up IQ: Qualities

IQ is an extremely wide category -- it covers everything from building a boat to passing yourself off as someone else to solving complex math equations. This was fine when Gurps was a game about combat: it was the 'everything else' category. And in a game thats still overwhelmingly about combat, its still works fine. However, it struggles when it tries to focus on a game that isn't all about combat or other physical activity. The way this shows up tends to be in IQ being too cheap and IQ being too broad. A classical example is the wizard who has to sink lots of points into IQ to cast spells and then causally puts a single point into fast talk and becomes the de facto face man.

One of the first things to do in this situation is to start charging 20 points for IQ rather than 20 points for IQ+will+per, and to encourage talents. This was a solid effect of lowering general IQ, but keeping the specialities of the character intact. This is sufficient for a lot of concepts, particularly concepts useful to PCs. It breaks down after the talent reaches a certain size though: a 15 point talent is rarely competitive even with the expanded 20 point IQ -- though some do exist. This becomes particularly apparent when trying to stat very round characters (like a real life person).

My solution is called Qualities. IQ has been split up into six broad 'qualities' with a seventh that can spawn additional supernatural uses.
These are not the only uses of IQ, but they are the main ones. They also do not sort skills between them: often a skill can use one quality OR the other, or it can use both. When looking at the pricing it should be noticed that these prices are not linear. This is intentional. Its designed for fluffing out a character without giving up point efficiency.

Pricing:

Qualities are bought from a base IQ value, which is paid for normally. Different base IQ values will result in slightly different costs: for best (lowest) results, use the average of the six qualities (round up). Adjustments are priced by level: for each numeric level greater than the base IQ, count the number of qualities that are equal to or less than that level, and then pay the price listed on the 'higher than base qualities'. For each numeric level less than base IQ, count the number of qualities that are equal to or less than that number, and divide the total by the number of levels below base IQ. Do NOT count intermediate negative values against the disadvantage limit -- they are not the value of the attribute, only an intermediate step. DO count a final negative IQ attribute against the disadvantage limit.

 cost per level per qualities above base IQ:
 1     10
 2     13
 3     15
 4     17
 5     19
 6+   20

cost per level per qualities under base IQ divided by amount under base IQ
5      -10
4      -9
3      -8
2      -7
1.5   -6
1      -5
.7     -4
.5     -3
.3     -2
.2     -1
0      0

Qualities:

Memory- Gives a bonus to rote memorization of knowledge, understanding others presenting knowledge, and formal problem solving. Its a fairly academic talent allows you to gain and use knowledge already learned by others. It notably does not cover informal analysis, such as most practical engineering problems.

Social - Gives a bonus to interacting with people in order to influence them. For the bonus to apply you must be interacting with the people -- it helps a merchant haggling, but not in determining the fair price of something.

Handy - Gives a bonus to skills done by hand -- farming, mechanic, cooking, surgery, carpentry, and a host of other skills, but only for the purpose of doing skilled tasks with your hands where most things are known. It notably does not include art.

Entertaining - Gives a bonus to creating things for someone else's enjoyment. This includes all forms of art, music, and performance. 

Analytical - practical problem solving. This gives a bonus when looking over a number of possibilities and deciding on the best one. typical uses include diagnosis, engineering, computer operation, finance, and other tasks that involve staring at a problem.

Tactical- out thinking and fooling others, not only directly but indirectly. This is used for tactics, forgery, fast talk to tell lies, camouflage, and so forth. Its useful for predicting what others will do in general and indirectly influencing what they will do. (for direct influencing, see social).

Mystic - Used for exotic skills (such as magic, spells, power talents, and the like). This is not in every game and may have different types (example: Psionic and Magic). It is also not uncommon to tie the level to another skill type -- perhaps magic is intimately tied with the analytical quality. In this case the two must be the same number, but are priced as though they were two separate values.

Is This Too Complicated?

The question is well worth asking. This adds six more values to keep track of to the game, is complicated to price, and effects an area of the game that is sidelined enough to have been ignored this long. The question should be asked on a per-campaign basis. Is it worth being able to have three different levels of IQ competency? Do I need to present a scholar who is also good with social relations, terrible with doing hands on work, and a moderate artist? Or am I happy just saying he has an academic talent and incompetency (craftsmanship)? Will having these stats for NPC's enrich their personality or will it just be yet another book keeping headache?

There are other ways to cut down on complication. restrict your PC's to taking one of the packages with the pre-listed price, or use the spreadsheet linked to here. If you need to advance characters from the packages and can't find corresponding packages, a few rules can help:

• Advancing the highest quality by 1: [10]
• Advancing the second highest quality by 1: [3]
• Advancing the third highest quality by 1: [2]

 the starting number must be equal to or above the base IQ to use this rule. If the number is tied for its position, round up. Alternatively, use the final position, but round down. Only figure the cost for one step at a time.