[GRIM TALES] creating skill groups

[GlassJaw]

Grim Tales is my preferred baseline ruleset for low-magic games but I've been tinkering with the rules to add a more cinematic and swashbuckling style of play. I've been looking at True 20, Iron Heroes, Conan, and Spycraft 2.0 for ideas.

One idea I really like from Iron Heroes (True 20 and Spycraft have hints of it as well) is skill groups, and I'd like to adapt a similar mechanic to Grim Tales.

The basic idea is that each skill group has a small list of related skills. A character may select a skill group as a core skill and each skill points they place in the group gives 1 rank to each skill in the group.

The way I usually run Grim Tales is to allow each character to choose 10 core skills (sometimes requiring a Craft, Knowledge, or Profession skill for their "background". I'll probably make each skill group "cost" 2 core skills.

Design Goals:

1. Make each character's skill points go farther without tinkering with the number of skill points each class gets. With skill groups, each character has the ability to spread their skill points around to more skills, thus making each character more versatile and giving them access to skills they wouldn't have had otherwise.

2. Limit each skill group to 2-3 skills. A lot of the skill groups in Iron Heroes have 4 (or more) but that's a bit too much for what I want.

Here are the groups I have so far. Any comments or suggestions welcome.

[B]Academia[/B]		[B]Linguistics[/B]
Decipher Script (Int)	Decipher Script (Int)
Knowledge (Int)		Forgery (Int)
Research (Int)		Speak Language
		
[B]Acrobatics[/B]		[B]Mechanics[/B]
Balance (Dex)		Disable Device (Int)
Escape Artist (Dex)	Open Lock (Dex)
Tumble (Dex)		
		
[B]Animal Lore[/B]		[B]Motor Skills[/B]
Handle Animal (Cha)	Sleight Of Hand (Dex)
Ride (Dex)		Use Rope (Dex)
		
[B]Athletics[/B]		[B]Social[/B]
Climb (Str)		Diplomacy (Cha)
Jump (Str)		Gather Information (Cha)
Swim (Str)		
		
[B]Awareness[/B]		[B]Stealth[/B]
Listen (Wis)		Hide (Dex)
Spot (Wis)		Move Silently (Dex)
		
[B]Influence[/B]		[B]Theatrics[/B]
Bluff (Cha)		Disguise (Cha)
Intimidate (Cha)	Perform (Cha)
		
[B]Investigate[/B]		[B]Wilderness Lore[/B]
Gather Information (Cha)Heal (Wis)
Research (Int)		Survival (Wis)

[B]Keen Eye[/B]		
Appraise (Int)		
Search (Int)

 

[Fenris]

Glassjaw,
I think the idea is great. One of the things I love about GT is that I can make a tough hero that has diplomacy or disable device. And I think the system you have will work. But I see little down side to this system. There isn't much of a trade off. You "pay" 2 core skills to get 3? And I assume that you only use one skill point ad you get three. Usually my characters have far more core skills than skill points so consolidating the core skills does have this effect, as long as you keep your skills in tight groups. One consequence of your system is that the characters do get more ranks (training) in skills whereas you may have wanted more of a "well, I can do this thing, so I can figure out the other" Not sure which way you were going.

One thought for an alternative. Allow a character to "use" a skill they don't have but do have a related skill in the same group, but with a higher DC.

Bob is trying to climb a tree to escape the brain-hungry zombie army. Bob has the climb skill and needs to get a DC 15 to climb the tree.

Rob is also trying to get away from the zombies. But Rob doesn't have any ranks in Climb. He can make a climb check against the DC 15 with 0 ranks, or Rob can try to use his Jump skill since it's in the same skill group of Athletics. But using Jump requires a DC 20 (or 25 or whatever) to do so.

Just a different mechanic to think about. Your system does what you want it to, it provides more skill points to the character. But I think it might unduly penalize characters who like to have a braod array of skills. Characters who want all three athlectics skills benefit. Those who want Diplomacy, Jump, Survival, Decipher Script, Balance, Spot, Perform and Search really don't gain anything from the system. So that kind of a character who doesn't have tight groups of skills may not be as effective.

 

[ragboy]

Bob is trying to climb a tree to escape the brain-hungry zombie army. Bob has the climb skill and needs to get a DC 15 to climb the tree.

Rob is also trying to get away from the zombies. But Rob doesn't have any ranks in Climb. He can make a climb check against the DC 15 with 0 ranks, or Rob can try to use his Jump skill since it's in the same skill group of Athletics. But using Jump requires a DC 20 (or 25 or whatever) to do so.

I've personally never liked skill groups for the example you use above, actually. Because you can _already_ do that with the existing skill system. Rob could use his Knowledge (Oak Trees) skill in the same fashion (though it's more of a stretch). Being more broad with the uses of skills, rather than more narrow with skill groups seems the better option to me. It's a mechanic to measure success against difficulty. It's not a simulation of how much actual knowledge Rob has in Oak Trees (I use knowledge, because I specifically hate over specialization in knowledge skills). It's the first thing I ripped out by the roots in Star Frontiers.

You can use Handle Animal in place of Diplomacy, but talking to your girlfriend like a dog is going to make it a lot harder to get out of the house for game night.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

re: Mechanics

In GT, Disable Device = Open Lock.

 

[GlassJaw]

One thought for an alternative. Allow a character to "use" a skill they don't have but do have a related skill in the same group, but with a higher DC.

Bob is trying to climb a tree to escape the brain-hungry zombie army. Bob has the climb skill and needs to get a DC 15 to climb the tree.

Rob is also trying to get away from the zombies. But Rob doesn't have any ranks in Climb. He can make a climb check against the DC 15 with 0 ranks, or Rob can try to use his Jump skill since it's in the same skill group of Athletics. But using Jump requires a DC 20 (or 25 or whatever) to do so.

That's kind of how Shadowrun works actually. It's changed slightly through the editions but the basic idea is that there is a skill tree linking the skills. If you want to do something that you don't have any "ranks" in, you can use a skill you do have but each "step" on the tree you move away from your base skill reduces the dice you can roll.

Something like that. You get the idea. It's a pretty cool system but it might fall under the "more work than I want to deal with" category for this exercise.

For d20, you could arrange the skills into groups and if you have ranks in a skill, you can treat the other skills in the group as if you had half the number of ranks. It might work but my gut tells me there would be some wonky consequences with certain skills.

But I think it might unduly penalize characters who like to have a braod array of skills. Characters who want all three athlectics skills benefit. Those who want Diplomacy, Jump, Survival, Decipher Script, Balance, Spot, Perform and Search really don't gain anything from the system. So that kind of a character who doesn't have tight groups of skills may not be as effective.

Noted. Good observation.

If I did use this system, I would probably limit the number of skill groups that can be purchased - I was thinking 2 for each character. Given the breakdown of the groups, I think each character would at least "purchase" one group. My idea was the groups represented the character's specialization.

I could assign specific groups to each class but I'd rather avoid that. The openness of GT chargen is its strength and I don't want to take away from that. I could allow each player to "build" their own skill groups of related skills (if they can justify their character concept). It could even be part of their background/origin.

For example, using the skill list above, you could arrange Balance and Perform into a group called Circus Performer.

Actually, that's probably what I'll do. I'll use the above as examples but also let the players create their own. I'll probably limit each group to 2 skills, however, and let them create 2 skill groups per character.

 

[GlassJaw]

I also could just bump up the skills points of all the classes one notch too I suppose.

 

[Fenris]

If I did use this system, I would probably limit the number of skill groups that can be purchased - I was thinking 2 for each character. Given the breakdown of the groups, I think each character would at least "purchase" one group. My idea was the groups represented the character's specialization.

I could assign specific groups to each class but I'd rather avoid that. The openness of GT chargen is it's strength and I don't want to take away from that. I could allow each player to "build" their own skill groups of related skills (if they can justify their character concept). It could even be part of their background/origin.

For example, using the skill list above, you could arrange Balance and Perform into a group called Circus Performer.

Actually, that's probably what I'll do. I'll use the above as examples but also let the players create their own. I'll probably limit each group to 2 skills, however, and let them create 2 skill groups per character.

I think either of those solutions improves the system and prevents skill bloat.

One question I thought of afterwards. How would you handle the bonus skills from Smart and Charismatic? Can they apply them to core skills only, to skill groups that are tied to their stat (Int or Cha)? Not a big deal, just an additional thing for you to consider.

As I said I think your tweak does what you wanted it to do and does so without overdoing it. And if you limit it to 2 groups or a designed group it allows a hero to be better in his main skills (his core core? ) , to have a focus, but still allow a good degree of diversity in other skills without the loss of effectiveness. I do like it.

 

[GlassJaw]

One question I thought of afterwards. How would you handle the bonus skills from Smart and Charismatic? Can they apply them to core skills only, to skill groups that are tied to their stat (Int or Cha)? Not a big deal, just an additional thing for you to consider.

What I've done in the past is let each character choose 10 core skills. Sometimes I require that one of the ten be a Craft, Knowledge, or Profession skill to represent background, training, upbringing, whatever. After that, any class bonuses are handled normally.

Here's probably what I'll do for the new system (which steals the basic idea from Spycraft):

Each character gets 2 skill groups: Talent and Specialty. These represent the character's Background. Each group is comprised of 2 skills. A character gains a rank in each skill for each skill point they put into the group.

After that, each character gets 6 additional core skills. Characters may put skills points into these skills as normal.

Any additional bonus skills gained from class abilities are then selected as normal.

How's that?

 

[Fenris]

How's that?

I'm sold.

I'm so sold I may now have to steal it.

 

[GlassJaw]

I'm so sold I may now have to steal it.

Steal away, especially since I stole most of it myself.

Just to elaborate on Talent vs Specialty:

Spycraft defines Talent as just that, the character's natural talent or ability. Specialty is any kind of special training or life experience the character may have had. You could probably justify any skill for either but some will definitely work better than others.