Help - Essential Skills Collection

[GMMichael]

All input helps, PSD. Because my goal isn't just to help me, here. It's to help everyone.

Here's the list I'm currently using:
Physical skills:
Fight/unarmed, fight/melee, fight/missile, parry, sneak, movement, larceny
Mental skills:
Knowledge/Nature, knowledge/scholar, profession/healer, prof/musician, prof/alchemist, prof/smith, detect, concentrate
Metaphysical skills:
Cast spell, spirit, repel undead, handle animal, persuade, deceive

So of the skills you mentioned, I think they're all included. Athletics and Movement are the same thing. I don't have a Knowledge-Arcana, but you could get something similar with the Cast Spell skill or Know/Scholar. Higher ranks would be required to know magical stuff with Know/Scholar, since magic isn't really fourth-grade material. Know/Nature and survival are the same thing.

Another one of my goals is to be able to branch the skills out, so for example:
Movement becomes - acrobatics/tumbling, running, swimming, climbing
Know/Nature becomes - hunting/fishing, camping, hiking, tracking
Detect becomes - spot, listen, search
Fight/Unarmed becomes - grapple, kung-fu, brawl

My question to you: is 21 skills enough to make characters interesting while remaining a fundamental, simple RPG?

 

[Nellisir]

That is tricky. Professional diplomats operate on a different level, knowing when and how to give the other parties wiggle room for saving face. But adventurers? That "Influence" idea looks good for streamlining. It's broad in scope. As for intimidate and bluff, I guess no matter how big and scary looking someone is, eventually they run into people who aren't that easily impressed. So at some point, intimidating would depend on bluffing.

I have a real issue with the Intimidate skill using Strength, btw. Charisma is presence, notability, making people notice you. Scary people have high Charisma. Danny Trejo? High charisma. People notice him.

I had a player who used Chr as his dump stat, and kept trying to intimidate people. His character was a bridge troll fighter, and he thought he ought to be scary and intimidating and fearsome, even though his Charisma was 7.

I told him that with a Charisma of 7 no one took him seriously. He was more likely to be patted on the head (or stuffed in a sack - as another character put it, he was nine feet of ugly in three feet of troll.)

 

[Nellisir]

My question to you: is 21 skills enough to make characters interesting while remaining a fundamental, simple RPG?

I think 21 is on the verge of being not simple.

 

[Jhaelen]

I have a real issue with the Intimidate skill using Strength, btw. Charisma is presence, notability, making people notice you. Scary people have high Charisma.

The problem goes away once you stop assign fixed abilities to skills. The WoD matrix approach of allowing any skill to be used with any ability (if it makes sense!) is much more flexible. E.g. I'm pretty sure it's possible to intimidate someone using intelligence.

 

[GMMichael]

I think 21 is on the verge of being not simple.

I think you're right. The problem I ran into earlier though, with a tiny skills list, is that when a skill is too broad, it basically acts like a beefed-up ability score. Not much point in having skills when they cover anything a character might be interested in, and actually fail to make characters more interesting. (Important point: P&P characters have only three rules-related features: abilities, skills, and perks. Any other differences are superficial.)

So if I have, say, two skills per ability score (of three), and a character can specialize in one skill per ability score, then with skills alone, I can have eight different types of characters (2x2x2). But they're each three-trick ponies. With about seven skills per ability score, and perks thrown in (which are pretty much limitless in variety), that number becomes...2,487. Okay I made that up, but it's a much bigger number.

Let's go simpler...the three Fight skills become one, Sneak and Larceny get combined, Knowledge is just one skill with a vague focus on whatever the character's occupation is, throw profession in with knowledge, persuade and deceive become Interact, and Detect gets tossed in favor of just a simple Mental check, or a perk.

Short list:
Fight, Parry, Sneak, Move, Knowledge, Concentrate, Cast Spell, Spirit, Repel Undead, Handle Animal, Interact.

11 skills. Almost 4 per ability. 3 defenses, and 8 proactive skills. It's a decent list, but I feel like it doesn't provide enough tailoring options (for a system that doesn't force classes on the characters). For example, if a front-line fighter takes the (generalized) Sneak skill, then he's suddenly an expert in everything rogue-ish, from hiding, being quiet, lockpicking, black-marketeering, pocket picking, forgery, filching, and so forth.

By the way, the Spirit (metaphysical defense) skill becomes more useful, and identifiable, if renamed Will, or Willpower.

 

[Nellisir]

The problem goes away once you stop assign fixed abilities to skills. The WoD matrix approach of allowing any skill to be used with any ability (if it makes sense!) is much more flexible. E.g. I'm pretty sure it's possible to intimidate someone using intelligence.

The problem also goes away if you don't allow Intimidate to be used with Strength, which is what I did, and was easier than reworking the whole skill system.

You might have an intimidating intelligence but that doesn't mean you can intimidate someone. If you say "um" a lot, and stammer, and look down, and act indecisive and unsure, you aren't going to be believed. That's not Intelligence or Strength - that's Charisma. It's posture, presence, bearing, attitude, and body language. I know big strong guys that don't intimidate me, and little guys that do.

When the troll's player got particularly obnoxious, I'd tell him that his character's voice was cracking. And then the NPCs would ask the troll how puberty was coming along.
(I'd like to add that I only did this because the guy kept trying the same thing over and over, despite being shot down every time. He dumped on Charisma, he had to live with it. Great player otherwise.)

 

[Nellisir]

Short list:Fight, Parry, Sneak, Move, Knowledge, Concentrate, Cast Spell, Spirit, Repel Undead, Handle Animal, Interact.

11 skills. Almost 4 per ability. 3 defenses, and 8 proactive skills. It's a decent list, but I feel like it doesn't provide enough tailoring options (for a system that doesn't force classes on the characters). For example, if a front-line fighter takes the (generalized) Sneak skill, then he's suddenly an expert in everything rogue-ish, from hiding, being quiet, lockpicking, black-marketeering, pocket picking, forgery, filching, and so forth.

Well, if a stab-in-the-back thief takes (generalized) Fight skill, is he suddenly an expert in everything fighter-ish? If so, then I'd call that fair. If not, then why not, and whatever you did to Fight you could do to Sneak. And Cast Spell, presumably. Maybe 1 "point" into Sneak gets you a +1 in everything, or a +3 in a sub-skill of your choice.

 

[pastshelfdate]

All input helps, PSD. Because my goal isn't just to help me, here. It's to help everyone.

Here's the list I'm currently using:
Physical skills:
Fight/unarmed, fight/melee, fight/missile, parry, sneak, movement, larceny
Mental skills:
Knowledge/Nature, knowledge/scholar, profession/healer, prof/musician, prof/alchemist, prof/smith, detect, concentrate
Metaphysical skills:
Cast spell, spirit, repel undead, handle animal, persuade, deceive


Another one of my goals is to be able to branch the skills out, so for example:
Movement becomes - acrobatics/tumbling, running, swimming, climbing
Know/Nature becomes - hunting/fishing, camping, hiking, tracking
Detect becomes - spot, listen, search
Fight/Unarmed becomes - grapple, kung-fu, brawl

My question to you: is 21 skills enough to make characters interesting while remaining a fundamental, simple RPG?

For me, the main thing would be that the list include all possible skills, in 21 baskets, in this case. I guess your Knowledge/Scholar would include mechanics and engineering, both of which have their place in a medieval/fantasy setting. I may not be the best for saying whether 21 skills is simple enough. They should fit on one character sheet with everything else. But I'm so used to building characters, I don't flinch at Hero System or Role Master. Totally new players may be overwhelmed, no matter how simple you make it.

I have one friend who was running middle school kids in a game with only three stats, at a convention. I don't know how it went, but as I passed by, they seemed engrossed. That's probably going too far, but it shows what can be done. It is role-playing, not roll-playing - though I admit to playing the numbers, mostly.

 

[pastshelfdate]

I have a real issue with the Intimidate skill using Strength, btw. Charisma is presence, notability, making people notice you. Scary people have high Charisma. Danny Trejo? High charisma. People notice him.

I had a player who used Chr as his dump stat, and kept trying to intimidate people. His character was a bridge troll fighter, and he thought he ought to be scary and intimidating and fearsome, even though his Charisma was 7.

I told him that with a Charisma of 7 no one took him seriously. He was more likely to be patted on the head (or stuffed in a sack - as another character put it, he was nine feet of ugly in three feet of troll.)

I love that last comment. I can understand how even a physically imposing character could lose impact, with such a low charisma. I've never run a game, but I'd be tempted to let him use Strength for Intimidate, but with serious penalties. It would be a very blunt instrument. He'd be more likely just to scare others into shock than to get them to do anything in particular. He'd really have to use a combination of Strength and Intelligence, and a lot of both, to make up for so little Charisma. There would also have to be some really good role-playing to intimidate anyone. Even then, there would be some things that would be easier done with Charisma. So a 16 Charisma could accomplish as much persuasion as a combination of 18 Strength and 18 Intelligence.

I can understand not wanting to let such a player abuse the rules and go with such a low Charisma, but I also don't think it's realistic not to allow strength to intimidate at all. Has no system tried including skills that are based on more than one stat? I think Hero system bases Stun on more than just Constitution (Where is my book?) - or is that Body? Couldn't some Performance skills be based on Charisma and Dexterity?

I know there are feats in the d20 system that allow a different stat bonus to be used for some things. But there need to be limits. I don't envy you, when you have to deal with such things.

 

[pastshelfdate]

Trying for flexibility without breaking the game

Well, if a stab-in-the-back thief takes (generalized) Fight skill, is he suddenly an expert in everything fighter-ish? If so, then I'd call that fair. If not, then why not, and whatever you did to Fight you could do to Sneak. And Cast Spell, presumably. Maybe 1 "point" into Sneak gets you a +1 in everything, or a +3 in a sub-skill of your choice.

There are elements of the big, standard d20 class system that may help control that. Fighters get rather few skill points, so they could never have as much stealth as a rogue, without severely weakening the character in all other aspects of being a fighter. Likewise, rogues get fewer feats and would have the same problem, trying to equal a fighter in combat. Would that be enough to allow more flexibility without letting players abuse the system? Right now, is there a feat that would allow a fighter to add Stealth as a class skill? And if a rogue is willing to use the rogue's fewer feats for combat feats, that's already allowed, though many of those have a Strength minimum.

I just don't know enough about it. Class systems frustrate me, sometimes, but they are maybe a bit easier to use than straight point-based systems. And class systems encourage players to specialize within their team. I like that.