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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 2618935" data-attributes="member: 3586">None of those. Well, I don't like them as part of a serious game, but they're Hackmaster enough to be very amusing. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />No, it's the percentile system and the system for improving them. What I find interesting about all of this is that before 3e, I would have *loved* Hackmaster skills. You can improve them! You can train them! (A few fond memories of RuneQuest sessions expanded into something greater).However, 3e has a skill system that, in addition to being elegant, is also useful as a tool for the DM designing encounters.The elegance reasons come down to opposed uses of skills (much easier with opposed d20+modifiers rolls) and changing difficulty.The tool reasons are due to the linking of maximum skill ranks in 3e to level. In a skill someone considers important (and generally that's a decision made with knowledge of the DM's style and the game environment), you can assume that they've got a bonus of at least Level+3. You can make assumptions based on that in your design to make the use of skills a part of challenge resolution.That's not present in Hackmaster. The actual levels in skills can be wildly variant from the actual level of the PC. As a result, it's very hard to include skill use as part of an adventure. They become little tricks the PCs can use, but they never grow to become integral to an adventure unless the DM intentionally makes them so knowing the PC's skills in advance... something that can't happen from published adventures.Now, I may be misinterpreting how skills are used in Hackmaster here. (I certainly don't have the play experience!) Are you familiar with the Player's Option: Skills & Powers book from 2e? Hackmaster's character creation system is based on it, although the NWP system it used is much closer to 3e than HM. (I consider a big advancement of 3e was to make the actual skill lis be of skills useful to adventuring, rather than "nothing" skills like "Cooking" - although those type of skills are subsumed in the Profession and Craft skills).Cheers!</blockquote>

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