WOIN Skill choices and character creation?

[Drekin]

Hello again, Drekin is still here!

I got to thinking recently. When making a character can you choose the same skill twice from one career or race? Example: Can a Chosen from N.O.W. choose Negotiation 3 times?
Second to this, can you substitute more than 1 skill to a defensive skill? And again can it be the same skill? Example: Can a Martial Artist Origin Career choose Dodging 2 times? Or Dodging 1 and Foresight 1?
Thirdly, can you substitute racial skills for defensive skills? Example: Can a Chosen choose Negotiation 1, Tactics 1, Acrobatics 1.

Finally are the different skill selections rigid? Because some careers have some skill requirements that can be hard to acquire and some careers do not grant access to skills that would make total sense for them.
[EDIT] ---
Example: The Performer from N.E.W. has [Performance] as requirement, which seems to be very hard to acquire as it's only available through origins. Like would it not make sense for the Bartender to have Dancing?
Example 2: The Gangster from N.E.W. has Pistols, but would it be possible to choose Knives instead? This would be within [combat] and still make sense. Or is it rigid and Pistols or nothing?

Another question: The skill group [Personal] or [Developmental] and the Armor skill, seems to be rare as well. Especially the Hardy skill which is pretty important for survival?

Please advise
Drekin

 

[Morrus]

No, no, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, notsure what you mean! (in that order)

I’ll try to write more when I’m not in my phone.

 

[ruy343]

I've taken the skills lists under each class to be "suggestions", rather than hard and fast. You're right: a gangster having proficiency with knives makes just as much sense as proficiency with pistols, and my interpretation of the minimalist response above is that Morrus and I are in agreement. That said, I also enjoy how my characters end up with some more eclectic skills during creation by following those guidelines, making the character more lifelike (because although combat skills are super important and flashy, very few people have spent their lives only doing that).

The Armor skills are outdated, and are no longer to be used, even though they still crop up throughout the books. Armor has instead been implemented as a static soak value, and any character can use it, though strength may be required to wear heavier armors without penalty.

The Hardy skill is difficult to find, yeah. At my table, I count it as a defensive skill, and allow players to pick it up whenever they could get a defensive skill, but that's up to your GM.

Regarding your first questions: I am pretty sure that you can only take one rank in a given skill per grade (origin or career) that you acquire (aside from specialized training, which you can spend XP for). It should say that in the section about skills you acquire per grade (I'm at work, and can't give you a page number).

However, since it's so easy to acquire skills in exchange for XP, you ought to be able to get the higher skill rank that you want after a few sessions, even if you don't have it right off the bat.

 

[Drekin]

No, no, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, notsure what you mean! (in that order)

I’ll try to write more when I’m not in my phone.

Could you possibly elaborate on that? Your thoughts behind these answers would clear up a lot

 

[Morrus]

Could you possibly elaborate on that? Your thoughts behind these answers would clear up a lot

I'll try to, but it's a LOT of questions! Plus some more you edited in after I answered. I'll try to set some time aside this week.

 

[Drekin]

Thank you

 

[easl]

When making a character can you choose the same skill twice from one career or race?

You can take the same skill once each time you choose a profession. So the first time you take Actor, you can take 1 rank of Swords. The second time you take Actor, you can take another rank of Swords. but you cannot take 1 rank of Actor and use the two skill slots to take Swords 2.

Can you substitute more than 1 skill to a defensive skill? And again can it be the same skill?

AIUI you can take two different defensive skills instead of your two career skills. but as I said above, you can't use the two slots from a single career choice to give yourself 2 ranks in one skill.

Thirdly, can you substitute racial skills for defensive skills? Example: Can a Chosen choose Negotiation 1, Tactics 1, Acrobatics 1.
Yes you can take defensive skills when choosing your racial skills. Offhand I don't know if your examples are actually defensive skills...I don't remember Negotiation or Tactics being on the list, but I don't have the book handy.

Finally are the different skill selections rigid? Because some careers have some skill requirements that can be hard to acquire and some careers do not grant access to skills that would make total sense for them.

That's up to the GM and your table. I personally view them as 'rigid...but with some limited reasonable exceptions if the player has a good reason.' I would not count "I want to take that career but I don't want to take a previous career to get the prerequisite" as a good reason. An example of something I would allow is if someone taking the Actor career wanted the Comedy or Ventriloquism skill, because it's reasonable to think that someone trying to break into acting might have done stand up or improv or other similar things as part of their career as an actor.

Another question: The skill group [Personal] or [Developmental] and the Armor skill, seems to be rare as well. Especially the Hardy skill which is pretty important for survival?

Not sure Armor skills are a thing any more. Hardy is both pretty good and rare, yes. Not all careers get access to all things. Them's the breaks.

 

[BlckKnght]

I think armor skills are still a thing, but they have only narrow uses and you'll seldom roll them on attribute checks. You don't need any skill to just wear normal quality armor. Having skill in a category of armor (Light, Medium or Heavy) does however let you unlock the extra SOAK from higher quality armor, and for Medium and Heavy armors they offset the DEFENSE penalties those kinds of armor cause (by one point per die you have in your skill pool). All of the armor skills are [combat] skills, not defense skills that you can substitute in at any time. The upcoming 1.2 edition is adding them to a bunch of careers in OLD. There may be a few careers in NEW and NOW that should have them added to their skill listings, but most of the obvious ones already have the full [combat] category, so they don't need specific armor skills too.

This does tie in to the other question the OP asked about how strict the skill lists should be considered. I think players should often be allowed to substitute a relevant skill into a career's skill list or prerequisites, and even more often into a relevant [category] that's already being used in one of those places. But the player definitely needs to ask their GM about each one, rather than just treating the lists as general suggestions. As a personal example, one of my characters took the gardening skill as a part of the [crafting] category (rather than [miscellaneous hobbies] where it officially belongs).

Also remember that after character creation ends and you start playing, you can quite easily pick up a few ranks of important skills that were not on your career lists by spending XP for incremental advancements. It's only 3 XP to get a new skill at rank 1 (with a 1d6 pool). If you want more, it's only 6 more XP for rank 2, and 9 XP beyond that for rank 3 (where you get a 2d6 pool). If you're missing some important skills (like hardy, perception or reactions), this is a really easy way to improve quickly. 18 XP for two more dice is a pretty good deal if its on a roll you're going to be making all the time (and 3 XP for the first die is always a steal). Your GM might want you to give some in-game justification for how you're doing that incremental improvement, of course, but if you're already doing whatever the actions the skill helps you with (like wearing heavy armor or wielding some exotic weapon), that's quite easy to do. You can also make incremental advances to your attributes, though it tends to be quite expensive.

 

[Morrus]

Right... here goes! Wasn't as many as I thought once I excised the questions.

I got to thinking recently. When making a character can you choose the same skill twice from one career or race? Example: Can a Chosen from N.O.W. choose Negotiation 3 times?

You cannot choose the same skill twice at the same time. When it says two skills, it means two different skills.

Second to this, can you substitute more than 1 skill to a defensive skill? And again can it be the same skill? Example: Can a Martial Artist Origin Career choose Dodging 2 times? Or Dodging 1 and Foresight 1?

You can substitute any skills for defensive skills. Usually I do this at the end, rather than as I go along.

Thirdly, can you substitute racial skills for defensive skills? Example: Can a Chosen choose Negotiation 1, Tactics 1, Acrobatics 1.

Yep, you can substitute any skills for defensive skills.

Finally are the different skill selections rigid? Because some careers have some skill requirements that can be hard to acquire and some careers do not grant access to skills that would make total sense for them.

As written, yes. But you are free to rule otherwise in your own game!

Another question: The skill group [Personal] or [Developmental] and the Armor skill, seems to be rare as well. Especially the Hardy skill which is pretty important for survival?

What's the question?

 

[BlckKnght]

Another question: The skill group [Personal] or [Developmental] and the Armor skill, seems to be rare as well. Especially the Hardy skill which is pretty important for survival?

What's the question?

I'm not sure this is exactly what Drekin was getting at, but a related question I've sometimes thought about is "How do you 'break in' to certain sets of careers that have certain hard to acquire skills as prerequisites?"

Often the best careers to give certain skills also have those skills as prerequisites, so you can only take them during character creation if you pick specific races or origins (that have the required skills on their skill lists). For instance, it can be hard to break in to stealth careers, since most of the ones that provide it also have it as a prerequisite. Same for piloting and [performance] to a lesser degree.

Once the game is underway those prerequisites are not very burdensome, since you can buy one rank of a prerequisite skill as an incremental advance for just a few XP (with GM approval). But during character creation you may have to go through a narratively undesirable career (like Prisoner) just to unlock the one you really want (like Burglar or Sniper). Or, as Drekin was asking about in some of his earlier questions, beg your GM for a loose interpretation of some skill lists.