Skills and Tiers

[terryz]

Very happy that the 40K mark was reached and that N.O.W. will move forward. I really love what I see in the playtest docs and it has gotten me to go from long-time reader and lurker to actually post something.

I understand the reluctance to allow characters at the Starting Tier to take a skill repeatedly as it could be rife for abuse. That said, in walking through the character creation process, it feels to me overly restrictive. What it the rule was Max Skill = Tier +1 rather then Max Skill = Tier. That way a starting character could get Longswordx2 if they want to really focus there. A character after 4 traditions is often around 30 years old and so the idea of them being at a "professional" rather than "proficient" level seems reasonable. So that would be 1 extra die + the opportunity to benefit from an additional die via the quality of an item; but most characters won't start with a superior item. An additional possible limits would be to disallow taking the same skill in consecutive stages of character creation and/or to limit a character to a single skill that can be taken more than once before starting. This also might be a candidate for an optional rule or house-rule to tune the power level of campaign out the gate.

What do other people think about the current limitation and the reasoning behind it ?

- Terry

 

[Khaalis]

I can see the argument here. I too think that 1 Grade in a skill per tier might be a bit too restrictive. However, as i mentioned in another thread, a possible medium ground here might be to allow certain traditions only a certain skill or small group of skills to be advanced as "Grade = Tier + 1".

For instance Alchemist might have "You may have a Grade in Alchemy and Brewing equal to your Tier +1."

I initially suggested this as 1 possible option to give non-caster Traditions to balance out the benefit caster Traditions gain in gaining a new Spell List each Grade since its worth 1,000xp that non-caster classes don't get.

Another way to do it might be simply to say that you can "specialize" in a number of skills, with specialization being "Skill Grade = Tier + 1". The number of skills could be determined a number of different ways:
* 1-2 per Tradition
* A set number of specializations ever (maybe 3-5?)
* A number of specializations based on a Derivative of your INT (perhaps INT*.5 [round down]?)

Just some thoughts on the subject.

PS: @ terryz - Welcome to the light, glad you came out of the shadows.

 

[Darth Palpy]

For the playtest, we (two friend of mine and I) are converting and playing a homebrew campaign setting made formerly for ORE.
In this instance, the limitation put on skill levels seems a little too steep.
For this, we decided to adjust it with "specializations":

Base Specialization: Tier +1.
-For Lore or Knowledge skills, the number of specializations is based on INT/2 or INT/3 rounded down.
-For all the others, its limited by Tiers. So a Tiers 3 characcter with 8 INT would have 3 general specializations, and 4 specializations with Lore and Knowledges skills.

Of course, this is an example, but I think that Lore and Knowledges are a little underestimated in the system as it is now.
I do understand the system is geared mostly toward action and heroics, but we did thought that those kind of skills should have a special place, if possible. ^^

This is our take on what we perceived as a little problem, so I hope it's of some value.

 

[terryz]

...
For this, we decided to adjust it with "specializations":

Base Specialization: Tier +1.
-For Lore or Knowledge skills, the number of specializations is based on INT/2 or INT/3 rounded down.
-For all the others, its limited by Tiers. So a Tiers 3 characcter with 8 INT would have 3 general specializations, and 4 specializations with Lore and Knowledges skills.
...

Darth, can you clarify a bit? Are your specializations changes to the limit of advancement, are they a replacement for the existing skill choice rules, or are they additional skills added to the existing skills for a character ?

Thanks.

- Terry

 

[Darth Palpy]

Mainly they are changes to the advancement rule. "Specialization" only permit, in this instance, to go beyond the limit of 1 skill level by tier, to a maximun of Tier +1. Within limits, that is, as defined by the Tier for most skills, and in our particular game, for the different Lores, as defined by INT/3.

As for the number of skills, it doesn't change for a career. We didn't modify careers (we are trying to build new careers, as it is, a Priest and a Noble one). The only mechanic involved give a bonus to go beyond limitation about 1 rule, nothing more.
But as we've seen, it greatly impacts the game play and the perception players have of their characters. It doesn't promote broken characters, only relatively efficient ones.

I hope I've been much more clearer about the subject, but english being not my first language, I worry I didn't convey as well as I would the notions I've explained.

 

[Khaalis]

Basically what Darth is getting at would be an additional rule to skills like this:

Normal Max Skill Grade = 1 per Tier.

Specialization:
A character may select a small number of skills with which they are specialized in. Specialization allows the character to supersede the 1 Skill Grade maximum per Tier by +1.
* Background Specializations: The character may have a number of Artistic, Crafting, Gaming, Hobby, Lore, Performance or Traveling Specializations equal to INT/2 (round up).
* Active Specializations: The character may have a number of Combat, Personal, Magical, Physical, Subterfuge, Social or Outdoor Specializations equal to INT/3 (round down).


Thus a character with a 6 INT would have 3 Background Specializations and 2 Active Specializations. Ex: So Ragnar the Weaponsmith, who is Tier 1, can have a maximum Skill Grade of 2 in his Alchemy Lore, Weaponsmith, Local Knowledge Lore, Carrying and Negotiating skills while all other skills are limited to a maximum Skill Grade of 1.

 

[Morrus]

The playtest documents used to have a specialization rule. Feedback wasn't great, though - it went away as part of the general attempt to narrow dice pool ranges and reduce swinginess.

 

[Khaalis]

The playtest documents used to have a specialization rule. Feedback wasn't great, though - it went away as part of the general attempt to narrow dice pool ranges and reduce swinginess.

Can you explain briefly what you mean by swinginess? How does 1 additional die to a skill make it swingy? If anything I would see it tightening the range and improving success.

e.g.
* 4d6 vs. DC 13 = 4-24 (average 12)
* 5d6 vs. DC 13 = 5-30 (average 15)

I'm just curious.

 

[Morrus]

Can you explain briefly what you mean by swinginess? How does 1 additional die to a skill make it swingy? If anything I would see it tightening the range and improving success.

e.g.
* 4d6 vs. DC 13 = 4-24 (average 12)
* 5d6 vs. DC 13 = 5-30 (average 15)

I'm just curious.

Swinginess in this context refers to large dice pools and very large variations in dice pools between characters. As a whole, through various reductions, the dice pools have been roughly halved in size since the initial playtest documents which had some starting characters routinely rolling 10d6 and others rolling 3d6, which makes things far too unpredictable for effective adventure design. Various things have been trimmed in different places over the months, bringing that down enormously.

That said, the main area where swinginess was an issue was combat - something that all characters engage in. Obviously not all characters engage in medical practice or piloting, etc. so there is some argument to be made for not being as strict with those types of skills.

 

[Darth Palpy]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?2167-Khaalis@Khaalis: You take it quite far as "Background" skills go, in my point of view ^^.
I do understand the logic of it, but in my mind, it was concerning "Lore skill" exclusively (as I consider theoretical knowledge to be faster to learn, opposite of pratical or semi-pratical skills).
It's also easier to tie it to the INT attribute, and quite restrictive in way that players must carefully consider what they take as Lore skills spec.

For active skills (which I see as all the other skills except Lore skills) I tend to be quite restrictive, because if players could specialize too much, well, specialization loses a great part of its appeal and goal.

I confess that my main inspirations for those modifcations came (in a circonvoluted way) from the new Iron Kingdoms RPG and Fading Suns systems.
[MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION]:
Would it be possible to see those playtest rules ? (if it doesn't take much time, of course^^) I do find that intriguing.
Anyway, a possible sidebar about specializations could be a great thing, giving more options to GM and PC alike, don't you think ?
I also wonder as Khaalis how can it be swingy ?