SPYCRAFT: The greatest RPG ever made! The best d20 game ever!

[Mal Malenkirk]

Since I feel generous, I'll elaborate on the martial feats.

It's very elegant, the core feat is Martial Arts. It allows you to deal 1D6 and to threaten critical success on a 20 (you can't otherwise).

Then there are three "style" feats that improve your basic prowess by building on Martial Arts. By the end of that tree, called Master of the 6th Style, you deal a lot of damage, do a lot of criticals and attack twice as often as anyone else.

Around this tree are 5 concentrations that come in Basic and Master degree; Punching, Kicking, Holding, Throwing and Dodging. They all have Martial Arts as a requisite and 4 of these are in turn requisite to progress in the martial art style tree. Dodge is left out as a requisite but personnaly I'd allow a PC to chose any 4 and thus personalize his style.

Learning these techniques gives you two special moves.

For example, learning Kicking Basics grants you the Jump Kick and Roundhouse Kick abilities. Learning Kicking Mastery would grant you two stronger additional abilities.

A dedicated martial artist could learn the 12 feats required to become a master of the 6th style as well as a few more like the Chi Strike line up or the other concentration that isn't a requisite (automatically dodging under core rules)

A more casual martial artist could learn the feats Martial arts, Warrior's grace (flurry of blow), Dodging Basic and leave it at that it at that.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

Geoff has it right. The whole point of taking 20 is to do away with the rigmarole of rolling repeatedly until you succeed at a task (assuming it's possible). If you take the time to do it right, that should mean you do it RIGHT.

Taking 20 isn't litterally about rolling 20 times and getting a 20 at the end of the serie.

It's about meticulously doing a task to the best of your abilities even tough it takes you 20 time as long as it usually would.

You need to roll a natural 20 (or maybe less if you have the right feat) in order to get a critical threat on a skill. If you take your time and take a 20 you cannot have the stroke of genius or the adrenalin pumping in your system that would warrant a critical success. You still get a whooping high skill check. It just doesn't have that certain panache that superspy display from time to time.

If you consider taking 20 as rolling 20 times, from 1 to 20, I'll tell you that it means you critically failed right at the start! Just as a natural 20 can mean astounding success if activated by an action die, a 1 can spell abysmall failure if the GC spend his own action die to turn a low check into a bungled mess that explodes in your face.

The whole concept of critical results is simply anathema to the taking 20 mechanic. Stress VS Calm. Life or Death VS No Danger for Failure. Drama VS Routine.

And please spare me the sarcasm until you've read the material we're discussing and understand the concept behind action die and critical success/failure.

 

[Voneth]

By the way, I noticed your D&D action dice conversion, and I thought I'd make a few TOTALLY UNOFFICIAL suggestions...
In addition to what you have already...
Barbarian - Allow healing use of dice during combat while raging.
Bard - Double dice for bardic lore or bardic music rolls.

etc ....


Hey Kevin any suggestions on psy warrior and psion (or the six subclasses of psion?)

 

[Geoff Watson]

Taking 20 isn't litterally about rolling 20 times and getting a 20 at the end of the serie.

That's EXACTLY what it is for.

If Spycraft adds critical failure on 1's for skill checks to the system, then taking 20 wouldn't be possible.

Geoff.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

If Spycraft adds critical failure on 1's for skill checks to the system, then taking 20 wouldn't be possible.

Well, it is possible. The rules says so on p.39

Why the heck are you arguing this point anyway?

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

I think my AEG operatives need to pay Mr. Watson a little visit...

 

[hong]

Well, it is possible. The rules says so on p.39

Why the heck are you arguing this point anyway?

To point out the logical inconsistency in the rules.

Is this a trick question?

 

[Geoff Watson]

Why the heck are you arguing this point anyway?

What Hong said.

What is their explanation for adding auto-success and auto-failure to skill checks? Did they give a reason? They didn't explain it in Spycraft Lite. With that, a character with one rank in Open Locks, 1 Dex, and improvised tools will be able to 'Take 20' and open the most difficult lock in the world in two minutes.

Unless they have a good explanation for this change it is clear that they do not understand the d20 system.

Geoff.

 

[Geoff Watson]

I think my AEG operatives need to pay Mr. Watson a little visit...

Typical 'secret agent' scum.

Can't argue logically, so he makes dumb threats.

Well, your operatives will be in for a little surprise

Geoff.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

I haven't read the book, (I haven't even seen it), but your description of skill criticals sounds like they don't understand the d20 rules. What about 'Take 20'? Automatic critical?

Geoff.

I shall now bring my considerable intellect ( :::: ) to bear on the subject.

First, lets look at the rule on p39: "If you have plenty of time (20 times the amount of time you would normally need for a skill check), and the skill you are attempting carries no penalty for failure, then you may choose to take 20. INstead of rolling 1d20 for your skill chek, calculate it as if you had rolled a 20. (Thus, if you skill bonuse is +5 and you take 20, your result is 25.) Taking 20 takes twenty times as long as making a normal skill check (e.g. a skill that normally takes 1 minute takes 20 minutes if you take 20). You cannot take 20 if failing the skill check carries any penalty, and you may not score a threat when taking 20."

My reading on the rule is that you can choose one or the other: to roll to see if you get a 20 or to Take 20. But there are consequences to this decision. If you choose to roll, you could fail or not score 20 or whatever. If you choose to take 20, you give up the right to score a threat but you get your 20 (for succeed/failure but not Threat). Taken in this light, it's really not logical inconsistency. It's just stating that if you take this route, these are the limitations or "choose your poison and accept the consequenses."

It's not so much that they don't understand the d20 rules (I think saying that is a bit harsh. I think at most you could say that they "don't understand the Take 20 rule." Personally, I wouldn't even go that far.), but that they are applying the Take 20 rule in a manner not used before and rewriting it accordingly. After all, d20 doesn't normally mention critical failures/successes for skills. They've rewritten a rule (Take 20) and added a rule (critical success/critical failure). The new Take 20 rule modifies the new critical success/critical failure rules. It's all very simple, I think.

Hopefully this was helpful. I would appreciate if replies to this would take into consideration that I'm trying to be helpful and that sarcasm and jibes will be kept to a minimum.