The Perform skill, WTF?

[ConcreteBuddha]

Aren't there any good books coming out so we can argue about something...well...substanstial?

 

[MerakSpielman]

Ok, let me get this straight...
ok, so my bard has a charasma of 10 and 4 ranks in perform.

He can choose 4 methods of performance - say, stand up comedy, storytelling, harmonica, and tap dancing.

Does he add 4 to all of his performance checks with any of these, or does he only add 1 (since only 1 rank is actually applied to each method)?

If he finds a magical item that boosts his Perform ability by 10 points, does he automatically learn ten new methods of performance? Does the DM need to determine which methods the item adds? If my bard already knows one of the methods, does he only get a +9 bonus?

 

[MerakSpielman]

Aren't there any good books coming out so we can argue about something...well...substanstial?

Like how to spell substantial?

 

[Hypersmurf]

ok, so my bard has a charasma of 10 and 4 ranks in perform.

He can choose 4 methods of performance - say, stand up comedy, storytelling, harmonica, and tap dancing.

Does he add 4 to all of his performance checks with any of these?

Yes.

If he finds a magical item that boosts his Perform ability by 10 points, does he automatically learn ten new methods of performance?

No. His bonus to Perform checks is now +14, but he still has only 4 ranks.

If he had a Charisma of 14, for a +2 bonus to Perform, he'd still only know four types.

It's like how you only use BAB to calculate iterative attacks, not total Attack Bonus.

-Hyp.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Interesting. That's not how I've been playing it IMC, but I don't have a real problem with it.

 

[Sixchan]

After all of this, I've decided that I think I like my wrong version better...

One rank equalling one completely seperate type makes little sense to me. It's like saying Myself and Carlos Santana have equal ability in Guitar...

But of course, people are free to do it differently.

 

[Hypersmurf]

One rank equalling one completely seperate type makes little sense to me. It's like saying Myself and Carlos Santana have equal ability in Guitar...

Without more information, it's difficult to comment.

But if Carlos Santana has 15 Ranks in Perform, and one of his performance types is Guitar, he doesn't get a +1 to Perform (Guitar) checks, he gets a +15. (He'd also get +15 to his other fourteen performance types.)

If you have 3 ranks in Perform, and one of your performance types is Guitar, you get a +3.

In this example, Carlos Santana is a much better guitar player.

-Hyp.

 

[Sixchan]

Without more information, it's difficult to comment.

But if Carlos Santana has 15 Ranks in Perform, and one of his performance types is Guitar, he doesn't get a +1 to Perform (Guitar) checks, he gets a +15. (He'd also get +15 to his other fourteen performance types.)

If you have 3 ranks in Perform, and one of your performance types is Guitar, you get a +3.

In this example, Carlos Santana is a much better guitar player.

-Hyp.

Yeah, but if Santana is say, good at 3 instuments (+3), and I'm good at 2 instruments, plus dancing, drama, limericks and storytelling, then I am better than Santana. Which would make me really wonder why I'm not the one with multi-million dollar Albums...

And besides, if Carlos Santana has 15 things that he could get a rank in perform in, I don't see why that would make him (or anyone else) a better guitar player anyway.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Yeah, but if Santana is say, good at 3 instuments (+3), and I'm good at 2 instruments, plus dancing, drama, limericks and storytelling, then I am better than Santana.

You're coming at it backwards.

If you and he can both play guitar, but he's better than you, then it means his Perform bonus is higher. Which means he probably has more ranks than you do, which means that he can do a whole lot of things you just don't know about

... if we were going to try and represent real people with game mechanics.

-Hyp.

 

[Sixchan]

Okay, well, lets say we have 2 schoolkids in Music. John is a low ability pupil, who can play Guitar and Keyboard at Grade 1 level. Simon is a high ability pupil, who decided to do Guitar at Grade 3 level and MIDI Sequencing. Since if it were anything, MIDI sequencing would probably fall under craft or proffession (as it isn't a performance art), Simon, who can play Guitar better than than John, is in fact worse because John can play Keyboard.

WHAT? John is a better Guitar player because he plays Keyboard? Even though Simon is a whole 2 grades above John in Guitar ability?