Background skill vs Characteristic skill.

[Herolover]

Okay. I have a skills question.

There are basically two types of skills those based off characteristics and background skills which are not based off characteristics and have a standard cost. Now, I understand mechanically what the difference between the two are and I understand that background skills (namely knowledge, professional, scientific, and languages) represent knowledge the character has received over time.

My question involves cost. A skill based off characteristics generally cost 3 points for the base skill and 2 points per +1 added to the skill. In general a Background skill cost 2 points for the base skill and 1 points add +1 to the skill.

So my question is why would any character want to buy a background skill not based of their characteristic? It would seem to be cheaper to buy the necessary characteristic higher and just base the skill on that characteristic. Since this is the case why not just have background skills based on relative characteristics? Why have the option for a non-characteristic based skill at all? What is the purposes of it?

Under what circumstances would you, as the GM, not allow a player to buy a background skill based on a characteristic?

[Steve Long]

This isn't really a rules question, so I've moved it to "HERO System Discussion" for general jawing-over. ;)

[BNakagawa]

if the applicable stat isn't 13 or higher, then you're better off buying it at the background level.

Depending on what your desired skill range is and what your stat is, there are areas in which it would be cheaper to buy it as a background skill.

[Fortunatus]

"So my question is why would any character want to buy a background skill not based of their characteristic?"

As a player, I often do it with starting characters, mainly because I like to play people who either know a lot (KS) or have a lot of life experience (PS). If I can get 5 skills for roughly the price of 3, I'll do it (the ratio becomes a very happy 2 for 1 with Skill Enhancers). After the game starts, I'll bump the skills that get used often to being based on CHA.

I also like to buy new KSs and PSs at the background level with XP in play, as the slower progression seems more "realistic" to me.

"Since this is the case why not just have background skills based on relative characteristics?"

Got me. Ask Steve and all the folks who designed the game before him. I expect that the answer is that they wanted to have a relatively cheap way for characters to be well-rounded. And, it gives even relatively incompetent normals a way to be reasonably skilled. Anyone with a CHA less than 18 is just as well (or possibly better) off buying the Background Skill not based off of that CHA.

"Under what circumstances would you, as the GM, not allow a player to buy a background skill based on a characteristic?"

I don't think I'd ever outright bar someone from buying a Background Skill based on CHA. However, I do tend to ask people to write short backgrounds for their characters. If the background says that the character has been to Boston once, and five years ago at that, I'll probably ask a few pointed questions if the player's got a 14- AK: Boston--even if he does have a 23 INT.

-Conrad