Hi folx! Here are some thoughts about Skills that have occurred to me over the years, along with my brief thoughts on them. I’m posting them here to stimulate discussion, but not to limit or restrict it. These aren’t necessarily all the issues about Skills that could be considered, nor the only thoughts about them. Feel free to post anything here that you think is relevant and reasonably constructive; you don’t have to limit yourself to what I’ve posted.
Regardless of whatever opinion I post on an idea, I’m always willing to be convinced otherwise if you think you can do it.The fact that I’m posting an opinion doesn’t necessarily mean my mind’s made up on an issue; it just indicates my current thinking on the subject.
Periodically I may post other questions and thoughts that occur to me.
Q: Should we change the Skill rules so that Skills aren’t based on Characteristics?
Steve’s Thoughts: The so-called “General Skills” were eliminated from 5E because they were an annoyance and illogicality in a system where most Skills derive their base roll from a Characteristic. However, it’s worth considering whether making all Skills non-Characteristic-based would improve the System. “Realistically,” I think that competence with most learned abilities come from study, training, practice, and experience — not innate aptitude, though innate aptitude can play a part. But as it stands in the HERO System, it’s easy to look at things and assume that for 3 points, you can buy a roll that lets a character succeed well over 50% of the time based on natural aptitude alone (i.e., a Characteristic-based roll).
Changing to a system where all Skills with rolls start at some predefined level and can be bought up from there would eliminate that, and also tend to increase character granularity/differentiation. It would also eliminate some of the reasons for buying Characteristics at the 3 and 8 “breakpoints” (see above).
However, it would probably mean characters would need to spend more points on Skills to reach the same level of competence, and that might entail increasing the amount of points characters are built on. It also tends to downplay the “dramatic simulation” aspects of the System, which are enhanced by letting characters have (relatively) high Skill Rolls cheaply. At present I don’t see that there’s enough benefit to make this change worthwhile.
Q: Should we make all the Skills “consistent” in terms of how they’re purchased?
Steve’s Thoughts: 5ER 42-43 has a nice rundown of the five different “cost structures” for Skills in the HERO System. An argument can be made that it would be better if the number of “categories” were reduced, perhaps even to just one. This would make the HERO System easier to learn and use. However, I don’t think this is worth doing. The different cost structures help to distinguish the Skills in desireable ways. Changing them to, for example, all work on a Characteristic-based roll would require a lot of contorting and cause just as many problems (or more).
Q: Should we reduce or increase the number of Skills in the core rulebook?
Steve’s Thoughts: I don’t see any reason to; I think the current Skill list is a pretty good one overall. But as always I’m willing to entertain motions from the floor.
Q: Should we change or streamline Combat Skill Levels?
Steve’s Thoughts: Everyone loves CSLs because, well, they make you better at fighting (a key element of adventure in nearly every genre) and so wonderfully allow you to differentiate or more precisely define characters. But that level of use means people pay close attention to them, and that has consequences. On the one hand, CSLs as presented in 5ER tend to lead to all sorts of questions (look at the Rules FAQ on them) and are potentially prone to abuse due to a (relative) lack of granularity. On the other hand, as those of you who have The Ultimate Skill have seen, correcting these problems required me to write about 8,000 words of text, requiring eight printed pages. There’s no way I’m going to put that level of detail in the core rulebook.
So we’re left with three options: streamline/abstract CSLs even further (which will likely only make the problem worse); leave them as they are as the best middle-of-the-road compromise; or expand them a little bit to try to smooth out existing problems without creating new ones. I currently lean toward what’s behind Door #2, but Door #3 isn’t entirely unattractive.
Q: Should Languages be done as Intellect Skills?
Steve’s Thoughts: TUS 216 raises this possibility, and it’s not without some attraction (there’s some concern nimrods would think that means you have to make a roll to speak all the time — but we don’t want to try to design rules to be nimrod-proof, it’s an exercise in futility). The Language Familiarity Table would come into play as indicated modifiers to the Skill Roll. I’m not entirely sold on this idea, but it’s worth considering. At the very least, I may incorporate the TUS 216 rules as a sidebar or an option.
Q: Should Martial Arts be changed?
Steve’s Thoughts: It has been suggested that Martial Arts are too cheap for what they give you — that buying the equivalent to Martial Strike as, say, HA plus CSLs would cost more than the Martial Maneuver does. While there may be some technical truth to this, I don’t think that Martial Arts are unbalanced or cause any particular game problems, so I see no need to change them.
Originally Posted by James Gillen
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