Skills, skills, skills...

[Foxiekins]

I'm working on an NPC that has little to virtually no need for sleep, and thus has a LOT of time on his hands...  My intent is to build this with a set of 1 point familiarities at 8 or less, along with 4 skill levels that apply to all non-combat skills...  This gives him a 12 or less roll with anything he puts 1 point into...  With his point build, he has 18 points to use this way...

 

So, which 18 non-combat skills would you pick, to give the impression he knows everything...?

[steriaca]

Depends on his profession, assuming he is not a professional student. 

 

He should have a hobby or two (an excuse for him to have either/and a KS and a PS of the same thing).

 

Since he doesn't sleep, he probably has a "day" job for 8 hours, and a "night" job for 8 hours. An excuse for two more PS right there. 

 

Since he doesn't sleep, that gives him lots of time to explore the city, and an excuse for a CK (City Knowledge) of "campaign city".

 

Since he is exploring the city at night, he should have Streetwise, along with KS: Gangs Of The City.

 

That is 8 right there.

[Foxiekins]

50 minutes ago, steriaca said:

Depends on his profession, assuming he is not a professional student. 

 

He should have a hobby or two (an excuse for him to have either/and a KS and a PS of the same thing).

 

Since he doesn't sleep, he probably has a "day" job for 8 hours, and a "night" job for 8 hours. An excuse for two more PS right there. 

 

Since he doesn't sleep, that gives him lots of time to explore the city, and an excuse for a CK (City Knowledge) of "campaign city".

 

Since he is exploring the city at night, he should have Streetwise, along with KS: Gangs Of The City.

 

That is 8 right there.

His night job is being a dispatcher for the police department.  His day job is committing acts of brutality against the criminal populace...

[LoneWolf]

This will not work because skill levels cannot be applied to familiarities.   That is clearly stated on page 56 of book 1.   

 

If you are talking about background skill you could purchase a skill enhancer like scholar to reduce the cost of the background skill.  But that means you need to buy the skill enhancer and will be limited to what skills it will work with.   I did something similar with a character for Danger International years ago. He took scholar and spent 2 points to get a bunch of KS at 14 or less and had a couple of overall skill levels.  The extra point spent on the skill was worth it because you can only use a skill level for one thing at a time.  Often his knowledge skills were complementary so having them on a 14 or less meant he had huge bonuses to his rolls.  This is the character who once made a skill roll after the GM assigned a -30 to the roll.  

[Scott Ruggels]

Depends on the edition? 

[steriaca]

Ok. Considering his night job is a Police Dispatcher. He could buy Expert at 3cpoints, netting him a one point savings on any Knowledge Skills and Professional Skills (please correct me if I'm wrong) related to what he is an expert on.

 

Skills related to Police Dispatcher...

KS: Police Dispatcher Code (so you know the difference between a code 8-7 and a code 7-11).

KS: Police Procedural (you know how things are usually done in law enforcement).

KS: The Criminal Underworld (you roughly know who is who).

KS: The Law Enforcement World (police gossip about who can be trusted and who is corrupt).

PS: Police Dispatcher (know how to operate the dispatcher equipment, and simple fixes when needed).

 

Anything else?

 

Optional skills which could be folded into Expert, maybe.

KS: Superheroes and Supervillains. 

KS: Paramilitary Criminal and Law Enforcement Agencies (how to tell the difference from a VIPER goon and a DEMON goon and a SAT goon...)

[LoneWolf]

I believe the rule about skill levels not working with familiarity started in 4th edition.  I cannot verify that as my 4th edition rule book is packed away.  I looked in the 5th edition rule book and it is there.

 

Each type of background skill has its own skill enhancer and need to be bought separately.  Jack of all trades reduces professional skills, Scientist reduces science skills, Linguist reduces languages, Scholars reduce most knowledge skills Traveler reduces area and cultural knowledge skills, and well connected reduces contacts and favors.  So, to reduces both KS and PS you would need to pick up jack of all trades and scholar.

 

When building this type of character, you want to keep your skills fairly broad.  The broader the skill the more likely it will be complementary.  KS of police dispatcher codes is not going to help you with much else.  The Idea is that the more separate categories something falls into the more complementary skills you can roll. 

 

Something like this would give you a decent number of complementary skills.

 

KS: Law

KS: Criminals

KS: Paranormals

KS: Paranormal organizations

KS Military and Law Enforcement

KS Police Procedure

 

For example, when rolling a deduction roll vs, the leader of the local viper nest might get KS Criminal, KS Paranormals and KS Paranormal Organizations as complementary skills. 

 

Don't forget that every character gets a 11 or less professional skill for free as an everyman skill.

[Foxiekins]

1 hour ago, LoneWolf said:

I believe the rule about skill levels not working with familiarity started in 4th edition.  I cannot verify that as my 4th edition rule book is packed away.  I looked in the 5th edition rule book and it is there.

 

Each type of background skill has its own skill enhancer and need to be bought separately.  Jack of all trades reduces professional skills, Scientist reduces science skills, Linguist reduces languages, Scholars reduce most knowledge skills Traveler reduces area and cultural knowledge skills, and well connected reduces contacts and favors.  So, to reduces both KS and PS you would need to pick up jack of all trades and scholar.

 

When building this type of character, you want to keep your skills fairly broad.  The broader the skill the more likely it will be complementary.  KS of police dispatcher codes is not going to help you with much else.  The Idea is that the more separate categories something falls into the more complementary skills you can roll. 

 

Something like this would give you a decent number of complementary skills.

 

KS: Law

KS: Criminals

KS: Paranormals

KS: Paranormal organizations

KS Military and Law Enforcement

KS Police Procedure

 

For example, when rolling a deduction roll vs, the leader of the local viper nest might get KS Criminal, KS Paranormals and KS Paranormal Organizations as complementary skills. 

 

Don't forget that every character gets a 11 or less professional skill for free as an everyman skill.

Ah, so the best you can do is 2 points each for most skills, based on an enhancer...  I should probably take the 40 points for the skill levels, and buy every enhancer in the game with them.  That'll give 25 more points to get skills, at 2 or 3 a pop...  That'll give around 20 skills, or a bit less...  So, about the same number of skills, and a legal build...  Thanks for pointing it out...

[BoloOfEarth]

For skills with Skill Enhancers, I don't think you need to spend 2 points on each of them.  One point on a skill with an appropriate Skill Enhancer would give you an 11- roll in that skill, and that's no longer a Familiarity.  So you could have a base 11- in each skill, and then apply the Skill Levels in all Non-Combat Skills to increase the roll.

 

Also, FYI, according to 6E1:56, you can buy a Proficiency in a Characteristic-based Skill, giving a 10-, to which you can then apply Skill Levels.  So that may be something you can use for skills that don't apply to Skill Enhancers.

[LoneWolf]

Skill enhancers only work for background skills.  The cost of background skills are 2 points for a 11 or less, or 3 points for a normal stat/5 +8 or less.   So, with a skill enhancer you can purchase a 11 or less for 1 point and use skill levels with them.  Background skills tend to be of limited use which is why they cost less.  For the most part they don’t let you do anything important.  If a skill is going to be used a lot or for important things it probably has a full skill.  One thing that background skills are useful for is as a complementary skill.  SS robotics will not allow build a new type of robot.  Building a new type of robot would fall under inventor.  But if you have Inventor SS robotics would be a complementary skill.  With a large number of complementary skills, you can get very high rolls on other skills.

 

Since skill enhancers cost 3 points you only save points if you are buying more than 3 of the relevant skills. For background skill using all non-combat skill levels to boost them is usually not going to save you any points.  An all-non-combat skill level cost 10 points.  If your background skill is stat based buying up the stat, it is based on (usually INT) high enough to get a +1 is 5 points.  The skill level can only be used for a single skill at a time, but the buying up the stat increases all of them. 

 

Buying every skill enhancer is not going to make your character very effective.  The character who can do everything usually does nothing well.  Pick what you want to be good at and focus on that.  I would suggest only one or maybe two skill enhancers.  Since the primary role of background skills are going to be complementary skills you still need the primary skills.  For example, if you are building a super scientist having every science skill is not going to do you much good without skills like computer programing, electronics, inventor, mechanics, security systems, and systems operation.  
 

[Foxiekins]

Thanks for everyone's assistance, this is the result...

Maximus.pdf

[Sketchpad]

If you want someone to know everything, what about taking "Universal Knowledge" as a variant from Universal Translator? 

[steriaca]

25 minutes ago, Sketchpad said:

If you want someone to know everything, what about taking "Universal Knowledge" as a variant from Universal Translator? 

I believe it is in the Advance Player's Guide 1. Which means Foxkinns might not actually have that book.

[Foxiekins]

A man isn't complete with his vehicle and base...

Maximus_Chopper.RTF Maximus_Freehold.HTML

[Steve]

Another option is the Expert, a skill cost modifier introduced in Dark Champions which costs three points and works like Linguist or Well-Connected, reducing the cost of each skill in a related list by a point each.

 

There is also Jack Of All Trades from Traveller Hero which works a bit like the OP wanted to do with skill levels.

 

Neither of these suggestions is RAW, but they could be used in a campaign with GM permission.

[steriaca]

Expert is also in the Advance Player's Guide.  It allows a discount on Knowledge Skills if the skills are related (representing a guy who knows a lot of suplimemtal skills related to a hobby of some kind).

 

For example, my real life magical girl character Lady Heart has Expert (Otaku And Japanese Pop Culture). That gives him a discount for KS: Anime and Manga, KS: Idol Singers of Japan, KS: Japanese Pop Culture, KS: Japanese Pop Fashion.  He doesn't get a discount for CK: Tokyo, nor a discount for knowing the Japanese language. 

[Foxiekins]

On 7/30/2022 at 8:23 AM, BoloOfEarth said:

For skills with Skill Enhancers, I don't think you need to spend 2 points on each of them.  One point on a skill with an appropriate Skill Enhancer would give you an 11- roll in that skill, and that's no longer a Familiarity.  So you could have a base 11- in each skill, and then apply the Skill Levels in all Non-Combat Skills to increase the roll.

 

Also, FYI, according to 6E1:56, you can buy a Proficiency in a Characteristic-based Skill, giving a 10-, to which you can then apply Skill Levels.  So that may be something you can use for skills that don't apply to Skill Enhancers.

But the text goes on to specify that a Proficiency functions just like Familiarity, other than the target of the roll...

[steriaca]

8- skill. Can't add skill levels. Cost 1 point.

11- skill. Still can't add skill levels. Cost 2 points.

And that is it.