The Language Table is great! How about a Skills Table?

[DentArthurDent]

I’ve always loved the Language Table, ever since Champions 1st edition. And the expanded version in “The Ultimate Skill” is even more candy for the soul.

The same concept was beautifully illustrated here: https://sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=196

I love the way it shows connections between seemingly disparate languages and cultures. And how knowing a little of one thing can open doors to others.

 

However …

… can the idea of overlapping and complimentary knowledge be used with Skills?

 

The Sciences Table in “The Ultimate Skills” does something similar but less elegantly. The Hero system groups skills into broad categories: Agility, Combat, Intellect, etc. And Skill Enhancers offer small bonuses to a few broad areas.

It seems like an opportunity has been missed by creating dozens of individual skills, many of which are very similar. (I’m looking at you Charm and Persuasion.)

 

What if …

… there was a Skills Table that quantified the similarity between Security Systems and Electronics? Or the penalties for using Persuasion and a Ben Franklin instead of Bribery?

 

Before I submit my proposal, are there suggestions or ideas out there in the Hero-verse?

 

 

[steriaca]

A skills table would be cool, but optional. The GM has the OPTION to use it if available, not have to use it.

[LoneWolf]

That is what complementary skills are for.  The skill chart for languages and science make since because they are variant of the same skill.  Realistically there is not really a lot of difference between speak one language or another.  They allow you to do exactly the same thing.   There is however a huge difference between rewiring a circuit and removing a trip wire.  If you are disarming an electronic trap electronics is a complementary skill to security systems.  If the trap is a pit trap being a genius in electronics will not matter in the slightest.   

[DentArthurDent]

So, how do you handle using Security Systems for tripwires and retinal scanners?

 

We tended to use a character’s background to determine their specialties.

[dmjalund]

I could see a Sciences table

[Scott Ruggels]

5 hours ago, DentArthurDent said:

So, how do you handle using Security Systems for tripwires and retinal scanners?

 

We tended to use a character’s background to determine their specialties.

I would really not want to make skills even more granular. A lot of the skill categories were set in early Champions editions. Then they exploded with Espionage.  But skills in 6e have gone from the general “television episode” level to professional level granularity, especially medical skills. The difference between a retinal scanner and a trip wire may be vast, except both will succumb to a wire cutter just the same. I think the whole concept of skills has been subject to overthinking and legalism lately. 

[BigJackBrass]

4 minutes ago, Scott Ruggels said:

I think the whole concept of skills has been subject to overthinking and legalism lately

One of the mistakes made with  GURPS as it developed was the continual adoption of skills and subskills. Overwhelming, in the end. Hero benefits from a smaller, broader selection, I feel.

[LoneWolf]

You make a Security Systems roll.   The first sentence of the description of the skill states it allows you to locate, recognize, evade and build various types of alarms and traps.  It even lists retina scanners and tripwires in the examples of what it covers. Finding and Disarming traps is what the skill does.

 

Background skills cannot be used for things that are covered by other skills. If you want to fly a plane you need the skill combat piloting, not professional skill pilot. Background skills are designed to cover things that rarely affect combat, but a character by concept should be able to do.  If what the character does is covered by a full skill you need to have that skill to be able to do the task.  The background skill may be as complementary skill, but without the actual skill your character cannot do the task.  

 

The complementary skill rules allow you to use another skill that may be related to the task to boost the chance of success in the primary skill.  So, if a character with both security systems and electronics is trying to disarm a trap that is using electronics, he rolls first makes the electronics roll.  If he makes the electronics roll it gives him a bonus to his security systems roll to disarm the trap.  The bonus is +2 for making the roll and for every 2 points he makes the roll he gets an additional +1 to the roll.  You can have multiple complimentary skills.  So, if the trap also involved a computer, computer programing would also be complementary.  It is the GM’s call as what is complementary.     
 

The rules for skills are actually very well done in the Hero System and does not really need any modification.  Most people who try and make them better don’t really understand them and usually end up trying to solve a problem that does not exist.  About the only thing that may need to be done is to create a new skill for something that is specific to the game you are running. 

[unclevlad]

2 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

Background skills cannot be used for things that are covered by other skills. If you want to fly a plane you need the skill combat piloting, not professional skill pilot. Background skills are designed to cover things that rarely affect combat, but a character by concept should be able to do.  If what the character does is covered by a full skill you need to have that skill to be able to do the task.  The background skill may be as complementary skill, but without the actual skill your character cannot do the task.  

 

 

Not the way I read it.  You don't need Combat Driving to drive a car;  you do need it to perform difficult maneuvers like, say, a forward 180 J turn.  Remember there's also Transport Familiarity.  Professional Skill:  Pilot goes into the commercial side of things...you can make money as a pilot.  That usually involves several standard emergency maneuvers, flight plans, flight operations in and around major airports...I'm sure there are lots of details.  It definitely does not cover combat-capable planes, tho, or combat maneuvering.  That is the dividing line, IMO.  

 

I'd also say:  Combat Piloting might be useful as a complementary skill *at times* for PS: Pilot...Sullenberger's bringing down the plane for a landing on the Hudson River might be an example.  (Wikipedia says, yes, he was a fighter pilot.)  OTOH, PS: Pilot cannot be a complementary skill for Combat Piloting.

 

Similar:  PS:  Demolitions allows you to do commercial blasting, for example to prepare to excavate, or to demolish a building.  It does not let you disable a bomb threatening to blow a church up.

 

Rather than exploding the basic skills list, it might work better to adapt the Specialization approach, a la Shadowrun.  A specialization would be an element of the skill where you're extra good.  +1 to the skill when the spec applies, for 1 point.  Can only be taken once...there's no point in taking 2...and would require at least 11- proficiency.  For something like Security Systems, biometric sensors or keypad systems might be specializations.  For Combat Piloting, the skill's already tied to your Transport Familiarities, but "Combat Planes" covers a pretty big swath.  The specialization might be "fighter jets" or even specific models.   I'll grant:  many of the skills might not readily accommodate a specialization.  A few are very broad...Bureaucracy is even called out in APG 1 IIRC...and Security Systems is another.  On the other end would be Acrobatics and Contortionist.  They're fairly specific.  This might be the middle ground.

 

There's already places where there's problematic overlap, most clearly in the Interaction skills.  Conversation vs. Interrogation.  Conversation lets you extract information without seeming to do so;  Interrogation is when you and your target both know you're trying to get information.  But that's a lot of overlap.  Charm vs. Persuasion is another;  isn't Charm mostly a very specific aspect of Persuasion?  Persuasion vs. Oratory.  If I'm building a team leader type?  I take both.  

 

The more granular you get, the worse this situation becomes.  Plus, a bunch of very narrow skills can get to be quite expensive.  I'd rather leave this up to the GM and group to lay out as they need it, rather than formalize a static structure in the rules.  The specialization notion would be worth considering...because it's not static, and keeps the rules impact narrow.

 

9 hours ago, DentArthurDent said:

So, how do you handle using Security Systems for tripwires and retinal scanners?

 

Difficulty.  Steps needed to disarm.  Taking out a tripwire probably starts with a Concealment check to even know it's there.  A retinal scanner?  You're not disabling it directly.  You can

--try to spoof it

--hack into the system to disable it

--access the controls to open the door anyway

 

All of these should be HARD, and may have requirements and drawbacks of their own.  Or specialized gadgets.  Getting into the vault where the nuclear launch codes are kept should require more than a single, simple skill roll.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I gotta go with the others here, I would prefer the skills system be LESS complicated and granular, and more general.

[Asperion]

Here's a great suggestion: instead of having general,  combat,  penalty and other forms of skill level,  just combine them into one.  Then the player can decide at time of purchase what the skill level is to be used for. There are many more suggestions that I have that I can make with other posts.

[Duke Bushido]

Scott and BJB beat me to it, but to adress the question directly:

 

A skills chart like the language doesn't work because only a handful of skills are described, and even then, their granularity is entirely up to the playgroup: Security Systems does what it says it does, but is that all it does?  If it defeats computerized security, does it also allow some level of computer programming or hacking?  Or is a person clueless without buying computer programming?  Must he also have a familiarity to be a computer user?  If it defeats a common deadbolt, is that because it also imparts the knowledge to build one?  That answer is entirely up to the group.

 

Some people want a granularity that results in a college professor or an auto mechanic having spent eighty-six points on Professional and Knowledge Skills.   Some people want PS: Scientist, and want it to mean everything it meant in a 1950s drive-in sci-fi horror show.  As you might imagine, there are infinite points in between.

 

As someone above commented, I tend to let the character's background decide what he does or does not know to a situationally-useful degree, though I do like them to buy their "signature skills," such as Detective or medical doctor or south american historian.

 

I dont need many: a job (or two), a hobby (or two), and anything they might consider to be their Schtick.  After that- we pull it from the background, perhaps influenced by other skills or even similar situations in previous adventures.

 

I can't take credit for the idea, though: I sat in the audience for a Q and A session with Mark Miller decades ago and several people asked him why Traveller had so few skills.  His response (heavily paraphrased owing to the limits of memory) was that the skills you gained,in Character generation were your specialties; these were things you were trained in and drilled in and which may have saved your life a hundred times; these were the things that you could be almost positive that you knew better than most of the people you were likely to meet.

 

They weren't limits.  Anyone could know how to do anything; have some training in any concievable skill.  Because it was impossible to make an inclusive list, he never considered trying.  He made a system that generated the sorts of specialties that gamers [at that time, at least] tended to feel most important for their games- which, at that time, were pretty much operating vehicles and killing things.

 

HERO, being what it is, took the exact opposite approach (eventually) and handed you the tools to make stand-alone skills out of absolute minutiae (PS: lecturing on the development of porpoise navels).

 

HERO fans being who _they_ are, someone is carrying specificity _this_ far:

 

No.  Yes; you _do_ have 'drive a car' skill, and yes; that _does_ include a familiarity with the 'start the car' subskill, but in this instance, you need 'start a carbeureted car in sub-zero temperature' skill, and you just don't have that. 

 

I am _sort_ of kidding....  _sort of_...   I have seen some pretty grim skill requirements from some GMs.

 

Me?

 

Okay, my Character is a former restraunteur and is an _excellent_ cook.  I took PS: cooking 16- as one of my signature skills; amazing food from very little to work with is kind of my Schtick.

 

Some GMs:

 

The dwarf lord is horrified and disgusted at  and by the near-bile you attempt to feed him!

 

But... I have cooking 16-

 

Yes, but you are a human; that is for feeding humans!

 

Duke as GM:

 

Okay, you said you are a restraunteur.  Was this your father's profession?  

 

No; we were farmers, but when I was young, I would help take the crops to market, and I was always fascinated by the strange and exotic smells and tastes of the food some of the vendors were selling!  Travellers from two or three days beyond the market were here, and sometimes elves and half-orcs and Norwegians, and ....  Sorry; I am boring you.   

 

Nonsense!  Norwegians are never boring!

 

Anyway, I would sneak off and sit where I could watch them cook and I would smell the delicious aromas...  When I left the farm, the first thing I did was to apprentice to a family that made rhe most heavenly-scented fish-and-pea dish....  I apprenticed to others, and I travelled for several years, earning money as a cook, until I could start my own resta-

 

I have heard enough.  You are clearly just as good with any kind of ethnic dish or racial preference-

 

It was a point of pride!

 

Okay, roll your cooking....

 

The dwarf lord is amazed.  He looks at you- seven feet of reptilian giant, from a sun-loving jungle people, and his eyes are wide and confused...  "How could you....   It's not possible...  You know nothing of stone and darkness and growing tubers..."

 

Was it.,.  Satisfactory, Sir?

 

"This dish- not the recipe, but this dish prepared and served by an outsider....   It feeds my very soul....    You truly understand our people...."

 

All people eat, Sir.  I am glad you liked it.

 

 

Etc, etc.

 

Alternatively:

 

Yeah, there was a pub in town, and we ran a short-order kitchen- you know: fish, frogs, fried veggies, the occasional squab.  I got quite good at sliced pork and eggs; it was a local favorite when the snow season started.

 

Well, your food is undoubtably delicious, but what the dwarf lord has requested...  You have never even heard of some of the _ingredients_, let alone the dish.  Still, you have an excellent sense of combining flavors and knowing _exactly_ when something is cooked to perfection...

 

Perhaps if you could ask a few quesrions of him, you'd have a shot at nailing this.

 

Roll your cooking, but at -4.

 

 

And on the most extreme of extremes:

 

No.  You can cook bacon on 16-.  That's the skill.  If you want to cook liver, then buy "cook liver" at a reasonable level.  However, the corn is in season, and free for the taking where the field abutts the woods... Do you have "cook corn" as a skill?

 

Anyway, _all_ of this is why there just cant be a skills overlap chart for HERO without some hard and fast rules for skill breadth and overlap.

 

 

 

 

[unclevlad]

18 hours ago, dmjalund said:

I could see a Sciences table

 

To what point?  What would be on it?

 

It'd also either be insanely long...and if you work in HD, one thing you know is that working with the Languages is something of a PITA because there are over 600 of them...and about half, perhaps 2/3, are applicable (other than a single representative language for general use) outside of campaigns sharply focused.  This makes finding what you want MUCH more tedious than it should be.  Or it wouldn't be complete.

 

A Sciences table is probably worse than the languages table...crossovers between physics and astronomy, and massively between biology and chemistry.  How do you classify Anatomy and Physiology?  

 

Uncommon sciences I've taken:

--Metallurgy

--Materials science (yes, it's quite different in its focus)

--Mineralogy 

--Quantum computing (a quantum computer is built and programmed very differently from a normal one)...I just built a character with this.

--Pharmacology

--Toxicology (again, quite different focus)

 

Others might throw in Nuclear Engineering, or Power Engineering.  How about Cybernetics?  The list of science skills is huge...limited only by one's familiarity with the specializations options.  

[Duke Bushido]

Edit:

 

Not sure how I double posted that _hours_ apart.....

[unclevlad]

Sometimes an old post hangs around in my editor.  But the more accurate explanation is, of course, it's a kind of magic.

[Scott Ruggels]

Duke rolled a 18 on his posting skill. 😁

[LoneWolf]

I used combat piloting as an example because years ago a buddy of mine could not understand why he could not use the skill enhancer to reduce the cost of piloting.

 

Transport familiarity will allow you to operate a vehicle in normal circumstances.  It does not cover anything fancy and does not allow you to engage in combat in the vehicle.  You are always considered to be out of combat while driving. It basically allows you to move from point A to point B and avoid routine obstacles.  

 

Combat Piloting allows you to do everything the transport familiarity does, but also includes dangerous or tricky maneuvers.  It allows also allows you to engage in vehicle-to-vehicle combat.  You can also deal with unusual or unexpected obstacles.

 

Profession skill Pilot does not allow you to fly a plane at all.  For that you still need either combat piloting or transport familiarity.  What it would cover is being able to use those skills in a commercial environment.  It would cover things like flight plans, takeoff and landing protocols, how to communicate with the towers or other people dealing with flight.  It would also include knowing all the regulations dealing with flight.  

 

The character who wants to be a pilot should really have both Combat Piloting and Professional skill pilot.  If you know how to fly an airplane but don’t really know all the protocols and regulations you would not have the professional skill, but a licensed pilot would have both.  You could get by with just a transport familiarity, but most licensed pilots will have combat piloting. 
 
 

[Hugh Neilson]

I recall an indie game (can't recall the name) where PCs selected abilities with a wide open slate.  So I could take "Science", another player might take "Chemistry" and a third could take "Petrochemistry".

 

The rules provided that, in general, you got your roll on anything within your ability. However, if another character had a more narrow ability that fell within your broader ability, you took a penalty on your skill.  So my Scientist would take a penalty on Chemistry within Science (and a bigger penalty for Petrochemistry), and the Chemist would take a penalty on Petrochemistry like my penalty on Chemistry.

 

It seems like that could be ported to Hero. If my character simply takes "Scientist", he gets his roll without penalty for all things Science.  However, if another character takes Biology, my Science skill takes, say, a -3 penalty for Biology-related rolls. The more the schticks overlap, the more specialized the characters need to become. 

 

So in a typical Supers game, PS: Lawyer makes you Matt Murdock or Jen Walters, able to research the law and argue cases across all fields of law in any court.

 

But in a Courtroom Drama case, we might find a Legal Researcher, a Litigator and a specialist in Criminal Law, all with a basic PS: Lawyer that would be penalized when operating within another character's field of expertise.

[unclevlad]

6 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

I used combat piloting as an example because years ago a buddy of mine could not understand why he could not use the skill enhancer to reduce the cost of piloting.

 

Transport familiarity will allow you to operate a vehicle in normal circumstances.  It does not cover anything fancy and does not allow you to engage in combat in the vehicle.  You are always considered to be out of combat while driving. It basically allows you to move from point A to point B and avoid routine obstacles.  

 

Combat Piloting allows you to do everything the transport familiarity does, but also includes dangerous or tricky maneuvers.  It allows also allows you to engage in vehicle-to-vehicle combat.  You can also deal with unusual or unexpected obstacles.

 

Profession skill Pilot does not allow you to fly a plane at all.  For that you still need either combat piloting or transport familiarity.  What it would cover is being able to use those skills in a commercial environment.  It would cover things like flight plans, takeoff and landing protocols, how to communicate with the towers or other people dealing with flight.  It would also include knowing all the regulations dealing with flight.  

 

The character who wants to be a pilot should really have both Combat Piloting and Professional skill pilot.  If you know how to fly an airplane but don’t really know all the protocols and regulations you would not have the professional skill, but a licensed pilot would have both.  You could get by with just a transport familiarity, but most licensed pilots will have combat piloting.  
 

 

Fair enough.  I think that many GMs would blow off the TF, if you buy the full 3 point PS, and especially if you take the pilot's license perk.  The TF has its uses, particularly for more exotic vehicles, but for normal small prop or jet planes, it feels pedantic to require it.  It's not like we're talking a lot of points either way.  YMMV of course.  

[Duke Bushido]

You might be onto something, Hugh.

 

Maybe make a double roll for a broad skill:  do I know it?  Can I do it?

 

 

Or perhaps use the Familiar / knowledge / Professional set up as an example:

 

For a General skill, you have your will to have a General knowledge about the specific subject.  At a prescribed penalty, you can have specific knowledge about the specific subject.  For a further penalty, it happens to be something with which you are intimately familiar.

 

 

Myself, I am not keen on making three rolls on the same skill to answer the question, so here is an alternative:

 

I have Scientist as a skill.  Let's say it is decided that have a knowledge-skill type knowledge on...  Geology?  Sure.  I have to make my roll (14-) at a penalty of -3 (11 or less), and to be intimately familiar-  say I have a specialty there, or apent a couple of years helping research a paper with a couple of geologist friends-- whatever, then I have to take and -additional -4 (I am literally pulling these numbers from the air, okay?), which means I have to roll 14-7 or less, or 7- to have a professional geologist familiarity and ability with the field and the equipment and whatever else.  Sure, we could go deeper, but since I never will (it's a game, and depriving players of the chance to know, do, or affect something isnt especially  fun- for them or for me), I am not going to.

 

I would have the player make a single roll (assuming I adpot this ( Doc Democracy, you may recognize the logic here from my "Mook Sweep" Maneuver), I would then look at the roll and see what the level of success was:

 

Okay, you rolled a 6; yes, you are reasonably experienced here, and given a few minutes, you can probably determine where the mineral is most likely to be exposed, or at least close enough to dig.

 

Okay, you rolled an eight.  Yes; you have considerable knowledgw about this, and you know that these are the conditions in which quartz is found, but you dont really know how it might be used in a laser.

 

And of,course, you might will spectacularly well:

 

Guys, I think our villain is Kevin Spelnik.

 

Why?

 

You see how the Einman vircuit has been modified to increase the impedance to a ridiculous degree?

 

Well, Kevin waa my college roommate.  He qas playing around with quartz lasers- really, back then, who wasn't?  Anyway, he refuswd to add additional,circuits; kept swearing it would work fine if he upped the impedance.

 

Dqmned,near took out thole dorm building,when it blew, and the imoes2nce wasnt a tenth of this.

 

So you can deactivate it?

 

Oh yeah. ,just turn it on; it should,melt,completely before it gets close to charged.

 

 

 

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

I have always assumed that taking the actual combat operation version of a vehicle gives you the transport familiarity for free.  Driving gives TF: autos, Sailing gives TF: boats, etc.

[tombrown803]

combat driving and combat piloting does give a 1 point TF for free

[DentArthurDent]

On 12/13/2022 at 6:45 PM, Duke Bushido said:

 

Nonsense!  Norwegians are never boring!

I really enjoyed your descriptions. And the points you are making.

 

Are you, by any chance, Norwegian?

[Duke Bushido]

22 minutes ago, DentArthurDent said:

I really enjoyed your descriptions. And the points you are making.

 

Why thank you, Sir (presumed.  Apologies if I have made a mistake.  If it makes it easier to accept, I peomise you I will continue to make them.  Mistakes, I mean.  Points are a matter of random chance  ans the law of large numbers applied to word count.       )

 

It is very kind of you to say.

 

 

22 minutes ago, DentArthurDent said:

Are you, by any chance, Norwegian?

 

 

No, Sir (see above); I was not so fortunate.  I was born and raised in Circle, Alaska, descendant of Irish horse thieves who fled to Maine to avoid prosecution, whose grandchildren then fled to Alaska to avoid taxation. 

 

I left the farm (we grew cabbage, potatoes, and rocks, in equal  portion) in '79 or so, and swore to myself that I would _never_ eat another biscuit so long as I live.  I was 19 or 20 then; I am 62 today.  Thus far, I have kept that promise.

 

I ended,up in Georgia a year or two later, and upon noticing that it qas possible to ride a motorcycle year 'round here (provided you had coats from Alaska), I have remained here ever since.

 

I can only tell you about the coast and the rural areas , however.  I do not go to Atlanta for the same reason I rarely go to Florida: I do not like to leave the south.

 

 

 

 

[Scott Ruggels]

13 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

I recall an indie game (can't recall the name) where PCs selected abilities with a wide open slate.  So I could take "Science", another player might take "Chemistry" and a third could take "Petrochemistry".

 

The rules provided that, in general, you got your roll on anything within your ability. However, if another character had a more narrow ability that fell within your broader ability, you took a penalty on your skill.  So my Scientist would take a penalty on Chemistry within Science (and a bigger penalty for Petrochemistry), and the Chemist would take a penalty on Petrochemistry like my penalty on Chemistry.

 

It seems like that could be ported to Hero. If my character simply takes "Scientist", he gets his roll without penalty for all things Science.  However, if another character takes Biology, my Science skill takes, say, a -3 penalty for Biology-related rolls. The more the schticks overlap, the more specialized the characters need to become. 

 

So in a typical Supers game, PS: Lawyer makes you Matt Murdock or Jen Walters, able to research the law and argue cases across all fields of law in any court.

 

But in a Courtroom Drama case, we might find a Legal Researcher, a Litigator and a specialist in Criminal Law, all with a basic PS: Lawyer that would be penalized when operating within another character's field of expertise.

 

Ewww.  Nooooo.