Costing skills on a sliding scale

[Fitz]

I almost always GM heroic-level games, and almost always find that people will buy up their signature skills, perception and so forth to incredible levels if they can. I don't really have a problem with players wanting their characters to be good at what they do, but I have a difficulty with routinely having characters with 21- skills in a world where a 15- skill is world-class.

 

Of course, it's easy enough to command a campaign-specific skill cap by GMfiat, but sticking that sort of rigidity in a game system which is so flexible goes against the grain. I'd far prefer to get my players to do what I want them to by means of subtle, yet ruthless psychological manipulation.

 

To that end, it occured to me that I could keep most peoples' skills to reasonable levels while allowing the freedomn to potentially climb to dizzying heights of ability by instituting a sliding costing scale for skill levels.

 

For example, the first 5 levels might be costed normally, then the price doubles for the next three, then triples for each level thereafter.

 

Comments? Are there any nasty implications of such a scheme I'm blithely overlooking? Bear in mind this is for heroic games only.

[Derek Hiemforth]

I realize this comment will be slightly OT, since I'm not commenting on the idea of a sliding cost scale for Skills. However, there are some tactics you can use to discourage your players from buying phenomenally high Skill rolls without changing the cost structure.

 

* Don't require Skill Rolls when you don't have to. If routine uses of Skills in routine conditions don't require rolls for success, it makes the line between having and not having a Skill very stark, and -- by extension -- makes having extremely high rolls less important. That is, if a character with a Skill at base value, and a character with the same Skill at +10, both succeed in common usage of the Skill automatically, then that means that the +10 guy's extra levels come into play less often. The less often they come into play, the less useful they are. The less useful they are, the less likely players are to buy them.

 

* Be conservative applying penalties to rolls. If players feel like most Skill Rolls have penalities, then they'll be more inclined to push their Skill Roll up...

 

Player: "I wonder if Doctor Sinister could have used his influence over the Pancreatic League to orchestrate the theft of Wangdoodle Diamond?'

 

GM: "Give me a Deduction roll."

 

Player: "I made it."

 

GM: "By how much?"

 

Once the GM asks that question, the message sent to the player is that simply having the Skill isn't enough. Now the player has to have it at a higher level if he wants to succeed.

 

Of course, there are certainly times when applying penalties is valid. But many GMs seem to apply penalties too frequently. The effect is escalating Skill Rolls.

 

Also, if the players know that they generally make only base-level Skill Rolls, or Skill Rolls with very modest penalties, then they quickly realize that there's a point of diminishing returns on continuing to buy up the Skill. A Skill Roll of 15- succeeds over 95% of the time. Once you reach that point, almost the only purpose of buying it higher is to counteract penalties. If the character rarely gets penalties to counteract, then they have less need for buying it up.

 

* If you want to get really tricky, you might apply a house rule that characters cannot aid each other via Complimentary Skills if their Skill Roll values are too far apart (say, more than 3). This would apply particularly well to knowledge or technical-related Skills. "Gee, I'm sorry Doctor Mind! I wish I could help you build the Magna-Accellerotron, but I can't even make sense out of your plans! It's way over my head!"

 

Anyway, none of this is to suggest that you shouldn't tinker with the cost structure if you want to. Just another way of approaching the problem.

[TheEmerged]

I guess I'm the flip side of this coin: I want skills to matter. The player that puts 2 extra points into a skill roll deserves to be better. I even think it's totally within bounds to expect a player to have to beat a skill roll by a certain amount.

 

Why? Especially with the KS, SS, and PS series of skills it's a good way to penalize a player for purchasing too broad.

[bjbrown]

If one has to pay double for characteristics beyond human maxima, why not pay double for skill levels beyond normal human maxima?

 

I wonder how this system deals with skill levels. So I can't buy my Seduction skill up to 21-, but why not 15- and six skill levels (combinations of 3, 5, and/or 10-pt. skill levels, depending on what other skills I have and want to bump up).

[Javed]

I'll reply to pretty much everything at once to save space and to transparently make it look like I'm not grubbing for extra message points.

 

For the skills, I agree with BJ, just make that a condition of NCM. Set the doubling level at what ever level you like and run with it.

 

In response to Derek, I agree with much of what he says, there are ways to let the players know that buying a skill up is not a necessity for it to be useful.

 

However, asking "By how much?" should not automatically mean that a penalty was assigned to the players. Most of the skills have differing effects based on how much the roll was made by, so "By how much?" should be a default question.

 

In response to The Emerged, again, a success should give more of a bonus depending on how much the roll was made, so extra points in a skill will yield something no matter what.

[zornwil]

I've toyed with the same sort of "NCM vs skills" idea, it's of interest. I think for a heroic-level game it's probably a must, or of course the alternative of simply defining where you really want people to be. So far in super-heroic games I've been okay with high skills numbers, although I also have incredible penalties for the uber-villain stuff, so it works out somewhat well. I do allow some wonky stuff, though, so I tend to monitor it.

[Lord Mhoram]

I ran a normal skill max doubling rule in my FH game I ran for 8 years. I wanted to emphasise characteristics to a point, so the doubling point was a roll of (9 + ((cha/5) x2)). So if you skill roll was a 13 or less you doubled cost at a 17. If you had a 15- base you doubled at 21 or less.

Once your skill role was at the double cost level, you had to apply twice as many skill levels to get an effect (ie two 8 pt levels to get a +1 on that skill).

Seemed to work fairly well for what I was after.

[GamePhil]

My problem with the sliding scale is a bit esoteric, I think. HERO skills are on a bell curve. This means, among other things, that each time you buy up the skill, you get less of a boost to your odds of success than the last time. So, by also adding the sliding scale, you are paying more for the higher bonuses but getting less.

 

I'd be inclined to add Skills to NCM as was suggested if I wanted to change it, but first I'd go with some of the other suggestions for getting the players to tone it down.

[ghost-angel]

One method we use in our games is that a new character cannot buy a skill above 16-, nor can they attain more than 2 Skill levels with a skill (combat skill levels have a cap of 3 or 4, forget which). This effectively means that a newly created character shouldn't get above 18- unless they bought the base characteristic to some insane level, in which case other areas may noticeably suffer.

 

But our players tend to run skill heavy characters and usually would rather take a lower roll in one skill for the option of putting on a different skill. The idea being the more you know the more you can do.

 

Once the game starts there's no cap (we have one skill-monkey that routinely makes rolls by 8 or 9) but all skill points purchased once a game starts has to be jusitifed .. no buying up that Electronics roll if the character hasn't used it in four game months.

 

The other thing we do has to do with the roll itself. No one can say "I made it." when asked to make a skill roll, most often the GM just auto-fails them. Anytime we're asked for a roll we answer by how much we made it, the GM sees to much of a high number then whatever we're trying to go against has their roll increased as well. Even when it doesn't look like it's a skill vs skill roll it can be. If you're trying to make a piece of equipment work through a Systems Operations roll then the GM can impose the "Person who designed the system wanted only trained personel to use it, they have a roll of 28-, good luck."

 

And then there's storyline, if failing a roll furthers the story line but you need to know by how much they fail reverse it on them ... a great roll which is a success by seven or so really means they failed by 7. Keeps 'em guessing and makes for fun on occasion.

[Pattern Ghost]

I think the solution is to just tell the players "no" and run with it. If you don't want to see 21- skills, then tell them that 15- skills are world class, and you don't want them to have more than X or X% of their skills at that level. If that doesn't do the trick, give them so few character points that they simply can't afford to get too many skills at that high of a level. =)

[Supreme Serpent]

If you put a sliding scale on buying specific skills up, how would more general, or even overall levels factor in? Just something to consider...

[Trebuchet]

Frankly I think it's an overreaction. Characters already get diminishing returns for purchasing higher rolls as is. In essence Skills already are on a sliding scale. What do I mean by that? Look at the numbers:

 

11- 62.5% Chance of success

12- 74.1

13- 83.8

14- 90.7

15- 95.4

16- 98.1

17- 99.5

 

So buying a 11- base Skill roll up to a 12- roll only improves the odds only 11.6% for two points. Buying that 12- up to 13- yields less than an additional 9.7% chance, at which point the character has paid an additional 133% of the base cost of most Skills for a mere 21.3% improvement. Assuming a standard 9 + (CHA/3) base roll for most Skills, for 500% of the base cost the PC gets only a 37% better chance with a 17- roll. Numbers higher than 17- never improve the odds of success unless there is a penalty on the roll. No matter how good you get, an 18 roll still blows it. Most of the time it will be irrelevant if a character has a 15- or a 22- roll.

[Talon]

Put me in the "opposite" camp...I want players in heroic games to be purchasing high skills rolls -- or rather, I want the range of possible skill rankings to be as large as possible, since it's so much more important in distinguishing characters from each other. My usual range tops out at around 25- (All-time legendary skill user).

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Talon

Put me in the "opposite" camp...I want players in heroic games to be purchasing high skills rolls -- or rather, I want the range of possible skill rankings to be as large as possible, since it's so much more important in distinguishing characters from each other. My usual range tops out at around 25- (All-time legendary skill user).

I certainly didn't intend to imply that there is no place for high Skill rolls. My own super-gymnast Zl'f has Acrobatics on a 22- (23- if she applies her Overall Level) to reflect that even in normal ID she was an Olympic class gymnast (18- roll, winning two Bronze medals in 1996.)

 

My point was that higher Skill rolls already have the equivalent of a sliding price because each two points spent becomes progressively less useful. Increasing the price is a solution for a non-existent problem.

[Killer Shrike]

A combination of cogent replies thus far, but thought I'd weigh in on it:

 

Personally, Im overjoyed when players spend points on skills rather than more DEX, more CSLs, more DEF.

 

If all there characters are good at is combat it ties my hands as the GM. If, for example, no one in the group has the ability to pick a lock or spring a trap, then as the GM I have to carefully consider in anyway involving an impassable lock scenario or a deadly trap. One will likely ensure that whatever is beyond the lock wont come into play via the PCs actions, or that at least one PC will die or get seriously injured when the trap is sprung. Once or twice as kind of a Hard Knocks lesson maybe, but more than that.....

 

Same idea holds true in a more high tech setting. If the big clue is in "the computer" and no one has any sort of computer skill....locked door scenario all over again. If the PCs are infiltrating a cyber-corps base and a stream of cyber-ninja security dudes will pop out as soon as an alarm is sounded, if no one on the party has the SKILLZ to bypass the alarms, its the trap scenario all over again.

 

 

And so forth and so on. Basically, the skills of the PCs in the group broaden my pallette as a GM. I can design more varied adventures with a wider range of challenges and have some confidence that the PC's are equipped to handle the job.

 

If a player wants their character to be an adept at some skill and dumps points into it, then its no less important to let them do that and make sure it comes up commensurately that it is to trot out another meat sponge for the damage-monkeys and stat-whores to wail on.

 

IMO of course

[Talon]

Good points KS. I do, however, feel obligated to occasionally put something in a scenario that points out to the group "if you had a broader range of skills, this would be easy -- instead you have to fight all these guys."

 

Having a similiar issue in my D&D game -- no straight spellcasters, so at 13th level they only have access to 5th level spells (and that just barely).

[AnotherSkip]

very rare even in my friends "Skill heavy" FH campaign to see much beyond 17+ (one case of 18- for a scout stealth).