Fiddling With 6th - Skills (first of ??)

[zornwil]

Re: Fiddling With 6th - Skills (first of ??)

 

I'd like to see the chart retained even if languages are revised. Perhaps a 1 point savings for language similarities no matter how close the relationship is' date=' although that would obviously require some revision of language similarities. I suppose one could introduce ½ point discounts and apply the total discounts only to the total language package, or maybe only if the character purchases Linguist.[/quote']

I'm down with that. EDIT - I meant the first part, anyway. The 1/2 point thing is questionable as to introduction into orthodox HERO. I personaly award XPs down to 4-digit decimal places (partly because I just think it's kinda fun, but also because I like giving tiny XP awards for suitable little actions, I have a whole XP/Reputation system in my game), but when it comes to the actual rules, I'm suspicious of 1/2 points. Though given COM and given the whole "rounding" thing, 1/2 XPs are not intrinsically a bad idea - just questionable. It's that whole "Oooooh, HERO has too much MATH!" thing - which is real, however I feel about that. (And how do I feel? well - )

[pinecone]

Re: Fiddling With 6th - Skills (first of ??)

 

I'm down with that. EDIT - I meant the first part' date=' anyway. The 1/2 point thing is questionable as to introduction into orthodox HERO. I personaly award XPs down to 4-digit decimal places (partly because I just think it's kinda fun, but also because I like giving tiny XP awards for suitable little actions, I have a whole XP/Reputation system in my game), but when it comes to the actual rules, I'm suspicious of 1/2 points. Though given COM and given the whole "rounding" thing, 1/2 XPs are not intrinsically a bad idea - just questionable. It's that whole "Oooooh, HERO has too much MATH!" thing - which is real, however I feel about that. (And how do I feel? well - )[/quote']

In the immortal words of Barbie..."Math is Hard" (Add whiney voice effects)

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Fiddling With 6th - Skills (first of ??)

 

Just because I want to change Languages to rolled skills doesn't mean I want to get rid of the language chart. I meant it when I said I want Languages to be treated like other background skills. The language chart serves as a guide for complimentary skill rolls and similar situations.

 

If someone had SC: Human Physiology and no other Sciences, I would still allow him to make a roll to know (or figure out) something about Ape Physiology, at a slight penalty, of course. I would even allow him to check for knowledge of Dog Physiology, at a larger penalty.

 

By the same token, a person with Spanish and no other languages would have a small penalty to understand Portuguese, a larger penalty to understand Rumanian, and a very large penalty to understand German. (In fact, German might be too distant to allow a roll at all, but you get the idea.)

 

BTW, I don't have any problem at all with 1/2 points. Anyone who can deal with quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies, but can't deal with half points has an attitude problem, not a math problem. I'm not saying I want more 1/2-point things added to HERO (more, that is, since we already have COM and END), but that it wouldn't be an unbearable burden on the game. I usually don't use them myself, except when a munchkin player tries to get free points by calculating limitations so everything rounds in his favor. I've had players do this before (and yes, I used to do it myself ) - deliberately created a dozen powers that have a cost ending in .5 so the player essentially gets 6 points for free. Certainly these people can't complain about "extra math" since they're already doing it!

[Black Rose]

Re: Fiddling With 6th - Skills (first of ??)

 

Anyway, as I tried to say - I like Trebuchet's gradation the best as it preserves the 1 and 3 point usefulness while giving the 2 point a good grounding as it does not allow for CHAR addition.

 

Then again I could see spending 2 points for an 8/less that then allows the CHAR to add. Basically it's 1 point less for 3 less on the die roll, which is also workable and pretty fairly costed, just slightly less efficient to get a decent skill roll. This way you have:

1 = 8/less (personally I could deal with 9/less), no CHAR modifier, skill cannot be bought up

2 = 8/less with CHAR modifier, skill cannot be bought up

3 = 11/less with CHAR modifier

 

On a pragmatic note, though, it's a bit of a pain to impose on HD and inconsistent enough to be annoying. Perhaps we should make it more consistent - something like:

1 point to possess skill at base 11/less - but that's IT

1 point to allow skill to be added to by CHAR - requires prior level, so now it's 2 points for 11/less+CHAR but NO other additions

1 point to allow skill to be added to by skill additions, including buying up skill at 2/1 point; now we have a normal skill as we do today

 

Okay, I admit it, I'm bumping an old thread. More to the point, I'm bumping my own old thread. I was looking through my Rep list, noticed the thread and decided to reread. Zornwil gave me an idea here; tell me what y'all think.

 

Realise this is more for Heroic levels of playing, since the difference at Superheroic levels is minute. OTOH, if you're trying to do what I like to do with some characters (very capable in general, but not very skilled at something), it might well work for you.

 

Anyway, here goes:

 

1 point = (6+CHAR/5)-. "The New Familiarity." Only Stat and Overall Skill Levels will add, unless disallowed by GM. In normal cases, you'll have 8-, maybe -9 or -10 (if you're really good). Not the greatest skill level in the world (8- is ~26%, 9- is ~37%, and 10- is 50%, of course). I'd prefer to start this at 5+CHAR/5, but I think people would complain about their familiarities being even more pathetic than normal; though the initial lower starting level would be counterbalanced by the potential for characteristic and skill level boost, and it would be more elegant with the higher levels.

 

I could also see this as a straight 8- roll that allowed Stat and Overall Skill Levels to add, but no Character bonus. Honestly, how many of those do you buy in a typical game? If you get much past three of both together, you've started to make it a Character Definition Point.

 

2 points = (7+CHAR/5)-. "The New Baseline." This level allows for the "Three Skill" Skill Levels, but is otherwise pretty much like TNF.

 

3 points = (9+CHAR/5)-. "The New Standard." This is the typical 3pt skill, as we've pretty much always known it.

 

Does anyone have any thoughts?

[zornwil]

Re: Fiddling With 6th - Skills (first of ??)

 

I find these constructs interesting, no real immediate feedback as I'm just kind of checking in and I have to jump back off the boards to keep working on a video recording issue, but I just wanted to comment briefly that we had a PC who thought of himself as omnicompetent but was actually omni-not-quite-competent-but-almost. He started with a slew of 8- skills. Then he discussed wanting to add some group skill levels to bring them up to 10- at max, which I agree to a schema for. It was really fun, because he'd try these silly things and of course once in a while he'd succeed despite himself! It was really good flavor and didn't unbalance in the slightest.

 

Anyway, the only thing I'd add re the construct above is just a question - Black Rose, would you suggest capping any of the cheaper versions? I do think that a slew of 1-point skills with a very high base characteristic (very possible with INT) could be a problem.

[Black Rose]

Re: Fiddling With 6th - Skills (first of ??)

 

Anyway' date=' the only thing I'd add re the construct above is just a question - Black Rose, would you suggest capping any of the cheaper versions? I do think that a slew of 1-point skills with a very high base characteristic (very possible with INT) could be a problem.[/quote']

 

Oh I agree. Letting someone with, say, a 40 PRE loose with all their Interaction skills bought as Familiarities would be nasty. Nothing worse than a Seduction 14- for which you only paid 1 point.

 

Thing is, I think the cap level would have to be like other campaign parameters; set at GM will. I think 10- would be right, because at that point you're edging into the "should have bought this as a 3-pt skill" territory. And really, you don't want that.

[rjcurrie]

Re: Fiddling With 6th - Skills (first of ??)

 

To be honest, there is a part of me that would like to eliminate al freebies in Hero. To me, this would mean:

 

• No figured characteristics and an appropriate adjustment to the cost of the primary characteristics.
  
• Possibly making Combat Value (OCV/DCV) and Ego Combat Value (ECV) into separate characteristics -- still not sure about this.
  
• Skills would be a flat cost per roll. For example, in the current system, familiarities (8-) would cost 1 point, an 11- Roll would cost 3 points (or 2 points for a background skill) and you would buy +1 as normal.
  
• The language chart would be eliminated.
  
• Skills like Combat Driving would not give a free TF.
  

In my mind, this would be keeping with the basic Hero philosophy of only getting what you pay for.

 

Rod

[zornwil]

Re: Fiddling With 6th - Skills (first of ??)

 

Oh I agree. Letting someone with, say, a 40 PRE loose with all their Interaction skills bought as Familiarities would be nasty. Nothing worse than a Seduction 14- for which you only paid 1 point.

 

Thing is, I think the cap level would have to be like other campaign parameters; set at GM will. I think 10- would be right, because at that point you're edging into the "should have bought this as a 3-pt skill" territory. And really, you don't want that.

Makes sense to me. I'm eager to see what The Ultimate Skill will suggest in this general area of functionality.

[zornwil]

Re: Fiddling With 6th - Skills (first of ??)

 

To be honest, there is a part of me that would like to eliminate al freebies in Hero. To me, this would mean:

 

• No figured characteristics and an appropriate adjustment to the cost of the primary characteristics.
  
• Possibly making Combat Value (OCV/DCV) and Ego Combat Value (ECV) into separate characteristics -- still not sure about this.
  
• Skills would be a flat cost per roll. For example, in the current system, familiarities (8-) would cost 1 point, an 11- Roll would cost 3 points (or 2 points for a background skill) and you would buy +1 as normal.
  
• The language chart would be eliminated.
  
• Skills like Combat Driving would not give a free TF.
  

In my mind, this would be keeping with the basic Hero philosophy of only getting what you pay for.

 

Rod

It's a very reasonable thought and I don't think I'd be opposed if HERO went in that direction, however, there is also something to be said for the utility of points and the fact that many items probably aren't worth a point in and of themselves. It's a tradeoff.

 

Re figured characteristics, though, personally, I like the construct and it makes sense to me.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Fiddling With 6th - Skills (first of ??)

 

Hey, Black Rose: regarding your initial complaint about the lack of graininess in HERO Skill Roll advancement, you might consider Erol K. Brayburt's conversion of HERO Characteristic, Skill and Combat Rolls to percentiles, aka Percentage HERO. The probabilities are essentially the same as with the standard system, but this way every point of a Characteristic will improve a character's chance to succeed.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Fiddling With 6th - Skills (first of ??)

 

Well, let's look at whether the added complexity actually grants us anything. Let's say we've got a lock to pick.

 

Option 1 uses your suggested system, Option 2 uses stock HERO. The lock is difficult, so the picker takes a -3 to his roll.

 

1: "I've got a 12- in lockpicking, but I'm an Expert-level lockpicker, so I can ignore the -3, giving me a 12-."

 

2: "I've got a 15- in lockpicking, so I wind up with a 12-."

 

Hmm.

 

I don't think I'm seeing the difference here, honestly - even in your JAGS system, a higher skill level has the same effect as a higher level of mastery. The only thing that you get that you couldn't with HERO is (say) a Master locksmith who is only capable of opening easy locks on a 12-, but he can open the toughest locks on a 12- as well. That doesn't make much sense to me, and you could do it with limited skill levels if you really wanted such an effect.

 

I think it's added complexity without added value.

I think what he's getting at is that the SLs for "skill" are really more like PSLs (though those normally only apply to combat). So, for your example, you are right: the two are the same. But for a normal roll (one without penalties due to a well-built lock), the person with the normally high skill would have a 15-, but the other person would still have a 12-.

 

To use a better example, let's talk about a Skill in which succeeding by more might possibly give you a better result: Weaponsmithing. For an average task (one with no bonuses or penalties), fellow B with the 15- can reasonably expect to succeed by 4-5 points, and make a really nice sword, but fellow A with the 12- and the three, "Skill PSLs," can only reasonably expect to succeed by 1-2 points most of the time, thereby making a pretty average sword. However, when doing something really hard (like making a ballista, maybe?) that might give you a -3 to the roll, both would be equally likely to succeed, and will both probably build a pretty average quality weapon.

 

Do I have that right? Anyway, for this kind of thing I would simply suggest using a PSL-like construct. Or perhaps an equivalent Limitation on normal SLs ("Only to Cancel Penalties Due to Difficult Tasks;" perhaps a -1/4 or -1/2?).

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Fiddling With 6th - Skills (first of ??)

 

Oh I agree. Letting someone with' date=' say, a 40 PRE loose with all their Interaction skills bought as Familiarities would be nasty. Nothing worse than a Seduction 14- for which you only paid 1 point.[/quote']

This is why I still stand by what I said before in post #18. The guy with 40 PRE and a 1-point familiarity would only get an 11- roll with my system. 11- is fairly decent, but not nearly as good as the full skill you would normally expect from someone with 40 PRE, yet better than the normal 10 PRE guy with 1-point familiarity's 8-, as you'd expect. And it turns out to be the same 11- that the normal guy would have if he paid for the full skill.

[DangerousDan]

Re: Fiddling With 6th - Skills (first of ??)

 

I don't like the quick jump from 8- to 11- (or 12- if you know what you're doing with your points); a jump from 25.9% to 62.5% (or 74.1%). There's no granularity' date=' just a quick jump from a one in four shot to a two in three (or three in four). And with no skill levels adding to Familiarities, there's really no way to make a mild lift on your own.[/quote']

I've got to agree with you here. It is even worse for a skill that belongs to a skill enhancer, where 1 cp can jump the character from 0% to 62.5% chance of success. I see only two ways around this, neither of which I particularly like:

1) spend the extra point, but add a -0 limitation: limited to 9- or 10- (this at least works within the existing system) In a series I am currently running, a PC has recently acquired a SS:Alien biology at an 8-. Every few sessions, as she continues to study the alien life forms, it will go up by one. Only after it gets to 11- (1 cp with Scientist) will I allow the player to add XP to that particular skill.

2) use fractional XP: 1cp = 8-, 1½ = 9-, 2 = 11- (this invents a new mechanic, and is totally useless for skills that fall under an enhancer)

 

I wish that you could add Skill Levels to Cramming. I'd be willing to buy Skill Levels that only added to Cramming' date=' if I could do it. And I know I [i']can[/i] do it, in my own games at least; I mean it makes no sense to me that you can't in general. Wait, I take that back; I do see the desire to prevent the PC from studying for several hours and becoming a Nobel prize-winning whatever, but let's be honest, any number of things left lying around in FREd could blow your campaign to flinders if you're not careful.

With some of the groups I game with, we use a house rule that allows you to use Overall levels (but nothing less) with Cramming. This was strictly illegal at least as far back as 4th ed and remains illegal in reFRED, but hey, its not like the rules police are going to come to your game and arrest you, is it?

 

So. I have thrown down the gauntlet. Does anyone have anything to add?

It really bothers me that a game system that seems to work so hard to permit almost any character concept works so hard to make it illegal under any circumstances whatsoever to build a character that is merely competent at every known skill. The third character I ever created is a 3500 year old werewolf who's been there, done that. On the first draft, skills alone cost over 600 cp, and that was with skill enhancers shaving a few hundred points off the cost. If you added up all of the experience ever awarded and applied it only to buying skills at 3cp each, I'm sure that at least one of the players you took those points from could say, "He doesn't know how to ____" But under the 5th ed rules, I can build (and have built) a character for far fewer points that can not only kill almost everyone in a moderately large cluster of galaxies, but leave an empty hole in the sky where the galaxies used to be. Of course, the character would only use this power if is was absolutely necessary.

 

I know that I'm , but a game system in which one can build an character that has the power to eliminate a large portion of the observable universe really ought to have a mechanism to permit cramming to at least a 9-. Of course, any mechanism to exceed the 8- limit on cramming is subject to abuse. But really, how much worse can it be than killling you and obliterating your entire galaxy?

[Black Rose]

Re: Fiddling With 6th - Skills (first of ??)

 

Yes, I'm practicing thread necromancy. Evil, I know, but the other kind is smelly and gets you talked about...

 

It occurred to me as I was reading this post:

 

Well, let's look at whether the added complexity actually grants us anything. Let's say we've got a lock to pick.

 

Option 1 uses your suggested system, Option 2 uses stock HERO. The lock is difficult, so the picker takes a -3 to his roll.

 

1: "I've got a 12- in lockpicking, but I'm an Expert-level lockpicker, so I can ignore the -3, giving me a 12-."

 

2: "I've got a 15- in lockpicking, so I wind up with a 12-."

 

Hmm.

 

I don't think I'm seeing the difference here, honestly - even in your JAGS system, a higher skill level has the same effect as a higher level of mastery. The only thing that you get that you couldn't with HERO is (say) a Master locksmith who is only capable of opening easy locks on a 12-, but he can open the toughest locks on a 12- as well. That doesn't make much sense to me, and you could do it with limited skill levels if you really wanted such an effect.

 

I think it's added complexity without added value.

I think what he's getting at is that the SLs for "skill" are really more like PSLs (though those normally only apply to combat). So, for your example, you are right: the two are the same. But for a normal roll (one without penalties due to a well-built lock), the person with the normally high skill would have a 15-, but the other person would still have a 12-.

 

To use a better example, let's talk about a Skill in which succeeding by more might possibly give you a better result: Weaponsmithing. For an average task (one with no bonuses or penalties), fellow B with the 15- can reasonably expect to succeed by 4-5 points, and make a really nice sword, but fellow A with the 12- and the three, "Skill PSLs," can only reasonably expect to succeed by 1-2 points most of the time, thereby making a pretty average sword. However, when doing something really hard (like making a ballista, maybe?) that might give you a -3 to the roll, both would be equally likely to succeed, and will both probably build a pretty average quality weapon.

 

Do I have that right? Anyway, for this kind of thing I would simply suggest using a PSL-like construct. Or perhaps an equivalent Limitation on normal SLs ("Only to Cancel Penalties Due to Difficult Tasks;" perhaps a -1/4 or -1/2?).

 

That every time I mentioned it I was nearly dead tired. I'm not right now, so let me try to convey what I was going for.

 

Your skill roll measures your success/failure ratio. That's basic, right? But your Skill Level measures your knowledge base or scope. You might have, to use an example from the JAGS website, Tactics at 13- (dang good), but your level is Average. You are the grizzled Sarge, the Old Man who's been through more missions that these wet-behind-the-ears grunts have days in-country. You are very good at squad tactics and getting your boys out of the jungle, but you're only so-so at figuring out the bigger picture (Tactics [A] 13- with a -3 penalty for not being Tactics [E] is 10-).