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The Ultimate Skill (micro review)

Edsel

By Edsel
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Edsel Grand Master

Edsel

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I am still at Gencon so I really don't have time to be posting but for once I wanted to be one of the first to say I got my copy.

 

A big book it comes in at exactly 400 pages counting the index. Of course since I have been playing games and taking in the sights I have only given it a through skimming.

 

Chapter 1 Skill Rules: This takes up the first 59 pages of the book. It has lots of options and alternative ways to run skills in your game. Options for the level of success or failure that a roll indicates. Lots of details are expanded upon like how long do certain skills take to use, what compliments what, length of time to learn skills, generic skill modifiers. There is a big discussion on everyman skills and examples for many genres. Options for new skill enhancers including Universal enhancers (like Universal Translator, Universal Pilot, Universal Scientist, etc.). There are also discussions about how skills interact with Perks, Talents, Powers, Power Advantages, Limitations, Frameworks.

 

Chapter 2 The Skills: This is naturally the big chapter it takes up pages 62 through 371. Every existing skill is expanded upon. For instance Acrobatics is pages 69-73. I've really only looked at a few skills in any detail yet. The Language tables are greatly expanded and now take up 6 pages on the expanded language charts alone! Science skills are also given much more detail with multi-page charts that show the level of simularity in various sciences. Sciences are broken down...

 

Sorry I just got a call from Teflon Billy and Eosin and they want me to go to dinner with them. I'll have to try and finish this later.

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Edsel Grand Master

Edsel

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Re: The Ultimate Skill (micro review)

 

Dinner was very nice thank you.

 

Now where was I... Oh yeah Science skills.

 

Sciences are broken down into 8 very broad fields. Within each Field there are numerous Disciplines. Many of the Disciplines are broken down into Subdisciplines and some of them are further broken down into Specialities. If you have one of the broad Fields then you can roll on that broad Science Skill or you can apply it to one of its Disciplines at a penalty. The penalty increases if you apply it to a Subdiscipline and it is even worse if you are trying to apply it to a Speciality. Of course you can choose to instead buy a Discipline, Subdiscipline or Speciality directly. Essentially the further removed from a specific science your science skill is the greater the penalty. In numerous cases some Disciplines, Subdiciplines or Specialities are related to more than one particular broad science skill. It is hard to explain this without looking at the book. Suffice to say that there is a 7-page table related to various science skills and how they relate to each other. I like it.

 

Chapter 3 Skills and Equipment: Pages 374-389. This, as the name implies, deals with skills bought for equipment, vehicles and bases. There is a subsection that deals with laboratories for bases. A subsection called Skill Gear gives a bunch of example gadgets that incorporate skills.

 

Chapter 4 Adventuring with Skills: Pages 390-393. This mainly provides some more information about using skills in combat and the effects that environment has on skill use.

 

Biblography and Index takes up pages 394-400.

 

That's my micro review. It's pretty incomplete because I haven't read most of it yet. My initial impression is that this is a worthy addition to your Hero Games library.

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wylodmayer Community Regular

wylodmayer

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Re: The Ultimate Skill (micro review)

 

This rocks. Lack of a more robust skill system was always my problem with Hero. Then again, I never really held it against the game, since Champions grew out of a period where games were largely permutations of tabletop tactical combat rules (hence the obsession with hex sides and so forth). Hell, when I started playing 2nd Edition Champions, I remember being impressed at the, what, twelve skills that were there? My first superhero game was Villains & Vigilantes, which had no skills at all, so Champions was a "skill heavy" game in my opinion! :nonp:

 

Of course, later when I started playing DC Heroes 2nd edition and later, I got spoiled by the way they handled skills in that system. Mind you, I'm not saying it's better than Hero. There's a lot wrong with it, notably the Gadgetry rules and some other stuff, but I enjoyed the fact that skills used the same kinds of rating system that all powers and attributes did, allowing you to set up some fascinating resolution systems. As much as I prefer Hero (and I do), I've always been slightly put out by the fact that my favored character type - the skilled normal - has always come out better in DC Heroes than with Hero.

 

No more!!!! Mwah ha ha ha ha.

 

Edsel, I have to ask - how will Ultimate Skill affect your no-doubt skill-heavy Dark Champions game?

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Edsel Grand Master

Edsel

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Re: The Ultimate Skill (micro review)

 

Edsel' date=' I have to ask - how will Ultimate Skill affect your no-doubt skill-heavy Dark Champions game?[/quote'] Yes, it will have some effect. Mainly because I now see where we have been making some minor errors. For instance, we have been over-using the PS: Research since I now see that many skills can be used in its place, also there is a new optional skill Research. It hadn't dawned on me that Lockpicking can be used to build and install locks as well as for picking them. Various things like that.
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Steve Long Grand Master

Steve Long

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Re: The Ultimate Skill (micro review)

 

It hadn't dawned on me that Lockpicking can be used to build and install locks as well as for picking them.

 

To be fair to you (and other readers), Edsel, in some cases things like this are only being articulated for the first time in print in TUS, so there isn't necessarily any reason they should have occurred to anyone. Hopefully to that extent the book will at least prove inspirational. :)

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Black Rose Mentor

Black Rose

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Re: The Ultimate Skill (micro review)

 

To be fair to you (and other readers)' date=' Edsel, in some cases things like this are only being articulated for the first time in print in TUS, so there isn't necessarily any reason they should have occurred to anyone. Hopefully to that extent the book will at least prove inspirational. :)[/quote']

 

Sounds like another case of something you seem very good at creating for us, Steve; what I call the "paperclip" moment, where something seems so blindingly obvious, in hindsight, that you literally can't see how you didn't know it already.

 

Now what I want to know is, when will this be on shelves at my FLGS? I'm itching for this book! I don't know whether or not I want to buy it from one of the online stores (and get a discount, but have to wait for shipping), my FLGS (pay full price, but get it "now"), or from the Hero Games Online Store (wait a month, and pay full price, but all the money goes to Steve and co.).

 

C'mon Steve, I wanna book!!!!!!:D:P:D:P

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Steve Long Grand Master

Steve Long

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Re: The Ultimate Skill (micro review)

 

Now what I want to know is, when will this be on shelves at my FLGS?

 

Now that Tina's back from GenCon, we'll be shipping the books out to distributors, who will then ship it to retailers. Once it leaves our hands, how long it takes to get to you is beyond our control. It usually appears on shelves within a couple weeks, but it depends on a lot of factors.

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CorPse Experienced

CorPse

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Re: The Ultimate Skill (micro review)

 

This is a lovely book... I particulary appreciated the "mini-articles" about cryptography, bugging devices, and the many methods of divination. Also, I think it's safe to say that the language chart is now *complete*, unless we figure out how to talk to whales or aliens. Seriously, the language chart is probably worth the cost of the book...

 

cP

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zornwil Grand Master

zornwil

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Re: The Ultimate Skill (micro review)

 

I leafed through this last night. As a relatively minor complaint, I would like to have seen a more unified approach towards Sciences, Knowledges, and Languages in terms of subdivisions/modifiers; these seem, at least superficially, to take 3 different approaches to the same basic issue of skill granularity and relationships.

 

Regardless, it's a great work in terms of exploring options and ideas. For any skills-heavy game, it begs for and guides the GM to put the appropriate work into defining how skills will work in the group's games. I know I will likely put forth some more consistent skills statements based on this work for my supers game (including unifying the Languages, Sciences, and Knowledges approaches from the books since it doesn't take too much to take it to the next step based on what's in there).

 

PS - I should add, the reason I bolded "appropriate" is that prior to this work, such a guide didn't exist, even properly in the core book IMHO, so this is a great step forward in taking guess-work out and indicating where to concentrate effort, at least for the tweak-minded.

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Guest oddbatt

Guest oddbatt

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Re: The Ultimate Skill (micro review)

 

Is there any further discussion on straight Skill Levels (the ones you pay for based on how broad the skill is, not 3/2 or whetever) in Ultimate Skill?

 

Thanks!

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ghost-angel Grand Master

ghost-angel

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Re: The Ultimate Skill (micro review)

 

I leafed through this last night. As a relatively minor complaint, I would like to have seen a more unified approach towards Sciences, Knowledges, and Languages in terms of subdivisions/modifiers; these seem, at least superficially, to take 3 different approaches to the same basic issue of skill granularity and relationships.

 

Regardless, it's a great work in terms of exploring options and ideas. For any skills-heavy game, it begs for and guides the GM to put the appropriate work into defining how skills will work in the group's games. I know I will likely put forth some more consistent skills statements based on this work for my supers game (including unifying the Languages, Sciences, and Knowledges approaches from the books since it doesn't take too much to take it to the next step based on what's in there).

 

PS - I should add, the reason I bolded "appropriate" is that prior to this work, such a guide didn't exist, even properly in the core book IMHO, so this is a great step forward in taking guess-work out and indicating where to concentrate effort, at least for the tweak-minded.

 

I would look at it as three different options of applying granularity, with examples for each.

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zornwil Grand Master

zornwil

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Re: The Ultimate Skill (micro review)

 

Is Perception addressed? Are there any reccomendations how many times a character try again on a missed skill roll? Anything similar Gurps Bang skills or skills defaults?

I don't remember about "bang skills" and what they mean in GURPS. There's some stuff on Perception but from what I can see it's not treated as a skill itself/given that much attention. There is a smallish section on retrying skills but bear in mind there's copious discussion under each skill.

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nexus Grand Master

nexus

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Re: The Ultimate Skill (micro review)

 

I don't remember about "bang skills" and what they mean in GURPS. There's some stuff on Perception but from what I can see it's not treated as a skill itself/given that much attention. There is a smallish section on retrying skills but bear in mind there's copious discussion under each skill.

 

Bang skill are used in very cinematic campaigns or ones were skill will de emphsized. Basically they're extremely broad, covering entire groups of sub skill under one banner in GURPS for example there's Science! (the exclaimation point is required :D) which covers all science skills, meant to represent Pulp Scientists that seem to know a little bit of everything. There are other examples as well.

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