Why do we have skills?

[David Johnston]

Re: Why do we have skills?

 

There is of course another thing in the favour of skills, which that some skills do things that are simply impossible for a power. Knowledge skills in particular have no power which can duplicate them in every application. At best you can just use telepathy to steal the knowledge from someone who does have the skill.

[Shike019]

Re: Why do we have skills?

 

There is of course another thing in the favour of skills' date=' which that some skills do things that are simply impossible for a power. Knowledge skills in particular have no power which can duplicate them in every application. At best you can just use telepathy to steal the knowledge from someone who does have the skill.[/quote']

 

Actually I think that you can use Clairsentience for this.

 

At least (after I re-read the power) I would assume it is possible to use Clairesentience for the purpose of gaining the information you need about a topic or topics.

[David Johnston]

Re: Why do we have skills?

 

Actually I think that you can use Clairsentience for this.

 

At least (after I re-read the power) I would assume it is possible to use Clairesentience for the purpose of gaining the information you need about a topic or topics.

 

All clairsentience does is give you sensory data. But if what you are sensing is anything complex or hard to understand, Clairsentience won't help at all.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Why do we have skills?

 

There is of course another thing in the favour of skills' date=' which that some skills do things that are simply impossible for a power. Knowledge skills in particular have no power which can duplicate them in every application. At best you can just use telepathy to steal the knowledge from someone who does have the skill.[/quote']

 

Knowledge of : Detect Correct Answer, Discriminatory, Transdimensional (single dimension; dimension of infinate knowledge)

[Kristopher]

Re: Why do we have skills?

 

Again, just use the Knowledge Skill.

 

(For one, I don't like the concept of a "Dimension of Infinite Knowledge".)

[Dust Raven]

Re: Why do we have skills?

 

Again, just use the Knowledge Skill.

 

(For one, I don't like the concept of a "Dimension of Infinite Knowledge".)

 

My point was that it could be done, not that it should be.

[David Johnston]

Re: Why do we have skills?

 

Knowledge of : Detect Correct Answer' date=' Discriminatory, Transdimensional (single dimension; dimension of infinate knowledge)[/quote']

 

That would of course give you an answer you yourself wouldn't be able to understand.

[zornwil]

Re: Why do we have skills?

 

Characters who are meant to be hackers often represent their hacking with powers, not Skills.

 

Characters meant to be based around skills often end up using Super Skills built with powers rather than Skills.

 

Characters meant to be Master Linguists often represent this with Powers or Talents.

 

Even when discussing real world uses of skills and equipment (tapping into a com link was the example that got me thinking about this again) many GMs and players prefer to use Powers rather than Skills.

 

At what point do you say "Skills can't accomplish this real world task in my game, let's use a power"?

 

Why do we have Skills at all in HERO System?

I think RDU Neil raises a good point which I'll orient a bit differently though I thnk it's the same basic thing...if the end result in play is the same between a high-powered skill and a skill-as-power, then there's basically some "gaming" of the design process. This can be for a variety of reasons, including presuppositions of effect where it may not play out or to safeguard against particular circumstances, or for old-fashioned efficiency or even munchkinism.

 

Which in some part means that one has to consider what the "run-time" goal is and influence back the design-time one. In the end, if the gross result is not significantly different, the "skill build" would be preferable given we typically should pick the power made to accomplish something.

 

But in point of fact, skills interpretation in play can be a lot looser, as evidenced by various suggestions and commentaries in this thread. I run extreme skill levels and find that interesting and fun. I go way more than -10 in values, as the character attempts increasingly difficult or esoteric things. And of course it matters when facing an opponent of equal insane skill level.

 

Skills are rather less explained, as well, mechanically, because they are simply assumed to be more or less known to us, at least when talking about the core book and not optional material such as TUS. This leaves more open ground as well, especially when we create skills like "Dimensional Magic" or the like.

 

All this being said, I have always seen a mix of skills for most superpowered PCs in supers games. In my Marginally Powered Sit-Com Heroes game, skills do much of the job but I do create "super skills." I think mostly, though, that's because I want to represent particular nuances in the skill which are difficult to express with a skill alone. It could be part of the metagame "cool build" attempt, perhaps, but I don't think that's generally so.

 

I find skills, given the bell curve, to be generally rather cheap in anything but the lowest points games. I mostly double penalties as you'd find them in the book but that depends a lot on the campaign and context. Broadly speaking, powers do remove a bit of GM control as elsewhere stated in this thread since penalty determination, while not as broad as mine, can vary a lot more than the conditions which a power will confront. So this control issue can come into play.

 

But I really think that most of the time the answer really is in mechanical details and desirable world interaction for the character. The only thing that really hampers clarity around this is the relative fuzziness of skills, which in turn raises some reasonable questions around game design and clarity of purpose of components, although I'm not suggesting these are serious issues.

 

Great topic, OddHat.

[zornwil]

Re: Why do we have skills?

 

Hmmm, but I will add that there is an important element in that skills are expected (I think the book essentially states, my own or others' use notwithstadning) mostly to conform to the "realistic-world physics" of the campaign whereas powers can be beyond that, so this is an important part of the equation, as I think has been alluded to above but is important. It reminds us that only in fantastic games should characters have "super skills". It reinforces that skills have a sort of "-x Real World Limitation" like a gun, especially since they can require equpment and so on despite not being listed with such a Lim.

[Vondy]

Re: Why do we have skills?

 

Hmmm' date=' but I will add that there is an important element in that skills are expected (I think the book essentially states, my own or others' use notwithstadning) mostly to conform to the "realistic-world physics" of the campaign whereas powers can be beyond that, so this is an important part of the equation, as I think has been alluded to above but is important. It reminds us that only in fantastic games should characters have "super skills". It reinforces that skills have a sort of "-x Real World Limitation" like a gun, especially since they can require equpment and so on despite not being listed with such a Lim.[/quote']

 

On the other hand, read the description for animal handler which suggests high animal handler skills can represent a characters "almost psychic" connection with animals and beasts. And this is my issue with super-skills. They don't really cross the line into the realm of the impossible. They sit on the cusp, and most skills purchased up to a high level (or with limited skill levels) can do the same thing more elegantly. What's more - why buy up your skill roll if it has been philosophically undercut by the introduction of powers defined as "super-skills" that do what a high skill roll should be able to accomplish. A 20- skill roll is super.

 

I think part of the problem is that, if you read the rules carefully (and I include examining the charts for penalties in the various sections), save for combat modifiers and the power skill, few skill roll modifiers should ever exceed -4, and those that do shouldn't exceed -6. On a 3d6 curve that's a very big lim, and for characters whose skills are cinematic and seldom fail, that still leaves them a good chance of success. I've known a lot of GM's who don't understand the curve, or modelling without powers (more prevalent in 4th than 4th IMO), who apply modifiers beyond what they should, and render skills effectively useless. I think the attractiveness of super-skills is that you don't have to worry about the GM handing out crippling modifiers that neutralize your cool.

 

I prefer the Keep It Simple school of design.

[Kristopher]

Re: Why do we have skills?

 

We have Skills of those games in which no one has Powers...

 

We have Skills for those things which don't justify or need a complex contruction made out of a Power with a long paragraph of Adv and Lim.

[zornwil]

Re: Why do we have skills?

 

On the other hand, read the description for animal handler which suggests high animal handler skills can represent a characters "almost psychic" connection with animals and beasts. And this is my issue with super-skills. They don't really cross the line into the realm of the impossible. They sit on the cusp, and most skills purchased up to a high level (or with limited skill levels) can do the same thing more elegantly. What's more - why buy up your skill roll if it has been philosophically undercut by the introduction of powers defined as "super-skills" that do what a high skill roll should be able to accomplish. A 20- skill roll is super.

 

I think part of the problem is that, if you read the rules carefully (and I include examining the charts for penalties in the various sections), save for combat modifiers and the power skill, few skill roll modifiers should ever exceed -4, and those that do shouldn't exceed -6. On a 3d6 curve that's a very big lim, and for characters whose skills are cinematic and seldom fail, that still leaves them a good chance of success. I've known a lot of GM's who don't understand the curve, or modelling without powers (more prevalent in 4th than 4th IMO), who apply modifiers beyond what they should, and render skills effectively useless. I think the attractiveness of super-skills is that you don't have to worry about the GM handing out crippling modifiers that neutralize your cool.

 

I prefer the Keep It Simple school of design.

Valid enough, but another issue is that skills and everything else separate in an odd way in that skills top out very quickly in effective points you can put in unlike chars or powers (aside from those with a single cost for total effect, such as DR or the like). I like to see skills scale up like the other elements, mechanically speaking, instead of having to treat them with their own caps which are totally separate in points/effects than chars and powers. Which is a bit of a tangent to your comment.

 

Then again, I've handled it both ways. I think primarily in supers games I like to allow for the "sky's the limit" approach allowing skills to grow vertically, if you will (i.e., more points = more power and super-skill is defined more by that), whereas in non-supers/non-high-powered I prefer to let skills grow horizontally (i.e., a skill can be broader, even super-broad).

 

But that's primarily a tangent - I think that the Animal Handler example represents a mild disconnect among skills, that the expectations-setting is subtly inconsistent, that skills sometimes move into the improbable if not virtually impossible (because while being an "animal person" and believing in very intimate links between people and animals, I wouldn't qualify it as "near-psychic" whatsoever, that is, to me, fantastic) for certain genra and that skills also need to be examined carefully and decisions such as we're discussing need to be addressed explicitly.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Why do we have skills?

 

They're Cheaper.

[Mentor]

Re: Why do we have skills?

 

Concept and a challenge.

 

My first long running PC was the only enhanced human, a mix of Batman, Cap, and Doc Savage, on a team of aliens, metabeings and mystical creaures. It was sort of like living in a world ruled by Khan. "Ours is the superior intellect."

 

The ultimate challenge is when Double eagle was able to take out a marauding Firewing type who should have beat him down or just left by the PC doing the sneaky martial artist schtick.

 

Blasts are flying around the city in the general and specific direction of our hero.

 

City knowledge-He's on top of the Barret building, *Blam* << "Die, puny human."<< Dodge, stealth, security systems-bypass elevator security, get to the stairs, climb, pick the lock, stealth, find weakness, find weakness, punch, abort to martial dodge, *Blam* "damn, the villain took an air conditioner out.", punch, martial dodge, punch. "Take him in, Captain."

[Debra Winger]

Re: Why do we have skills?

 

Both roleplaying and combat in RPG's requires a certain level of player skill.

 

Having a character's skills stated out simply is an easy way for a GM to help new players get a feel for what the character can do.