Mazeus Xenon Posted January 3, 2007 Report Share Posted January 3, 2007 Okay, this may be a seriously dumb question but I just noticed it... Anywho, Penalty Skill Levels specifically state that they can only be used for OCV penalties (I have only been playing Hero for 15 years - you'd think I would have noticed before now!). However, I have used them for all sorts of variations to offset penalties to any skill roll. What do you folks think about that - could the rules for Penalty Skill Levels be used universally or just for OCV Penalties? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Mhoram Posted January 3, 2007 Report Share Posted January 3, 2007 Re: Penalty Skill Levels I've houseruled them much the way you have. I've had not problems with it, but then I don't have a munchkin/powergamer in the group. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mazeus Xenon Posted January 3, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 3, 2007 Re: Penalty Skill Levels I've had some seriousl munchkins in my game, hence why I am always looking for "committee clarification" of rules! All in all, though, I have never had a big issue, even with 'power gamers' in my group (Luckily, though, I have managed to get them away from the table). Anyone else have any experiences or comments? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Mhoram Posted January 3, 2007 Report Share Posted January 3, 2007 Re: Penalty Skill Levels . Anyone else have any experiences or comments? Yeah. Mine weren't the most usefull for springboarding a discussion. "You way works" just doesn't get that spark going. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dust Raven Posted January 3, 2007 Report Share Posted January 3, 2007 Re: Penalty Skill Levels Go for it! The Skill is called "Penalty Skill Levels", not "OCV Penalty Levels". A penalty is a penalty, and why should you be able to buy off range modifiers for a gun, but not time modifiers for performing a task quickly? Just keep in mind that not every negative modifier is a penalty, but is actually integral to the task, such as needing to make a roll by half for Acrobatics and such. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manic Typist Posted January 3, 2007 Report Share Posted January 3, 2007 Re: Penalty Skill Levels Raven, can you elaborate on that last point? It eludes me... (Making Acrobatics by half?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mazeus Xenon Posted January 3, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 3, 2007 Re: Penalty Skill Levels I don't know if that is an exact scenario (a situation where you must make Acrobatic by half), but Raven is just making a point: sometimes a 'penalty' is a level of desired effect rather than a true penalty that can be reduced. It's like the penalty for the 'Sweep" maneuver: you should take skill levels in Sweep, not Penalty Skill Levels to offset the negative effect. (Right, Raven?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinecone Posted January 3, 2007 Report Share Posted January 3, 2007 Re: Penalty Skill Levels Okay, this may be a seriously dumb question but I just noticed it... Anywho, Penalty Skill Levels specifically state that they can only be used for OCV penalties (I have only been playing Hero for 15 years - you'd think I would have noticed before now!). However, I have used them for all sorts of variations to offset penalties to any skill roll. What do you folks think about that - could the rules for Penalty Skill Levels be used universally or just for OCV Penalties? The first rule of Hero is...Do what you wanna do... In Ultimate skill "other stuff" is a GM's option so you're even official... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dust Raven Posted January 3, 2007 Report Share Posted January 3, 2007 Re: Penalty Skill Levels Raven' date=' can you elaborate on that last point? It eludes me... (Making Acrobatics by half?)[/quote'] The example I was thinking of were some of the things you can do by making an Acrobatics Roll by half, such as maintaining your full DCV while prone. If you have Acrobatics 14-, you can not buy +7 PSLs to offset the penalty to keep your full DCV while prone. You also should not be allowed to buy PSLs to counter penalties from Skill vs Skill contests that come from how much the other character made the Skill by (such as when Disarming a bomb that has a -4 to the roll because the guy who set it succeeded by 4). I don't know if that is an exact scenario (a situation where you must make Acrobatic by half), but Raven is just making a point: sometimes a 'penalty' is a level of desired effect rather than a true penalty that can be reduced. It's like the penalty for the 'Sweep" maneuver: you should take skill levels in Sweep, not Penalty Skill Levels to offset the negative effect. (Right, Raven?) Right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Mhoram Posted January 3, 2007 Report Share Posted January 3, 2007 Re: Penalty Skill Levels The example I was thinking of were some of the things you can do by making an Acrobatics Roll by half, such as maintaining your full DCV while prone. If you have Acrobatics 14-, you can not buy +7 PSLs to offset the penalty to keep your full DCV while prone. Right. I'd allow something like that*, rather than penalty levels, just +14 to acrobatics, only for keeping DCV while Prone (-2) for 9 points, and if you make your basic roll, then you keep DCV. Flavor down to taste (maybe only buying a number of levels so an 11- keeps your DCV). Especially in a mid high end Ninja Hero game where people do all kinds of things with thier physical abilitys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted January 3, 2007 Report Share Posted January 3, 2007 Re: Penalty Skill Levels As pinecone pointed out The Ultimate Skill discusses PSLs and their application to normal skills. One of the examples I believe is PSLs vs Time Penalties. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Mhoram Posted January 3, 2007 Report Share Posted January 3, 2007 Re: Penalty Skill Levels As pinecone pointed out The Ultimate Skill discusses PSLs and their application to normal skills. One of the examples I believe is PSLs vs Time Penalties. Which was also covered in the Ultimate Speedster as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilFleischmann Posted January 4, 2007 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 Re: Penalty Skill Levels The magic system presented in The Valdorian Age also includes PSLs vs the Active Point Penalty to Magic Skill rolls for RSR. This allows characters a chance of success in casting a high-AP spell, without having to have a very high skill roll. EX: you might have a Magic Skill at 13- and say, 6 PSLs for the AP Penalty. Then you have a 13- chance to cast any spell up to 60 Active points. Otherwise, to cast a 60-AP spell with those odds, you'd need a 19- roll, making lower-powered spells almost automatic. In short, there's plenty of precedence in the officially published material for using PSL with something other than OCV. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinecone Posted January 4, 2007 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 Re: Penalty Skill Levels Totally, I remember setting off a Mild firestorm by suggesting that using a PSL model with FW would be more balance friendly.....say FW(13) +8 w/FW: only to counteract lack of weakness penaltys. I liked it because the regular way ends up with people with FW(21), making everone without lack of W as punching bags. I'd say that the PSL concept can be applied in lots of creative ways, yet to be discovered... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dust Raven Posted January 7, 2007 Report Share Posted January 7, 2007 Re: Penalty Skill Levels I'd allow something like that*, rather than penalty levels, just +14 to acrobatics, only for keeping DCV while Prone (-2) for 9 points, and if you make your basic roll, then you keep DCV. Flavor down to taste (maybe only buying a number of levels so an 11- keeps your DCV). Especially in a mid high end Ninja Hero game where people do all kinds of things with thier physical abilitys. I'd allow that as well in such a campaign, though I'd still enforce the usual rules for which levels of Skill Levels can have Limitations, so chances are it would be something more like +14 levels with All Agility Skills and DEX Rolls, only to maintain DCV. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter_Knutsen Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 Re: Penalty Skill Levels Anyone else have any experiences or comments? When I first read about PSLs in reviews of Hero System 5th Edition, I automatically assumed that they were intended to offset any kind of specific penalty, not only (specific) combat penalties. Thus when I got the rule book I felt quite let down. It seemed to me to be such an obvious usage, allowing them to be purchased for non-combat skills and categories of non-combat skills. An opportunity had been missed. TUS fixes this, of course, but it nevertheless strikes me that non-combat PSLs are too expensive. I can pay 2 points to get a generic +1 bonus to a specific skill, applicable 100% of the time, or I can pay 1.5 points to get a +1 bonus to a specific skill that can only be used to offset penalties caused by circumstances, and only by a specific kind of circumstances? No thank you! If the cost was correct, it would be great fun to make a rogue'ish character with some kind of "No Equipment"-grounded PSLs, or an inventor with "alien/different tech level"-based PSLs. But the cost is not correct. If I were to play in a Hero System campaign, I'd build my own PSLs from scratch, so that the price would be fair, in the sense that I wouldn't feel like an ithering blidiot for not purchasing ordinary (non-penalty) skill levels instead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manic Typist Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 Re: Penalty Skill Levels Please, do it and post your results. I think the costs should work out the same as Penalty Combat Skill levels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter_Knutsen Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 Re: Penalty Skill Levels Please' date=' do it and post your results. I think the costs should work out the same as Penalty Combat Skill levels.[/quote'] Was that a reply to my recent post? In case it is, here goes...: My starting point is the Expertise Talent from TUS p54, which includes a (-1) "Only to off-set roll penalties" Limitation from Ultimate Skill. Also, I'm starting with Overall Skill Levels, having a base cost of 8 points each, because that's much more fun than having PSLs specific to single skills. I'll also take 2 or 3 such Overall Skill Levels to avoid playing the "rounding game", you know where something costs 4.5 or even 4.9 points but you get to round it down to 4. "Hurrying PSLs" 2xOverall Skill Levels, base cost 16 points (-1) Only to off-set roll penalties (-1/2) Only to off-set *Hurrying* penalties Final cost 6 Points (6.4) "Poor equipment/no equipment PSLs" 3xOverall Skill Levels, base cost 24 points. (-1) Only to off-set roll penalties (-1/2) only to off-set penalties for poor/no equipment. (-1/4) can only be used in situations where equipment would be useful Final cost 8 points (8.7) "Alien tech/wrong tech level PSLs" 4xOverall Skill Levels, base cost 32 points. (-1) Only to off-set roll penalties (-1/2) only to offset penalties for alien technology, or technology that is higher or lower tech level than the character's (-1/2) can only be used for skills that involve technology Final cost 10 points (10.67) Be mindful of the eternal "threat", which is that if the GM won't let a player take appropriately priced PSLs, that player will simply take ordinary, un-limited skill levels instead, which ultimately leads to less variety among the players' characters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mazeus Xenon Posted January 10, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 Re: Penalty Skill Levels Now, I don't havde TUS book or a PDF of it so I have no point of reference... However, the cost reduction you are indicating isn't much, especially when I round things normally, not just down (I can be a real... "pain"... to my players in that respect, but I do it for everyone, inlcuding the badguys) so the cost reduction in your example isn't much if any. Although, I do see your point - using the limitations does seems to make more sense AND more cost efficient (especially if you go crazy with skill levels like this). That being said, one of things I do is limit my skill rolls to an 18- before a character has to pay double (much like Characteristic Maximums). So, even with the limitations you indicate, using Skill Levels to raise the roll would (eventually) cost more as it would take TWO skill levels to add +1 once they hit 18-. So my players often use the "Penalty Skill Levels" as they do not actually raise the skill roll but counter the penalty. THAT being said, if you didn't limit skill roll maximums then using the limitations may be the better route. They would offset ANY penalty as described so on a one-to-one compare with a 3pt PSL then they would be cheaper. If you are thinking of this as compared to a 1.5 to +1 then the limitations don't make it any cheaper! (2 levels at 1.5 is 3pts, much less than the 6 for your first example). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mazeus Xenon Posted January 10, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 Re: Penalty Skill Levels Oh, and all THAT being said, Hero often says that if you can build something multiple ways you should (and I emphasize SHOULD) use the more expensive route. Of course this all boils down to how the GM (Me!) would do it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinecone Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 Re: Penalty Skill Levels When I first read about PSLs in reviews of Hero System 5th Edition' date=' I automatically assumed that they were intended to offset [i']any[/i] kind of specific penalty, not only (specific) combat penalties. Thus when I got the rule book I felt quite let down. It seemed to me to be such an obvious usage, allowing them to be purchased for non-combat skills and categories of non-combat skills. An opportunity had been missed. TUS fixes this, of course, but it nevertheless strikes me that non-combat PSLs are too expensive. I can pay 2 points to get a generic +1 bonus to a specific skill, applicable 100% of the time, or I can pay 1.5 points to get a +1 bonus to a specific skill that can only be used to offset penalties caused by circumstances, and only by a specific kind of circumstances? No thank you! If the cost was correct, it would be great fun to make a rogue'ish character with some kind of "No Equipment"-grounded PSLs, or an inventor with "alien/different tech level"-based PSLs. But the cost is not correct. If I were to play in a Hero System campaign, I'd build my own PSLs from scratch, so that the price would be fair, in the sense that I wouldn't feel like an ithering blidiot for not purchasing ordinary (non-penalty) skill levels instead. I've used Limatation penalty levels for years without any problem...what the new versions of the rules don't make clear is all of the rules are suggestions...you can change anything you want. Some GM's won't like PSLs working on other things, and thats OK. But if you don't mind, go right ahead! and you don't need Ulti-skill to do it.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilFleischmann Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 Re: Penalty Skill Levels "Poor equipment/no equipment PSLs" 3xOverall Skill Levels, base cost 24 points. (-1) Only to off-set roll penalties (-1/2) only to off-set penalties for poor/no equipment. (-1/4) can only be used in situations where equipment would be useful Final cost 8 points (8.7) "Alien tech/wrong tech level PSLs" 4xOverall Skill Levels, base cost 32 points. (-1) Only to off-set roll penalties (-1/2) only to offset penalties for alien technology, or technology that is higher or lower tech level than the character's (-1/2) can only be used for skills that involve technology Final cost 10 points (10.67) I'd say you're double-dipping on these. And you're rounding incorrectly. 8.7 rounds to 9. 10.67 rounds to 11. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dust Raven Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 Re: Penalty Skill Levels "Hurrying PSLs" 2xOverall Skill Levels, base cost 16 points (-1) Only to off-set roll penalties (-1/2) Only to off-set *Hurrying* penalties Final cost 6 Points (6.4) "Poor equipment/no equipment PSLs" 3xOverall Skill Levels, base cost 24 points. (-1) Only to off-set roll penalties (-1/2) only to off-set penalties for poor/no equipment. (-1/4) can only be used in situations where equipment would be useful Final cost 8 points (8.7) "Alien tech/wrong tech level PSLs" 4xOverall Skill Levels, base cost 32 points. (-1) Only to off-set roll penalties (-1/2) only to offset penalties for alien technology, or technology that is higher or lower tech level than the character's (-1/2) can only be used for skills that involve technology Final cost 10 points (10.67) I agree, this is double dipping. Either that or you are valuing certain Limitations with a higher value than the book does, in which case you should just use one large Limitation. Keep in mind that a Limitation that isn't limiting isn't worth any points. If the bonus can only be used to offset penalties from bad equipment, and you only get those penalties when equipment is useful, it isn't further limiting to say "only when equipment is useful" because you already said that with the previous Limitation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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