"Well, last time I saw that, we did...."

[Kdansky]

I have got a modelling question. I have a character concept that gives me trouble. The character is basically immortal (ressurection covers it nicely) and due to that, he lived for millenia and by now is pretty good at nearly anything. He did some magic, he learned how to climb/drive cars/cook sushi, he speaks nearly all languages, even some dialects, he's proficient with as good as anything.

 

And all good things come with a catch:

- He needs some time to remember ("How to deacivate a security alarm? Well, let me think about that for a minute or two, I believe I've seen something like this before..." - "HURRY, WILL YOU?!")

- He might be proficient, but he was far too lazy to ever master anything. So he actually always has rather crappy unmodified rolls (around 11- to 13-).

 

What I have come up with: VPP with some sort of extra time to change points and some activation roll. Ideally something along the lines of: "Fireball? Wait, I did that once, now how was that supposed" *Rolls 9-, fails* *retry, fail* *retry, fail* *retry, sucess* (1 minute has passed by now) "Ah, now I remember!"

 

Since it's a pretty open problem and concept (and I hope it's interesting), shoot away Thanks.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: "Well, last time I saw that, we did...."

 

Actually, I think the build you're considering sums it up rather nicely.

[McCoy]

Re: "Well, last time I saw that, we did...."

 

About the only other thing I can think of is a side effect on his roll, he misses the roll and he gets distracted by a long, rambling and ultimately pointless story that keeps him from trying again for five minutes.

 

"Security system, I saw sometiing like this once. I think I saw Testla build it. Of course, back when I was your age we didn't have security systems. That's because it was an ice age, and the most valuable thing we had was fire. Fire doesn't need a security system, it keeps itself secure. In fact, our word for fire back then was "AHHHHH!" That's the sound you made when you picked it up, so it became its name. We had to walk 40 miles to get firewood. Which was strange, we lived in the forest. But my father said he had to walk 40 miles to get firewood, his father had to walk 40 miles, so even though we had moved I still had to walk 40 miles. Of course, miles hadn't been invented yet. Neither had the number 40. Our word for 40 was "the fingers and toes of you and your brother." No, wait, that was 42."

[ghost-angel]

Re: "Well, last time I saw that, we did...."

 

Check out the Ultimate Skill. There's a few options that might do what you want.

 

Optional "Universal..." Skill Enhancers (modeled after Universal Translator) and Background Skill Mulitpliers (buying lots of background skills at a discount).

[Spidey88]

Re: "Well, last time I saw that, we did...."

 

"Security system, I saw sometiing like this once. I think I saw Testla build it. Of course, back when I was your age we didn't have security systems. That's because it was an ice age, and the most valuable thing we had was fire. Fire doesn't need a security system, it keeps itself secure. In fact, our word for fire back then was "AHHHHH!" That's the sound you made when you picked it up, so it became its name. We had to walk 40 miles to get firewood. Which was strange, we lived in the forest. But my father said he had to walk 40 miles to get firewood, his father had to walk 40 miles, so even though we had moved I still had to walk 40 miles. Of course, miles hadn't been invented yet. Neither had the number 40. Our word for 40 was "the fingers and toes of you and your brother." No, wait, that was 42."

 

"And we used to wear an onion on our belts - which was the style at the time. We couldn't get any of the regular ones, because of the war - so we had to use those big yellow ones. You could get a whole bag of them for a nickel. Back in those days, nickels had a bee on 'em. 'Gimme five bees for a quater, we'd say'".

[Markdoc]

Re: "Well, last time I saw that, we did...."

 

What I did for a similar character was:

 

1. several slots of cramming. That only gives you an 8- roll but if you were (for example) trying to navigate San Francisco today when the last time you were there was in 1902, then an 8- roll is pretty damn generous. That lets the character have skills in almost everything, but at a low level. You could, with GM's permission, use a VPP for the same thing

 

2. A bunch of levels with extra time: the character can usually dredge up more information if he has time to sit and think about it. You could apply these to your VPP.

 

cheers, Mark

[Sean Waters]

Re: "Well, last time I saw that, we did...."

 

Looking at game philosophy, any build that allows you to have lots of skills really cheap is going to undermine the whole skill system. Interesting concept and, if it was not treading on others' toes then why not go with the VPP. Well, because:

 

VPP: Any one skill Cosmic: 6 points

Extra time and concentration (-1): 3 points

 

So, for the cost of one skill, you get all of them, if you have time to think of them.

 

I'd have thought that the trouble here is with matching concept and points available. We've got a lot of skills in Hero, but if you have, say, 200 points to devote to them then you can probably buy them all, or such a large selection it makes no difference. The limitations bring the cost down to about 100 points.

 

So, here's the real question: what do you want to spend on something like this?

 

3 points? Too little.

 

100 points? Too much, given that you cannot use them simultaneously, so thre is a lot of slack.

 

Tell you what I WOULD probably allow*: a multipower.

 

3 point MP, 70 slots (say) at 1 point each, with limtiations as before we are talking between 30 and 40 points.

 

That sounds pretty reasonable. of course this would not be a general rule, but a specific instance: this is not a way to get 10 skills for 13 points

 

 

 

*even though it is not allowed either

[Outsider]

Re: "Well, last time I saw that, we did...."

 

Sounds like you want cramming without most of the limitations.

 

 

Cramming costs 5 real points and it is limited in the following ways :

 

A) It requires several hours to start up a skill (then you can use it every phase) = Extra Time 6 Hours (only to start) = -1 3/4

 

The above Extra Time is spent in study = Concentration 1/2 DCV, only to start = -1/4

 

C) It requires a resource to learn from = OAF = -1/2 (Limitation is halved in value since you only need it to start the power)

 

C) It cant be increased beyond 8- (1 point level) in any way = Custom limitation = -2 (like an 8- activation roll)

 

So..

It is 5 points per flexible point with all of those limitations. How much would it be without them?

 

At a minimum = 4.5*5.5 = 25 points.

At a maximum = 5.5*5.5 = 30 points.

 

You want at least 3 points worth, so you can have full, stat based skills. (your languages will be 'fluent with accent', but that's ok.. it represents speaking with an archaic accent or in an archaic form)

 

So 75 to 90 active points, depending on the rounding in the original Cramming build.

 

You want the following limitations though :

 

Extra Time (only to start) 1 minute (-3/4)

Concentration (only to start) 1/2 DCV (-1/4)

Must be a skill the character could have developed previously (ie no Starship Repair) = 1/4

 

So with limitations, your power would be 33 to 40 character points. And still a steal, IMHO.

[pinecone]

Re: "Well, last time I saw that, we did...."

 

Ummm I'd second the Ulti-skill suggestion...Buy Universal skills (all of them) at a pathetic level, then use extra time to raise up the roll to respectable.

 

Example: Universal Scholar (9) , extra time 5 mins and you got a good roll.. Repeat for all the rest...Universal translator actually uses a differant mechanisum, but just hand wave it to the same way as the rest...

[Kdansky]

Re: "Well, last time I saw that, we did...."

 

@Sean: Well, VPP also does the same for powers. I always wondered where the game balance in that was. So this is the same problem, limited on skills. Very interesting thoughts.

[Sean Waters]

Re: "Well, last time I saw that, we did...."

 

@Sean: Well' date=' VPP also does the same for powers. I always wondered where the game balance in that was. So this is the same problem, limited on skills. Very interesting thoughts.[/quote']

 

I think the difference comes in the fact that skills are fixed cost items: you buy a VPP for powers and (almost) everything in there has a scaleable cost, so you are giving up some degree of raw power (a cosmic VPP costs 2 1/2 times the cost of a single power) for a great deal of flexibility. Of course if you are already running up against campaign AP limits, the argument starts to fall down a bit, but skills have that - tiny - fixed cost, so you get an enorous amount of utility for very little investment.

 

Ultimately, VPP is a utility tool, and probably gets overused anyway.

[Markdoc]

Re: "Well, last time I saw that, we did...."

 

@Sean: Well' date=' VPP also does the same for powers. I always wondered where the game balance in that was. So this is the same problem, limited on skills. Very interesting thoughts.[/quote']

 

The difference is that you normally want multiple powers available at once: movement, defence, attack - so you need to split the points, meaning weaker powers. This is a problem which becomes more acute when you figure in the fact that you pay extra for the control cost and can't limit pool cost - and may need to buy a skill roll to change powers in addition, the cost of which will escalate as your powers increase in magnitude. Or skip the skill roll and buy cosmic, which reduces your available power dramatically.

 

Skills on the other hand are not only cheap, but it's rare that you want more than one or two active at once. So a small pool could duplicate the effect of having multiple skills with little or no downside - especially since you need only a low skill roll to shift between skills.

 

As a GM, I wouldn't rule out a skill VPP entirely, but I'd need a really good mechanic and justification to ensure it won't become overpowering.

 

cheers, Mark

[Kdansky]

Re: "Well, last time I saw that, we did...."

 

I wanted to write a hefty flame. But realized you are probably right. (Hah, I put in a "probably"!)

 

This sends me back to Start (without getting 4000 cp), it looks like I really have to do some fairly weird guessing on cp-cost...

[JmOz]

Re: "Well, last time I saw that, we did...."

 

Well would not help with "Named Skills"

 

But for the background skills

 

KS: EVERYTHING 18- (Plus bonus for extra time)

PS: EVERYTHING 18- (Plus bonus for extra time)

SS: EVERYTHING 18- (Plus bonus for extra time)

AK: EVERYWHERE 18- (Plus bonus for extra time)

 

36 Points...

[Kdansky]

Re: "Well, last time I saw that, we did...."

 

I think I'm going to use the MP approach. That way, he can even choose which skills to have and which not And we're not rounding all the time, since then everything would be 1, no matter if it was 1 or 10 beforehand. That should get us to something along the lines of 30-50 points for all skills on bad to mediocre levels. Also, having a sheet with 72 skills on it (even if most are way below 14-) would be very cool.