Powers with Built-in Skill Roll penalties

[whitekeys]

I have recently started GMing a Star Wars campaign on Herocentral.net (Star Wars: Fading Light). My first order of business is to complete a character, which I will also be playing, as a good example of how I want the other Pcs to build theirs. Here are some details. All jedi powers will most likely be part of a VPP; all jedi powers will most likely require a Force Power Skill Roll, which can me modified by Skill Levels; there is one force skill, but multiple types of Skill Level, each pertaining to a different aspect of the Force - +1 with control, sense, alter, or +1 with Tutaminis, psychometry, or telekinesis; each of your Jedi powers would fall into one of these categories.

 

For example - Force Push: Telekinesis (30 Str) blahblah, Requires a Force Skill Roll. Then, you would roll your force power skill with only the option of adding Skill Levels of Telekinesis, or the Alter aspect.

 

My question is, can you put a Negative Skill Roll Modifier limitation on a power that has Requires A Skill Roll? Can you actually have it built into the power to reduce the cost? In the case of Force push, there are varying degrees of power, with advanced powers called Force Whirlwind and Force Wave. If your character hadn't mastered Force Wave, it seems reasonable to assume that the force adept could still attempt to try it but probably fail in producing the right effect. I think the best way to represent this is to purchase the power for your character, but make it difficult or unwieldy to attempt to use, represented by the negative modifier. This way, you can even choose the level to which your Jedi character has mastered certain force powers and which ones are beyond him/her. It would also allow the limitation to be "bought off", lessened or removed, as your powers are honed and practiced - it could reduce the modifier.

 

What do people think?

[prestidigitator]

Re: Powers with Built-in Skill Roll penalties

 

You mean aside from the standard Requires a Roll penalty for Skill-based rolls that is based on the number of Active Points in the Power being activated?

[Christopher]

Re: Powers with Built-in Skill Roll penalties

 

You mean aside from the standard Requires a Roll penalty for Skill-based rolls that is based on the number of Active Points in the Power being activated?

Indeed, there is already a AP based Skill roll penalty (-1 per 10 AP) and there are options to make the penalty more severe (-1 per 5 AP) or less severe (-1 per 20 AP) and of course skip the throw entirely.

 

Forcing only one Skill, but different Skill levels is odd. Perhaps this approach works better:

Asuming only thre different kinds of Throws, just define Force Skill costing only 1 to learn characterstics based and 1 Point per +1 Roll but each area requiring a different Skill.

Perhaps also lower the cost for Skill Levels for Force Powers a little. That way you can diverisfy without forcing people to sink a lot of points into their Skills.

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Powers with Built-in Skill Roll penalties

 

Actually, what you are stating would seem to already be a function in the pricing of the Skill Levels.

 

So let's say you have "Power: Force" skill based on EGO, and the Jedi has a 13- EGO roll. Now, on a 30 AP power, that would be 10-.

 

So one Jedi is trained / talented at Force push and telekinesis. He would buy, say, a "Skill Level: +3 with Force Power Skill (Only for Telekinesis -2)" or some such. Making the skill level cheaper, not the power in question.

 

To make the power cheaper, you would either alter the penalty to -1 per 5 AP, as another poster mentioned, or maybe change the RSR to require more than one skill to be rolled ("Power: Force" and "Power: Telekinesis", perhaps.)

 

But then I might be misunderstanding the question.

[whitekeys]

Re: Powers with Built-in Skill Roll penalties

 

Those are all great suggestions! And, indeed, I was kind of hoping there might already have been a rule about that, but at the time of asking the question, I was away from my books! I would have to put that into practice to see how it works, but already it seems to not be what I'm looking for. I'm not arguing the validity of the rule, I was just thinking more along the lines of picking and choosing which Force Powers your character was good or bad at, regardless of active points, and having that be the reason for penalties on Required Rolls. Think I could scrap the regular Active Point Penalty rule on Required Rolls and substitute my own?

 

Also, not to be rude, of course, but I'm not down with your other suggestions of the Skill Roll and Skill Level approach. But I'm also not that experienced. Here's a better (and long) explanation of what I was talking about:

 

Suppose an acrobatic sword-fighting character. He has a number of acrobatic moves which he employs in battle, each defined as a particular Skill Roll. Twirl, 12-; Flip, 12-; the Splits, 12-; Somersault Trip, 12-. We can think of each of these skills as having a 'parent' Skill: Acrobatics for Twirl and Flip, and Breakfall for Splits and Somersault. So, now a hierarchy appears:

 

DEX

--Acrobatics

--Twirl

-- Flip

--Breafall

--Splits

--Somersault

 

This heirarchy is important for applying Skill Levels (and correct me if I'm wrong on this). Suppose he had the following Skill Levels: +1 w/ all DEX Rolls (6 points); +1 w/ all Acrobatics Rolls (2 points); +2 w/ Twirl (2 points); +1 w/ Somersault (1 Point). So, when attempting a Twirl Skill Roll, he can apply a total of +4 to his roll, from his DEX, Acrobatics and Twirl Skill Levels; and when attempting a Somersault, he can apply a total of only +2, since he has no Breakfall Skill Levels to add. I assume Steve Long included these rules of Skill Levels so characters can accomplish the same prowess but with less points, since creating separate skills purchased at such a high level would wind up costing much more than one Skill Level applied to many different rolls.

 

So, assume the same heirarchy for the Force.

 

FORCE

--Control

----Tutaminis

----Force Defense

----Curato Salva

-----Force Healing

----Detoxify Poison

--Sense

----Tai Vordrax

----Psychometry

 

etc, etc. Assuming I leave the cost structure of Skill Levels unchanged, I assume this would be the best way of representing varying skill levels within the vast applications of the force, while keeping it the cheapest for the character. Again, these would all be modifying the skill roll Force Power Skill.

 

(All info on force powers cited from the star wars wikia.org)

[Christopher]

Re: Powers with Built-in Skill Roll penalties

 

I'm not arguing the validity of the rule' date=' I was just thinking more along the lines of picking and choosing which Force Powers your character was good or bad at, regardless of active points, and having that be the reason for penalties on Required Rolls. Think I could scrap the regular Active Point Penalty rule on Required Rolls and substitute my own?[/quote']

I think it should make a difference in difficulty if it is a 20 AP heal or a 80 AP Heal.

 

About being better:

Any Skill Value beyond 13- does more to negate penalties than increasing your chance.

 

How about this:

Downgrade the AP penalty to -1 per 20 AP and allow characters to buy PSL for Force Skills.

 

What you describe there with the hierarchy system, is something you could make with Martial Arts. If you really, really want to make it taht complex and over-detailed.

But actually that level of detail is simply below what HERO can still properly show. You just make a Martial Strike, Offensive Strike, Defensive Strike or whatever else you think fits - how that looks in the descriptive action may be totally badass and require flipping around like Yoda, with each action looking different, but that does not affects that he is most likely simply using one of them Strike based Martial Manevuers.

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Powers with Built-in Skill Roll penalties

 

I think you are kind of saying the exact same thing as I was, just in a different way. Could be wrong. And naturally what works or makes sense to me might not work for you.

 

The hierarchy you mention already exists; you have the "Power: Force" skill, then you would add, say, an "Overall" skill level or whatever, then a specific skill level to a specific aspect of the force, then any PSL's if you have any, then subtract any penalties due to active points or situational modifiers, to get the final target number.

 

Just keep in mind that the more detail you add to HERO, the longer it takes to resolve things. I play fairly loose with the rules to avoid just that; but that won't work for everyone.

[whitekeys]

Re: Powers with Built-in Skill Roll penalties

 

You're right, Kraven Kor, simplicity is a staple of HERO system and I've forgotten that. I'll just leave it up to the individual character how they purchase and assign Skill Levels, but really, that's all I was trying to do. Good advice

 

Christopher, you make a good point, too, but my questions didn't really pertain to Martial Maneouvres.

 

I got a chance to look at the books and I figured out the answer to my original question. In 6th Ed (because up until now, that was somewhat ambiguous, lol) you can reduce, or increase, your Required Roll to any number you want, each lower number getting more limitations. For example, you could define your RSR as the standard 11- for a -1/2 Limitation, but you could reduce that to be defined as a 8- Roll for 3/4 more Limitation, totalling -1 1/4. Or, you could increase it to 12- for a 1/4 less limitation totalling -1/4. That's what I was wondering. This way, each character can choose for themselves how hard it is to succeed in using their power, and get a commensurate amount of point from it. And, Required Rolls defined as Skill Rolls (as opposed to Unmodified Rolls) are subject to Skill Modifiers, penalties and even Skill Versus Skill Contests.

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Powers with Built-in Skill Roll penalties

 

On the RSR: You can set a number for the RSR, or base it on a skill, if you wish. My thoughts would be to base the RSR on the Power: Force skill. Which is at the -1/2 level of limitation, yet allows the roll to be 'adjustable' by skill levels or characteristics or whatever (I think some people have disagreements on whether this is acceptable; since technically, you could have that skill at 18- and still get the -1/2 limitation.)

 

And you don't have to leave it up to the player; you can certainly set up a system by which you want things to run in your system and say "this is the rule." Just when reading your bit about the hierarchy of skill - skill level application, it seemed that we were both just coming at the same thing from different directions. But again I could have been reading it wrong.

 

As is usual with HERO, there isn't necessarily a "wrong way" to do things, unless you just completely ignore the rules. Everyone house rules this or that, or has a different take on how to deal with certain powers or situations, etc. And I doubt any of us are completely following the letter of the law to the fullest level of accuracy in every situation even if we try to. HERO is actually fairly complex, and most of what I do is an attempt to simplify that and ensure my gaming doesn't constantly get bogged down in rules minutiae. What makes HERO 'simple' to me is that most everything operates on a very small set of basic principles - the success check, the effect roll, and the application of defenses to the effect roll.

[Christopher]

Re: Powers with Built-in Skill Roll penalties

 

(I think some people have disagreements on whether this is acceptable; since technically' date=' you could have that skill at 18- and still get the -1/2 limitation.)[/quote']

It's a 18- with a penalty of -1/10 AP (wich tend to be high, if that Limitation is supposed to have any effect of the cost). And the Skill Roll must fit into the Skill-Limits and characterstics limits.

And such a Skill Roll is expensive, making the entire point on taking 18- (3+2/level) on one 60 AP Power self-defeating (effective 12- Roll and having to invest in the Skill).

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Powers with Built-in Skill Roll penalties

 

I hadn't thought of it that way... though I think I'll still stick to using that option. I want super-skills to be expensive