Costs of Professional and related skills

[Christopher R Taylor]

I'm working on trade skills in my Jolrhos Field Guide and I've run into a bit of a quandary.

 

In the rules as written (RAW), the professional skill is a 2/1 skill; that is, it costs 2 points to purchase and 1 point for each +1 to the skill roll in addition to the base.

Yet skills such as Mechanics and Mechanics are 3/2 skills.  Practically speaking, I cannot see the difference between Mechanics and, say, PS: Engineer.  Or in a fantasy setting, Blacksmithing.  It seems to me that these practical, non-combat, non-interaction skills should all be 2/1.  I can buy Paramedic as 3/2 because its life saving and has a lot of practical combat application.  But is Trading really worth 3 points?  Navigation?  Systems Operation and Weaponsmith, maybe?

 

It just seems like there's a lot of grandfathered stuff in here that lacks consistency and rational pricing.  Skill-based characters are already really expensive for what you get in terms of most game play.  I mean, 50 points in skills or 50 points in defenses, whats the better bang for your buck?  5 points of speed, or 50 points in detective skills?  And costs like these drive up really basic concepts for a character.  In fact, I suspect a lot of GMs handwave skills or simluate them with others rather than require someone to pay the full price for every skill a character uses to save expense: you're a detective, use PS detective to solve this one.

 

I'm running into this because I have kind of a 3-tier tradeskill concept:

1. High end trades like alchemy that make powerful character use items
2. Trade skills that make money and provide goods the better trades use
3. collection skills that only gather parts for trades

Should the high end ones really cost 3/2?  Is making a suit of armor or a bow worth more points than making a jar or a map?  And how little should collection trades cost?

[Chris Goodwin]

I remember back when Climbing, Stealth, and a few others (Magic and Spell Research in FH; the VPP Skill before 5e), were 5/2.  (3e had Acrobatics and Detective Work, which were both 10/2 or 10/3, IIRC.)  That added a tier on the higher side, which I liked.  Also, in 4e and before, some of the 3/2 Skills were General; meaning 3 for 11-, 2 per +1, rather than Characteristic based.  I'm not sure what the rhyme or reason was for it, though.  

 

I've always thought the Background Skills (Knowledge, Professional, etc.) had a bit less mechanical weight than the 3/2 CHA-based Skills.  So PS: Blacksmith at 2/1 lets you work metal (horseshoes, pots and pans, etc.), but Weaponsmith lets you make weapons.  

 

When I'm pondering relative costs for stuff, I usually go back to the standalone games to see what else was there and what a particular Skill or Power had to cover.  Not all of those games included all of the Skills, so even with PS and KS some of the Skills were assumed to do more.  Like Detective Work in 3e, which covered Deduction, Criminology, and maybe Forensic Medicine.  It might be helpful to look through FH 1e, Danger International, Justice Inc., and so on, to look at relative costs.  

 

Edited to add:  Here is a handy spreadsheet I put together showing which Skills showed up in what book, and what they were called then vs. now.  

[Cantriped]

Background Skills only cost 2/1 if they are not Characteristic-Based; Otherwise they cost 3/1.

 

Although I don't think it is specifically stated anywhere in CC/FHC, background skills should only be used for an action if there isn't already a more specific skill for that task. Given that they are typically described as being "catch-all" skills. For example PS (Trader) should not be allowed because Trading already exists, likewise PS (Tracker) shouldn't be allowed because Tracking already exists.

The common exception to this being when a character purchases both skills, but they represent different aspects of the field. For example, Tracking might be used to track an orcish raiding party, but PS (Tracker) would be used to acquire clients, estimate expenses, negotiate prices, etc... At the GM's option, either Skill might serve as Complementary to the other depending upon the circumstances.

In a similar vein, PS (Detective) shouldn't be able to replace Deduction, Bureaucracy, Conversation, Interrogation, etc... Instead it should be the skill rolled when trying to find clients, determine how much to charge for your services, or collecting evidence in a legally (or making it look like you collected evidence legally).

 

Alternatively, you can handle it similarly to how Pathfinder does; have Professional Skill be the Skill rolled to make money abstractly during downtime (as opposed to something you use during a scenario).

[Christopher R Taylor]

Alternatively, you can handle it similarly to how Pathfinder does; have Professional Skill be the Skill rolled to make money abstractly during downtime (as opposed to something you use during a scenario).

 

 

I'm moving in that direction yeah.  I don't want Trades to be a major part of anyone's game, I just want to provide the hard data so people can include it, using materials supplied in my source books and adventures.  Doing it between game sessions and when not adventuring is the ideal, since they take white a while to complete.

[bigdamnhero]

Background Skills only cost 2/1 if they are not Characteristic-Based; Otherwise they cost 3/1.

Right, so the disparity isn't as big as it looks at first glance. I do think there's an inherent assumption that PSes are going to come up less often in gameplay, and especially less in combat, than named Skills. To some extent that's an artifact of the superhero genre where your PS is your day job, by definition not something that comes up much in costume. That's obviously less true in other genres, and varies from campaign to campaign. And from Profession to Profession, obviously: PS Detective is going to come up a lot more than PS: Botanist. (At least in most games I've played...)

 

I sometimes give people a 1-2 point discount for buying "flavor" stuff that's hardly ever going to be useful in combat. I started it when a player wanted to have KS: Encyclopedic Knowledge of Beatles Songs at 18-: funny, and I did make sure it came up now and then, but no way was I going to make him pay 8 points for it!