Skills and some other stuff

[Kristian]

This is going to be a bit long, but I'll try to be as brief as I can:

I'm creating a new set of rpg rules based on TSR's (or WoC's) out of print sci-fi game Alternity. This system will be primarily fantasy oriented as that's my favourite setting by far. When we were playing Alternity (which is a skill-based rpg) I was always a bit bothered by all the skills that are in the system but never gets used. It's always a fine line when designing skills which to put in and which to let out. And also how broad should you make them?

Alternity has a system of Broad Skills and Specialty Skills. Each stat (Strength, Intelligence etc.) has a number og Broad Skills (like, say, Athletics under Strength) and each Broad Skill has a number of specialty skills (like Jumping, Throwing and so on, under Athletics). When you buy a broad skill you're allowed to buy ranks in its specialty skills. The higher your stat the higher your starting value in those skills.

Alternity gives you ranks benefits, which are expanded abilities in a certain skill when you reach a certain rank. But it doesn't do it with all skills and there is a great difference in the number of benefits per skill.

So: When recreating it, I've gone over all skills and changed, broadened or specialised them so they fit our group's gaming style better. As I wrote I was a bit bothered by the fact that Aternity has a lot of skills that are never used and some that are either too broad or too specialised. I have now given each skill four benefits: A starting benefit which you get at around rank 2-4, an Expert benefit which you get around rank 6, a Master Benefit which you get around rank 9 or 10 and a Godly benefit which you obtain at about rank 15. It takes forever to reach rank fifteen.

Also, I have created a maneuver system on top of the normal combat system. In this sytem everything you can do in a fight is a maneuver. Maneuvers have set penalties and bonuses and so on. This has made it a lot easier for me to design and decide what you can and can't do in a combat round. To make the skills even more exciting and usable I created maneuvers based on almost all skills in the game, and not just the combat skills. You can feint, bluff, intimidate and distract your opponent in a lot of different ways now. And you can inspire and help out your allies, making fearsome battle cries, taunting their opponents and so on. I had a lot of inspiration from The Riddle of Steel and Mike Mearls' The Book of Iron Might and Iron Heroes.

Here's an example of a Stat, its Broad Skills and their Specialty skills (the numbers are skill points costs):

Strength

•   Armour Operation    7
   o    Heavy              4
   o    Light/Medium        3
   o    Shield               3
•   Athletics *      4
   o    Brawl               3
   o    Climb                2
   o    Jump               1
   o    Sprint                1
   o    Throw              3
•   Mêlée Weapons       6
   o    Blades                3
   o    Mass Weapons        3
   o    Polearms      3

Here's an example of a rank benefit (Hearing, rank 8 ):

Expert Listener
At rank 8 you have become an expert at interpreting what you hear. From the sound a person makes when walking around or moving in any way, you can determine almost exactly what kind of equipment he is carrying, what he is wearing, how tall he is, if he is strong etc. You have to be relatively close to make a check. On the other side of a door, or around a corner is fine.

Here are a few examples of some maneuvers based on non-combat skills:

Hear Your Enemies [Free, Prep, 1]
Effect: You rely on your hearing to judge what people out of your field of vision are doing. As a free maneuver you may roll a check before your first attack each round. If you succeed the penalty for fighting several opponents is reduced by 1 if you got an Ordinary or Good success, and by 2 if your check was Amazing. If you critically fail your penalty is increased by 2. This counts for the rest of this round.
Skill: Awareness – Hearing
Mod.: +2
Preqs.: Rank 5

Distraction [Att, Man]
Effect: You do your best to distract your opponent, making him look away or think there's someone behind him. On your next action against him or his next action against you (whichever comes first) there's a modifier of 2 in your favour.
Skill: Interaction – any, Deception - Bluff
Mod.: +1, resisted by WILL
Preqs.: Rank 2

Note that in Alternity + is bad for you and - is good. You have to get low rolls.

What do you think about these ideas (if you understood any of the above )? I have no problem with the story part of our campaigns, that's always fine, but I'd like to spruce up the action a little bit, and get people away from making the same characters over and over. I think this could help. I realize there are a lot of opinions on this subject. Some people want as many skills as possible, others want none at all, while some want a mix. In the rpg Unknown Armies, players make up their own skills when creating characters. What are your thoughts on skills and how they should be implemented, and what they should influence?

[avisarr]

I have always liked skills based system. I'm very much in favor of skills. In my opinion, it's more realistic. I love RPGs that use skills. As a player, I like having a broad selection of skills to choose from and having loads of points to scatter about. Great stuff.

I really like this concept of Broad skills and Specialty skills. I haven't played Alternity, but that sounds like a good way to handle it.

One thing that GURPS does that I like is that some skills have prerequisites - i.e. some skills require that you have other skills first. And this makes logical sense. In the real world, you have to learn the basics of something before you can learn advanced techniques or special variations from the basics. Also, GURPS has synergy in skills. That is, having two skills that are related sometimes gives you an even bigger bonus than having just one skill (i.e. one skill boosts the other a small bit). I think the latest incarnation of D&D has both of those features - prerequisites and skill synergies (although it might be called something different).

As far as how the system is set up, I think that there should be a very large list of skills. Again, I like the Broad and Specialty idea. Good way to organize it. Skills should be a big part of the game. They should affect everything you do - casting spells, swinging a sword, riding a horse, leaping onto a wagon, swinging across a chasm - all these things are skills (or should be affected by skills).

That's my 2 cents.

[Kristian]

Hmm... That skills synergie thing is really a good idea. I'd never have thought of that, but now I might just have to implement it. Not so sure about the skill prerequisites thing, though. May have to give it some thought, 'cause I don't really know what to think about it. Do you have any examples from the game?

[sid6.7]

i've always been more into the world creation, nation, animals, cities part
so i am probably out of my element here...

but i too notice in RPG's alot of wasted paper on stuff(skills) that are never used
when i started creating my own system i really cut up skills and got it down
into a very few catagories i'd say i cut mine to about 20% of what would
be a normal RPG skill list. pertty bare bones...

i would suggest that too for yours kris...or combine some of the less
used into catagories your going to use...i know that you don't like
them to be too broad in scope...so the choice would be yours cut
alot out or lump the useless ones under exsisting cat's...


i guess im not to familiar with the term skill based RPG...do you mean
most RPG's are too weapons oreinted? magic sword...magic armor?
whereas a skills based RPG is more...i can run fast i can jump high?

[Kristian]

I think skill-based is mainly used as opposed to, say, class-based like early DnD, where characters where only defined by their class, and nothing else.

[avisarr]

Yes, skills based RPG as opposed to class based RPG. The probably with second edition AD&D (and to some degree it's still a problem with versions 3 and 3.5) is that Dungeons and Dragons is primarily a class based game. You are defined by a label. Thief, warrior, wizard, priest. The problem is that you are given a pre-defined template. Being a wizard or a priest means that you have a whole set of skills that automatically come with that. And you also have certain requirements, restrictions, etc. I have never liked that template idea because all priests start to look alike. All wizards are alike. All warriors, etc. There's no individuality.

Now, granted, D&D has started to fix this problem by giving you "prestige classes". So say, a wizard can become a "battle mage" or a fighter can become a "berzerker" etc. Basically you can fine tune your character by taking on an even more specific pre-defined template. Now, this helps a little. There is more variation. Not all wizards look alike. You've got battle mages, Lore Masters, etc.

But this is just a desperate attempt to patch the system which is flawed to begin with. In my humble opinion, a MUCH better way to build characters is with skills. Each character can choose what they want to study, how they want to spend their time. It gives the most flexibility and you can NEVER anticipate what a wizard is going to pull ou of his hat because you can't look at him and say "oh, he's a battle mage, he'll be tough" or "he's a lore master". Cause there are no such templates. Every single wizard, priest, fighter, thief is a unique creation. Even better, you don't have fighters, thieves, wizards and priests. In a truly skill based game, you can have a character who knows lots of magic spells but who is also great with a sword. Is he a wizard or a fighter? Neither. Because such labels don't apply. You could also have a cat burgler who knows a spell or two and also knows alchemy and is an expert in potions, acids and mechanical things. Is he an alchemist who sneaks into houses? Or is he a thief who knows alchemy? Or is he a wizard? Again, labels don't apply. How about a holy warrior who blends steel and spell with religious overtones and gifts from his god. The possibilities are endless and no two characters EVER look alike.

Skill based systems are VASTLY superior to class based systems.

Ok, I'll climb down from my soapbox now. Just had to say something. 

[tanis]

     This all sounds really well thought out to me, and Kristian, I say go ahead.

[Spence]

Hmm...

I dont see DnD as "class-based" nor are each of the classes a given template.  With the availability of multiclassing and ability to take ranks in any skill you want there is no longer any set templates.  And yeah 3.5 DnD has synergy bonuses, 5 ranks in say Knowledge: Nature gives you a +2 Synergy to Survival in above ground natural terrain, and 5 ranks in handle animal gives a +2 synergy bonus to Ride checks..

With the plethora of feats and skill choices, you can have an entire party of the same class, but still have very different and even unique characters. 

One Fighter may be all strength and little brains, wielding a two handed sword to cut a bloody swathe through whatever stands in his way, while another is quick and intelligence, focusing on finesse and his own brains to defeat his opponent.  One Wizard may be a potent Evoker, casting fireballs and lightning bolts on every group of enemies in sight, while an Illusionist forces his opponents to fight another army that isnt even there.

In my opinion there's only one class in DnD that's hard to make unique and that's the Sorceror...they dont get many spells at all, though they get to use them more often.  They dont get bonus feats, generally have a low intelligence and not much to spend into their skills.  This means most of them have 3 skills to get from their list, and they're already spoken for.


I may just be biased to DnD but i only see two classes that need fixing to make it a nice balance between skills and classes, Sorcerors and Clerics need a better modifier for skills, 4+int or even 6...2+int means all clerics and Sorcs end up choosing the same skill layout because they are both classes that need to sacrifice some intelligence for their primary caster stat.

I have an orc fighter/barb on a chat and he's not widely known as a combatant at all.  He's huge, more muscled than most of the combat mongers..but the thing he's known for is his craft, Tattooing.  I dunno...guess it just might be a difference in perspective, or the difference between TT and online...

[phaeton]

Dragonquest is another system that has a skill based system. All characters can have what skill sets that they like and, as they rank their skills, by putting EP into them, they get better at them and gain more abilities ... healer for instance .. a Rank 0 healer can diagnose by 'Lay on hands' but they have to be rank 3 to actually heal fatigue or endurance damage and Rank 8 to ressurect.

The other thing about DQ is that mages can belong to one of 16 odd Colleges that have their own set of spells, general or special knowledge. All mages start off with knowing the General Knowledge spells of their college at rank 0 - the higher the rank the higher the cast chance of getting the spell to work and the more powerful the spell is (incidently the Drellis Effect works great with DQ as it adds or subtracts from the Cast Chance). Special Knowledge spells have to be taught to the PC which costs money, time .. and more experience.

For those that don't know .. Dragonquest was originally put out by SPI about the same time D&D first came out. TSR acquired it later, but did nothing with it so it's been largely forgotten .. except by enthusiasts.. look up www.dragonquest.org.nz for stuff and links ...

But yeah .. that's one way of setting up PCs with skill sets ...

[Kristian]

Thanks for the tip, Phaeton. I'll check it out. Meanwhile, I come a bit further with my rules system. I've implemented skill synergies, and added a new degree of success called phenominal. So now you get either a Critical Failure, a Failure, an Ordinary, Good, Amazing, or Phenominal Success when making a roll. Everything in Alternity is split up into these categories. So if you're rolling to hit and you roll a Good result, you look up the Good Damage on your weapon and so. It's like this with everything else, even Initiative: So the combat round is divided into one phase for each degree of success, and your Inititative skill roll determines when you get to act. To get these values you divide your skill (or stat) value by 2 to get your Good value, by 4 to get your Amazing value and so on. It's pretty cool.

Also, we've actually switched to 30-sided dice    This just adds a few more numbers to the scale, but also allows me as a rules-designer to make maneuvers and benefits have more different bonuses and penalties. It's really made the game better for us.

A maneuver now looks like this:

Feign Injury [Def, Man, Fast] 2
Effect: Immediately following a wounding hit (ie. one that ends up causing you  at least one wound damage after armour) that doesn't cause you to lose half or more of your current wound points, you pretend to be hurt much more badly than you really are. The opponent gets an Awareness – Intuition check to see through your bluff. If you rolled an Ordinary success he gets +2 to his check. If you rolled Good he gets +3. And on an Amazing roll he gets +4. This will usually not work on the same person twice. If you are successfull you get a -2 bonus if your next action is an attack against him.
Phen: Your opponent doesn't get a check to see through your bluff.
Skill: Deception – Bluff, Entertainment - Act
Range: -
Mod.: None
Preqs.: Rank 4

Or like this:

Flying Kick [Att] 2
Effect: You run at your opponent, jump into the air, and hit him with your leg with full force. You need at least two meters of distance between you and the target to perform this maneuver. Your opponent gets a +1 to any attempts to avoid this attack, and if you hit you deal an extra d6 of stun damage.
Phen.: Your opponent must make a DEXT check not to fall over.
Skill: Acrobatics – Martial Arts
Range: Mêlée
Mod.: +2, resisted by STRE
Preqs.: Rank 4

I'm still not finished. Mostly now we just make stuff up as we need it, and then add it later.

Edit: Phen, is what happens if you get a Phenomial result, Mod. is modifiers and Preqs. tells you what rank you need to have, and if you need to know any other maneuvers first.

[Animus]

Yes, skills based RPG as opposed to class based RPG. The probably with second edition AD&D (and to some degree it's still a problem with versions 3 and 3.5) is that Dungeons and Dragons is primarily a class based game. You are defined by a label. Thief, warrior, wizard, priest. The problem is that you are given a pre-defined template. Being a wizard or a priest means that you have a whole set of skills that automatically come with that. And you also have certain requirements, restrictions, etc. I have never liked that template idea because all priests start to look alike. All wizards are alike. All warriors, etc. There's no individuality.

Now, granted, D&D has started to fix this problem by giving you "prestige classes". So say, a wizard can become a "battle mage" or a fighter can become a "berzerker" etc. Basically you can fine tune your character by taking on an even more specific pre-defined template. Now, this helps a little. There is more variation. Not all wizards look alike. You've got battle mages, Lore Masters, etc.

But this is just a desperate attempt to patch the system which is flawed to begin with. In my humble opinion, a MUCH better way to build characters is with skills. Each character can choose what they want to study, how they want to spend their time. It gives the most flexibility and you can NEVER anticipate what a wizard is going to pull ou of his hat because you can't look at him and say "oh, he's a battle mage, he'll be tough" or "he's a lore master". Cause there are no such templates. Every single wizard, priest, fighter, thief is a unique creation. Even better, you don't have fighters, thieves, wizards and priests. In a truly skill based game, you can have a character who knows lots of magic spells but who is also great with a sword. Is he a wizard or a fighter? Neither. Because such labels don't apply. You could also have a cat burgler who knows a spell or two and also knows alchemy and is an expert in potions, acids and mechanical things. Is he an alchemist who sneaks into houses? Or is he a thief who knows alchemy? Or is he a wizard? Again, labels don't apply. How about a holy warrior who blends steel and spell with religious overtones and gifts from his god. The possibilities are endless and no two characters EVER look alike.

Skill based systems are VASTLY superior to class based systems.

Ok, I'll climb down from my soapbox now. Just had to say something. 

Have you heard of True20, David? It's a d20 derivative, made by the same company that makes Mutants and Masterminds. It has 3 classes, called Roles, but you can also break down the system into a point based system. The magic system is skill based, too. IMHO, it's what D&D should have evolved in to. I like it a lot, and I'm using it for a Khoras campaign that I want to run. Go and check it out .

[tanis]

     From around the world there was a great... "HUUUMMMMMMM!!!???" (<--- Pattern, you see? I'm a genius!) XD

[avisarr]

No, I have never heard of True20, but I'm intrigued!   I'll have to look that up!

[Animus]

Here is a link to the True20 web site.

[avisarr]

Looks very interesting. And multi-genre... nice. I've bookmarked it. Gonna have to spend some time there this weekend and read up on it.