From: +Mark Abbott (abbott%dean.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu)
Date: Sat 18 Aug 1990 - 09:56:33 EEST
On the Jack of all trades problem, I agree completely. That's always been
one of my pet gripes with RQ. With some groups of players the problem
isn't bad because the players tend to develop their characters without
exploiting the rules. However, some characters almost always end up
being able to do anything. One thing I've tried which helps somewhat is to
limit the number of experience rolls per adventure. IE, if each PC can
only take 7 experience rolls, he will tend to concentrate on those skills
which are most important to him. This works fairly well but doesn't
solve the problem. I've toyed with giving extra experience rolls for
multiple uses of a skill, but this tends to lead to skill escalation.
Also, as you pointed out, offensive magic ends up overpowering most other skills in combat. I see this as a problem in the general availability of magic. My solution has been to limit the availability of magic such that many characters do not have offensive magic, or even much magic at all. This means that most characters won't rely on their magic to make them powerful but will instead concentrate on skills. I think what I'd like to see is some sort of system where magic and skills are diametrically opposed methods to power. The more of one you have, the less of the other you can get. This is somewhat covered by the skill limits for Rune Priests.
A couple of fixes I use to handle the kind of situation Andrew gave (the thief, the captain of the guard, and the thief's friend): At point blank range versus a stationary target, missile skill rolls are one "level" of success better, ie, a normal hit becomes a special hit, a miss becomes a normal hit, etc. 00 is still a fumble, it's up to the GM to determine what happens when a critical is rolled. It's also up to the GM to decide what qualifies as point blank and whether the target is close enough to being stationary. I base it mostly on my feel for the situation.
Similarly, if someone attacks a helpless or completely unsuspecting opponent, the roll is one better. This means that a fairly good warrior can expect to special hit an unsuspecting opponent, making assassin style attacks quite powerful.
Mark
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