From: Burton Choinski (burt@ptltd.com)
Date: Fri 18 Jun 1993 - 18:54:20 EEST
i.e. yet another multi-reply letter. Cope. :)
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Oliver asks for comments:
| A typical week for a would be adventurer holding down a full time job
| in Pavis might be:
|
| 4 days of duties (job)
| 1 day of practice (a job related skill, such as Craft <Masonry>)
| 1 day of training (weapons work with the local blademaster,
| costing a pretty penny).
| 1 day of socializing (going out with friends, talking to people).
Much like my suggested 5 training points per week, which equals 50
hours which equals 5 days here.
Rather then coping with all that, I think the basics can be given as 5 training
points per week, plus 2 free points. Free points may be spent at double the
training time for interactive skills, or just used to pick up contacts.
Training points may be used extensively on practice, training and research.
Note, one may convert Training points to free points, but not the other way
around. So you can just socialize, if you wish.
No need to define it in "days" -- just keep it abstract as that.
| Duties typically yield a salary or are required by a
| character's position in a cult or other organization,
| and may yield some slight benefits (free practice of
| duty related skills).
If a character has duties, just eat into his training time and tell him "Your
duities to your liege lord eat up 1 training point a week".
| Socializing yields friends and contacts. A character that
| does not spend one day a week socializing will have few
| or no friends or contacts. Most characters will typically
| have two or three friends or contacts (an exact number can be
This is good stuff, but could be expanded. You may expend "free" points to
get rolls for contacts or friends, increase native culture/lore/language
skills, or other such stuff.
| TRAINING
| Days of training to increase a skill by <die roll> = skill/10
Easier to just say "(Skill-Bonus)/10 equals training points required"
| <die roll> = 1d6 for a Medium skill, 1d3 for a Hard skill and 2d6 for
| an Easy skill.
How about just stating "1d6 for medium (normal) skills, halved for hard and
doubled for easy skills." Get rid of the bell curve on easy skills to produce
increases of 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 or 12 %.
| Training can be expensive, and may be difficult to obtain, particularly at
| higher skill levels.
And this should be noted in te full rules, right here, as opposed to how they
have services listed in RQ3 book 3. Or perhaps in detail here with a summery
in the equipment/services chapter.
| PRACTICE
| Practice is studying something on your own with the proper techniques,
| partners or equipment on hand, and takes twice as long as training
| (training time x2), but is generally more affordable and easier to
| arrange than training.
Good addition. SO most of my players have been Practicing, rather then
training. I doubt they'll like having their effective training times lopped.:)
| RESEARCH
| Research is studying something on your own with little or no background or
| equipment on hand, and takes four times as long as training (training time
| x4), but costs little or nothing.
Some notes on research on things you have no skill in, like Sorcerous spells
is needed. I have a sorcerer player who is trying to learn "Enchant Bronze".
I have been abstracting this process to 1 roll per week in research, INT or
less on 1d100. In cities with Sorcerous elements (they are in Carminia) I have
given him INTx2 or less. Does this sound fair?
| TEACHERS
| A teacher can normally train someone effectively that has a skill level equal
| to or lower than half theirs. If the students skill level is above half the
| teacher's but equal to or below the teachers skill, it counts as practice for
| the student. If the students skill level is greater than that of the
| teachers, it counts as research for the student.
This looks good.
| INSTRUCT SKILL
| Instruct skill enhances the effectiveness of a teacher. Add the teacher's
| Instruct skill to the skill they are teaching (not to exceed twice the level
| of the skill being taught) for the purposes of determining their ability to
| teach).
yes, much better use of Instruct. And I say this gives me an even better
reason to add Martial Arts to the combat skill of the user (but not more
the double)...same mechanic. :)
| Agility Skills Category Modifier
| STR + DEX - SIZ - 10
Check. At least it will balance, more or less.
| Communication Skills Category Modifier
| INT/2 + Original POW/2 + APP - 20
I must follow the others in this in saying that it only makes sense if APP
is taken as personal presense or charisma, not physical attractiveness.
| Magic Skills Category Modifier
| Original POW + INT/2 + DEX/2 - 20
I disagree. The ability to manipulate should be base on INT, i.e.
INT + Original POW/2 + DEX/2 - 20
| Manipulation Skills Category Modifier
| STR/2 + INT/2 + DEX - 20
Looks okay.
| Perception Skills Category Modifier
| INT + Original POW/2 + CON/2 - 20
I think INT and CON should be revresed -- more based on health then mind:
INT/2 + Original POW/2 + CON - 20
| Reasoning Skills Category Modifier
| INT + Original POW - 20
I guess this is okay.
| Stealth Skills Category Modifier
| DEX + INT - SIZ/2 - Original POW/2 -10
Looks okey.
| I would still retain a seperate category of Knowledge skills (skills
| that can't be increased by experience, but if these represent skills
| that are strictly learned, they really don't need a bonus in any case).
No, they should be covered by something like:
INT + INT - 20
| Damage Bonus -
| It would be an added complication, but if we go with the point by point
| damage bonus system, something like half the damage bonus is your
| natural armor might work fairly well - humans would have one or two
| points at most, which sounds about right.
To be honest, I think that while STR+SIZ might be good for doling out damage,
CON+SIZ is a better index for taking it. Just index your HP on the table to
get this natural armor (min of 0). This natural armor should follow the normal
armor layering rules.
And as to that, What are the current armor layering rules? In general, I was
thinking of the following:
Low is equal to High: High+50% Low (round nearest)
Low is 1-2 points lower: High+25% Low (round nearest)
Low is 3+ points lower: High+10% Low (round nearest)
This is off the cuff...the break numbers should be tweaked to how you want it.
So, if a person with Natural 1 AP in heavy leather (AP 2) he gets 2+.25,
rounded nearest to 2. In light leather he gets 1+.5, rounded up, for 2
as well. Due to his tougher skin he can get away with light leather, when
his weaker friends need Heavy leather for the same protection.
Following this, a man in plate (8) gets zilch for anything less then AP 5.
At AP 5 he gains +1, at 6-8 he gets +1, +2 and +2, and at 8 he gets +4.
Granted, he could only do that if this was light leather magically enhanced.
| With respect to highly skilled fighters doing additional damage - to a
| certain extent specials and criticals handle that already - however, one
| of the best ideas I've seen suggested for this was by Brandon Bryslawski,
| who suggested that characters be allowed to subtract from their
| chance to hit in exchange for doing extra damage - something like
| +1 damage for every 20% subtracted from your skill - this would
| let highly skilled fighters (such as a Rune Lord with 140% attack)
| do 2 or 3 extra points of damage per blow. Might make for a good optional
| rule.
I think my players would like this rule. How does extending this to parry,
when you may slight your parry skill to add to the AP (i.e. you put more
skill into getting proper angles)?
============================================================
Paul comments on Oliver's message:
| SKILLS NOTE: Most Craft Skills should go under Manipulation. Have you seen
| an armorer at work? If so you'll agree that Dexterity should go in the
| Armoring mod. Similarly with sewing, tailoring, etc. The idea of a
| person with 18 INT but Str 4, Dex 3 being able to become a master blacksmith
| is a bit absurd, isn't it? Move it over to manipulation - I want my smiths
| burly.
I have to agree with this. "Craft" sounds more like "knowing a craft" rather
then in the sense of "Work Iron". The skill definition should be refined to
reflect the latter, and those skills should be put as manipulation. Others
that seem more intelligence based can be Reasoning or Knowldege skills.
============================================================
John J Medway, with Chaosium/Ringworld notes
| All skills were described as either "Single" (i.e. normal RQ-esque skills),
| or as "Root/Branch Skills". Root/Branch Skills allowed a character to start
| with a rather generic skill, say "Melee Weapon", and improve it up to the
| limit of the "Root Skill Maximum". Further improvement of skill was also
| refinement of the root skill, and required specialization.
|
| Let's try a RQ-esque example involving the replacement for CHA which I
| argued:
Interesting. This eliminates the "beginning %" that skills like climb and
scan and hide have?
-- Burton
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