Re: [Forge-main] Re: Skills List [LONG]

[Ricardo Gladwell]

On Tue, 2002-12-10 at 07:36, Enrique Perez wrote:
> There's a problem with a seperate generic skill that you could actually
> have a higher generic skill than a specific skill.

I have to admit I didn't think of that: at some point in this process
buying skills from a skill group will become pointless once your generic
skill ranking gets high enough - why buy rank 1 in Weapons (Sword) when
your generic score is Weapons 3, for example? This is definately a flaw
in my system.

> Should you want skill groups anyways, you would have to seperate the
> skill totals into a skill group and a specific skill in order to avoid
> the problem of the generic skill being higher than the specific skill.

That's an interesting way around the problem: have generic skills but
also have the ability to buy 'top-up' specilisations with that skill. As
a substitute for the above mechanic this is highly desirable, although
we would have to cap these scores at 5 to prevent overspill into the
'impossible' difficulty range.

> In my opinion skill groups, while more realistic than individual skills,
> aren't worth it because they add complexity to the game and there are
> already implicit skill groups because total skills are added to abilities
> anyways. 

I have to say, I agree with you here: added complexity is something we
wanted to avoid. It would be nice, however, to have some simple mechanic
that allows people to not only specialise in specific skills (swords,
knives, etc) and also possess a generic ability in a skill (a basic
ability to wield all weapons). I am quite satisfied with your suggested
solution so is there any reason, other than added complexity, that we
shouldn't?

> However, should skill groups be used they have to be additive in
> nature so that someone who trains a specific skill always has a higher
> specific skill than their generic skill.

I supose the quandary here is whether a skill group belongs as a skill
group (in the case of Weapons) or belongs as a normal skill with the
abiltity to focus that skill on a particular subject (in the case of the
Animal skill, focus Horses). In the first case, a skill group is a
collection of skills that aren't necesarily related (i.e. have expertise
in Chemistry doesn't automatically mean you have experience with
Biology) and the second case, where expertise does imply a relationship
with other similar skills (having the ability to know a particular
culture means you probably get along in other, similar cultures).

-- 
Ricardo Gladwell
President, Free Roleplaying Community
http://www.freeroleplay.org/
address@hidden