Skills redux
Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 1:19 pm
Okay, this thread is going to start out as an idea showcase, but later I'll post a complete skill list (well maybe later - I tend to get caught up in things).
Right now though is the idea.
Opposed skills and skills you can't "fail". Some skills work better this way because it's dumb to know that you failed certain skills. That is, it allows for metagame actions to occur if you know you failed a prowl roll - the GM might want you to think you've succeeded, but that can never happen. As well, just because you succeeded on a prowl skill check (this also happens to be the show-cased example btw), it doesn't mean you're home-free thanks to perception (which really should be a percentage like the rest of the skills).
So here's the idea; you can't fail prowl checks. This is the example of how it will work (using 30% as a base)
You roll your percentile dice against your 30% prowl; you rolled a 50, so that's 20 over your prowl. You get succeed, but any detection used against you (an opposed skill which I'll detail in abit) gets the failure amount added as a bonus to detect you. Simple and easy. If you happened to roll 10, then that opposed detection skill would instead be rolled at a -20 penalty because you rolled under your skill (by 20). All the addition is handled by the GM; it should never be detection first then roll prowl. This way the GM has the option of playing it many different ways, and the player could succeed despite the high roll. It's not likely, but it gives him a chance.
This brings us to the flip-side; players rolling detection. Assume for a moment that there is a skill called "detection" and it opposes prowl. The player in this instance would roll pre-emptively, if they were on guard-duty or something. This works in the same manner as the above, except it's pre-emptive because the player shouldn't know if there's something to detect in the first place, unless he's actually detected it. It's a skill-roll that should be called for at the start of duty, or during a convenient time.
This can be used for other skills as well, such as for camouflage, detect ambush, detect concealment, etc... Basically any skill-pairing that you would deemed opposed.
I'll attempt to lay out a skills redux for the other areas of the book a little later.
Right now though is the idea.
Opposed skills and skills you can't "fail". Some skills work better this way because it's dumb to know that you failed certain skills. That is, it allows for metagame actions to occur if you know you failed a prowl roll - the GM might want you to think you've succeeded, but that can never happen. As well, just because you succeeded on a prowl skill check (this also happens to be the show-cased example btw), it doesn't mean you're home-free thanks to perception (which really should be a percentage like the rest of the skills).
So here's the idea; you can't fail prowl checks. This is the example of how it will work (using 30% as a base)
You roll your percentile dice against your 30% prowl; you rolled a 50, so that's 20 over your prowl. You get succeed, but any detection used against you (an opposed skill which I'll detail in abit) gets the failure amount added as a bonus to detect you. Simple and easy. If you happened to roll 10, then that opposed detection skill would instead be rolled at a -20 penalty because you rolled under your skill (by 20). All the addition is handled by the GM; it should never be detection first then roll prowl. This way the GM has the option of playing it many different ways, and the player could succeed despite the high roll. It's not likely, but it gives him a chance.
This brings us to the flip-side; players rolling detection. Assume for a moment that there is a skill called "detection" and it opposes prowl. The player in this instance would roll pre-emptively, if they were on guard-duty or something. This works in the same manner as the above, except it's pre-emptive because the player shouldn't know if there's something to detect in the first place, unless he's actually detected it. It's a skill-roll that should be called for at the start of duty, or during a convenient time.
This can be used for other skills as well, such as for camouflage, detect ambush, detect concealment, etc... Basically any skill-pairing that you would deemed opposed.
I'll attempt to lay out a skills redux for the other areas of the book a little later.
