Skill Checks

[sHaka]

Hello there,

Helping my Players generate their characters, I began to wonder about the skill system - how everything levels up at once. I've never been overly keen on this method of skill progression.

Has anyone ever tried using the Call of Cthulhu method of skill checks? For the un-initiated, basically whenever you use a skill successfully you check it on the character sheet. You can only check a skill once per session. At the end of the session, you role a percentile for each skill check. If you roll over your current skill value, you get to up it by a D10, if you roll under, you don't.

This way your skills improve as you use them, and it become harder to improve skills that you are good at whilst ensuring that when you do finally succeed in a skill that you suck at, you're very likely to improve.

Do you think this method would be applicable to RIFTS?

[sHaka]

Well I personally would continue to create characters in the same fashion with the same bonuses to skills and everything - just as normal.

Our group tends to play for about six hours. And the end of that I would ask them to roll against all the skills they successfully used as per the system mentioned above.

You can only get one check per session, so If someone succeeded with prowl three times, they'd still only check for an increase once. Skills don't go up until they are successfully used and, thus checked (ticked we'd say over here in blighty).

[addition] i think it would be slighly quicker than checking the skill lists to see how much they improve by (most are 5%, but some are 4% etc which is annoying!) when you level up.

[JohnS]

I forget who mentioned it, but someone on the boards uses a similar system I thought would be good:

Each and everytime you use a skill you put a tick next to it, successful or not. At level up time you count the number of ticks next to a skill and increase that skill by so many percentage points per tick.

Under this system if you never used a skill you would never get better at it, no matter what level you were in. Makes sense to me.

Personally, I think successful or not is good since we gain just as much experience (if not more) in real life from our mistakes.

--JohnS

[MADMANMIKE]

..This was addressed in a rant elsewhere; the counter question is this: Do you play your character every waking hour of the character's existance? Or is there down time for the character? Down time when they might be using those unused skills?

..There's still another side to it. Skill checks aren't supposed to be made every single time you use a skill. Many skills give a general knowledge and only need to be checked against when the character is under pressure...

-Mike >8]

[sHaka]

..This was addressed in a rant elsewhere; the counter question is this: Do you play your character every waking hour of the character's existance? Or is there down time for the character? Down time when they might be using those unused skills?

very true, point taken.

Perhaps i'll leave things as they are.