Skill Levels at Character Creation

[heinzy57]

I have several questions concerning skills and skill levels that I'd like to get answered before I set this game loose on my players. A lot of these questions came about when I tried to deconstruct some of the example characters in the book. None of them seemed to mesh well with my understanding of the rules. The main problem was skills. Here they are:

Team Characters
In the Revised TMNT, there are rules on creating Team Characters. These look like a nice touch, a good trade off between party flexibility and character effectiveness. I'd like to use them as an option for the players in the campaign I'm going to run, but I'm having a little difficulty understanding them. The attribute bonus is a piece of cake. The skill level bonus is a bit of a pickle. Some examples are given, but I'm still having problems.

Here are my questions:
1) Do all of the characters have to take the same skills to get the bonuses? It intuitively makes sense that this be required because they need someone to practice with, but the Gorba Chirp example is counter to this. Seems a bit overpowered if this is not the case.
2) Scholastic, Physical Training, and Secondary skills get the bonuses, bu this seems to cover every type of skill in the book. Am I missing something here are do all skills get this bonus?

First Level
Each skill lists a base percentile + an adder per level. For example, a skill is 50% + 5% per level. At Level 1, is the skill at 50% or 55%?

Scholastic Skills
This is somewhat related to my Team Character question. What is a "scholastic" skill? I generated some characters that ended up with the wild animal with Ninja mentor background. Are the three espionage/military skills given by this background scholastic skills?

Weapon Proficiencies
All of the sample PCs and NPCs in the books and supplements have WPs not listed in the book, like WP Nunchuck, WP Sai, and WP Wakizashi. How are the bonuses determined for these kind of skills? WP Sai gives a bonus to entangle. There are no bonuses to entangle in the skill section of the book. Also, do the WP bonuses stack with the Hand to Hand bonuses from the physical training? I'd think that they would, but I don't know for sure.

Any assistance would be most appreciated. Thanks!

[Tinker Dragoon]

1) Do all of the characters have to take the same skills to get the bonuses?

Apparently not. As one can see from the teams in the book, the characters do not all have the same skills, but they have the same high skill level.

I guess the ones that don't have the skill just give encouragement to the one who does.

2) Scholastic, Physical Training, and Secondary skills get the bonuses, bu this seems to cover every type of skill in the book. Am I missing something here are do all skills get this bonus?

I suppose it's possible that the idea was to exclude innate skills (such as the ability to track with Advanced Smell), but as far as I know, such skills were rare in TMNT.

Each skill lists a base percentile + an adder per level. For example, a skill is 50% + 5% per level. At Level 1, is the skill at 50% or 55%?

50%. In later books it has been specifically clarified that the per level bonus starts at second level.

This is somewhat related to my Team Character question. What is a "scholastic" skill? I generated some characters that ended up with the wild animal with Ninja mentor background. Are the three espionage/military skills given by this background scholastic skills?

Scholastic skills are those gained through formal education, i.e. at a school, in skill programs. In this case, I believe the aforementioned Espionage/Military skills fall under Physical Training.

All of the sample PCs and NPCs in the books and supplements have WPs not listed in the book, like WP Nunchuck, WP Sai, and WP Wakizashi. How are the bonuses determined for these kind of skills?

W.P. Nunchaku = W.P. Chain
W.P. Sai = W.P. Forked
W.P. Wakizashi = W.P. Sword

Unlike characters in most Palladium games, many TMNT characters seem to be proficient in specific weapons, rather than entire classes of weapons.
When in doubt just look at the weapon's description to see what kind of weapon it is (sword, staff, etc.).

WP Sai gives a bonus to entangle. There are no bonuses to entangle in the skill section of the book.

It's a weapon-specific bonus. Some weapons have inherent bonuses beyond those gained from the applicable W.P.

Also, do the WP bonuses stack with the Hand to Hand bonuses from the physical training? I'd think that they would, but I don't know for sure.

I reckon so. This is a well-established rule in most Palladium games, and has been explicitly stated in more recent books. And since TMNT does not specifically state otherwise, I'm inclined to follow the newer books.

[heinzy57]

Thank you so much for the great reply! All of this information helps tremendously. I wanted to be sure I knew how to make characters before I let the system loose on my players. Now, I know a little more today than I knew yesterday. Thanks again!

[dulsi]

Each skill lists a base percentile + an adder per level. For example, a skill is 50% + 5% per level. At Level 1, is the skill at 50% or 55%?

50%. In later books it has been specifically clarified that the per level bonus starts at second level.

Is that in the AtB2 book? I haven't found it anywhere. It should be added to the errata thread.

[Gomen_Nagai]

actually they retconned it back to OCC /scholastic skills get it at 1st lvl and Secondary start at base.


They Changed it the other way back in the 4th to 10th print runs

[Tinker Dragoon]

Is that in the AtB2 book? I haven't found it anywhere. It should be added to the errata thread.

Not that I can immediately find. It is however explicitly stated to be this way in HU2 (p. 44), the old Rifts main book (p. 22), RUE (p. 300), Chaos Earth (p. 106), Nightbane (p. 39), Splicers (p. 186), PF2 (p. 22), and maybe a few other other places I missed.

Strictly speaking, its absence is not a mistake, but a case of unclear wording. It's kind of ironic that in an instance where copying & pasting has actually worked well, they didn't use it.

[dulsi]

Is that in the AtB2 book? I haven't found it anywhere. It should be added to the errata thread.

Strictly speaking, its absence is not a mistake, but a case of unclear wording. It's kind of ironic that in an instance where copying & pasting has actually worked well, they didn't use it.

I disagree. IMHO if I don't try to make an unusual character, no GM rulings should be needed. Unclear wording requires a GM ruling.