Trying to understand cascade skills

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Logan
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Trying to understand cascade skills

Post by Logan »

Hello all. Please forgive me as I'm a bit new to DC and am learning how to play/referee. I had obtained all the DC1 and DC2 books on DVD in PDF format. I also picked up Conspiracy Rules online. I've decided to start a DC2 campaign but I'm having trouble with character creation and the concept of cascade skills. I was hoping that someone might help explain it.

Specifically, on page 18 of the DC2 Players Handbook Masters book it says:
Cascade Skills: A few skills are called cascade skills. A cascade skill is one that
includes several lesser skills under one broad heading. Examples of cascade skills are
Pilot, which includes Fixed-Wing, Rotary-Wing. and Shuttle, and Small Arms, which
includes both Pistol and Rifle skills.
Characters who receive a cascade skill must decide on an area of special interest
from among the subskills covered. From then on, their skill level in the chosen specialty
is considered to be the level of the overall skill. Their level in all of the other subskills
is half their level in the overall skill.
For example, Scirocco, a rock star character, receives a Small Arms skill level of 3
and decides he will specialize in pistol. His skill level with pistols is 3, while his skill
level with rifles is 1.5, rounded down to l.

Normally, no notation will have to be kept for these other subskills. However,
sometimes it is possible for characters to receive a skill level increase in a subclass other
than the one they have already chosen as their specialty. In the example above, Scirocco
has a Small Arms skill of 3 and has chosen Pistol as his specialty. If he then goes through
Army basic training, he will receive one level of Rifle skill. The Rifle skill level received
adds to his Rifle skill only, not to his overall Small Arms skill. However, if this extra skill
level would cause his Rifle skill to exceed his specialty Small Arms skill, then Rifle will
become his new specialty (and his overall skill will go up, of course). In either case, he
will have to keep track of his Rifle and Pistol skills separately from now on
.
In the example above in red, what would Scirocco's Small Arms (Rifle) be? Would it be 2.5? (In other words: His specialty is Pistol of 3 and half of that is 1.5, and then add the level he got in rifle from Basic Training for a Total Rifle score of 2.5, which rounds down to 2).

If the above is true, what would happen if instead of picking up just one level of Rifle he picked up 3? Using the above logic his Small Arms (Rifle) would be half of his Small Arms (Pistol) specialty of 3 plus the 3 levels in rifle: (3 / 2 = 1.5 + 3 = 4.5 rounds down to 4). So if his NEW Rifle level is 4, then that becomes his new specialty. So when his specialty changes to Rifle does that mean we have to recalculate his Pistol Score? Will his Pistol level (which WAS 3) now become half of his new Rifle level of 4 plus his levels in pistol: (4 / 2 = 2 + 3 = 5). So if THAT is true, then his recalculated Pistol level is 5, which instantly rises above the Rifle level he just increased, thus becoming his specialty once again. Its all very confusing.

Or should his rifle level be 1 (In other words, that level of rifle really didn't help him because without the level of rifle his default rifle score would have already been 1 - Half of his pistol skill of 3 rounded down to 1.

I'm confused on how its supposed to work because I see two different "ways" to interpret this. All of the character examples in the rulebook only show a character who chose a career that provided levels in ONE of the possible cascades.
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Morthrai
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Re: Trying to understand cascade skills

Post by Morthrai »

Logan wrote:So if his NEW Rifle level is 4, then that becomes his new specialty. So when his specialty changes to Rifle does that mean we have to recalculate his Pistol Score? Will his Pistol level (which WAS 3) now become half of his new Rifle level of 4 plus his levels in pistol: (4 / 2 = 2 + 3 = 5). So if THAT is true, then his recalculated Pistol level is 5, which instantly rises above the Rifle level he just increased, thus becoming his specialty once again. Its all very confusing.
Hi Logan. In the interests of fairness it has to be said that the 2nd edition did suffer from some confusion after transference from 1st edition with the re-edited material. Here's how I would handle this specific question: if the second skill, in this case Rifle, overtakes the Pistol skill level then Rifle becomes the speciality skill, if only temporarily. However, Scirocco isn't going to suddenly forget how to use a pistol - Minion Hunters need all the help they can get after all - so Pistol remains at 3. The calculation for half the level rounded down only occurs at the time the speciality is first chosen.

Hope this helps, and welcome to the DC community! 8)
Lee Williams.
"Superstition is the name the ignorant give to their ignorance"
Logan
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Joined: Fri May 13, 2016 11:46 pm

Re: Trying to understand cascade skills

Post by Logan »

Hi there Morthrai. Thank you so much for replying. I was not sure how much traffic this forum received so it was great to see your response. And thank you also for the kind welcome. However, I fear that didn't quite answer my question. I just need to find what the correctly calculated numbers are for a few examples like that and then I should be able to use those examples to understand it better.

So please let me repeat/rephrase some my questions just a bit:
In the example above in red, what would Scirocco's Small Arms (Rifle) be? Would it be 2.5?
So what should his Rifle score be in that example? Was I correct? Would it be 2.5 (which rounds down to 2)?
if the second skill, in this case Rifle, overtakes the Pistol skill level then Rifle becomes the speciality skill, if only temporarily. However, Scirocco isn't going to suddenly forget how to use a pistol - Minion Hunters need all the help they can get after all - so Pistol remains at 3. The calculation for half the level rounded down only occurs at the time the speciality is first chosen.
I think I follow this. So in this example his Rifle would be 4 and his Pistol would remain 3?

Thank you for your patience. I hope you would mind if I responded back and forth a few times while I try to get this nailed down as I'm sure it will inspire a few additional questions. I'm sure more experienced referees would probably understand better and run with it so I'm just hoping to benefit from your experience :) Thanks!
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Morthrai
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Re: Trying to understand cascade skills

Post by Morthrai »

It's no problem, this is a good place to ask these sort of questions :)

Now, to specifics: in the given example the Rifle skill would indeed be 2.5 rounded down to 2. That is correct.

You have got the second part correct as well. Scirocco's Pistol skill would remain at 3 - the speciality calculation is only made at the time of choosing. Exisiting skill levels don't drop, unless of course there's a Darkling in your adventure that can drain people's knowledge from their brains - that can happen sometimes :twisted:

Happy to be of help!
Lee Williams.
"Superstition is the name the ignorant give to their ignorance"
Logan
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Joined: Fri May 13, 2016 11:46 pm

Re: Trying to understand cascade skills

Post by Logan »

I think I follow. Thank you.
...unless of course there's a Darkling in your adventure that can drain people's knowledge from their brains - that can happen sometimes :twisted:
I'm not worried about the darkling in the adventure, I'm worried about the ones that must be following me around every day and draining the knowledge from my brain. At least...that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it :mrgreen:

I have a couple follow-up questions..

  • [1]
    ...the speciality calculation is only made at the time of choosing...
    When is it that the player must choose the specialty for the character? Is it during the character creation process on a career term by career term basis? Or after the character creation process?

    Lets say you're creating a character and as a part of your "Background" skill package, prior to any careers, you take +2 levels of Small Arms (Pistol). The Background Skill list doesn't allow taking just "Small Arms". The only item available is "Small Arms (Pistol)". So does this mean that the specialization is actually chosen automatically for this character as soon as they selected Small Arms (Pistol) and from that point forward in the character creation process "Small Arms (Pistol)" is their specialty?

    Or, conversely, for another example, lets say the player didn't select any small arms during the Background selection process and during the FIRST career term they received 2 levels of generic "Small Arms" (i.e. the rulebook didn't specify a specialty...only "Small Arms"). Do they need to select their specialty right away? Or can they wait until after all the career terms are chosen during character creation?

    This leads me to question 2....

    [2]
    The calculation for half the level rounded down only occurs at the time the speciality is first chosen.
    So, in the rulebook, it mentions you don't normally need to keep track of the subskills unless you start getting levels in some of the non-specialty subskills and thus, from that point forward, need to keep track of them separate. So think on the following two examples....

    The first character, "Moe", gets 2 levels of generic "Vessel Use" in his FIRST career term. He elects to take "Boat" as the specialty. So he jots down "Vessel Use (Boat) 2" on his character sheet and, according to the rulebook, doesn't need to jot down the score for "Vessel Use (Ship)" or "Vessel Use (Hovercraft)". During the SECOND career term he gets 2 more levels of generic "Vessel Use". His previously chosen specialty was "Boat" so now he has "Vessel Use (Boat) 4". He hasn't received any levels in any of the other non-specialty subskills so doesn't need to keep track of them separately. During his THIRD career term he gets 2 more levels of generic "Vessel Use". Again, his previously chosen specialty was "Boat" so now he has "Vessel Use (Boat) 6". Character creation for "Moe" is over and he has "Vessel Use (Boat) 6". Sometime during play "Moe" wants to use a Hovercraft and the referee requires him to utilize his "Vessel Use (Hovercraft)" score. He will not have written down any skill level for Hovercraft so his score would be 3...i.e....one-half of the specialty.

    The second character, "Curly", also gets 2 levels of generic "Vessel Use" in his FIRST career term. He also elects to take "Boat" as the specialty. So he jots down "Vessel Use (Boat) 2" on his character sheet and, according to the rulebook, doesn't need to jot down the score for "Vessel Use (Ship)" or "Vessel Use (Hovercraft)". During the SECOND career term he also gets 2 more levels of generic "Vessel Use". His previously chosen specialty was "Boat" so now he has "Vessel Use (Boat) 4". He hasn't received any levels in any of the other non-specialty subskills so doesn't need to keep track of them separately. However, for "Curly", during this SECOND career term he ALSO receives just ONE level of "Vessel Use (Ship)". According to the rulebook he has now received levels in a non-specialty subskill so now he needs to keep track of them all separately. So he now has "Vessel Use (Boat)" of 4 (His specialty). he has "Vessel Use (Ship)" of 3 (Half of his specialty PLUS the one level he received in this subskill). And he has "Vessel Use (Hovercraft)" of 2 (Half of his specialty). Now, just like "Moe", "Curly" goes on to a THIRD term and also gets 2 more levels of generic "Vessel Use". Again, his previously chosen specialty was "Boat" so he now has "Vessel Use (Boat) 6". Per our previous discussion, the subskills don't change and are not recalculated so they remain "Vessel Use (Ship) 3" and "Vessel Use (Hovercraft) 2". Character creation for "Curly" is over and sometime during play "Curly" wants to use a Hovercraft and the referee requires him to utilize his "Vessel Use (Hovercraft)" score. He DID have to write down a skill level for Hovercraft and his score is 2.

    You can see the problem. That is the part that confuses me because now "Curly" has actually been penalized for receiving that extra level of "Ship". Both Moe and Curly received a total of 6 levels of "Vessel Use (Boat)" and the only difference between them is that Curly ALSO received an additional level of "Vessel Use (Ship)". But now Moe actually has a higher "Vessel Use (Hovercraft)" than Curly does.

    To make things even more complicated. What happens after they get some experience points and Moe and Curly decide to purchase more levels of "Vessel Use" in their specialty. It seems that when Moe needs to use one of the non-specialty subskills it will be higher than Curly's non-specialty subskills which have all become "stuck" at the levels he originally got unless he increases them separately.
Once again, thanks for your patience Morthrai. I've been doing pretty well with the rest of the rules but this one, for whatever reason, has my head spinning. Hopefully the other members of this forum are not reading my question and thinking I'm an idiot :wink:

Hopefully after a few more posts back and forth I'll get this. Then maybe I can walk through a couple examples of choosing subskills and ask you to check my math to make sure I've got it.

Thanks again for your help so far. You're a gentleman and a scholar. I really appreciate it.
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Morthrai
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Re: Trying to understand cascade skills

Post by Morthrai »

I will get back to you on this when I can, bit busy at the moment!
Lee Williams.
"Superstition is the name the ignorant give to their ignorance"
Logan
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Re: Trying to understand cascade skills

Post by Logan »

Will do. Thanks Morthrai.

Once again, I apologize for the wall of text above ;) I'm not sure how many DC players there are these days or how many frequent these forums. But at least maybe once all is said and done others may gain a better understanding of it as well :)

I've got a couple Empathy questions as well but, fortunately, they are much less complicated.
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