Skill depth ?

[Braxen]

I was curious if the amount of skills for the new edition were going to be expanded a bit?

personally, the skills as is are kinda thin for me. I have played Rolemaster and MERP for many a year which have a lovely compliment of skills. I personally dont allow a lot of those skills in my game, most dont fit into my world setting, but they tend to be a rather extensive.

I do not want to see a 5 page list of possible skills but rather a nice little addition to the ones already in existence maybe even some that are a little more specialized.

I broke guns into categories for my games (hunting rifles, military rifles, and heavy weapons) as well as armed combat ( knives, swords, staves).

Now playing with unarmed combat was fun. I used the Martial Arts system from Rolemaster as an option. If a player just wanted to knuckle up and fist fight that option was there also. Kinda cool when you start breaking out some crit tables and things get broken, dislocated, torn, etc.

I work a lot of hours the early part of the week so I have a lot of free time to just sit around and think about this kind of stuff

[anthraxus]

The crit tables are an interesting idea. Care to share?

I don't think that the game is short on skills as it is. Really the only advantage that I see to having bunches of subskills, cascades I mean, is to slow character advancement. If that's your goal, just give out fewer points per game. I just don't see the positive of more skills.

[Braxen]

The crit tables are an interesting idea. Care to share?

I don't think that the game is short on skills as it is. Really the only advantage that I see to having bunches of subskills, cascades I mean, is to slow character advancement. If that's your goal, just give out fewer points per game. I just don't see the positive of more skills.

for the crit tables I used the ones from Rolemaster but dropped down from 20 Armor Types to 4 (Like MERP---cloth, leather, chain, plate). Strikes and Sweeps/throws are each broken down into 4 levels of difficulty (1 being the easiest to perfrom while 4 being the most difficult. Damage increased accordingly. important to mention here: if you have rank 1 strike at level 5 then level 2 strike cannot be higher than rank 1. And so it goes for the rest of the skill) which is done on a % roll (take ur skill total and x5 and there u go.). The possability of outright killing someone was there on the upper end strikes, sweeps, and throws but this worked both ways. If it was possible for the players to do it then it was the same for the bad guys. Keep in mind that for my games this whole process was optional but the players thought it was a neat idea and well worth a shot.

In regards to skills. You and I will disagree on this point. I am looking at more skills for more from a customization stand point rather than a slower advancement for the players. like I mentioned earlier I am not wanting pages and pages of skills but maybe a slight expansion of those already in use. Nothing more.

My preference for splitting up the cascade comes more from a sense of logic than anything else. Not all weapons work the same way and not all of my players play military characters (thank god). It has always struck me as odd that some guy playing a farmer can pick up an m-16 w/203 attached to it and use it like a marine just because he has the small arms rifle skill. That just doesnt work for me.

DC has a nice simplicity to it that I like but it could use just a touch of complexity to it to make it a little more meatty if that makes sense. .