Hello all,

Yesterday I introduced my group to the new system and of curse there was a lot new to see and experience.

And in our first test fight I thought about the power of a skill compared to the specialization.

You get a yellow dice (very powerful) for the skill and only a white (very weak) for the specialization. This means for me that the specialization is only a small add and nothing that make a big difference.

When I think about how I could imagine this in real. If I study on the university history, of curse I had some lesions of other general stuff (but I would be only a bit better then someone else who has no idea) but I would be a lot better then someone that has no idea in history and not only a bit (or someone that studied biology).
An other example would be training. If I train melee combat -> I would be ok with basically a lot of difference kind of weapons but if I would additional train for years especially with the sword I would be a lot better with this sword even to someone who only did the basic training.

That is what makes me think about to change the dice for skill and specialization to skill white, spec. yellow.

And the second thing is (if I didn’t get it wrong) it is only possible to specialize one dice per area, which means the stronger you get the less does a specialisation matter.

Character >= 30 adv. -> maybe skill rank 3 -> 3 yellow 1 white, well …

Last thing, while character creation you get a maximum 4+2 (skill + spec) this means that you actually loose 2 spec. when you have finished the career, because you only get a free spec. for all skills you got while in this career, or?

What do you think about it?

I’m the hammer
I’m the sword in his hand
I’m the tip of his spear

Lother

That means you can only crit if you are specialized, which would really suck for players.

I don't think specializations are supposed to be on par with full training (although you have to already be trained to be specialized). Most people are going to spend advances on training, and wait until they close out the career to get the free specialization.

Lother_Storm said:

Also, by RAW, you don't get the end-of-career free specialization for the skills you buy at char-gen, only the ones that you count toward finishing the career. That's why you get the 1 or 2 free specs then to compensate.

I don't believe there is a limit to how many specializations you can have, either.

Your examples are flawed. Because if you are training for years with a sword you are still training combat in general for all those years. In game terms you would have 3 yellow dice in WS and a specialty in a sword, perhaps another specialty in another style of sword, maybe specialties in another fighting action.

Lother_Storm said:

Well, you do make some good points, but look at it this way.

If I train for 3 years in weapons (general) and you train for 3 years in sword (specialized) we'd face off with me having 3 yellow dice, and you having 3 yellow and a white (possibly 2 white for an additional specialization in moves like riposte). Overall that's 33% chance more of having an extra success or boon, so you definitely have the edge.

Also, the game is balanced around the presumption that someone with skill training is better at something. What you might do if you're looking for a house rule, is lower the difficulty on some skill checks for specializations in advanced skills (as they are wildly more expensive to begin with). So a history specialist with 1 success might know as much as someone with just 'education' might with 3 successes. Or boons give him greater detail, and banes might just mean stress for struggling to recall instead of missing some key pieces of information.

Hello All,

Thank you for your comments.

@Doc, the Weasel, I totally agree on game rule terms and I am quite sure that I would mess up the system on at least a few parts if I change it that way.

@Kryyst that is exactly what I see different, because I trained swimming for years and I think that I’m quite good at it. Last year I started climbing and hell I am not a bit better then the others. The same for a friend of mine, he is training Japanese sword fighting for 5 years now and if I give him a spear he has not really an idea how to fight with it. But don’t get me wrong I am sure it is a “point of view” thing and I only wanted to ask the question to get different statements about it.

@shinma I agree and I think the idea to give the player additional information and / or maybe reduce the number or kind of negative dice (most interesting in fights) is a really nice approach

Thank you all for your ideas

I had similiar issues with skills and sepcialisations like You Lother, and I houseruled it like this:

- each skill training grants 1 white die instead of yellow die

- each specialisation allows you to replace 1 white die by 1 yellow die in the corresponding test (I do not allow to add them - trying to keep the number of dice rolled low, and success chances on high skill and specialisation lower than in original mechanic)

- you may specialise up to 3 times in the same specialisation, but no higher than connected skill (so if you have Weapon Skill trained 2 times, you may specialise up to 2 times in for example greatweapons, but to specialise 3-rd time in greatweapons, you need to train your skill first. You can of course acquire another specialisation in other weapon types - up to skill level)

It makes skill specialisations much more important and desired than in original mechanic, and finishing a career more rewarding (free specialisations), but it also makes characters grow in power slower, and less universal (they are not that good at everyting covered by skill as before).

Example of specialisations I use:

Weapon Skill – by weapon group (Ordinary, Flail, Unarmed, Great Weapon, Polearm, Cavalry, Fencing, Staff, Spear)

Ballistic Skill – by weapon group (Blackpowder, Crossbow, Thrown, Bow, Sling)

Spellcraft and Invocation – Damage (spells which main purpose is to deal damage), Buff (spells that give you beneficial
modifiers or effects you cast on yourself or your allies), Debuff (spells you cast on your enemies, that give negative
modifiers or effects), Recovery (spels healing wounds, fatigue, stress, insanities, diseases and so on), General (all spells
that does not fit in any other group)

The result is that, if you are a for example some kind of fighter that has 3 levels of training in Weapon Skill, 3 specialisations taken in Great Weapons, 2 specialisations taken in Ordinary weapons, and 1 specialisation taken in Spears, then depending on a weapon he wields he rolls:

- Great Weapon - 3 yellow dice (3 white dice from Weapon Skill replaced with 3 yellow from specialisation in Great Weapons)

- Ordinary sword - 2 yellow dice and 1 white (2 white dice replaced, and 1 white die left, because he has 3 levels of training in Weapon Skill)

- Spear - 1 yellow die and 2 white dice (1 white die replaced, and 2 white dice left)

- any other weapon from group that you are not specialised in - 3 white dice (skill training)

Works for me, may not work for the others, but it may give You some ideas

Lother_Storm said:

I disagree 3 years of swimming will certainly make you a better athlete then someone who's done 3 years of nothing. Even if you've never climbed before you should be able to pick up in faster then a coach potato. Athletic people cross train much faster that's a fact. You understand how to move better, you understand economy of motion and you are physically fit - cardio in any sport is HUGE.

this discussion is kinda pointless. You are trying to pick a point with a simulation approach of a problem (IRL this, description that). If only it were a simulation-type game, with extended rules for (almost) everything, it would be ok (the rule book would be 300+ pages with no fluf) . But the system (ie. rules) is simple enough to support the Storytelling of this RPG. Not the other way around.

The rules made the Skill Training the real deal (and stackable), a Specialisation beeing just a little bonus because it applies to a precise use of that skill (sometimes it can stack)

Sunatet said:

I sort of agree with Cwell that this discussion uses a sim approach to generating this type of information.

Sunatet, I love a great deal of the world you've done with the system, but I have to say I think all these concepts to weaken skills and increase the power of specialization are a bit off base. The system divides skills into very minute categories which creates a divisive nature to the character. Further dividing the impact of the skill makes them next to pointless. They should be more powerful than a talent, but in many cases these divides make them way, way less potent than talents which give white dice to a number of skills. It makes even some talents absolutely better such as Protective (?) which gives a bonus white to all allies in medium range if a single character is critically wounded.

I don't know, but it does seem to knock things out of balance. Though I agree yellow dice are powerful, they should not be so far limited to the realm of specialization alone. This means their frequency becomes much, much lower and IMO pushes characters to become more or less one trick ponies.

The last reason I see this as dangerous is it furthers the undervalue of certain skills and specializations to others. Sure in reality I may be able to swim rather than climb, but a character will climb way more frequently in game then they will ever swim (even if the game is on a boat). Conversely, a skill such as education when sub-divided a dozen times makes it even less frequent. History as compared to math, in game terms, you will see history rolled way more frequently than math.

Keeping skills in "blanket" terms giving a bonus yellow die makes certain skills more useful. And I feel a lot of these rules changes are solely designed to impact Weapon Skill and combat related rolls and are done through that lens rather than how they impact the rest of the mechanics. As your post points out, the skills you focused on breaking down further are weapons and combat related skill tasks. I just don't feel sacrificing the other skills for a direct distribution of character x is better at maces than spears is really worth the trade-off. It is detailing that won't even come up all that often since players will 90% of the time swing their axes over their swords anyway. The ease of the skill mechanic just makes it clear to a player what they can do with weapons, so when they lose their favorite mace and have to swing a sword, the mechanics hold up to support their characters.

Specializations give a slight edge (a white die), just to add unique character flavor. I'd rather lose specialization entirely (if it is that much of a problem), and keep skills exactly as they are. If you wanted to push their advantage, I'd rather see a house rule that gives a two white when spending fortune points on a specialized roll rather than flipping the system upside down.

The last point to consider is player anxiety. Players want to be able to do things in game. They will have a tendency to gravitate toward the most common used elements or more powerful elements just so they can feel some security in what they can do to impact the game mechanically. This will mean we will see a lot more sword wielding, history buffs, master climbers over swimmers, who like to dabble in math and fight with slingshots. They will do so (consciously or unconsciously) to simply have "mechanical protection" to influence the "narrative game."

commoner said:

Crap Commoner why You always have to elaborate so much

Not that I don't like what You post, just it's hard for me to get through all that wall of text not being a native english speaker

As I said, my rules fit my needs, and may not fit the others

And actually, big chunk what You said is bad, I personally take as a boon, Really, it works fine, where I sit.

I agree, that it changes balance, but thats the problem with houserules, they usually change things.

My rules changed things a bit more than usual, but what is important, is that this change is totally ok over here, and it works fine

I don't expect people agreeing with my rules, or playing by them, I post them, because they may give persons that seek specific changes some ideas

They may like it, they may not, it's up to them, it's their game, it's their world

Sunatet said:

Sorry about the length. They have gotten shorter as of late.

I totally support you posting your ideas. I'm glad they work great for your group. I posted merely to point out what I perceive as the flaws in these types of redesign to the system. It wasn't so much a personal attack (not that I think you took it as an attack at all), but it gave me a clear-cut leverage to point out the flaws in this approach.

Again, it's just a difference of an opinion. I like a number of your house rules, so don't get me wrong. This is simply one direction I can't get behind and feel the original design is better than this type of system modification. But that's my world, not yours. So if you enjoy, enjoy.

As always,

Happy Gaming.

Sunatet said:

I for one appreciate the depth and thought out nature of the posts ^_~ But in an effort to be helpful to our non-english friends check out:

translate.google.com

its pretty darn nifty and mostly helpful. Mostly because it gets 'more' accurate if you paste whole paragraphs in. Happy reading!

commoner said:

Agree, there is always a problem, when you change something that was supposed to work differently.

And I didn't taken Your post as an personal attack, I read Your posts for long enough Commoner

Happy gaming mate

shinma said:

I use it to the extend, especially when I write my posts... I think I'm google addicted

PS: sorry for the offtopic