Just had a quick question regarding secondary skills which mainlyrelate to th acrobatics skill which in combat can beused to flake an enemy as part of an active action which will cause 2x damage. is there any limt on how muchcan be put in to these skillsbecause it seems like thiswould bevery abusable. you could have almost god like ability in the skill and always do double damage.

i didn't see any limitationsin the book in relation to skills other the % limitation for secondary abilitiesfor your achetype.

Any ideas?

its not 2x damage, it's a penalty to attack and defense of the one who is the victim.

there is an optional rule in the GM Toolkit that has a limit suggestion for level blocks that are as such

level 1-3 200 Max, 4-6 280 Max, 7-9 320 Max, 10+ No Max

Very interesting rule...I completely "overlooked" it, but imposing such limit to secondary abilities seems very helpful. I might try it in my campaigns...

I've used it in my games, as I had one player, making an Acrobatic Warrior, come straight out and tell me he was putting everything he could into Acrobatics, maxing it out as much as I would let him, for just this purpose. Even with that 200, he did some very nice things. But he could have had much higher than that without those limitations in place.

Arikail said:

I want to say he had about 150 DP left, after spending his 300 on Attack and Def. and around 150 to get up to 200 Acrobatics. He went all out, with CP cost reduction, Acrobatic Warrior, Innate Bonus, to get his Acrobatics as high as he could for as cheap as he could. The 150 DP left allowed him to do a couple other things. I think he even considered delving into Psychic powers to boost it further, but didn't go that route. He was a decent character, though not one I'd prefer to play, as way too focused in one area. He also did have definiciencies, but he knew those going in, and was relying upon the party to help out with those. But he was happy with him, and the limits imposed kept him within reach of opponents, as opposed to 300 DP into Acrobatics and 300 in Combat.

I will look that up it may limit it to the point where it will only be effective about 50% of the time. Thanks for the Info.

It is also important to note: The arcobatic check is an opposed check against the enemy's attack or arcobatic skill (yeah, attack skill, not defense). And the character must win the contest with a difference of 100 for flank or 150 for behind. So to say: If the character has an acrobatic skill of 200 and the "defender" an attack or arcobatic skill of 100, the character only gets flank in about 50%.

If "defender" wins the contest, the character can't attack and the defender gets a counterattack.

So, this "100 difference for flank" can make some problems ;-)

So long,

I don't place any limits and it has never been a problem. The problem with putting all your points in Acrobatics (for example) is you have no other skills, and if that does not come back to be a problem for the character either they are incredibly creative (in the example using acrobatics somehow in social situations and the like) or the GM isn't doing his job to create diverse challenged.

That's a very good point, Lia!

I actually recommend putting limits in place to prevent the level 1 zen basket weaver (replace basket weaving with secondary skill of choice)

basically the build is enough martial mastery to buy Zen at level 1, and then remaining CP spent on lowering one of your secondary abilities to 1 per 1, and then buying it up to 440, without the limit from the GM Toolkit in place, characters could walk around breaking reality at level 1.

Who needs attack when with your 440 dance you can pirouette so fast it creates a fully-fledged tornado that you further direct with by dancing in the center of it?

AlphaWhelp said:

Because that is beyond the Zen ability of any secondary skill. You would need AGI of 20 to do this (maybe 19) and AGI is not a Secondary Skill. Dance 440+ would make you the best dancer in the world (or nearly anyway) but would have no combat applications. Though money would be easy enough to get.

Or perhaps the GM knows that such a character is going to be gimped in the game, and is looking to nip the problem in the bud before hand. New group and all, and somebody wanted to try something creative. Instead of having to look at a myriad of characters and say "This guy can't tie his shoes straight in the morning, and you want to take him out adventuring?", just said "Here are your limits, and here's my recommendations on some things you should probably have to function reasonably well in this game."

Actually I got a question about secondary skills… is they only way to buy a skill point to buy 5 points at a time? Is there something in the book that says that or does it really matter if players buy 1 point at a time so long as there not like level one-3 with more than 200 skill in something?? Seems only some of the players buy skills as a secondary thought … so they get even and odd number of skills… not always a multiple of 5.

There is no specific rule beyond the lowest number of points in a skill to make it trained must be 5. Most people just keep it as multiples of 5 to simplifiy the maths.

Elric of Melniboné said:

Be careful. AFAIK Warrior Mentalists can, at least by raw, ignore this rule if they spend points in "Increase Acrobatics". As they already are a very powerful class this should perhaps be houseruled.

ok thank you : )