Compressed skills list / equalised role creation points

[elf23]

I've been thinking for some time that it'd be nice if the points in the role creation system were a bit more balanced. In the RAW a single rank of combat bonus per level costs 4 role creation points (out of 5), whereas a single skill rank per level costs 0.25 role creation points - a ratio of 16:1. So i've been trying to think up a system where the points are evened out so everything costs the same. The idea being that, if such a system were possible, it'd enable a super simple point buy character creation system where the same points can be applied equally to everything.

Here's my initial attempt at such a system....

There are 28 base skills in the RAW, plus 3 of these are specialisable, meaning that in effect there's well over 30 skills which are commonly used. So one way of reducing the combat:skills ratio is to compress the skills list (which i think has merit in and of itself, as well). Here's the list i've come up with. I quite like it. It simplifies things a lot, while maintaining the flexibility of specialised skills (which D&D 4e, for example, did away with).

All skills can be used untrained, and all of them have one or more basic uses. There are also other uses for some skills which require specialisation. (I was thinking there'd be maybe a feat called Skill specialisation, which would let you choose two specialisations.)

• Agility (Dex) - Balance, Specialisations: Acrobatics, Escape artist
• Athletics (Str) - Swim, Climb, Jump
• Craft (Int) - Appraise, Make / repair / forge simple items, Specialisations: Make / repair / forge complex items
• Culture (Int) - General knowledge, Specialisations: Specific cultures
• Deception (Cha) - Bluff, Specialisations: Disguise
• Devices (Int) - Large mechanical devices? (not sure about this), Specialisations: Small mechanical devices (locks & traps), Computers
• Esoteric (Int) - General knowledge (magic, undead, planar), Specialisations: Specific supernatural traditions?, Supernatural rituals?
• History (Int) - General knowledge, Specialisations: Specific periods
• Influence (Cha) - Diplomacy, Intimidate, Gather information, Spread rumours, Specialisations: Perform
• Language (Int) - Recognise, Decipher, Converse at basic level, Specialisations: Specific language aptitudes
• Medicine (Wis) - Stabilise, Specialisations: Diagnose, Treat, Herbalism?, Surgery?
• Nature (Wis) - Knowledge, Survival, Animal handling, Specialisations: Animal training, Specialist terrain type, Tracking
• Perception (Wis) - Sense motive, Notice, Search
• Religion (Wis) - General knowledge, Specialisations: Specific religions, Religious rituals?
• Stealth (Dex) - Stealth, Specialisations: Sleight of hand
• Transport (Dex) - General, Specialisations: Transport types (mounts, vehicles, boats, etc - determined by setting)

So that's a list of 16 skills, a nice number, and well under half the number in the list in the RAW. So now one skill rank per level costs 0.5 role creation points, for a ratio of 8:1 against one combat rank per level.

Combat bonus can be easily subdivided, as is kind of suggested in the role creation chapter, into:

• Defense
• Unarmed attack
• Weapon attack
• Ranged attack

So that means a rank in one of those combat areas per level now costs 1 role creation point. Getting there! The ratio is 2:1 now. So all we need to do is further subdivide the combat areas (or combat skills, if you will), and we'll have the 1:1 ratio. This is where i got a bit stuck. I didn't want to go into a fully detailed weapon groups system or anything like that. But in the end i divided things as follows (there are other possibilities, i'm sure, one of which may be nicer!)...

Defense can easily be split into Dodge and Parry (flat-footed defense could then either be Dodge - Dex, or perhaps the *worse* of Dodge & Parry - key ability?). Then if we add in combat maneuvers they can have their own ranks, one for unarmed maneuvers and one for maneuvers using a weapon. And, finally, Initiative could be made into a ranked trait, giving a total of 8 combat skills. (Having Initiative advance in this way would, admittedly, change the balance somewhat, in that a character with high Initiative would almost always get to act first, but i don't think that's a huge problem... If someone wants to spend the ranks, why not let them benefit from it.)

• Dodge (Dex)
• Parry (Str)
• Unarmed attack (Dex)
• Weapon attack (Dex)
• Ranged attack (Dex)
• Unarmed maneuver (Str) (+ size modifier) (grapple, trip, overrun, push back, etc)
• Weapon maneuver (Str) (+ size modifier) (disarm, sunder, maybe trip)
• Initiative (Dex)

(Note that the combat maneuver skills act as defense against combat maneuvers, as well as ability at performing them on others. So there's always an incentive to put ranks in them, even for characters who don't intend to go around grappling or disarming people.)

So with this kind of system a role is built from 10 role creation points (5 in the RAW, but everything costs 0.5 points now, so we may as well double the numbers), all of which map to a single skill rank per level. So the standard Warrior would get 8 combat skill ranks and 2 non-combat skill ranks (probably 7,3 would be a nicer balance), and the standard Expert would get 6 combat and 4 non-combat (again, probably 5,5 might be nicer). But the really nice thing is that now it's trivially possible to just give each character 10 ranks per level to spend however they wish.

Power progression is another matter, which i've not figured out yet. As it stands, one power rank per level would cost 4 role creation points, which suggests splitting power progression down into 4 seperate skills, in the same way as the monolithic combat bonus was subdivided. But i'm not sure how this could work yet.

Any thoughts / comments / suggestions most welcome!

[ValhallaGH]

The other things you need to keep in mind when re-costing are a) power of the ability, b) frequency in play.

Combat Bonus can keep you alive despite the other side's best attempts to kill you. And it lets you kill them right back.
That makes it extremely powerful; more so than most skills. Even split into 8 categories, it's still better than other skills in 60% of campaigns.

Combat Bonus comes up almost every round of every fight. If you only have one fight per session (and most groups I've seen have more than that) then you've got 3 to 30 rounds (about 5 to 60 minutes of gameplay) where the Combat Bonus is being continuously used.
No skill has anything near that level of frequency.

Until you solve those issues, combat is simply a better investment than anything else, barring extremely unusual campaigns.

[elf23]

Interesting point... You're right... I guess that's true of skills though anyway, even not counting the combat skills. Some skills are just far more frequently useful than others (depending on the campaign).

I think that the value of combat over skills seems to be inherent in the True20 (& d20) system, and by subdividing combat into 8 skills as i've done above doesn't alter that distribution of value. Look at the distribution of role creation points in the RAW - even the Expert role, a skills specialist, spends 60% of its points on combat ability. And in a system like i described i'd still expect a large number of characters to spend a high percentage of their points on combat - i guess that's just the kind of game we're playing!

EDIT: Or do you think that the logic doesn't work out properly? That halving the number of skills doesn't necessarily imply a doubling in value of each of them.

[ValhallaGH]

EDIT: Or do you think that the logic doesn't work out properly? That halving the number of skills doesn't necessarily imply a doubling in value of each of them.

Both, actually, but especially this point.
Compressing the list does a lot to increase the power of some skills. It also goes a long way towards making the game more cinematic (fewer skills = more generally competent heroes = more cinematic) which I always approve of.

It doesn't double the value of the compressed skills, however. Their value is in how often they come up (i.e. get rolled for / against) and how important success / failure of any given roll is.
By the rules as written, and the gaming assumption those rules encourage, skills are relatively incidental to a character's power. No matter how abysmal their social skills are, characters can simply try to slaughter the authorities they were trying to negotiate with and the system allows it.
Force is the most basic and egalitarian of power sources, and the rules make raw violence a very, very, very common event that heroes are pretty good at. So, when a skill isn't going to work, they can always fall back upon primitive violence.

Until the rules themselves deal with that basic assumption, skills will never be on par with combat ability. The closest you can come is to set games in a restrictive setting where words are more powerful than violence (Rokugan comes to mind).


Good luck.

[Andrew23]

Elf23 -- I like the compressed skill list. One way to even things between combat and skills might be to limit how many points can be spent on combat -- if you limit a player to say only having half their points in combat skills then the cost differential doesn't matter so much. You could do the same with power progression just cap the proportion of points and the player has less chnace to mini-max.

[elf23]

Aside: I noticed that the skills list i showed above is a bit fantasy specific (that's the genre i had in mind when creating it). But it could be easily adapted to modern / futuristic settings. I'd probably combine History into Culture, add a new knowledge type skill called Science, and replace Devices with Technology. Religion could also be replaced with something else, or removed, in settings where it's not very important (knowledge of religions would be covered by Culture then, as well). Actually, thinking about it i'd even be inclined to combine Culture and History in fantasy settings as well, i think that makes sense given the increased cost of each skill (and it helps out Bard types). For fantasy settings, Religion is good to keep seperate, to give Priest characters something to focus on.

Combat vs skills balance: I think a big counter factor in the discussion of the relative power of combat vs other skills is players' desires and imaginations. This obviously isn't an influence if all the players are hardcore min-maxers! But i think most players are interested in creating 1: a more rounded character for themselves who's good at at least one other thing aside from fighting, 2: a rounded / flexible group of characters, covering all bases (somewhat) between them. Character archetypes come into play a lot here i think: players often have an archetype in mind, which they'll try to create using whatever system is presented. For example someone who wants to play the classic Thief will have to spend at least 4 out of 10 ranks on non-combat skills (training Stealth, Athletics, Perception & Devices). Which, coincidentally, matches up with the Expert role (60% combat, 40% skills).

Plus of course there's only 8 combat skills, so you can never spend more than 80% of your total ranks on combat (which is what the Warrior role does). And if power progression could be split down in a similar way, it'd be a maximum of 4 ranks out of 10. That would mean that (if using a freeform roleless system) players could spend 6 ranks on combat and 4 ranks on powers - which does seem overpowered. But, again, you could do this with the standard role creation system anyway (though many Narrators might think twice about allowing it!).

Like you say, Andrew23, one way might be to say "you have to spend at least 2 ranks on non-combat skills" (which is basically what all the roles do anyway). It does seem a bit arbitrary though to make such limits... I suppose it could be worded slightly differently to make it seem less arbitrary though: "Each level you gain one new feat, 2 + Int ranks to spend on non-combat skills, and 8 ranks to spend as you wish", for example. Hm, i just noticed that high Int gives you a lot more with this reduced skills list as well! Probably too much...

ValhallaGH: One way to go to address your issues might be to have a look at the uses of the skills in a combat situation (Medicine obviously has one, as does Deception - for feinting), and perhaps even to try to give them each a combat application. I'm not sure if it'd be possible for them all (Religion?), but boosting or adding new combat applications might increase the value of some skills. I guess the stunts system covers this already, somewhat.

A completely different alternative would be to leave skills as costing 1/4 of a role creation point each (and the new combat skills as 1/2 each), and leave the roles as they are (Experts 8 skills, Warriors and Adepts 4 skills). Though that would remove the niceness of everything costing the same. Experts would be real all-rounders then, having max ranks in half the skills!