Alternate Core Documents

[Palm]

Skill consolidation. Yeah, when you have a specific concept in mind and start building it you sometimes notice how the system associates things in a way that doesnt neccecarely makes sense to your character. For example, you might have a character that is very out of touch most of the time, but have very good eyesight and is a good sniper, how do you assign that PE score? Things like this crop up all the time in any system really.

The most hilarious example I can think of is how cooking is based on survival, but so is several advanced flight moves. Thus every wonderbolt is a gourme chef.

Traits to the rescue i suppose. This is not a video game, this is a pen and paper roleplaying game. If your character is supposed to have a trait or quirk that doesnt work with the RAW (Rules as Written) then work it out for that characters with the game master I say. But if its just a minor innofensive thing like: I wanna be a wonderbolt level flyer but not a gourme chef, or I wanna be a leet hacker that knows nothing about magic. Then simply roleplay that and dont use your survival for cooking or analyzing megaspells with science.

[Thanqol]

Skill consolidation. Yeah, when you have a specific concept in mind and start building it you sometimes notice how the system associates things in a way that doesnt neccecarely makes sense to your character. For example, you might have a character that is very out of touch most of the time, but have very good eyesight and is a good sniper, how do you assign that PE score? Things like this crop up all the time in any system really.

The most hilarious example I can think of is how cooking is based on survival, but so is several advanced flight moves. Thus every wonderbolt is a gourme chef.

As far as I can discern, the 'making pretty dresses' skill is the same skill as 'industrial welding and robot repair'.

Which is almost a character concept in itself, really.

[Palm]

As far as I can discern, the 'making pretty dresses' skill is the same skill as 'industrial welding and robot repair'.

Which is almost a character concept in itself, really.

Best pony material right there!

I suggest the following, rather generic trait.

Specialization: Chose one or a few closely related applications of a skill. Increase that skill by +5 (or more in some cases if GM allows it) Any other applications of that skill is done against its base value. This trait can be removed anytime the character improves the skill, removing both the bonus and restriction.

I think a simple +5 is rather innoffensive and encourage good rp more than anything else. I suspect that players simply trying to break the game wont give this a second look.

[Seraph-Colak]

Specialization: Chose one or a few closely related applications of a skill. Increase that skill by +5 (or more in some cases if GM allows it) Any other applications of that skill is done against its base value. This trait can be removed anytime the character improves the skill, removing both the bonus and restriction.

I think a simple +5 is rather innoffensive and encourage good rp more than anything else. I suspect that players simply trying to break the game wont give this a second look.

I would think an equal negative to things outside your skillset would be appropriate, after all people who wanna specialize in making guns aren't going to know squat about the internal workings of robots.

[Viewing_Glass]

Eh, fair enough. My other idea was to have it be a trait in which you double your skill for one aspect, but halve your skill for the other aspects. But, seeing how this has been received...

As for the trait that you suggested Palm, I would say you would want to have it increase by more than +5. Traits tend to have a much larger impact on a character (Kamikaze granting +10 AP for -2 DT, for instance) than is really represented by a +5 (Good natured does it, but it gives a +5 to a slew of skills!).

[TyrannisUmbra]

Traits generally give the same /net/ bonus as a perk, but this is net bonus -- It factors in both the positive and the negative. A total of +30 skill points for some things and -20 for other things is still a net bonus of +10 skill points, which is right where it ought to be.

[Viewing_Glass]

Traits generally give the same /net/ bonus as a perk, but this is net bonus -- It factors in both the positive and the negative. A total of +30 skill points for some things and -20 for other things is still a net bonus of +10 skill points, which is right where it ought to be.

Mhm. The math about works out in this way.

Hrm... I need to play a character with no traits sometime. Not even Wild Wasteland... just Average Joe, the pony.

[Seraph-Colak]

New question: The light spell illuminates potency yards and dazzles (-10 penalties) half that. Within one yard and you're blinded and take -30s. Question is should there be a scale for that for a OTP light user?

[SilverlightPony]

My character in Hellgate Canyon Group has a trait I worked out with my GM. She's unusually talented with raw magic, but nigh-on clueless when it comes to arcanotech and the like, so she gets a +15 to Science when dealing with raw magic (casting spells, detecting/interpreting spells and enchantments, etc.), but a -15 to Science when dealing with arcanotech or just about anything else that uses that skill.

[Ghostpony]

Focused Education: Level 2, 1 rank. Your education is primarily focused on one aspect of the sciences. Choose hacking, magic, or chemistry. When making checks that have to deal with this subset of the science skill, you may double your science skill to determine what you roll. This doubling of the science skill does not allow you to break any skill caps. Note: If magic is chosen, this is only for understanding magical theory. It may not be used to substitute the science skill for attacking with a spell.

I have seen some responses to this primarily as a trait. How ever if your say a stable pony who learns to cook as a hobby and not a defining aspect of your abilities you find you become good at survival as you learn to cook. Even if you have never been out of the stable. Its an issue cause by so far as I know to factors. One is this was xfered over from a video game, where it was a limited interaction environment. The second is that its more or less a beer and pretzels level game. Its meant to be simple.

So is there a non trait mechanic anyone would care to suggest? My suggestion for the perk to VG had been to split it into two levels. However over all response has been profoundly negative in general. For those of you who are GM's, how would you handle a player who had made it to level 3 or 4 and realized they wanted to dabble in a single aspect of a skill?

How about:
Focused Traning: Level 2, 3 rank. Your education is primarily focused on one aspect of a skill. For each rank of this perk for that one aspect of the skill you gain a +10. As an examples, Cooking (survival), Hacking (Science), Aircraft Mechanics (Mechanics). This skill does not let you exceed a skill cap. You may not take this perk more than once for any base skill.