Of door-bashing and strange skills...

[ko_sct]

I was wondering what strange skills came up in your games.

Mine was during a nWoD game, I had took a point in athletic since we often runned in lock doors and didn't have time to find the key or go around (mostly because there was something running after us)

Once, after failing to bash open a door, I realised I had a few points left to allocate and asked my storyteller if I could spend them mid-game. He agreed and I put an other point in athletic but then realised a specialisation would cost less point and give me the same bonus, so I took a specialisation in door-bashing :smallbiggrin:


So, what strange skills/power/abilities/spells came up during your games ?

[One Step Two]

In an Exalted Game I ran, one of my players took a Dodge Specialty Hero Shield.

When I asked what that was I was informed: "It's the polite name for human shields." So whenever the players Lunar used other party members or even extras for cover as she dodged and dived, she got a bonus to her rolls.

Another favoured specialty I once used, in oWoD for a Werewolf game was for my Socialise skill: The Fabulously Rediculous. Playing a Fianna Galliard, and spinning tall tales to make friends. Good fun. Not just any tall tales, but stuff that is so blatently impossible that we all know I am lying just to break the ice. A favourite one was, "Remind me one day to tell you about the time I met a Vampire and a Changeling who were tied to a horse and covered in honey."

[TheCountAlucard]

When I built my first Solar, I'd inadverdently set him up to be extremely good at damaging objects - really, I'd just built him for hitting things, so I was a little surprised.

Eventually, my character got locked in a Monstrance of Celestial Portion. With nothing better to do in there, I meditated a few hours, and then punched my way out of it in a single blow. :smalltongue: Then, because there were a bunch of other Monstrances in the room with me, I punched my way through those, too. :smallamused:

It was a bit of a Crowning Moment of Awesome, really. :smallbiggrin:

[LibraryOgre]

We had a paladin take the bagpipes. Since they were his, I ruled he could play them. Then, they beat a vampire, but the vampire killed the Paladin. They had an impromptu discussion of who else in the party would be able to play the bagpipes, and bestowed that honor upon the dwarf, reasoning that "he had a beard" (which was also the dwarf's usual reason for going first in initiative ties, and getting any odd gold pieces after divisions).

So, yeah, our odd skill was "I have a beard."

[Mr. Anon Omys]

The two oddest skills that my characters have are Proffession: Surgeon on my tinker kobold with a negative wisdom modifier and ADHD, and Craft: Haiku for my warforged warblade war machine, whose pourpose in life is to fight and speak in a monotone.

[some guy]

I gave one of my players free points in the skill Craft (T-junction) after he broke down a wall and found a hallway. After that he gained additional points by creating vertical t-junctions (i.e. falling into pit traps).

[Knaight]

In the second iteration of Mod-Bots, a campaign about robots, AI, their place in society, so on and so forth, the attributes were refined to take into account the first iteration.

Said attributes included Traction. It turned out to be really, really useful.

[Lord.Sorasen]

We had a paladin take the bagpipes. Since they were his, I ruled he could play them. Then, they beat a vampire, but the vampire killed the Paladin. They had an impromptu discussion of who else in the party would be able to play the bagpipes, and bestowed that honor upon the dwarf, reasoning that "he had a beard" (which was also the dwarf's usual reason for going first in initiative ties, and getting any odd gold pieces after divisions).

So, yeah, our odd skill was "I have a beard."


On the subject of beards, there's a spell in Magic of Faerun called Silverbeard (for paladins) where the caster grows a beard that gives a +2 bonus to AC and gives a +2 to diplomacy checks.

[Bobby Archer]

Eventually, my character got locked in a Monstrance of Celestial Portion. With nothing better to do in there, I meditated a few hours, and then punched my way out of it in a single blow. :smalltongue: Then, because there were a bunch of other Monstrances in the room with me, I punched my way through those, too. :smallamused:

It was a bit of a Crowning Moment of Awesome, really. :smallbiggrin:

Aren't those made out of Soulsteel? :smalleek:

[TheCountAlucard]

Aren't those made out of Soulsteel? :smalleek:Quite a bit of it, and a trace of orichalcum, IIRC. The thing's soak was absurdly high, and it took 100 levels of damage to destroy.

[Arbane]

I once made a mad scientist character who had "Escape Certain Death" as a skill. Sadly, I never got to play him.

[Bobby Archer]

Quite a bit of it, and a trace of orichalcum, IIRC. The thing's soak was absurdly high, and it took 100 levels of damage to destroy.

Kudos to you, then.

The best example of this that I've come up with that I can recall off the top of my head was an NPC follower a Solar I played once had. He was a rather disreputable bloke who had a melee specialty in "throat-slitting." Based on what the GM told me later, if the campaign had continued on much longer, I might have seriously regretted having him come along with my character and his family.

[John Campbell]

About half of a typical Shadowrun character's skills are Knowledge Skills, which is a largely free-form system. There are a few Knowledge Skills with specific mechanical purposes, but, for the most part, they're a fluff and character development tool. You can create and assign points to pretty much any Knowledge Skill you can think of, and roll skill checks with them when appropriate (the TNs will be higher for broad skills than for more specific ones). Canon examples include Cheap Synthahol Guzzling, Conspiracy Theories, Modern Jazz, Roleplaying Games of the Late 20th Century, Seedy Ork Bars, and Troll Thrash Metal Bands.

My group's Knowledge Skills have included Zoroastrianism, Trucker Lingo, Tolkien, and Troll Porn.

[Serpentine]

I give all my players one free skill point each level for use in "hobby skills" - usually Profession, Craft or Perform but anything that doesn't directly benefit their character. That's produced some interesting things.

One of the oldest characters still in my game - a Cleric/Sorcerer/Mystic Theurge, has Craft (gizmo). This synergizes with Appraise for gizmos and gadgets. After examining some carvings in a Trickster temple, she and another character gained a couple of ranks in Craft (prank). She also plays the fiddle and has Craft (gemcutting).

Another character, no longer in my game, had Craft (tailoring). He got it up so high he was able to make Masterwork quality clothing. I also say that if you get a skill check high enough you can replicate a spell - so at least one item of clothing made by him almost never gets dirty a la Prestidigitation.

Also present is Craft (sculpting) for the Magma Druid, a Witch who could cook (Craft (food), apparently), and a Warlock who can dance and stuff animals.
The latter came in "handy" when the party came across a hall trapped with arrows triggered by cobblestones. We quickly discovered that thanks to his ridiculously high touch armourclass the arrows didn't have a hope of hitting him. So, he danced around the hall doing a jig to find where all the trigger cobblestones were so the rest of the party didn't get hit...

One of the best houserules I ever instituted :biggrin:

[Totally Guy]

I ran a Burning Wheel game in December's Giant in the Playground UK meet up.

An Elf had the wine tasting skill. He used it to identify that there was poison in his wine. The context was totally game appropriate.

Using obscure an skill like that earns you a fate point for the next session. :smallsmile:

[LibraryOgre]

I once made a mad scientist character who had "Escape Certain Death" as a skill. Sadly, I never got to play him.

"Spot/Train Wastit" or "Run Blindly into Certain Death (Because you're too oblivious to notice)" from HoL?

:smallbiggrin:

[The Dark Fiddler]

My Awakened Cat Sorcerer has Handle Human as a skill, though the DM refuses to let me use it for anything. Two of my friend's character had points in Craft: Awesome and Knowledge: Fourth Wall (the last actually led to the end of the campaign when we all got bored; he just broke the wall and jumped into a different dimension).

[randomhero00]

My character's backstory was caravan driver, and then later caravan guard. Apparently it was so well written that my DM gave me a skill/skill point in "Caravan Traveling."

Never found out exactly what it did as he soon got ripped apart by a troll.

[elpollo]

I had a promethean who considered taking a speciality in athletics of "Archibald Farrington-Smythe", due to a throw-away character becoming the main suspect in our investigation and being used as a battering ram when we attempted to kidnap him.

[WarKitty]

I have one character in a game I ran that has "Favored enemy: door." He was a fighter.

[Necroticplague]

I've had all the following before (on different characters):
Perform(Dynamic Entry)
Ride(Giant Mecha)
Perform(awesome)
knowledge(nothing)
knowledge(everything)
Craft(nothing)
Craft(everything
Perform(Dance Macabre)
Craft(Dakka)
Craft(Moar Dakka)
Knowledge(metagame)
knowledge(infernal contract law)
Barter(souls)

[Pigkappa]

We've once had a Wizard with points in "Knowledge (theorem's named as "Carnot's theorem")". Too bad that never came into play.

[Mastikator]

I've had all the following before (on different characters):
Perform(Dynamic Entry)
Ride(Giant Mecha)
Perform(awesome)
knowledge(nothing)
knowledge(everything)
Craft(nothing)
Craft(everything
Perform(Dance Macabre)
Craft(Dakka)
Craft(Moar Dakka)
Knowledge(metagame)
knowledge(infernal contract law)
Barter(souls)
The line of these skills tell an epic story of heroics.
You started off as a dashing hero making dynamic entries, then you realized what's more dynamic entry than riding a giant mecha, which tuned out to be awesome.
You had amnesia for a short time, then you remembered everything again, except how to craft things, then you remembered how to craft everything again.
To celebrate you danced macabre and crafted dakka and moar dakka.
You then used your knowledge about the game to gain knowledge about infernal contract law so you could barter for souls.

[Cyrion]

I once had an alchemist put points into stilt walking as a survival skill in a swamp. The same character had some very cool skills from an in-house alchemy system:

Essential Distillation (pulling an essence, say fluffiness, in liquid form out of something), Essential Ignification (same, but as a flame), and Oubliation (the art of making the world forget something exists) were a few of them.

[Arbane]

"Spot/Train Wastit" or "Run Blindly into Certain Death (Because you're too oblivious to notice)" from HoL?

:smallbiggrin:

Sadly, no, it was a rather odd BRP homebrew.


My Awakened Cat Sorcerer has Handle Human as a skill, though the DM refuses to let me use it for anything.

Heh. ISTR HeroQuest had a group of intelligent part-demonic horses who have the skill "Be Ridden". (They're part of a military troupe.)

[some guy]

I feel I need to link to the 4e class of Witchalok (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/preview_witchalok.pdf).

[NNescio]

Knowledge: Nuclear Fusion on a Raptoran Hellfire Warlock.

I needed it as a reference.

[Science Officer]

Paranoia gets you a lot of these. (What, did you think your characters would have useful skills?)

I've seen one character with "Convincing People to Drink Bubbling Fluids" and another with "Putting Records that are in Alphabetical Order Out of Alphabetical Order".


Oh, and speaking of Shadowrun, one of my players had a Rigger who was an ex-Tank Commander. He had a Knowledge skill of "Warhammer 40k" with a specialisation in Imperial Guard.

[Recherché]

In a current homebrewed urban fantasy game I'm in, my character is a necromancer with a lot of skill points in larceny (specialization) grave robbing and dumpster diving. Somehow I've ended up as the part expert on theft and other rogue-type things, the backup healer due to my character's knowledge of anatomy, and the party face when the actual charismatic character is too high (IC, not OOC) to function. My compatriots have weapon focus, cattle prod, skill points in owl hunting and a feat to allow her to always be able to find a purveyor of illicit drugs no matter what city he/she ends up in. Did I also mention that I'm required by the DM to keep a running list of all the corpses in my possesion, their species and state of decomposition:smallbiggrin:

[Combat Reflexes]

My gaming group has created a lot of potentially useless but fun skills, like
-Random Craft (''what the hell is this?''),
-Speak Language: Gibberish and
-Sleep Acrobatics (a step up from sleep walking, with enough ranks you'd sleepwalk over rooftops and wake up inside a chimney)

My current character has ranks Perform (accordion) and Resist Temptation.
The latter gets used a lot - he's addicted to liquorice, coffee and catnip - no, don't ask. :smallamused:

[Ravens_cry]

One of the best houserules I ever instituted :biggrin:
I might steal that. I like the idea of characters having skills outside of "Killing things and taking their stuff," yet it can be hard to find room for those "hobby skills" in a build.

[Arbane]

Knowledge: Nuclear Fusion on a Raptoran Hellfire Warlock.

I needed it as a reference.

Did her outfit include one boot and a cool cape?

[dariathalon]

I had a character with a fairly high "Accidental Flirting" skill amongst other oddities (I know Sumo Wrestling was on the list too as were a few other odd ones.)

The most fun I had with that character was in the first session when I used Accidental Flirting to intimidate his way into winning a foot race.

[NNescio]

Did her outfit include one boot and a cool cape?

Cloak of Charisma +6, yes. Couldn't get the Boot(s) of the Mountain King though, but at least I got a Warlock Sceptre in a locked gauntlet.

[LibraryOgre]

My gaming group has created a lot of potentially useless but fun skills, like
-Random Craft (''what the hell is this?''),
-Speak Language: Gibberish and
-Sleep Acrobatics (a step up from sleep walking, with enough ranks you'd sleepwalk over rooftops and wake up inside a chimney)

My current character has ranks Perform (accordion) and Resist Temptation.
The latter gets used a lot - he's addicted to liquorice, coffee and catnip - no, don't ask. :smallamused:

Resist Temptation is a core skill in Hackmaster: Basic.

[Serpentine]

I might steal that. I like the idea of characters having skills outside of "Killing things and taking their stuff," yet it can be hard to find room for those "hobby skills" in a build.I'm sure there's potential for abuse, but as long as you have a creative and roleplay-oriented group it should be fine.