Skill costs

[Rhynn]

Sorry if this is a bit stream-of-consciousness, but my process has always involved explaining my thinking to someone.

I'm working out a hack of Fuzion (Artesia: Adventures in the Known World, Bubblegum Crisis, Sengoku, based on Interlock System from Cyberpunk 2020), and I'm trying to decide on skill costs.

Skills are rated 0 to 10 (or higher), with 2 indicating basic ability, 4 is skilled, 6 is professional/expert, 8 is master. Skills are divided into broad skills (like Marksmanship) and specialties (like Handgun) that stack directly in use. (Marksmanship 5 and Handgun 5 is equal to Marksmanship 10 when using a handgun.)

Skills are bought with Training Points, one level at a time: going up a level costs TPs equal to the next level (buying level 1 costs 1 TP, going from 1 to 2 costs 2 TP, etc.).

I'm trying to decide the cost for specialties. I like things linear and straightforward, so I opted against doubling costs for broad skills. But I'm not sure if it's too much hassle to halve costs (and round up) for specialties. I could just have broad skills and specialties cost the same (as in A:AKW), but my instinct is that it should be cheaper to increase Handgun than Marksmanship.

I've run the numbers to get the break-points for when it's cheaper to increase the broad skill than a specialty, or two or three specialties, and the differences end up being fairly slight... at equal costs, a total skill of 10 in Rifle would be 30 TP (Marksmanship 5, Rifle 5); at ½-price specialties, a total of 10 costs 22 TP (Marksmanship 4, Rifle 6). I don't care about the TP differences (since everyone benefits from those), but about the skill differences (how good of a shot is a master sniper with a handgun?), and those end up being not much of anything.

I'm just not seeing any good criteria to settle this on... I'd love any help or observations.

I guess what it boils down to is this:
Would you find it a hassle to have to halve and round up costs for specialty skills?

How much of a hassle?

[Lorsa]

I do not find that much of a hassle at all really. But then again basic maths has always came easy to me.

Maybe you could consider having double for the broad skills instead of halve for the specialist ones instead? Like a cost of 2, 4, 6, 8 etc for the broad skills and 1, 2, 3, 4 etc for the specialist ones? That would make it less problematic with strange rounding effects (the 1st/2nd and 3rd/4th etc rating having the same cost). Or maybe even a higher difference, so that broad skills are REALLY expensive (perhaps related to the amount of specialist skills there are?).

EDIT: Sorry, I missed that you already opted against doubling costs for broad skills. But I should probably reconsider that. The cost being linear or not doesn't change depending on that.

[Rhynn]

Yeah, my original thought was to double costs for broad skills, but I did not like that; it would require doubling a lot of stuff. I'll elaborate...

I'm using A:AKW as a model a lot (because it's possibly the best game my group has played, by general acclamation), and one of the elements I'm lifting is how you get TPs during character creation: MEMory + REASon (characteristics). I'm probably going to make that INTelligence + PERception (since I use 8 characteristics instead of 15). I don't want to have to make it more complicated than that by essentially requiring double the points. I'd also have had to double, down the line, the amount of TPs you gain from training (which, in A:AKW, is very simply 1 + teacher's Teaching skill per time period), and possibly some other stuff.

Basically, it just felt like an artificial hassle to smack "2*X" all over the place (TP gains) for the default case (broad skills), rather than put in "½*X" on only one thing (specialty costs). I don't want to essentially halve the value of the Training Point.

I did worry about the rounding effect, which was why I ran the numbers a lot, but I ended up not minding it much. It creates a slight hiccup in the specific case of Marksmanship (my test case skill, since it's typically the most popular skill in cyberpunk...), which has three specialties (Handgun, Rifle, SMG): basically, if you want all three "use cases" at the same total, you want to focus on Marksmanship, but buy up all three specialties twice before getting Markmanship 4, twice before Marksmanship 6, and twice before Marksmanship 9... but I don't mind that much. It makes perfect sense to me that you'd be learning all types of guns if you're increasing your Marksmanship. (And don't worry, Archery is its own skill.) For most other skills with specialties, there are so many separate specialties that this doesn't show up nearly as much.

I should probably clarify that "broad" skills are the default: many skills have no specialties at all. Specialties are, essentially, a way to be better at a specific use of the skill for cheaper (or learn it faster). For instance, out of 13 Academical Skills, only 3 even have specialties (being Medicine, Strategy, and Tactics). Of course, meanwhile, 9 out of 13 Combat Skills have specialties (all classes of weapon).

I do, however, expect PCs to get a lot of specialties. For instance, most PCs won't want to bother with Medicine, but they will want First Aid. If specialties are cheaper, they'll end up buying a bit of Medicine skill to supplement their First Aid, because at certain levels of specialty, buying the "broad" skill is cheaper. (Specifically, you'd want Medicine 1 first, then First Aid 1 and 2...) Similarly, PCs not focused on combat will probably still want, say, Handgun 2 and Marksmanship 1.

As a sidenote, I have considered making some specific skills more expensive (with a multiplier to the TP costs for increases), as in Cyberpunk 2020 - mostly Martial Arts (again, as in CP2020). But I'm not even sure I want to bother with that... I'm paradoxically big on simplicity, despite my desire for detail: I suppose it's more that I don't mind breadth and depth, but I want all the base mechanics to be uniform and uncomplicated if possible. (None of the skills have any special rules of their own, for instance, the way they do in D&D 3.5 and many other games.)

Yeah, talk about stream of consciousness. This is more like babbling.

[Lorsa]

Have you considered skipping specialties altogether?

Having some skills where it is very cheap (TP wise) to be very good (by buying specialties on top of your base skill) seem to imply it is easier to be good at some skills rather than others. If you're aiming for a simplistic approach then only having base skill is even more simple and saves you the trouble of coming up with somewhat arbitrary specialties (those 3 listed for Marksmanship doesn't seem quite right to me). Alternatively you could skip the main skills and only use the specialties but then again that just means you have more skills...

Maybe making it possible to buy specialties for only half price but instead of adding them to the rating you use whichever is higher? So if you don't want the base skill Medicine but only First Aid, you buy First Aid for half price and if you later start buying Medicine then the scores do not add together. Possibly you could be granted a TP reduction for the base skill if you already have a specialty but now we are getting too complex?

In general I find the system with different amounts of specialties for the various base skills that you can buy for half price to have somewhat... strange implications.

[Rhynn]

Well, the specialties are also meant to facilitate player agency/additions. Basically, the skill list is more or less arbitrary, since no skill has special rules. Players can come up with new skills, especially specialties. One important aspect is that specialties can apply across skills (as in A:AKW), if you make a good case for it.

So if I let a player take the specialty "Cadillacs" (arbitrary example), it could be added to the Driving or Mechanics skills for appropriate tests dealing with Cadillacs. Similarly, a specialty called "New York" might apply to Local Expert, Streetwise, and General Knowledge tests.

Skipping specialties entirely is a possibility. I mostly want them in so that I can model someone who's a great shot with a rifle but only decent with a handgun, and because A:AKW uses them. Neither Sengoku nor Cyberpunk 2020 uses specialties at all.


Maybe making it possible to buy specialties for only half price but instead of adding them to the rating you use whichever is higher? So if you don't want the base skill Medicine but only First Aid, you buy First Aid for half price and if you later start buying Medicine then the scores do not add together. Possibly you could be granted a TP reduction for the base skill if you already have a specialty but now we are getting too complex?

Yeah, that's getting a bit complex, but I can definitely consider alternatives. The only thing really locked down now is that skills go 0-10 (and maybe higher), and their use is in the skill test equation: 3d6+Characteristic+Skill.

I could also limit you to one specialty, like many other games do. Basically, you can buy a specialty (say, "Medicine/First Aid") instead of a regular skill ("Medicine") at half price, but the specialty is halved if used for anything but the specialty use: for instance, "Medicine/First Aid 8" only functions as "Medicine 4" if you do something other than First Aid. (Assuming halving with no rounding, "M/FA 8" would cost 18 TP, and "Medicine 4" would cost 10 TP, so that works out.)


In general I find the system with different amounts of specialties for the various base skills that you can buy for half price to have somewhat... strange implications.

Such as? I'd really appreciate feedback (although that's getting more Homebrew than a general query). On that note, suggestions about Marksmanship specialties would be cool, too. (The more specialties skill have, the more useful buying just the main skill is.)

[Lorsa]

Such as? I'd really appreciate feedback (although that's getting more Homebrew than a general query). On that note, suggestions about Marksmanship specialties would be cool, too. (The more specialties skill have, the more useful buying just the main skill is.)

Well it depends on how the system work I guess, if it's fixed difficulties depending on if something is easy or hard or if it's all vs rolls or if it's up to GM fiat to interpret the results of the rolls. But it will be easier to get high numbers for those skills that allow specialties compared to those that don't. Meaning it is easier to be a great handgun shot compared to being good at quantum mechanics (assuming physics didn't have specialties). Perhaps that's true for reality but there might be cases where it doesn't apply and they will have different "roofs" (as in a Handgun can get 20 + dice + attribute whereas for Physics you only get 10 + stuff). This seems rather strange to me.

I really like the idea of specialties being applied across fields though. That can give a lot of flavor to the character. But then you also need to judge from case to case if the suggested specialties are too broad and where it can be applied ("but I am trying to shoot someone in New York, obviously my New York specialty should apply!").

As for Marksmanship I would definitely have Shotguns as a specialty. They work nothing like rifles or handguns. Also handguns work differently depending on if you need to fire them quickly in a street fight or if you're aiming at a marksmanship competition. Generally for the latter case you might as well use the rifle specialty because aiming works the same for both (and takes longer time). And if you don't have time to aim with a rifle (trying to use it in a street fight) you might as well use it as a handgun. Also I believe Sniping should be a specialty as firing a rifle at low range is not the same as hitting a target 1 km away (where you need to calculate wind strength and the parabola of the shot). Automatic fire is a different thing entirely, and using a battle rifle on full auto (which you don't if you want to hit something specific) could be argued would not fall under Rifles. Similarly the use of a SMG would depend on (I guess) if you shoot single shots (then they could work as a handgun or rifle) up to bursts or full auto. Also where would you place a machine pistol? Under Handguns or SMGs?

I am not an expert on these things though, so consulting someone who is seems like a good idea. But I am sure of one thing and that is that Shotguns was missing from your list. :smallsmile:

[Mastikator]

Instead of treating specialties as static rather than linear. For instance "adept handgunner" which gives +2 to handguns for the precise cost of 2 training points, then "advanced handgunner" which gives an additional +2 to handguns for the precise cost of 4 training points.
Like feats in D&D or perks in fallout. That way you can treat the skills as always broad, which is very streamlined and pretty.

[Rhynn]

You've got a point. I should probably take a page from Cyberpunk 2020 and apply learning multipliers to some skills (like the Science skill group, which would cover any sciences someone cared to name and buy as specific skills).

If I want to model that learning a specialization in play is faster (fewer time units than learning a broad skill at the same level), then it just makes sense I'd make some skills take longer. Cyberpunk 2020 may give me a good starting point. This would also solve my Martial Arts problem. (In CP2020, all MArts except Boxing and Wrestling had a multiplier. Of course, that meant that a boxer-wrestler was actually a better fighter for the same number of Improvement Points spent than someone who studied ninjutsu or aikido, at least at a few specific maneuvers; but then that makes a deal of sense, since boxers punch best, etc.)

I'm really not too worried about the "where do specialties apply" issue, since this is mostly for my own group, and I know I have no problem adjudicating them. I do intend to share this online when it's finished, though, and I do intend to include notes and help for Referees and players both - including a section on adjudicating specialties makes sense. It's supposed to be pretty free, though. If the GM thinks that some use of skills or specialties makes sense, that's enough. Generally, specialties will be listed or mentioned under a specific skill, with a mention on how they might apply elsewhere (e.g. "Local Expert specialties include specific regions, counties, or cities. These specialties might also apply to General Knowledge or Streetwise tests regarding the relevant areas").

Specialties are always going to be narrow, too. Getting Athletics 8 will be more expensive than getting Marksmanship 4 and Handgun 4, but that Athletics 8 applies to all uses, whereas that cheaper "soft 8" is effectively halved when used with other firearms. There is the issue that buying up 3 specialties is slightly cheaper than buying the main skill, but I really don't think it's a big enough difference (a ~30% discount) to matter very much. After character creation, players won't be as able to optimize their skills anyway - they may end up with very high Marksmanship and no specialties simply because there was a good Marksmanship teacher available, but no good teacher for their chosen specialty. (Learning by yourself is slow; in A:AKW, it can easily be as much as 90% slower than learning with a great teacher; maybe more, since skills are theoretically uncapped.)

I very much appreciate your feedback. It's hard to look at my own ideas and material from different points of view.

I'm also putting the Marksmanship specialty question to the Real-World Weapons and Armor thread. I think some of it, like the sniping issue, is addressed by combat mechanics (penalties for long distances, enormous penalties at sniper distances, somewhat mitigated by scopes and other gear and circumstances like lying down and taking your time), and a level of abstraction: a sniper is just assumed to have a better Rifle skill than the average rifleman, and higher skill levels are assumed to include specialized training. It might be a good idea, though, to split the skill up more specializations. Marksmanship (and Melee, and Heavy Weapons) is a bit "harder" than other skills, since the various weapons will be assigned to specific categories that match up to the specialties.

Edit: Missed this!


Instead of treating specialties as static rather than linear. For instance "adept handgunner" which gives +2 to handguns for the precise cost of 2 training points, then "advanced handgunner" which gives an additional +2 to handguns for the precise cost of 4 training points.
Like feats in D&D or perks in fallout. That way you can treat the skills as always broad, which is very streamlined and pretty.

I'll give that some thought, although it seems to amount to the same thing: pay X TPs for +Y to skill. The difference would be in limiting anyone to set bonuses, which might make sense... it'd also make getting really high skill totals more expensive, which might be a good idea! Rifle 10 + Mksm 5 for the same cost as Mksm 9 (45 TP in the full cost/half cost system) may be a bit much...

Specialties are pretty much optional - I could easily take them out and not really alter the system, just what skills PCs and NPCs have recorded.

[SowZ]

You could just make them cost the same, specialties and standard skills could have the same progression. And I have a very similar system of SP cost in my games as you do and they have the same cost scale. In might sound weird at first, having them the same cost. It means for the first few levels, they will only want to get the standard skill. Which makes sense, you understand the basics of guns before you master handguns specifically.

Look at it this way. It costs 6 SP to get to 3 Marksmanship. If you wanted a total of 5 in your attack, it would be 15 SP to get 5 Marksmanship or only 9 SP to get 3 Marksmanship and 2 Handgun.

It ends up being the simplest and most balanced approach, IMO. Once it is costing 6 or 7 SP to level up the general skill, grabbing another specialty for 1 or 2 SP starts to become reaaal tempting.