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Nintendogeek01
2018-06-25, 08:54 AM
Last week's conversation ground to a halt mid-way, even so I'm eager to keep it going with our next item: Skills.

If I hadn't mentioned it before I had not personally played 2nd Edition of Mutants & Masterminds, I converted a number of content from 2nd to 3rd so I'm not completely unaware of 2nd ed's rules, but I've no personal experience. Most 2E vets I've talked to seem to agree that how skills are handled in third edition is one of their least favorite changes between editions, but I'll leave any commentary on that to the ones who actually played 2E; they are certainly better equipped to talk about it than I am.

For 3E the skills comprise most of your character's capabilities outside of a fight (though many have their uses during fights too), they determine how knowledgeable your character is, how good with their hands they are, how athletic, etc. You get two skill points for every one power point you spend so skills are usually the cheapest individual purchase in the game. While more specialized than the abilities are, skills still may cover a broad range of scenarios; technology, for example, is not only used to build and fix machinery, but is also used to pick locks. That said, despite being cheap it seems that most don't think that 2 skills per power point is cheap enough and one of the most common houserules I've seen is to make it so you get 3 skills per power point, but my problem with that houserule is that it serves to further undercut abilities; furthermore skill DC's scarcely change all that much, barring what the GM tweaks the DC of diplomacy checks are largely set as are the DC's to break into vaults of differing security levels. I've noticed that among the Freedom Verse's NPC's most don't have too many greatly inflated ranks in a skill, and those that do are usually specialists in the given skill.

That said the skills may well still need a helping hand, so let's break them down! I'll list the skills below, the ability that bolsters them, describe their function, give my take on it, as well as my proposed changes if any. Proposed changes will include any that would happen as a consequence of the changes to abilities discussed last week. An asterisk* will indicate that the skill has multiple specializations chosen by the player on purchasing the skill.

Acrobatics
Agility
One for the agile characters, you use acrobatics to keep yourself from falling while balancing, tumbling to reduce fall damage (and land on your feet at the same time if you take no damage), standing from prone as a free action, squeeze through tight spaces, or misc. combat maneuvers. Acrobatics is listed as a trained skill, and for the most part I can see why, though I'd immediately call out any GM I saw who said someone can't make a balance check just because they didn't train in acrobatics, we're allowed to not fall over on the stairs thank you very much. The highest potential DC for acrobatics is a whopping DC40... but that's only if you are on a very slippery and uneven/inclined tightrope while trying to move at your normal speed and not be vulnerable, and be honest, has that ACTUALLY happened to you? Outside of the variable difficulty of balancing and the GM determined DC's of misc. maneuvers the highest DC most people are likely to see in acrobatics is the DC20 for standing from prone as a free action, even then I wouldn't peg that as terribly likely. So most DC's will probably fall between 10 and 20.

Outside of those acrobatics is also useful for escaping grabs, and I've also seen examples of using acrobatics to determine maneuverability during flight. The skill also works with an advantage known as agile feint to allow PC's to use acrobatics to feint their target, something I've found a lot of personal use out of.
Proposed Changes: Absorb the escaping portion of sleight of hand skill. It fits neatly since both skills already have contorting under their portfolio.

Athletics
Strength
The only skill strength bolsters (but that's okay, strength does other stuff). Athletics is useful for climbing, jumping, increasing your movement speed for one round, and swimming. Climbing and jumping's DC's depend greatly on the surface being climbed and the type of jump you're making but these skills are often rendered moot by movement powers (climb and leaping specifically, but also other movement powers that let them circumvent the obstacles). But increasing your ground movement speed by +1 for one round can be useful, and the DC to do so is a relatively paltry DC15. Lastly there is swimming, while the DC can fluctuate based on other conditions in the water the base DC is a measly 10 so even with only a minor strength investment it's easy to basically have your ground speed rank become your swim speed -2; which is the same as with the swimming power, so it ultimately comes down to whether swimming is a focus of your character. If it's not a focus of your character then you can safely get away with athletics for those occasions you need it.
Proposed Changes: None. Might not be the skill you'll roll often, but I for one was glad to have it when it came up.

Close Combat*
Fighting
No martial arts master or circus strongman is complete without this skill. This is the skill you choose to specialize in a given close-combat skill be it unarmed combat, bladed weapons, or that golf trophy sitting on your mantle (though you may be better off with a certain advantage for that last example... ahem...). Exactly how broad or narrow these are must be defined by the gm and player coming to an agreement. Most people would agree that swords are different from knives, but how different are they? Different enough for the game to care? Your mileage may vary, if there's ever a question consult with your GM. That said I have seen both this and ranged combat (later) get ignored in favor of embedding several ranks of the accurate extra into arrays; which strikes me as undercutting the idea that someone trained to get their skill or if not that, dangerously close to arraying skills, something I would encourage GMs to look out for, but that can be saved for later.
Proposed Changes: None really besides how changes to abilities affect it.

Deception
Presence
The conman's go-to skill. Deception is obviously useful for lying in social interactions, but it's also useful in combat for feinting, or more seldomly to disguise yourself. On the flipside it can also be used, as Quellian-Dyrae on Giantitp calls it, as a "poors man's insight," since you can use deception to resist other deception attempts. Deception's DC's depend on circumstances as well as the insight or deception of whoever you're trying to deceive.
Proposed Changes: I've often entertained the idea of separating disguise from deception as its own skill, if only to give the disguise aspect a little more attention. However being honest I've flip-flopped on this one so I'm most interested to hear other opinions on this.

Expertise*
Intellect or Presence*
Hoooo... boy... did you want to be a scientist? How about a wizard? Well then you want this skill. It lets you make knowledge checks on a certain subject, be it science, magic, pop culture, superhumans, etc. However while I love this skill I simultaneously take issue with how broad the expertise's can be. Sure making skills super-specialized sort of defeats 3rd edition's purpose but the given examples in 3rd ed's book for expertises seem to go too far in broadness. Science has tons of branches, and while we obviously don't have real world magic to compare it to it strikes me that perhaps a mage knowing every extra-dimensional magic lord, obscure ritual, the methodologies of what must be differing forms of magic probably would be just as bad as assuming a nuclear physicist could serve as a licensed therapist (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhyIWcWkScg). With third ed the way it is, even more than the other skills that let the player decide what the specialty is, the GM must make it clear what is and isn't too broad or too narrow in their games, and simultaneously should probably be kind enough to point out what knowledges will serve absolutely no purpose so players know what might help, and what would just be extra flavor for their character (which, hey, not a bad thing.).

Expertise can also be fueled not just by intellect, but by presence; namely for performance skills. Sadly these virtually never see use in game for much beyond flavor, heck the rulebook barely spends the time to remind readers that this is a thing.
Proposed Changes: Better define a list of expertises (I personally suggest something along the lines of: Physics, Biology, Culture, Mythology (for magical beings and places), Magic (for identifying rituals and spells)) but still leave a blank expertise to allow players to cover something the list doesn't cover. I also suggest bringing presence based expertises out from under expertise's intellect umbrella, and divide those into Performance (for stuff that could be feasibly done untrained) and instruments (for instruments which are MUCH harder to do untrained, thus this one would be a trained skill).

Insight
Awareness
Insight can be used to counter deception, but wait can't deception already do that to itself? True enough, but insight also lets you resist illusions, and get insight into conversations beyond just "hey am I being lied to?" such as the individual's general trustworthiness or if there's outside influence. Not a whole lot for me to add here.
Proposed Changes: None really.

Intimidation
Presence
Mooks won't get out of your way? Show 'em who's boss with a "HULK SMASH!" (and if they don't move after that... well they can't say they weren't warned.) Intimidate serves a similar function to persuasion in getting people to help you out in social situations, but it also doubles as a way to demoralize opponents in a fight. Notably the skill specifically has a clause for working on entire groups of minions, and also has a few advantages to bolster it further.
Proposed Changes: None directly, though I'd had a few ideas for even more advantages that might work for it, but more on those later.

Investigation
Intellect
You're no Holmes or Batman without this skill. Investigation covers all the vital skills for investigating crimes: finding clues, analyzing evidence, and gathering witness testimonies. It can also be used to search an area for traps but... admittedly there's some crossover with perception on that token. As for gathering witness testimonies I have more to say on that further down the list. Don't let my "but..." fool you, this is a useful skill and one worth taking.
Proposed Changes: None.

Perception
Awareness
Let's you notice stuff. What can I say about this skill? Need to find a trap? Notice someone's sneaking around? Notice that someone's going for your wallet before they actually nab it? Notice that odd detail that leads to the whole crime being exposed? This skill lets you do that. It's a very useful skill to have.
Proposed Changes: None.

Persuasion
Presence
Let's you make people like you more by talking nice to them. Who knew? Okay that's too simple, but it's about being tactful, and attempting to use reason and rather than force and thus a skill more useful for making allies than the other social skills. The DC for this skill starts at 15 and gets harder or easier depending on the NPC's attitude toward your character.
Proposed Changes: Let it share gather information with investigation. I know I was already doing this and I'd hazard a guess that others already were too but let's make it official. (Well as official as this series of topics can be anyway, :smalltongue: ).

Ranged Combat*
Dexterity
Other than being tied to a different ability by RAW, there's really nothing I can say about ranged combat that hasn't already been said for close combat. Just different specializations.
Proposed Changes: Other than what's already been proposed for the ability it's tied to, nothing else.

Sleight of Hand
Dexterity
A trained only skill whose functions seem like they'd fit well under other skills. As written it's used for escaping, contorting, stealing, and doing card tricks or shell games. The DC's for escaping range from 15 to 25 (or more if you're trying to escape from a power, in which case it's 10 + power rank). The other DC's are mostly opposed checks.
Proposed Changes: Scrap it and let other skills get its functions, namely let acrobatics get its escaping aspect and stealing could go to stealth. Legerdemain's a bit trickier to parse out but we could make arguments for stealth or deception, I favor stealth personally.

Stealth
Agility
This is the skill that lets you go unnoticed, whether you're hiding or tailing someone. Obviously useful for the characters who want to do this.
Proposed Changes: Absorb stealing and Legerdemain from sleight of hand so that thief type characters don't have to spread themselves thinner than they already are.

Technology
Intellect
Whereas expertise has other branches of science, this is what lets you build and operate machinery and that magic box sitting on your desk that those darned kids call a computer. Technology is also useful for bypassing security both in cyberspace and that vault door in front of you, assuming you didn't want to just blow it up anyways. Technology's most (in)famous use, however, is doubtlessly the synergy it has with the inventor advantage, but... let's save that speech for inventor shall we?
Proposed Changes: None.

Treatment
Intellect
Lets you care for others, the DC's are pretty low overall, topping out at DC15 for most conventional uses, but it can also be used to help recover from a third-degree affliction with appropriate descriptors. Despite the uses in increasing a team's staying power in combat I personally haven't seen treatment get used too much in play so I have little to say on that front.
Proposed Changes: None really.

Vehicles
Dexterity
Last and not quite least, vehicles. Vehicles is very dependent on the type of game being played and the characters in it. The average joe doesn't need this skill to drive to work but they might wish they had it if their commute suddenly turns into an action-movie car chase. Most of the time when driving/piloting a vehicle it doesn't require a check, but it's when the vehicle comes under attack or gets involved in stressful situations that a vehicle check comes into play. One of the more situational skills to be certain.
Proposed Changes: It might do with some changes but I can't think of them, honestly it may be best to just leave it as is, as it does something the other skills don't readily handle

So with all of that said what do the rest of you think? Anything I might've overlooked in my analysis? Any other changes you think might work better? When discussing anything please keep in mind...

Keep the discussion focused on what aspect we are covering this week, namely skills. You may use other aspects they affect or are affected by but ultimately the discussion this week is about skills.
Criticizing ideas is constructive, criticizing people is insulting, Don't make things or take things personal when discussing items.
Naturally respect other rules on the forums.

So ladies, gents, and all others; Discuss away!

Nintendogeek01
2018-06-25, 08:55 AM
Missed out on the rest of the discussions so far? The links below take you to the other discussions both here and on Ronin Army.



-
Ronin Army
Giant in the Playground


Abilities
Ronin Army Abilities (https://roninarmy.com/threads/7615-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Week-1-Abilities)
GitP Abilities (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?561619-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Week-1-Abilities)


Skills
Ronin Army Skills (https://roninarmy.com/threads/7636-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Week-2-Skills)
GitP Skills (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?562231-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Week-2-Skills)


Advantages
Ronin Army Advantages (https://roninarmy.com/threads/7682-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Week-3-Advantages)
GitP Advantages (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?563318-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Week-3-Advantages)


Defenses
Ronin Army Defenses (https://roninarmy.com/threads/7695-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Week-4-Defenses)
GitP Defenses (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?563934-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Week-4-Defenses)


Powers
Ronin Army Powers (https://roninarmy.com/threads/7740-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Week-5-Powers)
GitP Powers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?565245-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Week-5-Powers)


Other
Ronin Army System (https://roninarmy.com/threads/7777-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Final-Topic-System)
GitP System (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?566524-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Final-Topic-System)

Quellian-dyrae
2018-06-25, 05:10 PM
That said, despite being cheap it seems that most don't think that 2 skills per power point is cheap enough and one of the most common houserules I've seen is to make it so you get 3 skills per power point, but my problem with that houserule is that it serves to further undercut abilities; furthermore skill DC's scarcely change all that much, barring what the GM tweaks the DC of diplomacy checks are largely set as are the DC's to break into vaults of differing security levels. I've noticed that among the Freedom Verse's NPC's most don't have too many greatly inflated ranks in a skill, and those that do are usually specialists in the given skill.

For what it's worth, I tend to feel that most skills are entirely worth their 1 PP/2 ranks. There are certain specific skills that aren't up to snuff, but as a whole they are. However, it is very worth noting that a large number of low skills will usually end up providing less mechanical advantage and (in my opinion, YMMV) less-defined character flavor than a few skills at PL or higher. Some manner of rewarding a broader spread of skills would be nice, but may be too complicated to implement to really be worth including, and to be fair encouraging specializing does provide niche protection. Since skills are pretty much the same for everyone (that is, you could have three or four different mind readers in a group and they could all do it distinctly differently with different choices of Extras and alternate effects, but if you have four different investigators in the same group they're pretty much all doing the same thing, just some might be better or worse at it) that's not necessarily a bad thing.


Acrobatics

Athletics

Adding Escape (and Contortion) from Sleight of Hand is something I do in my house rules, although I go further than that; I combine Acrobatics, Athletics, and Vehicles all into one skill, Mobility. I also expand Mobility some to apply to any sort of movement power, and these days use it as the baseline initiative value too.

The big reason for this is that, unlike most skills which powers can't really properly duplicate all that well, the movement skills get utterly creamed by powers. Flight 1 and Precise Change Direction Teleport 1 cover like 95% of what Acrobatics and Athletics give you and do it better. Which just...sucks. I'm not saying everybody should replace Acrobatics and Athletics with Flight and Teleport; I'm saying that a non-trivial number of characters will have Flight and Teleport, and it's just kinda sad that they are so leaps-and-bounds beyond what the mundane skills can do. That the mundanes then have to split already-inferior capabilities among two or three different skills just makes it worse.

This allows characters who do only want very specific mundane movement capabilities to either use Limits to save points, or get Hero Points from Complications; myself, I'm a big believer in consolidating stuff and then letting people take hindrances to specialize, rather than forcing them to pay through the nose for something very similar to something else they've already paid for. That said, a more "Fields of Expertise" system (more on that below) where you have Mobility as a base skill and can then get fields like Acrobatics, Athletics, Cars, Planes, Boats, etc would also work (or you could use more narrow physical fields like Running, Jumping, Swimming, Climbing, etc).



Close Combat*

Pretty much explained my thoughts on all of M&M's different ways to make you pay for attack bonus in the Abilities thread. Again, much less of a hassle to buy it in one place and use Complications (or, again, a Fields of Expertise system, if you want it more baked-in) to limit it.


Deception
Presence
The conman's go-to skill. Deception is obviously useful for lying in social interactions, but it's also useful in combat for feinting, or more seldomly to disguise yourself. On the flipside it can also be used, as Quellian-Dyrae on Giantitp calls it, as a "poors man's insight," since you can use deception to resist other deception attempts. Deception's DC's depend on circumstances as well as the insight or deception of whoever you're trying to deceive.
Proposed Changes: I've often entertained the idea of separating disguise from deception as its own skill, if only to give the disguise aspect a little more attention. However being honest I've flip-flopped on this one so I'm most interested to hear other opinions on this.

Something else to note about the "poor man's insight" function, though, is that it blocks Deception. You can use Deception to protect against a regular Feint or Trick...but not an Agile Feint or a Startle (I've had a couple NPCs burned by this recently). Even so, I generally rate Deception as roughly the most broadly-useful skill in the game.

One thing that it wouldn't hurt to clarify is whether Deception can be used to convince people of things that are true. I tend to say it does, because while it makes sense that an ordinarily-convincing person might be a bad liar, it doesn't make sense to me that a good liar may become less convincing when telling the truth, unless they invest equally in an entirely separate skill (and neither Persuasion nor Intimidation are really about being convincing anyway). That said, it's also reasonable to set up Deception as more of a "gateway" skill; you use Persuasion, say, to actually convince people of things, but if you're lying, you may have to use Deception first before you can even try.

I'd leave Disguise. It's too niche a capability to carry a whole skill on its own in most games (err...unless you say costumes require a Disguise check, I suppose, then it wouldn't be niche at all, but would be kinda mandatory for anyone who wants a secret identity...still I guess it's a pretty good skill for those characters anyway). If you wanted to thin out Deception a bit though it wouldn't be too unreasonable to move to Stealth, or make into an Expertise field. Still, I feel Deception fits it best.


Expertise*

A better-defined list of Expertise skills would be good, but yeah how broad is tough to say. Like, I don't know that I'd want Popular Culture to get divided, but Science definitely could.

Here's my spiel on Expertise. It is great fluff. More than any other skill, Expertise can tell you a lot about what a character does outside of their heroic life. The thing is, any given Expertise skill will often be very limited. Some might, maybe, be able to hold their own, although those are probably the ones that could stand to be split up anyway! And even then, it's only if that skill is a focus of the game. Expertise (Magic) is worth a skill in a game focused on the supernatural; otherwise, it may occasionally show use, but probably not super-often (Artificer/Ritualist notwithstanding, but those are separate capabilities anyway, not really "baked in" to the skill itself). Expertise (Science) could probably be worth a skill on its own...in a heavily science-focused game. And so on.

Intellect + Jack of All Trades lets you get Expertise (All). Expertise (All) does the job of a full skill, in my opinion; being able to perform mundane tasks and roll for knowledge in any situation is solidly competitive with other skills. When knowledge and mundane tasks come up, it'll be useful, when they don't it won't. Characters can buy Int and Reduce Investigation, Technology, and Treatment to get this, or just buy Int with Limited 2 (Expertise Only). Both price out the same, and that price is in my opinion balanced. A GM could preclude these options and require you get everything with Int to do it, essentially making Expertise (All) into a sort of "bulk discount" bonus for Intellect, but I'm not sure why Investigation, Technology, and Treatment would merit that sort of bulk discount when other skill combinations don't.

That said, getting all the Expertise skills loses a lot of the fluff. You're no longer saying your character is a chef, or a scientist, or a lawyer, or whatever. You're just an omnidisciplinary supergenius. What I like to do when playing is add a Quirk that limits my Int bonus to one Expertise skill per rank, so I can choose a bunch of fields that fit my character without having to either get them all or pay boatloads of PP for a bunch of skills that are great fluff but are unlikely to matter in play.

Now, in terms of house rules, I use a system called Fields of Expertise. I define Expertise as a single skill. Period. I don't use Abilities any more in my house rules, but if I did it'd be Int based. However, once you have Expertise, you choose up to one field per rank; those are your Expertise fields. If you want you can "divide" the Expertise ranks for one field across several, so with Expertise +10 you could take like Popular Culture 10 and both Current Events and History 5, and that would be two of your ten fields. Fields can also be spent on languages (which are also great fluff but too expensive) or as EP, and you can buy more for 1 PP per 5 fields. This gives you the flexibility to take all the fun, fluffy Expertise fields you want without having to be omnidisciplinary or break your PP budget. When doing so, I also say that Jack of All Trades and (for Knowledge purposes) Eidetic Memory let you use half your Expertise bonus as a minimum for fields you don't have, ensuring that the people who wants to be omnidisciplinary still can to a certain degree, but they'll still have their specialties and won't just trivially outdo someone who is focusing on only a few specialties in those fields.

And thinking about it, that system would probably work for other "multiple specialties" sorts of skills. You could have a Mobility skill and a Combat skill, for example, each of which starts with one field of expertise (Unarmed, Swords, Guns, Powers, etc for Combat, Athletics, Acrobatics, Cars, Horses, Flight, etc for Mobility). And then you could spend Expertise fields (which you can buy directly for 1 PP per 5, remember) expanding them.

So now you can have specialties that carry a bit of a cost, but it's a cost worth what they're giving you. Sure, if you want to be good with your fists and guns and swords and your powers, it'll cost a bit more. But only the equivalent of three EP on top of the attack bonus, rather than having to pay quadruple. And of course the costs could be tweaked based on how easy you want it to be to specialize; maybe you only get one field per two Expertise ranks and additional cost 1 PP per 2 or 3 or something. Point is, if you want more generalization to carry a cost, but you don't want the cost to be exorbitant, that's what I'd suggest.

I would say that neither Performance nor Instruments come anywhere close to carrying the value of an entire skill, let alone being split between two of them. That's honestly leaning towards punitive if you ask me. 10 PP just to be able to sing while playing a guitar with expert-level competence? Bleugh!


Insight

Nothing really to say here either. Insight's solid.


Intimidation

One issue Intimidation has is that Fearless kinda wrecks the whole skill for 1 PP. I like expanding Intimidation to be able to provoke any sort of strong emotions - shame people, make them angry, provoke their hatred, inspire them, seduce them, etc. Although that requires a bit of effort to define how it would work mechanically, and while I do feel Intimidation is the most sensible emotion skill in general based on what the skills actually do, I do concede that certain emotional responses do intuitively feel more appropriate to other skills, and sometimes when you're building a character with Intimidation fear is all you really want. Maybe another place for Fields of Expertise.


Investigation

Not much to say here, though I do wish Investigation were more focused on analyzing and understanding what you find and finding it was left solely to Perception. Mainly because it makes no sense that a character with great senses but no particular investigative ability is less likely to find something when actively searching for it. :smallconfused:

That said, a Benefit letting you substitute Perception for Investigation when searching can do the job, I suppose.


Perception

Yep, nothing more to say here. Perception is the Stamina of skills.

...Actually, there is one thing. Perception could really stand to be updated to a penalties-based-on-distance-rank system rather than the nonsensical -1 per 10' it took from D&D. I like -4 or -5 per Distance Rank beyond 0, myself.


Persuasion

Well obviously its fixed DCs and vague reactions table have all the problems D&D Diplomacy did, so the skill requires extensive GM adjudication (Deception and Intimidation somewhat suffer from this too, but not quite as badly). In conjunction with my above expansions to them, I basically figure the social skills for Deception influences what they believe, Intimidation influences when they feel, and Persuasion influence how much the like something - I'd allow Persuasion to be used to persuade a person to like someone else more (or less!) as well as just influencing personal reactions.

I actually wouldn't add gathering information to Persuasion (weird, I know, with my love for consolidating things). I understand the logic, but that seems to be a pretty key part of Investigation for me. I still find it weird that Well Informed lets Persuasion step in Investigation's toes like that.


Sleight of Hand

Yep, not worth a skill on its own.


Stealth

Nothing really to add here. I do wish that power-oriented detection-avoidance (Concealment, Subtle, Senses, etc) were more tightly integrated with the Stealth and Perception system rather than forcing hard binaries, but that's a matter for later I suppose.


Technology

I wouldn't have minded slightly more detail in regards to hacking and security, but Technology does its job.


Treatment

Treatment's...weird. Does Revive work for complex conditions? If so that's actually kinda overpowered. And I had kinda forgotten it can work with certain Afflictions (more arbitrary penalties for deciding to make your powers [Poison] or [Disease] descriptor...) For the most part though M&M recovery is so easy (and the Dying condition so toothless) that it's a pretty niche skill. In my house rules I remove Revive and give it a cohesive option for lessening Affliction conditions (which can even be done simultaneously with Healing so it synergizes rather than being overtaken) and specify it also works as Expertise (Medicine). That keeps it decent enough, although I can't help but feel it could either use more or maybe could just be shifted to an Expertise.


Vehicles

Like I mentioned, I folded this into Mobility in my house rules. There's...probably some balance-point of the low cost of Equipment + the add-ons you need beyond movement to make a vehicle + the hindrances of Vehicles + the Vehicles skill surcharge that is more-or-less balanced with just getting a level-appropriate movement power already, but it's more complicated than I care about figuring out, especially when the entire vehicles subsystem is probably my single biggest blind spot in the M&M rules.

Nintendogeek01
2018-06-26, 01:52 PM
Adding Escape (and Contortion) from Sleight of Hand is something I do in my house rules, although I go further than that; I combine Acrobatics, Athletics, and Vehicles all into one skill, Mobility. I also expand Mobility some to apply to any sort of movement power, and these days use it as the baseline initiative value too.

The big reason for this is that, unlike most skills which powers can't really properly duplicate all that well, the movement skills get utterly creamed by powers. Flight 1 and Precise Change Direction Teleport 1 cover like 95% of what Acrobatics and Athletics give you and do it better. Which just...sucks. I'm not saying everybody should replace Acrobatics and Athletics with Flight and Teleport; I'm saying that a non-trivial number of characters will have Flight and Teleport, and it's just kinda sad that they are so leaps-and-bounds beyond what the mundane skills can do. That the mundanes then have to split already-inferior capabilities among two or three different skills just makes it worse.

This allows characters who do only want very specific mundane movement capabilities to either use Limits to save points, or get Hero Points from Complications; myself, I'm a big believer in consolidating stuff and then letting people take hindrances to specialize, rather than forcing them to pay through the nose for something very similar to something else they've already paid for. That said, a more "Fields of Expertise" system (more on that below) where you have Mobility as a base skill and can then get fields like Acrobatics, Athletics, Cars, Planes, Boats, etc would also work (or you could use more narrow physical fields like Running, Jumping, Swimming, Climbing, etc).
While I'm a little iffy on combining Acrobatics & athletics, (mainly because they're both solid skills with a number of uses and they'd be quite the super skill when put together) I could still see them being together. Vehicles though I'm not seeing as a combined skill for them; acrobatics & athletics both make use of physical movement, running, jumping, contorting, etc. Vehicles may test your reaction speed but driving up a jump ramp is quite different from physically jumping off that same ramp. But like I said I could still see athletics and acrobatics maybe being combined.

Though on the note of powers obliterating these skills, and other skills too let's be honest, I think it's a fallacy to default to powers as an example for why some skills are a bad investment. Yes there's no denying that The Amazing Inflating Flying Flynn will get over a building and on the other side of it faster than Arnold the Astounding Aerodynamic Acrobat can, but not everyone wants to play as The Amazing Inflating Flying Flynn and Acrobatics/athletics other uses might give Arnold the Astounding Aerodynamic Acrobat a chance to shine where his flying compatriot might not. Even if those chances don't come, the mundane options still have some appeal for some players and that option needs to be there.


...Fields can also be spent on languages (which are also great fluff but too expensive)

I would say that neither Performance nor Instruments come anywhere close to carrying the value of an entire skill, let alone being split between two of them. That's honestly leaning towards punitive if you ask me. 10 PP just to be able to sing while playing a guitar with expert-level competence? Bleugh!
I'll leave houserule without comment, don't get me wrong not trying to condemn them here if they work for you that's excellent. Just seem a bit beyond the scope I'm hoping for.

It's funny you brought up languages, as I had certainly not thought to account for them. Currently getting languages is an advantage, and one that gets you more and more as you buy into it, but in 2E it was a skill. Any takers on what works better you think?

Though on the note of performances, as it stands currently it's already a trained skill universally due to it being folded under expertise, and one that doesn't even have attention called to it. Though perhaps my earlier suggested split is unnecessary; M&M3E already takes a broad-strokes approach with expertise (though perhaps a wee too broad), perhaps then we should with perform as well.


One issue Intimidation has is that Fearless kinda wrecks the whole skill for 1 PP. I like expanding Intimidation to be able to provoke any sort of strong emotions - shame people, make them angry, provoke their hatred, inspire them, seduce them, etc. Although that requires a bit of effort to define how it would work mechanically, and while I do feel Intimidation is the most sensible emotion skill in general based on what the skills actually do, I do concede that certain emotional responses do intuitively feel more appropriate to other skills, and sometimes when you're building a character with Intimidation fear is all you really want. Maybe another place for Fields of Expertise.
True enough, though a GM who gives every opponent fearless is not only failing their players mechanically, but also undercutting immersion by leaving out one of the most basic instincts living creatures have.


Not much to say here, though I do wish Investigation were more focused on analyzing and understanding what you find and finding it was left solely to Perception. Mainly because it makes no sense that a character with great senses but no particular investigative ability is less likely to find something when actively searching for it. :smallconfused:
My read from the book suggests it's supposed to, not sure if it's just GM's not fully realizing that or what.


I actually wouldn't add gathering information to Persuasion (weird, I know, with my love for consolidating things). I understand the logic, but that seems to be a pretty key part of Investigation for me. I still find it weird that Well Informed lets Persuasion step in Investigation's toes like that.
Way I see it, this just allows players the option of going for the more sociable investigator vs. the more analytical investigator, I wouldn't consider it stepping on toes considering both skills do something noteworthy that the other skill can't. A little cross-over doesn't hurt.

Yep, not worth a skill on its own.


Treatment's...weird. Does Revive work for complex conditions? If so that's actually kinda overpowered. And I had kinda forgotten it can work with certain Afflictions (more arbitrary penalties for deciding to make your powers [Poison] or [Disease] descriptor...) For the most part though M&M recovery is so easy (and the Dying condition so toothless) that it's a pretty niche skill. In my house rules I remove Revive and give it a cohesive option for lessening Affliction conditions (which can even be done simultaneously with Healing so it synergizes rather than being overtaken) and specify it also works as Expertise (Medicine). That keeps it decent enough, although I can't help but feel it could either use more or maybe could just be shifted to an Expertise.
I don't think I'd go as far as arbitrary penalties. In lower (and some mid) power games poison and disease can cause great drama and even in higher power games the threat they pose to others around the main characters could still be a source of conflict. Besides it might be a nice change to see a skill have an advantage over a power in contrast to some of the prior skills in this list.

I agree it's odd though, on paper it seems useful but in practice I haven't seen it used much. Perhaps rather than any outright changes this skill merits more study and observation on the GM's part.


Like I mentioned, I folded this into Mobility in my house rules. There's...probably some balance-point of the low cost of Equipment + the add-ons you need beyond movement to make a vehicle + the hindrances of Vehicles + the Vehicles skill surcharge that is more-or-less balanced with just getting a level-appropriate movement power already, but it's more complicated than I care about figuring out, especially when the entire vehicles subsystem is probably my single biggest blind spot in the M&M rules.
I had a thought while I was writing the rest of this, what if we integrated vehicles into technology? Technology already has a thing for operating machines, probably not to the same extent as vehicle but why can't we expand it a hair? Thoughts?

JoeJ
2018-06-26, 02:45 PM
I've long thought Vehicles was too broad for one skill. I should be able to have a character who's Speed Racer without having to also be Blackhawk. (Can Speed Racer fly a plane? I don't remember. And anyway, it doesn't matter, the point remains.) I'm not sure how to do that without reducing the value to below the cost, though.

Quellian-dyrae
2018-06-26, 03:25 PM
Though on the note of powers obliterating these skills, and other skills too let's be honest, I think it's a fallacy to default to powers as an example for why some skills are a bad investment. Yes there's no denying that The Amazing Inflating Flying Flynn will get over a building and on the other side of it faster than Arnold the Astounding Aerodynamic Acrobat can, but not everyone wants to play as The Amazing Inflating Flying Flynn and Acrobatics/athletics other uses might give Arnold the Astounding Aerodynamic Acrobat a chance to shine where his flying compatriot might not. Even if those chances don't come, the mundane options still have some appeal for some players and that option needs to be there.

Again, I'm not saying that everyone should replace Acrobatics and Athletics with Flight and Teleportation. I agree, there should be mundane skills for those who want to do things in mundane ways. But, those skills should also provide benefits commensurate with their cost. Now, in a direct competition, no, human-level physical prowess simply cannot realistically measure up to even minor mobility superpowers in terms of sheer ability to cover a distance and circumvent obstacles. That's fine, but they should provide some function beyond that if their costs are going to be competitive with that of similar powers. Or their costs can be toned down. Or whatever.

Athletics and Acrobatics do a little bit of that already. Flight doesn't let you Trip foes, avoid being Tripped, or Escape grabs (though to be fair Precise Teleport does the latter). I'm not sure it's quite enough on its own, but skills are cheap individually. It's really when you're having to spend points on two skills, that have a lot of overlap between them, and where a lot of their iconic benefits are strictly beaten by cheaper powers, that you have a problem.

Granted, part of this has to do with power costs, but that's not really the current topic. But the calculation would be somewhat different if rather than being a 2/rank Effect on its own, Flight was, for example, a 5-rank Movement option.

That all said, I do think it's important to look at other mechanics when judging any given mechanic. One of M&M's core design principles is you buy mechanics for effect, and you fluff them how you like. And most of the balance issues in the system come from them not going far enough with that.


It's funny you brought up languages, as I had certainly not thought to account for them. Currently getting languages is an advantage, and one that gets you more and more as you buy into it, but in 2E it was a skill. Any takers on what works better you think?

...You know, I wonder if I had just never looked at Languages after 3e came out or something, because I'd have sworn it was one language per rank in the advantage. The double-per-rank is certainly much more palatable. 32 languages known might not technically be the same value as "I speak all languages ever", but in play it's probably going to be equivalent for most practical purposes. I'm not sure it wouldn't hurt to have a lower initial investment required to learn just a few languages, but honestly the cost is minor enough that it's not really a huge issue.


Though on the note of performances, as it stands currently it's already a trained skill universally due to it being folded under expertise, and one that doesn't even have attention called to it. Though perhaps my earlier suggested split is unnecessary; M&M3E already takes a broad-strokes approach with expertise (though perhaps a wee too broad), perhaps then we should with perform as well.

It is worth noting that the Trained Only distinction doesn't hurt verisimilitude too bad since low DCs can be exceptions at GM discretion. You don't literally need Expertise (Music) to sing; basic carrying a tune and stuff is probably going to be DC 10 and usable untrained. Singing professionally would probably be fair to called Trained Only though.

That said, the big problem with performance skills is that they cost the same as other skills without providing anywhere close to the utility, if they're standing alone or even being treated as Expertise skills (to be fair, the vast majority of Expertise skills have this problem). They are amazing fluff, but at the end of the day, they are expensive fluff on their own, especially if you want several of them. Whether Performance or Expertise, if being able to sing, dance, and play the guitar well costs 15 PP, it's going to be really hard for a player to fit that into their budget.

Maybe some sort of advantage letting you perform using an interaction skill? Then at least it's tied to something more useful.


True enough, though a GM who gives every opponent fearless is not only failing their players mechanically, but also undercutting immersion by leaving out one of the most basic instincts living creatures have.

It's not so much about every opponent being fearless as about it being annoying to invest five to ten points in a skill knowing that a single PP makes the whole thing useless.


My read from the book suggests it's supposed to, not sure if it's just GM's not fully realizing that or what.

As I understand it you roll Perception to passively notice or actively scan for things, but Investigation to conduct a thorough search (although usually at lower DCs, I believe?) I could be misinterpreting. I believe the logic is you would still use Perception to actively look for stuff in immediate sensory range but Investigation would be more rooting through possible hiding places and "knowing where to look" and such. Which isn't unfair, it just kinda comes out a bit weird.


I don't think I'd go as far as arbitrary penalties. In lower (and some mid) power games poison and disease can cause great drama and even in higher power games the threat they pose to others around the main characters could still be a source of conflict. Besides it might be a nice change to see a skill have an advantage over a power in contrast to some of the prior skills in this list.

I agree it's odd though, on paper it seems useful but in practice I haven't seen it used much. Perhaps rather than any outright changes this skill merits more study and observation on the GM's part.

What I mean is, if I'm playing a fire controller, or a mind controller, or a telekinetic, there are certain specific options for becoming immune to, or removing the effects of, my powers. Which are the same for almost all other powers of the same type.

If I'm a poison controller, Treatment has special options for removing my Afflictions. Depending on whether the GM actually buys into the idea that an appropriate selection of descriptors for Restorative is something less than "all of them", it may mean that I'm one of the few types of characters that Restorative works on at all. Someone can become completely immune to my powers for 1 PP rather than 10 (and in fact may pick up immunity to my powers as an afterthought by snagging Life Support). Disease suffers the same. And a Fear controller comes close with Fearless.

Again, not every enemy will have these things, and of course the GM isn't technically restricted by PP limits so it can be argued that it won't actually matter in play because if the GM wants to make an enemy immune to your powers it can. But it kinda sucks that there are hard mechanical penalties for choosing those specific descriptors that simply do not exist for any other choice of descriptor. Again, a balance issue caused by M&M not going far enough with its core design principle.


I had a thought while I was writing the rest of this, what if we integrated vehicles into technology? Technology already has a thing for operating machines, probably not to the same extent as vehicle but why can't we expand it a hair? Thoughts?

This would work fine as well. I put it in Mobility for the mechanical consistency (end of the day they're all about moving better). Putting it in Technology would solve the issue, has good thematic consistence, and may actually even help streamline those characters (an expert driver may not really care about also having personal physical prowess, but will often want Technology to work on, secure, and repair its vehicle).


I've long thought Vehicles was too broad for one skill. I should be able to have a character who's Speed Racer without having to also be Blackhawk. (Can Speed Racer fly a plane? I don't remember. And anyway, it doesn't matter, the point remains.) I'm not sure how to do that without reducing the value to below the cost, though.

Vehicles (Limited [Ground Vehicles Only]) would get you where you want to be. Broad is good in my opinion. Broad lets the generalists get what they need and the specialists can use Complications, Quirks, and Limits (depending on how significant a restriction it is) to narrow things down if they want to.

Nintendogeek01
2018-06-29, 08:48 AM
Got sidetracked yesterday but I meant to post something I wanted to discuss one more time before we hit advantages. How could we make performance worthwhile? Or failing that is there something we could add that's tied to presence?

Quellian-dyrae
2018-06-29, 11:45 PM
Here's my thoughts for a more useful Performance skill, although it might make somewhat more sense to have there be a divide where Performance focuses mainly on "positive" emotion and let Intimidation also do Incite but for "negative" emotion (with perhaps some overlap, since like I could see Intimidation inspiring like hope and such by virtue of the scary dude being on your side, and likewise there's obviously things like sad songs and the like). But if you're sticking with baseline Intimidation then just making general emotion-influence a function of Performance works.

Also I tend to go for more mechanical definition being better, but some of these options can easily be shifted to advantages or just kinda glossed over. I'd say the key ones are Arts, Expertise, Impress, and Incite. And if you prefer treating things as individual skills rather than using a more array-like system for specialties, you'd probably want to replace Arts with a more Expertise-like individual Performance skills (though, again, you'd hit the situation where buying multiple individual specialties would be giving you way less benefit than just buying one in most cases).

Performance [PRE] (Interaction)

Performance is, at the end of the day, the skill of appealing to the senses and inspiring emotions in others. Whether through an amazing display of powers or skill, a stirring heroic speech or poignant villainous monologue, song and dance, painting and sculpture, even cooking and gardening, you use the Performance skill to impress and potentially even influence others with your art.

By default, characters can use Performance to perform particularly impressive displays of their other capabilities. This has no impact on the practical use of those abilities, only on their artistic merit. For example, a skilled swordsman could use Performance to put on a fanciful display of fighting moves, although they would likely be impractical in a real fight. Likewise, a fire controller could use Performance to create impressive, controlled displays of fire. A skilled scientist can convey its knowledge just fine with Expertise alone, but would use Performance to convey it in an entertaining (and thus hopefully more memorable) manner. Likewise, while Performance wouldn't help an architect create a functional building, it would allow it to create more aesthetically pleasing and impressive structures. And so on.

In addition to the specific effect you choose when creating art, your Performance check determines how appealing, entertaining, or otherwise impressive your artwork is. As a rule of thumb, DC 10 is passable - not embarrassing, but not particularly impressive. Think fast food, or a heat-and-serve meal. DC 15 is a solid, professionally-competent performance; something like a good home-cooked meal or a meal at a typical restaurant. DC 20 is distinctly impressive and likely memorable, maybe like a holiday dinner or a meal at a fancy restaurant, and good enough to attract attention or put someone's name on the map, especially if they can perform at this level routinely. DC 25 is extremely impressive, the sort of meal you'd get from a master chef or luxurious restaurant or resort, and the sort of performance that can make a person famous, especially if you're capable of performing at that level reliably. DC 30 is knock-your-socks-off amazing, a world-class performance and the sort of thing that even A-list celebrities might not be able to pull off regularly.

Arts: The Performance skill covers a potentially broad range of artistic capability, and not every character is proficient in every form of art. A character who is not proficient in a certain form of art treats its Performance bonus as +0 when performing that sort of art. At GM discretion, the limits for Trained Only skills may apply to certain forms of art, or certain advanced compositions. An untrained person can sing, dance, or cook untrained, but probably can't manage a really complex dance or advanced recipe, and probably couldn't manage even simple instrumental melodies without deliberate prior instruction and practice.

By default, a character is proficient in "artistically" using any skill that it has at least a +5 bonus in, or any power that it possesses. Characters also receive one additional art per two ranks in Performance. An art can be spent to gain artistic proficiency in a skill or other capability it doesn't have practical use of, or in a purely artistic field. Alternately, an art can be spent to specialize in an existing artistic proficiency, providing a +1 circumstance bonus per additional art spent (to a maximum of +5) on Impress actions using that form of art. Additional arts can be purchased directly at a rate of 1 PP for 5.

Some arts may not be usable for all forms of Performance actions in all situations. It's hard to, say, convey information with a well-cooked meal, or encourage steady work with a painting.

Convey: Many forms of Performance can be used to convey information, suggestions, even arguments in a more passive way than through direct attempts at social influence. While Performance isn't as well able to directly influence people, its power comes from being a much more insidious form of influence. Performances can teach lessons, inspire actions, even sway opinions, without directly confronting objections. In some cases, the people so swayed will think they came to these realizations on their own!

When performing or creating art, you can attempt to convey information along with it, as suits the art you're creating. Your Performance check can achieve one of the following:

Allude: You convey information subtly, hiding it in plain sight. Those exposed to the Performance who don't know what they're looking for won't notice the information unless they are considering the performance critically. Even then, they must make a Performance check of their own (using the same artistic proficiency) against a DC equal to your Performance check result to recognize the information.

Suggest: You convey lessons and suggestions without exerting direct social pressure. If your Performance check beats DC 20, those exposed to the performance will recognize the lesson or suggestion, but it will come to them organically rather than feeling like you're hitting them over the head with it. This will generally have subtle influences on their behavior, although the influence may be more pronounced with greater degrees of success. It won't usually outright change a person's mind on a subject, but may at least get them to consider alternative viewpoints, or even convince someone who emotionally agrees with the suggestion but has practical reasons not to follow it to do so.

Teach: You convey information in a straightforward, but entertaining manner that makes it more memorable. Your Performance check can be substituted for future checks by those exposed to it to recall the information you conveyed.

Encourage: Your performance encourages action and competence, like a song helping people stay focused on their work. You can use Performance as a sort of Team Check. The advantages of Performance are that it can be used with other types of actions, not just other performances (though you can still do that as a regular Team Check), and that it applies to everyone who is exposed to your performance while taking the assisted action. However, you must perform for the entire time the action is being undertaken, your performance can't be somehow at odds with the action (singing is not going to help your friends sneak through an enemy lair), and the DC to provide a bonus to any given check is 5 + the character's check bonus, rather than a flat DC 10. Finally, bonuses from the Encourage action only apply for purposes of negating degrees of failure past the first, or adding degrees of success beyond the first - they can't turn a failure into a success. Encourage otherwise functions as a normal Team Check, including only stacking degrees of success with other Team Checks.

Entice: Your performance draws attention. People who are even partially exposed to it (such as hearing a snatch of music as they're walking by, or smelling a meal you're cooking) must make a Will or Insight check against a DC equal to your check result. If they have other significant matters to attend to they get a +5 bonus; urgent matters should award at least +10, and possibly as high as +20 if they are especially critical. If they fail, your performance attracts their attention for at least a Time rank equal to the degrees of failure; they'll pause to pay attention, get closer, become absorbed in the performance, etc. They can still act normally, though any Perception or Insight checks they make face an additional DC equal to your Perception or Insight result, but generally have to remain attentive to the performance for the given amount of time. Combat or other nearby dangers automatically breaks even the strongest Entice attempts.

Expertise: Performance can be used as an Expertise skill regarding purely artistic fields. For example, if you have proficiency in painting, you might be able to recognize the works of a specific artist, detect (or create) a forgery, etc.

Impress: You can use performance to impress others, generally making them more positively disposed towards you. For the rest of the scene after conducting a performance, if your check result was higher than 15 + the Will modifier of any given person who was exposed to it, you get a +2 circumstance bonus on all interaction skill checks against that person for the rest of the scene. If you beat this DC by three or more degrees, the bonus becomes +5. This functions effectively as a Team Check bonus, so it will stack degrees with other Team Checks, rather than stacking total bonuses.

Incite: You can use Performance to incite emotions in others. You can Incite as a standard action, or a move action at a -5 penalty. Roll a Performance check. This is usually opposed by the target's Will or Insight check, but the GM can also set a DC appropriate to circumstances. If you succeed, for the rest of the scene, the target feels an emotion of your choice towards a subject of your choice. The target may suppress this emotion, but when doing so it counts as Disabled for all social purposes, and Impaired for all other purposes. Otherwise, the target must act in a manner befitting the emotion, and generally higher degrees of success should result in more pronounced behaviors. You don't actually get to choose how the target might act as a result of this emotion, although you might offer suggestions.

You don't need to actually perform to incite emotions, although you can. When doing so for at least a modest period of time outside of action time (as appropriate to the performance), rather than as a standard or move action, you can affect everybody exposed to the performance rather than a single target. Otherwise, you can just use normal social interaction to incite; your general skill at provoking emotional responses with your performances translates directly to doing so socially.

If your specific approach would realistically provoke a different emotion than you expect (for example, you're trying to cheer up somebody who had a crime committed against a loved one by assuring them you'll catch the person who did it, but unbeknownst to you they're the criminal) you provoke that emotion instead.

Nintendogeek01
2018-07-01, 10:48 AM
Just a heads up, the advantages topic will not be opened this week, I'm taking a sort of vacation and while I won't be cut off from internet I won't be as fully engaged so I'll postpone opening the next discussion; the skills and abilities topics are still absolutely open for continued discussion though. Advantages will be opened after I return.

Nintendogeek01
2018-07-10, 11:36 AM
If anyone's still subscribed I've added the next subject of discussion. Advantages (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?563318-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Week-3-Advantages).

smuchmuch
2018-07-10, 12:55 PM
I completely missed this thread.
I suppose there's not much i can contribute to this thread that’d be considered relevant As I have previously mentioned, I never liked what this edition did to skills.

Part of it is that i party contributed to kill low PL not direct superheroes games (that and 3e felt it really didn't get half s much support and supplement as 2e did, tho that might be because green ronin switched to he pdf only format.). And yes, there used to be a few of those, some pulpish game, some fantasy games, some anime ish games (one of my favorite old m&m game was a fantasy noir investigation game) Oh it’s not the only reason by far, but it contributed, I tink. When powers aren't the main distinguishing factor between character, skills and attribute is what is important.

In 2ed edition, for example, a plane pilot and mechanic who was also a hacker would have the piloting, craft (mechanic) and computer skills while a car racer who is good at fiddling locks would have drive and disable device. Now they both have ‘pilot’ and ‘technology’. A sherlock holmes detective and a smooth talking reporter would have had ‘investigation’ and ‘gather information respectively’, now they both have ‘investigation’.
It's not much but i means skills are not just more expensive, they're just way less plae for them due to overlap happening a lot more easily.

Still superheroes are the main focus of M&M, alway been , I get that and I understand the logic of lowering the number of skills for the intended style of game.
So my only big suggestion so to speak, without touching the number of skills, is just to allow specialisation
For 1 p er rank you can get 4 ran in a skill that are limited to one particular use of the skill
Piloting 12 rank, limited to cars. (prce 3 pp)
Expertise (medecine) 16, 8 ranks limited to neurosurgery (cost 6 pp, 2 pp for the 8 ranks in the more ‘general skill’, 2 pp for the hyper specialised ranks (can’t imagine that’ll come often but hey it's only 2 pp fr great flavor, and who knows a good Dm can find something to do with That I could live with.

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I dislike technology as a skill.
Sorry but I'm decent at using a computer and completely useless at fiddling with a lock. An electronic circuit is no the same as repairing a damn car.
Hell half of the use of technology feel they should be more a matter of dexterity rather then intelligence. (you can have all the brains and knowledge of how a lock or elctronic circuit is made off, if you have no desterty in your finger, you'll make an horrible mess trying to fiddle with them. )

At the very last, I feel hacking and using a computer should be covered under a relevant expertise.

--------------------------------

Not much to say here, though I do wish Investigation were more focused on analyzing and understanding what you find and finding it was left solely to Perception. Mainly because it makes no sense that a character with great senses but no particular investigative ability is less likely to find something when actively searching for it.

Well the thing is, it doesn't bother me all that much. Looking around a crime scene for clues does 't have to just be a question of blindly looking around and go "oh hey, a clue", it's can also be a question of having a method to it.

'Hey there was sign of a struggle and things getting knocked from that table, maybe I should give a second look under the furniture i case something rolled under."
"Uhm, the porch is wet yet everything is dry in the house, the culprit cleaned the floor, maybe I should look for used towels or rags.."
etc.. etc..

There's also the fact of whether you character know how to use forensics or special methods to get some elements that perception wouldn't' cover. (although you could argue that could be an expertise of its own)

There is something else. And that's the "gathering information" ue of investigation (ie through sources and rumours) It used to be its own skill under 2e ed And while I can understand why they felt it didn't stand out enough to be its own skill, it was nice that it was charisma dependent.
That use of the skill should be rolled under negociate or persuasion.

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I have feel that maybe a skill for analysis, decryption and ayb being good at logical planning in general could be a ting.
Some uses for it would be for ‘intelligent’ character a way to provide bonus to certain course of action in the future, sort of how the ‘master plan’ advantage work, the gather information but in a non social, more ‘browsing document’ way that would be covered by investigation. Maye some synergy with certain advantage, ‘master plan’ of course, ‘set up’, other to be made up when we get to advantages.

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One issue Intimidation has is that Fearless kinda wrecks the whole skill for 1 PP. I like expanding Intimidation to be able to provoke any sort of strong emotions - shame people, make them angry, provoke their hatred, inspire them, seduce them, etc.

To be fair, I feel the problemis no so much with intimidatin than he cost of fearless here. It's kind of like immunity to poison being only 1 pp, i's really ridcuously chea whn you think to all it protects you from.

The 'warrior and warlock' book from 2n ed offered a dowgraded version of fearless called 'lonhearted' for more 'mundane' games that only gave you +4 to resist fear and felt a lot more apropriate for the cost, really.
I feel fearles should be a ranked advantage from one rank to three with only he third one mqking you compelty immune to fear, as if you add bough an mmnity to a secific yet farly common meotional effct really, i think 3 pp is aout right for it) (but that dicusio should be more when we'll talk of advantage)

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like 'entice, convey' and 'impress' as presence based skils. I don't think art is all that necesary, that feel like something that fall under expertise.

JoeJ
2018-07-10, 03:42 PM
I dislike technology as a skill.
Sorry but I'm decent at using a computer and completely useless at fiddling with a lock. An electronic circuit is no the same as repairing a damn car.
Hell half of the use of technology feel they should be more a matter of dexterity rather then intelligence. (you can have all the brains and knowledge of how a lock or elctronic circuit is made off, if you have no desterty in your finger, you'll make an horrible mess trying to fiddle with them. )

At the very last, I feel hacking and using a computer should be covered under a relevant expertise.

In the comics, tech characters are not like you and me. They're people like Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne, who are good at everything technological.

Nintendogeek01
2018-07-10, 03:47 PM
...Still superheroes are the main focus of M&M, alway been , I get that and I understand the logic of lowering the number of skills for the intended style of game.
So my only big suggestion so to speak, without touching the number of skills, is just to allow specialisation
For 1 p er rank you can get 4 ran in a skill that are limited to one particular use of the skill
Piloting 12 rank, limited to cars. (prce 3 pp)
Expertise (medecine) 16, 8 ranks limited to neurosurgery (cost 6 pp, 2 pp for the 8 ranks in the more ‘general skill’, 2 pp for the hyper specialised ranks (can’t imagine that’ll come often but hey it's only 2 pp fr great flavor, and who knows a good Dm can find something to do with That I could live with.
Actually I do recall seeing an officially published character in 3rd ed. (can't remember which one sadly) who did that by taking enhanced skill with a limit. It's probably one of the few instances I'd personally be A-okay with people taking the enhanced skill power.

... unless it gets put into an array. Then me and the wise-guy who pulls that off are going to have some problems...

But my point is, there is a way to do it, though the core rulebook hasn't really called attention to it.