[DF] Maximum Skill Levels?

[Gnome]

Originally Posted by Kromm

One of the most fundamental principles in GURPS is that all rules are general and apply everywhere, even when implied rather than express; e.g., the fact that traits on racial and character templates "stack." Another is that special cases always trump general rules; e.g., the fact that specific racial and character templates can override the general limits on secondary characteristics. This thinking applies to design principles as well as rules; for instance, GURPS is by design reality-checked and balanced, but DF is explicitly a power fantasy, and grants permission to stack up unrealistic, unbalanced bonuses and levels of ability.

I agree with all of that. However, Magery 3 for an elf is a power-up, and the power-up doesn't say you can buy "an additional 3 levels of Magery," it says you can buy "Magery up to 3." I just thought it could have been more clear.

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by Gnome

I agree with all of that. However, Magery 3 for an elf is a power-up, and the power-up doesn't say you can buy "an additional 3 levels of Magery," it says you can buy "Magery up to 3." I just thought it could have been more clear.

I really didn't catch this. I'm not sure I would allow it in my games. It makes any kind of elf so much of a magical powerhouse as to render other casters obsolete. On all other ocasions where multiple traits can give a bonus to power-related abilities (such as with Bardic Talent, Bardic Magery and Bard-Song Talent; or Holyness and Power investiture, etc etc) the cap is at 6 levels combined. From my PoV, this allows the elf to dabble in wizardry without needing to be a wizard.

As for caps on the skills, I feel that not having caps greatly devaluates weapons enchanted to provide bonuses to hit or parry. Remember, even capped to stat+10, a knight or swashbuckler could have DX 20, a Grace 5 amulet, and an accuracy +3 Balanced weapon bonded weapon, for a total skill of 40. If he had access to a racial talent that gave bonuses to weapon skills, such as pickaxe penchant for dwarves, he could get an extra +4, and any racial atttribute bonuses are on top of this. He could also dip into Cleric or Holy Warrior, and get Blessed (Heroic Feats) for a cheap +1d to DX, and if he started a Holy or Unholy warrior, he could get up to +2d to ST, DX and HT, so a Dwarven Holy Warrior/Knight could eventually have axe/mace skill 56 (DX 20+Pickaxe Penchant 4+Blessed (Heroic Feats) giving +12 DX+Grace 5+Balanced+skill at DX+10+Weapon Bond+balanced+Accurace 3). It's just not a question of simply tossing points into the skill. You have to work for it. Oh, and I haven't included consumable bonuses like potions, that you can stack on top of that.

Casters can't benefit from Wisdom to raise their spell levels. In fact, bonus hunting for them is rather harder. They're limited to stat+talent (counting Magery/Power Investiture/etc as talents)+points in skills. Items don't usually give bonuses to spells. Energy is too capped. If you read the templates strictly, the best a human wizard could get would be 90 (HT 20+10 extra FP+ER 20+Power Item 40) before he needs to start chugging paut, and while DF Paut isn't restricted to HT points per day, as per Thaumatology, it can't be used before casting, for some extra juse. You can also burn HP for the spell, and at that level, an extra 10 points for a round 100 energy isn't out of question.

Again, I aim to replicate the feeling of old school dungeoncrawling, and in the old school days, semi-arbitrary caps were found everywhere, and that led to the search for the items that "gave the most pluses". That's what I want to emphasize. Oh, and Greater Wish spells can give bonuses that put you over the caps. It's just a question of carefully looking for pluses.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by Kromm

For combat skills, it's easy to rack up -20 or worse; e.g., stabbing the SM -2 (-2) Death Worm in the eye (-9), the only place where it's vulnerable, whilst wriggling prone (-4) through its tunnel in almost complete darkness (-9).

Yeah, I get this. But a different angle on this reasoning is that providing extreme situations for the players is not always easy for the GM, and it leads to increasingly extreme situations that can be harder and harder to beat in the next adventure design, or at least harder to portray them in innovative, stimulating ways. Additionally, providing skill-based challenges for very high uncapped skill levels can encourage the development of very exaggerated situations too often.

One of my points here is that while of course I like epic challenges, I like to keep a degree of soberness in the game too :) —even if it's GURPS Dungeon Fantasy.

Originally Posted by Kromm

(. . .) Whereas weapon skill bonuses are very hard to come by from equipment, meaning that they just about have to be innate.

Actually I don't understand very much why did you say this, since there is a lot of skill bonuses coming by way of magical items like ornaments, epic weapons, attribute raising potions, spells, etc. So I agree with Kuroshima's point:

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

As for caps on the skills, I feel that not having caps greatly devaluates weapons enchanted to provide bonuses to hit or parry. Remember, even capped to stat+10, a knight or swashbuckler could have DX 20, a Grace 5 amulet, and an accuracy +3 Balanced weapon bonded weapon, for a total skill of 40 (. . .)

And not fostering at all rounded character development by fostering instead the investing of tons of points into a very small set of uncapped skills —or even a single one— is also another concern for me, already raised in earlier posts.

Just my view on the subject.

[Rupert]

It seems to me that, even allowing for the Rule of 20, DF characters with DX20 or IQ20, which rules capping a skill at Stat+X will encourage (in order to maximise their primary skills) will be very 'well-rounded' off defaults. In fact, quite likely more well-rounded than one might want, especially once they throw a single point in each skill they almost-care-about, leaving them with many points with which to further break their characters.

Frankly, I'd prefer to deal with characters with 1-3 very high skills than the total polymaths with broken bits putting those points into stats will tend to bring (and with my players, that's where those points would go, once one of them did the maths).

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by Rupert

It seems to me that, even allowing for the Rule of 20, DF characters with DX20 or IQ20, which rules capping a skill at Stat+X will encourage (in order to maximise their primary skills) will be very 'well-rounded' off defaults. In fact, quite likely more well-rounded than one might want, especially once they throw a single point in each skill they almost-care-about, leaving them with many points with which to further break their characters.

Frankly, I'd prefer to deal with characters with 1-3 very high skills than the total polymaths with broken bits putting those points into stats will tend to bring (and with my players, that's where those points would go, once one of them did the maths).

In my game, at the moment, the standard penalty for most things is around -10 to -15. We're playing 500 point DF. No matter how good, no default is going to survive that. Just FYI, the next boss my players are going to face is the Orichalcum Dragon from the Epic Magic issue, with it's stats converted to standard scale (so ST/HP 300, DR 120), and I fear that it's going to be way too easy, and I might have to make it slighly harder.

[Kromm]

Re: extra Magery

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

I really didn't catch this. I'm not sure I would allow it in my games. It makes any kind of elf so much of a magical powerhouse as to render other casters obsolete.

That doesn't jibe with my long GURPS experience. The most powerful, obsolescence-inducing casters through four editions have been, without exception, those with the most energy. The highest-skill wizard isn't the problem wizard . . . that person has always been the one with lots of Extra Fatigue, big Powerstones, or a deep Energy Reserve (depending on the edition and genre treatment). No standard spell needs more than Magery 3, so going to Magery 6 or Magery 9 changes little. Fourth Edition and my house rules for years both let higher Magery give bigger Missile spells, but I've never seen a PC cast a Missile spell, only "save or die" magic such as Entombment and Flesh to Stone, where what matters is (1) having enough FP and (2) overcoming resistance. Due to the Rule of 16, +3 to skill doesn't affect (2) much at all.

Whereas I would agree with your argument if elves could get a racial Energy Reserve 20 or FP +10. That would make much more of a difference in actual effectiveness, as wizards are played in GURPS.

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

I feel that not having caps greatly devaluates weapons enchanted to provide bonuses to hit or parry.

A basic assumption in DF is that the stuff is supposed to track the people, not vice versa. If you're giving out +1 swords to starting-level 250-point PCs with skill 16-20, the game assumes you'll be giving out +6 swords to experienced 500-point PCs with skill 22-26. And then setting challenges that need effective skill 28-32. The premise is that an arms race is part of the genre.

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Remember, even capped to stat+10, a knight or swashbuckler could have DX 20, a Grace 5 amulet, and an accuracy +3 Balanced weapon bonded weapon, for a total skill of 40.

Ah, okay – you're using the enchantments in Magic. Those limit you a lot. I'm not assuming those at all. You'll note that DF pointedly avoids allowing PC enchantment, and has books like DF 6, where magic items just work like they work. I'll state it plainly: Beyond being a source of spells, Magic is a terrible resource for DF. The items are inadequate, just to begin with, and the assumed Powerstone economy doesn't work. I'm mostly ignoring it in the DF books I write!

You're also putting most of the eggs in the "gear" basket, which is again fair but not what DF is assuming. Casters with, say, FP 24 and ER 20 don't especially need gear; they're dangerous without it. Martial artists, mentalists, and other power-users are in the same boat. Warriors are in a sense already a bit nerfed by having minimal utility abilities next to these other types. In essence, warriors fight and that's it. Nerfing them more by having their main source of effectiveness being gear, not innate ability, is a valid play style, but not the one DF assumes by default. By default, a swashbuckler (for instance) is meant to be deadly with any old rapier or shishkebab skewer he picks up.

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Again, I aim to replicate the feeling of old school dungeoncrawling, and in the old school days, semi-arbitrary caps were found everywhere, and that led to the search for the items that "gave the most pluses". That's what I want to emphasize.

Sure. But please remember what high skill corresponds to for warriors in old-school dungeon-crawling: level. The ability to hit monsters tracks level and doesn't stop improving, ever. When nth-level wizards have mth-level spells with their damage cap set at n dice, say, nth-level warriors are supposed to have their ability to hit targets track n, completely independent of gear. What you're proposing sounds like a level cap for warriors but nothing similar for casters, which seems unfair to me.

Originally Posted by demonsbane

Yeah, I get this. But a different angle on this reasoning is that providing extreme situations for the players is not always easy for the GM

Well, I did write DF 2 to help with that . . .

Originally Posted by demonsbane

Additionally, providing skill-based challenges for very high uncapped skill levels can encourage the development of very exaggerated situations too often.

I like to keep a degree of soberness in the game too :)

And not fostering at all rounded character development by fostering instead the investing of tons of points into a very small set of uncapped skills —or even a single one— is also another concern for me, already raised in earlier posts.

These points all speak to a valid play style. However, I'm writing to weigh in as the designer, so that people will know the thinking behind the templates, lenses, and power-ups; artifacts and monsters; and rules for task resolution. Those assumptions do include "it's a power fantasy," "delvers are emphatic stereotypes," and "I'm not using Magic – I'm faking it." It's fine for an individual GM to cap capability, but this may lead to player grumpiness when they peruse various publications – or if they're expecting an old-school game without level caps, and with warriors and wizards keeping pace in hit-stuff, kill-stuff potential.

Originally Posted by demonsbane

Actually I don't understand very much why did you say this, since there is a lot of skill bonuses coming by way of magical items like ornaments, epic weapons, attribute raising potions, spells, etc.

Mostly it's just that anybody can benefit from that stuff. Wizards are not forbidden from receiving all of those bonuses, so relative to warriors, the only difference that really matters is whatever skill gap existed before stacking up all the bonuses. Warriors, by contrast, cannot use all this cool gear to start casting spells. Indeed, the gear actually aids casters more from that viewpoint, as they can declare an expensive weapon their power item and get better at fighting and casting.

Originally Posted by Rupert

It seems to me that, even allowing for the Rule of 20, DF characters with DX20 or IQ20, which rules capping a skill at Stat+X will encourage (in order to maximise their primary skills) will be very 'well-rounded' off defaults.

That is indeed what happens. My experience with GURPS goes back to 1986, and crosses all four editions. I learned that whatever attribute and skill pricing I used, there was no point in capping a skill at attribute+x if I didn't also cap attributes at 10+x/2 or so. In practice, someone with DX 15, told that he can at most have skill 25, will immediately work out ways to get to DX 20 so that he can have skill 30. And that's broken in all kinds of ways.

An alternative is to limit absolute skill level, but that's innately silly. Telling both a DX 12 wizard and DX 16 swashbuckler that they're limited to skill 20 or 25 leads to the illogical conclusion that the dedicated warrior can have less relative skill at fighting than the dedicated caster. That's also out of whack with old-school dungeon-crawling, where a wizard is always less capable at fighting than a warrior. When the wizard reaches DX+5, you'd really expect the warrior to be at DX+10 or more, but that doesn't work if they're both limited to some absolute cap.

Fundamentally, uncapping combat skill levels extends niche protection to warriors. If there's a hard cap – on relative or absolute level – then sooner or later, given enough points, everybody who gets in a fight will attain that level. Gear bonuses are a red herring, because everybody can use and benefit from gear; indeed, casters get more out of gear, because it gives them "adequate" skill without investing points, and a nice power item to boot. Magic bonuses are likewise a red herring, because everybody can benefit from those as well, and casters can cast on themselves whenever they like, including on the turn after the party is hit by a big debuff, or when the warrior is 20 hexes away having a fight, and thus at -20 to cast on. If there's no combat skill cap, though, then casters will eventually stop spending points here because they can get what they need from gear and magic, while warriors who can't count on buffs and always having their stuff will continue to improve.

—

One last time, please note that I am not trying to be confrontational! I'm simply trying to give an answer that agrees with what DF actually assumes and is doing, so that those who aren't, say, Kuroshima or demonsbane won't be blindsided by the contents of current or future works. I can almost promise that sooner or later, some adventure or monster will assume a PC with skill 30 or 40, and that some power-up will give casters hundreds of energy points. DF doesn't assume a "level cap."

Along the way, I'm trying to share 25 years of GURPS experience, which includes these observations: (1) skill caps lead to attribute inflation, (2) casters with energy are scarier than casters with skill, and (3) gear often detracts from niche protection but rarely promotes it. Typically, you're better off letting fighters get an early lead on combat skill and widen it as fast as they can. In the long run, it will leave them more of a role in the campaign. Otherwise, they'll either broaden so much that they push skill-based "utility" characters like rogues out of a niche, or they'll end up without a distinctive niche at all. Really, their niche is defined as "ridiculously good at hitting targets, buffs and gear being equal."

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Re: extra Magery

That doesn't jibe with my long GURPS experience. The most powerful, obsolescence-inducing casters through four editions have been, without exception, those with the most energy. The highest-skill wizard isn't the problem wizard . . . that person has always been the one with lots of Extra Fatigue, big Powerstones, or a deep Energy Reserve (depending on the edition and genre treatment). No standard spell needs more than Magery 3, so going to Magery 6 or Magery 9 changes little. Fourth Edition and my house rules for years both let higher Magery give bigger Missile spells, but I've never seen a PC cast a Missile spell, only "save or die" magic such as Entombment and Flesh to Stone, where what matters is (1) having enough FP and (2) overcoming resistance. Due to the Rule of 16, +3 to skill doesn't affect (2) much at all.

Thing is, the elf will have more energy for equal skill, because it will save 30 points by buying Magery +3 [30] instead of IQ+3 [60] leading to +10 ER. He will get reduced IQ skills, but he has a high enough IQ that this won't be as significant.

As for the skill, well, many spells are limited by having multi-second casting times. Great Haste suddenly looks much nicer when you can cast it in one second, at skill 25! Flesh to Stone becomes castable in a second at skill 20! More importantly, Dispell Magic on a 1 hex area becomes a 1s cast at skill 25! One other thing to remember is that huge skill also allows for bigger spells to be maintained at no cost: Shield spell is the first thing that casters in my game cast each morning, at a level they can maintain for no cost, often on the whole party. Finally, huge skill allows for more spells to be maintained at once, by soaking penalties for multiple spells one, and GURPS Magic excells at acting as a force multiplier instead of a main tool, so in my experience these are the worst offenders. Mind you, skill 25 also allows Delay to be maintained at no cost, and so having huge spells available is just a matter of casting Delay each morning, coupled with your biggest baddest spell. You've got the skill to soak the -2 penalty for two spells on. Hell, you've got the skill to have multiple such effects.

Mind you, I agree that missile spells are not to be used in DF, and that's something that saddens me a lot, because few spells are as iconic as the Fireball. Damage dealing magic just doesn't work in DF. You're much better off with spells that take an opponent out of the fight on a failed resistance roll (from now on, 'Save-or-Die spells')

Whereas I would agree with your argument if elves could get a racial Energy Reserve 20 or FP +10. That would make much more of a difference in actual effectiveness, as wizards are played in GURPS.

Point wise, +3 IQ is worth the same as +3 Magery and +10 ER. If you're proposing that the caps should be relaxed, then you should also consider this.

A basic assumption in DF is that the stuff is supposed to track the people, not vice versa. If you're giving out +1 swords to starting-level 250-point PCs with skill 16-20, the game assumes you'll be giving out +6 swords to experienced 500-point PCs with skill 22-26. And then setting challenges that need effective skill 28-32. The premise is that an arms race is part of the genre.

In fact, in my game, characters aren't investing in magical weaponry at all, right now, and what I put in their way is usually of the wrong type, to see if they decide to switch weapon skills (and they are not). If they find a +3 to hit/+3 to damage polearm, for example, they're selling it, not learning the polearm skill. Why? because +3 to hit isn't much when the difference between their current weapon skill level and the new skill level is 20+ points, and +3 to damage isn't significant, when they have per die bonuses that double that from Weapon Master. Hell, I'm pretty sure they will take a Tempered Glass blade before a +3 to damage blade.

Ah, okay – you're using the enchantments in Magic. Those limit you a lot. I'm not assuming those at all. You'll note that DF pointedly avoids allowing PC enchantment, and has books like DF 6, where magic items just work like they work. I'll state it plainly: Beyond being a source of spells, Magic is a terrible resource for DF. The items are inadequate, just to begin with, and the assumed Powerstone economy doesn't work. I'm mostly ignoring it in the DF books I write!

I know the issues with Magic. Hell, I'm using DF8, not Magic directly. I agree that GURPS Magic isn't a good fit for DF, and that's part of my desire for writitng alternatives (The Mystic Knight was an alternate take on the warrior-wizard, and the Saint will be an alternate take on the Cleric. See how both ditch the actual spellcasting part, at leas as far as GURPS magic treats spellcasting?).

Mind you, what my players are investing heavily is in armor. Enchanted dragonhide leather (made from the corpse of a slain dragon) is quite popular in fact. Hell, the dragonhide part is more popular than the enchanted part. The most desired enchantment is Lighten, due to the fact that it allows them to carry more gear!

BTW, the fnords will go away tomorrow, if I remember to edit them for those that are not in the know. I assume that Kromm is in the know though.

You're also putting most of the eggs in the "gear" basket, which is again fair but not what DF is assuming. Casters with, say, FP 24 and ER 20 don't especially need gear; they're dangerous without it. Martial artists, mentalists, and other power-users are in the same boat. Warriors are in a sense already a bit nerfed by having minimal utility abilities next to these other types. In essence, warriors fight and that's it. Nerfing them more by having their main source of effectiveness being gear, not innate ability, is a valid play style, but not the one DF assumes by default. By default, a swashbuckler (for instance) is meant to be deadly with any old rapier or shishkebab skewer he picks up.

And he will be, at attribute+10. I might be misremembering, but most of the power of the in old school games was related to the fact that high level characters glowed like christmass trees under a detect magic spell (by having a magic item in every slot). They were deadly without their toys, but only as compared to mere mortals (read level 0 commoners).

Reached post length limit, will continue in the next post.

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Sure. But please remember what high skill corresponds to for warriors in old-school dungeon-crawling: level. The ability to hit monsters tracks level and doesn't stop improving, ever. When nth-level wizards have mth-level spells with their damage cap set at n dice, say, nth-level warriors are supposed to have their ability to hit targets track n, completely independent of gear. What you're proposing sounds like a level cap for warriors but nothing similar for casters, which seems unfair to me.

Well, this has got me thinking. I never told them that it was impossible to get higher skill. I told them it was impossible to get training over attribute+10. Now that they're breaching 500 points, I guess that it's time I start planting rummors on legendary teachers that can, at a huge expense, offer training above stat+10. Hell, things changing at certain level thesholds is perfectly in genre.

These points all speak to a valid play style. However, I'm writing to weigh in as the designer, so that people will know the thinking behind the templates, lenses, and power-ups; artifacts and monsters; and rules for task resolution. Those assumptions do include "it's a power fantasy," "delvers are emphatic stereotypes," and "I'm not using Magic – I'm faking it." It's fine for an individual GM to cap capability, but this may lead to player grumpiness when they peruse various publications – or if they're expecting an old-school game without level caps, and with warriors and wizards keeping pace in hit-stuff, kill-stuff potential.

No issues here. If anything, I think that you should have eschewed magic altogether, as Jason did with Monster Hunters, but I understand that it made things both easier to write, and easier to get approved. I think that Dungeon Fantasy paved the way for Monster Hunters, and that it would not have been possible to have a fully custom magic system in DF1, as it was, in a way, a forray into terra ignota, a product unlike anything published prior to it, in GURPS land, and something that might succeed or tank, and that while you were betting on success, you were far from sure on getting it.

Mostly it's just that anybody can benefit from that stuff. Wizards are not forbidden from receiving all of those bonuses, so relative to warriors, the only difference that really matters is whatever skill gap existed before stacking up all the bonuses. Warriors, by contrast, cannot use all this cool gear to start casting spells. Indeed, the gear actually aids casters more from that viewpoint, as they can declare an expensive weapon their power item and get better at fighting and casting.

Technically, in true Munchkin tradition, in my games, the items go to the delvers that benefit the most from them, and then those delvers get their shares reduced correspondly, often having to ask for a loan for their training fees and cost of living once they get back to town. Completelly player arbitrated BTW.

That is indeed what happens. My experience with GURPS goes back to 1986, and crosses all four editions. I learned that whatever attribute and skill pricing I used, there was no point in capping a skill at attribute+x if I didn't also cap attributes at 10+x/2 or so. In practice, someone with DX 15, told that he can at most have skill 25, will immediately work out ways to get to DX 20 so that he can have skill 30. And that's broken in all kinds of ways.

An alternative is to limit absolute skill level, but that's innately silly. Telling both a DX 12 wizard and DX 16 swashbuckler that they're limited to skill 20 or 25 leads to the illogical conclusion that the dedicated warrior can have less relative skill at fighting than the dedicated caster. That's also out of whack with old-school dungeon-crawling, where a wizard is always less capable at fighting than a warrior. When the wizard reaches DX+5, you'd really expect the warrior to be at DX+10 or more, but that doesn't work if they're both limited to some absolute cap.

I see your point. I also find that putting caps (even if they're soft caps that just need some extra effort to overcome) helps making races matter. After all, races in GURPS usually matter very little, as you're usually getting the same as if you purchased the traits yourself, with maybe, at best, some extra disadvantages that don't count against the campaign limit. With the caps, the +1 DX from the race ends up being much more important!

Oh, and FYI, in my games, the character with the highest weapon skill and the highest DX is the swashbuckler catgirl, with DX 16 and Rapier 26. If you disregard the racial DX bonus, it means that she has stat at 10+x/2, and skill at stat+x... No caster has a weapon skill at stat+5 either (they have stat+4, and loads of ways to get defensive bonuses)

Fundamentally, uncapping combat skill levels extends niche protection to warriors. If there's a hard cap – on relative or absolute level – then sooner or later, given enough points, everybody who gets in a fight will attain that level. Gear bonuses are a red herring, because everybody can use and benefit from gear; indeed, casters get more out of gear, because it gives them "adequate" skill without investing points, and a nice power item to boot. Magic bonuses are likewise a red herring, because everybody can benefit from those as well, and casters can cast on themselves whenever they like, including on the turn after the party is hit by a big debuff, or when the warrior is 20 hexes away having a fight, and thus at -20 to cast on. If there's no combat skill cap, though, then casters will eventually stop spending points here because they can get what they need from gear and magic, while warriors who can't count on buffs and always having their stuff will continue to improve.

Personally, I feel that casters are slightly underpowered when compared to melee, at least as far as my player's builds, and so, any changes that made the playing field more even are ok in my book. I feel confident that I can change things back, with no hard feelings, if the opposite situation ever happens.

One last time, please note that I am not trying to be confrontational! I'm simply trying to give an answer that agrees with what DF actually assumes and is doing, so that those who aren't, say, Kuroshima or demonsbane won't be blindsided by the contents of current or future works. I can almost promise that sooner or later, some adventure or monster will assume a PC with skill 30 or 40, and that some power-up will give casters hundreds of energy points. DF doesn't assume a "level cap."

Along the way, I'm trying to share 25 years of GURPS experience, which includes these observations: (1) skill caps lead to attribute inflation, (2) casters with energy are scarier than casters with skill, and (3) gear often detracts from niche protection but rarely promotes it. Typically, you're better off letting fighters get an early lead on combat skill and widen it as fast as they can. In the long run, it will leave them more of a role in the campaign. Otherwise, they'll either broaden so much that they push skill-based "utility" characters like rogues out of a niche, or they'll end up without a distinctive niche at all. Really, their niche is defined as "ridiculously good at hitting targets, buffs and gear being equal."

Dear Kromm, I hope you don't consider that I'm being confrontational either. In fact, it's a very constructive conversation for me, one that we could have had over private email, but that I feel works better in the open. Should you want me to simply drop the topic, or move it to private channels, just tell me.

Oh, and did you like the [FNORD]?

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

In my game, at the moment, the standard penalty for most things is around -10 to -15. We're playing 500 point DF. No matter how good, no default is going to survive that. Just FYI, the next boss my players are going to face is the Orichalcum Dragon from the Epic Magic issue, with it's stats converted to standard scale (so ST/HP 300, DR 120), and I fear that it's going to be way too easy, and I might have to make it slighly harder.

If you're running a game where the players routinely run into -15 penalties, even Weapon-40 starts to look a bit underwhelming, and that's DX20, skill DX+10 (the cap people seem to be talking about), and +10 from gear, Bond, & etc. Weapon-40 - 15 = 25 effective skill, and -9/-10 for eyes or chinks is already in the 'reduced crit chance' range. That's just not very flash.

I expect a real weapon master to be able to stab someone in the eye when that person is behind them, in total darkness (so only located by sound), while on bad footing and in a storm. The issue here for the weapon master should be hearing the guy come up behind him, and possibly the cap on wild swings if he can't find a way round it, not being able to land an awesome hit.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Thing is, the elf will have more energy for equal skill, because it will save 30 points by buying Magery +3 [30] instead of IQ+3 [60] leading to +10 ER. He will get reduced IQ skills, but he has a high enough IQ that this won't be as significant.

IF you're throwing round -10 to -15 penalties, why will it not matter? Also, as I recall there are caps on ER (I could be wrong, of course), in which case this is only relevant at point range where the human mage can't yet afford that 10 ER.