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Old 03-31-2017, 06:21 PM   #31
Prince Charon
 
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Default Re: New Technique family of the week: Focussed

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
Needs to be fairly strongly limited to avoid being an Optional Specialization instead.
Is 'Pizza' too wide an application for this technique?
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Old 03-31-2017, 06:34 PM   #32
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Default Re: New Technique family of the week: Focussed

Quote:
Originally Posted by Prince Charon View Post
Is 'Pizza' too wide an application for this technique?
Not sure. Optional specialization examples are:
Quote:
baking, beverage
making, or a particular variety
of ethnic cuisine (e.g., Chinese or
Martian)
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Old 04-01-2017, 01:12 AM   #33
johndallman
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Default Re: New Technique family of the week: Focussed

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Originally Posted by Prince Charon View Post
Is 'Pizza' too wide an application for this technique?
Just Pizza would be fine, IMHO. One of the uses of this technique is for the fast-food cook who's actually good at the stuff they prepare a lot, but only that.
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Old 06-11-2017, 09:05 AM   #34
johndallman
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Default Re: New Technique family of the week: Focussed

Here are some more draft Focussed techniques. All of them are Average, with a default equal to their prerequisite skill, and cannot exceed prerequisite +4. All of them are about buying up a skill with a narrow focus. Many of them will not be very useful to adventurers, but they allow ordinary people to become quite skilled at something specialised.

Acting Honest (Acting). This is "acting innocent", seeming like a normal and uninteresting person, as boosted by the Honest Face perk. Buy the perk first, because it does several things that a level of this technique does not.

<Terrain type and season> (Camouflage). Camouflage is IQ/Easy, and so can't have optional specialisations, but a specific type of terrain in a specific season is a valid Technique for the skill.

<Specific crop> (Gardening). Gardening is IQ/Easy, and so can't have optional specialisations, but a specific crop, such as a particular herb or kind of fruit is a valid technique for the skill. Grass is quite common, since it's what sports field grounds-keepers grow.

<Equipment form> (Fishing). Fishing is Per/Easy and so can't have optional specialisations, but a specific familiarity of Fishing, such as tickling, spear fishing, net fishing, or line fishing is a valid technique for the skill. Thanks to Bill Stoddard for the list of methods.

<Specific hazard> (Hazardous Materials (specialisation)). Dealing with a specific hazardous material or combination of materials, within a specialisation of HazMat that you know, can be bought up as a Technique. For example, Infectious Human Bodily Fluids (Hazardous Material (Biological)) is common enough for nurses to specialise in, while Fizzled H-bomb Debris (Hazardous Materials (Radioactive)) would only have been useful a few times in human history. So far.

<Specific problem> (Housekeeping). Dealing with a specific problem can be bought up as a Technique. For example, Implicating Human Bodily Fluids (Housekeeping) would be a useful technique for an Action-style Cleaner.

<Specific item> (Jeweller). Making lots of rings, or pearl necklaces, would be a valid Technique.

March-leading (Leadership). This technique increases Leadership for the specific purpose of leading a march. If the campaign features races with very different styles of locomotion, such as humans and giant centipedes, they require different Techniques. Leading a convoy of vehicles is also a different Technique, although it works the same way.

<Specific item> (Smith (specialisation)). A smith who had to turn out lots of nails, or hatchets, or helmets, all pretty much the same, could buy up a technique for each kind of item.

Opinions?
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Old 06-11-2017, 09:09 AM   #35
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Default Re: New Technique family of the week: Focussed

<Survival> specific area? If you know the area well, you know all the waterholes, where you can find game, etc.
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Old 06-11-2017, 09:18 AM   #36
johndallman
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Default Re: New Technique family of the week: Focussed

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<Survival> specific area? If you know the area well, you know all the waterholes, where you can find game, etc.
Makes sense to me. Edit: What size of area? The Area Knowledge area classes are in terms of population, but that isn't particularly what matters here.

Last edited by johndallman; 06-11-2017 at 09:23 AM.
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Old 06-11-2017, 09:27 AM   #37
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Default Re: New Technique family of the week: Focussed

I would go with anything you can reach with a day's travel from a central point. So...20 miles radius? Something like that.
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Old 06-11-2017, 10:29 AM   #38
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Default Re: New Technique family of the week: Focussed

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Originally Posted by Anders View Post
<Survival> specific area? If you know the area well, you know all the waterholes, where you can find game, etc.
That's just a function of Area Knowledge skill (or Geography (Regional)). Survival covers finding that sort of stuff in an unfamiliar area, Area Knowledge just lets you know where it is offhand.
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Old 07-01-2017, 04:01 PM   #39
johndallman
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Default Re: New Technique family of the week: Focussed

And here are some more draft techniques for this family:

<Specific person> (Lip Reading). This lets you buy up skill for application to a individual person. As for the equivalent techniques for Body Language and Detect Lies, this is useful for trying to analyse the behaviour of powerful people when you have limited sources of information.

<Lock model> (Lockpicking). This lets you buy up skill for a specific model of lock. This is rarely useful, but can be helpful when you have to deal with a lot of locks that are the same model and impose penalties. Colditz Castle prison camp during WWII had an example: many of the locks there were Fine-quality and probably TL7, but they were all from the same supplier, and dedicated prisoners learned to open them rapidly.

<Specific item> (Machinist). This lets you buy up skill for making a specific item. This is often useful for items invented at your current TL; making items that appeared at lower TLs tends to be fairly routine.

<Specific process> (Metallurgy). This lets you buy up skill in a specific smelting or alloying task. LTC3 outlines the process of low-tech smelting, which was sometimes combined with making alloys, by mixing ores. Someone working as a smelter at a large mine might well have an optional specialisation in using the ore from that mine.

Jump (Riding (specialisation)). This lets you buy up skill in taking a mount over a jump. A roll against this technique, or its default, acts as a complementary skill to the mount's DX or Jumping roll.

Last edited by johndallman; 07-16-2017 at 06:24 AM. Reason: markup
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Old 07-02-2017, 01:08 AM   #40
vicky_molokh
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Default Re: New Technique family of the week: Focussed

Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
And here are some more draft techniques for this family:

<Specific person> (Lip Reading). This lets you buy up skill for application to a individual person. As for the equivalent techniques for Body Language and Detect Lies, this is useful for trying to analyse the behaviour of powerful people when you have limited sources of information.

<Specific item (Machinist). This lets you buy up skill for making a specific item. This is often useful for items invented at your current TL; making items that appeared at lower TLs tends to be fairly routine.
Compared to the myriads of people and devices, these two sound like Hyperspecialization to me (I know this opinion of mine is subject to controversy / not to be taken for granted).
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