Pricing improved Job Rolls (without increasing skills)?

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Kromm

A leveled perk that gives +1 per level is functionally the same as an Average technique that defaults to full skill and can be raised above skill. Either would be fine, and amount to more reliably earning income with a skill by raising it at 1/4 cost. Such a trait would be utterly meaningless to most adventurers, and given that Independent Income also costs 1 point/level and "just works," I don't see it being especially easy to abuse.

However, while it might represent specific facility at the tasks mentioned in the skill write-up that are most central to the job, I would not try to explain the bonus in such terms. I'd leave it as a meta-game abstraction for "good at divining all the little touches that workplaces deem worthy of reward": rapport with coworkers, skill at handling bosses, aptitude for clock-watching, glued-on happy face, and knowing exactly what lines each company likes filled out on TPS reports.

Hmm. So you're in favour of a mere +1 per [1], per level. Seems weird to me in the face of Independent Income, Hyperspecialisation, Efficient etc.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Hmm. So you're in favour of a mere +1 per [1], per level. Seems weird to me in the face of Independent Income, Hyperspecialisation, Efficient etc.

You can't take Hyper-Specialization (My Job) . . . the specific definition of that perk is that it shouldn't be something that could matter more than once in a PC's career, and mattering every month is clearly a bigger deal. I can't even see how you're involving Efficient – it's a penalty canceller, and such tend to be about twice as large as bonus-givers, because they can't give the net bonus that's just about always what players actually want.

The most apt comparison is to Independent Income. There, we're looking at 1 point for +1 to a freelance job roll giving you +1 to margin of success and +10% to monthly income, while 1 point for Independent Income 1 adds +1% of starting wealth to monthly income. Thus, this putative perk is better unless (starting wealth)/100 > (monthly income)/10, which never actually happens unless you have a rotten job:

TL, SW/100, MI/10
0, $2.50, $62.50
1, $5.00, $65.00
2, $7.50, $67.50
3, $10.00, $70.00
4, $20.00, $80.00
5, $50.00, $110.00
6, $100.00, $160.00
7, $150.00, $210.00
8, $200.00, $260.00
9, $300.00, $360.00
10, $500.00, $560.00
11, $750.00, $810.00
12, $1,000, $1,060.00

Wealth multiplies both figures, so it's a red herring. Plus, the perk gives you better odds of promotion, etc. All told, the perk is better if you plan to work in the first place.

[vicky_molokh]

My attention to Efficient was because you can get paid 100% of the salary by investing 80% of the time. IOW, assuming a pay-by-amount-of-work-done freelancer work, you perform 50 effective man-hours in 40 chronological hours, which is a +25% improvement in the amount of work done (and money earned, assuming a job where these map 1:1).

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

IOW, assuming a pay-by-amount-of-work-done freelancer work, you perform 50 effective man-hours in 40 chronological hours, which is a +25% improvement in the amount of work done (and money earned, assuming a job where these map 1:1).

...and that assumes that the Time Worked rules apply to job rolls. It's not clear to me that they do.

[Kromm]

Efficient definitely has no effect at all on jobs! It's very specifically a tool for tasks, not for rolls that abstract many tasks. Jobs involve large numbers of time factors that are wholly independent of worker skill, notably wait times for clients, processes, work-related shopping and sales, etc. It isn't as if, say, a freelance jeweler with Efficient (Jeweler) can make buying gems and metal, setting adhesives, traveling to the bazaar, and selling the final product go any faster. There are vanishingly few jobs where one time-dependent skill defines the whole of what goes on. The fact that the job roll is against a specific skill isn't meant to suggest that's the only skill that matters . . . most jobs are defined by templates with many skills, and the job roll just uses the iconic skill for meta-game simplicity. At best, a kind GM might say "Efficient helps about 10% of what you do, so go ahead and add 2% to monthly income."

[Dwarf99]

There are vanishingly few jobs where one time-dependent skill defines the whole of what goes on.

Not to mention, some that do-like being a cover band at a club-would not work particularly well, as singing a song 20% faster is probably not looked upon fondly.