[DF] Maximum Skill Levels?

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by PseudoFenton

I'm glad we know what the fnords are now, that was driving me nuts trying to work it out! Of cause it could've just been because I was reading fnord a lot... they'll do that to you sometimes.

Oops, I've found the FNORD!

[PseudoFenton]

Originally Posted by demonsbane

Oops, I've found the FNORD!

I already has it! It is fuller of fnord than I was expecting... proving my knowledge of fnords to be pretty lacking seemingly. Right, time to educate myself and annoy my fellow players some more =D


EDIT: Aarruggghhh! There's so much here I want to read that I can't stop skimming around and actually read any of it! Is there any way one can just download pdf's into your head? I need a means of internalising this data quicker!

[Carlos]

This thread is amazing. It definitely answers an old question that GURPS Martial Arts brought to me about the usefulness of invest dozens of points in techniques instead of just buy pure skill. According to what GURPS Martial Arts and Kromm already said in this forum, its better just to pick one or two preferred techniques and master it.

On the other hand, there's no infinity skill and no one will improve any skill ad infinitum. So, even if you have Broadsword or Two-Handed Sword 50+, its still great to have techniques like Feint, Counterattack, Disarm, some Targetted Attack or even a Combination. (Feint and Counterattack are my favorite!).

So to me, a grand master warrior (swordsman, barehand martial artist, whatever) has not only massive investment on main skill, but also has techniques to buy off situational penalties (like Counterattack or Targetted Attack) or to increase main skill (like Feint or Arm Lock), so he can afford even highter penalties for even better deceptive attacks or extra very rapid strike.

I also totally agree with Kromm and Dell'Orto. To be the "greatest swordsman that ever lived" is a valid concept and to put a skill cap is a way to say "Ok, now that you have skill 30 (DX 20 + skill+10), you're the greatest swordsman that ever lived". I don't like that because there might be someone somewhere better than you, making it a never-ending goal.

Also, as said before, there're situations where even skill 40 can do nothing. In our previous session (a very cool Infinity Worlds game), we faced this thing. My character has Broadsword 20, Counterattack 20 and Feint 24, plus a balanced (+1 to skill) sword, Weapon Bond and Weapon Master (Swords) [35], for a total of effective skill 22. Now guess what: As you can see in the image, this creature is a flying monster, so if my character didn't have an automatic shotgun at hand and Guns (Shotgun) 15, he would spent most of his turns doing nothing. This is just a mere example. There are many more...

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

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').

Yes, and I totally agree with you here, my friend. I came to realize that in a old thread where Kromm explained to me the way of the wizardry effectiveness in GURPS. That's a bit frustrating to me too, since it seems to me that the the standard magic system in GURPS don't emulate very well the wizards from games (where, as you pointed correctly, missile spells are iconic), capable of casting terribly destructive spells all the day. Anyway, this a subject to another thread...

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

Weird. I take it exactly the other way - an enforced limit means that there is no "this goes to 11" in the setting. Once you reach the limit, you are best ever barring anyone else with the same DX and points in skill. You can't exceed it, and you're merely meeting a cap instead of reaching that nebulous ground of "best."

Originally Posted by Carlos

I also totally agree with Kromm and Dell'Orto. To be the "greatest swordsman that ever lived" is a valid concept and to put a skill cap is a way to say "Ok, now that you have skill 30 (DX 20 + skill+10), you're the greatest swordsman that ever lived". I don't like that because there might be someone somewhere better than you, making it a never-ending goal.

When the setting is supposed to have caps on skills, I like to allow Special Exercises to allow exceeding it by 1 to 3 levels and Unusual Background at ever higher levels to exceed it even more.

As so many things (Deceptive Attack, Feint, Quick Contest) make relative skill levels important, I think that this is a fair use of Unusual Background.

Tailor the amounts that add to the cost of the extra level of skill to make Greatest Swordsman Ever a viable concept, but still make things competative and interesting for other combat-focused concepts.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Icelander

When the setting is supposed to have caps on skills, I like to allow Special Exercises to allow exceeding it by 1 to 3 levels and Unusual Background at ever higher levels to exceed it even more.

That sounds pretty good, although like I said, I don't use a skill cap. I let diminishing returns take care of it all by itself.

The guy with Axe/Mace-28 in my DF game is pretty awesome at whacking things, but that's all those points give him, so I suspect we won't say anything beyond skill 30 from him. And that just so he can say "I have skill 30" and put another -1 to defend on his double-tap to the skull Trademark Move.

[VulpesFulva]

well, there's also the flashy swordsman route, using a default from combat art skills.

Presumably using a pretty style when one*could*just stab and slice...

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

That sounds pretty good, although like I said, I don't use a skill cap. I let diminishing returns take care of it all by itself.

The guy with Axe/Mace-28 in my DF game is pretty awesome at whacking things, but that's all those points give him, so I suspect we won't say anything beyond skill 30 from him. And that just so he can say "I have skill 30" and put another -1 to defend on his double-tap to the skull Trademark Move.

Needless to say, in the campaign that more-or-less inspired me to write DF, the characters were built on more than enough points to have any skill level they might want – and I was not imposing a cap! Despite that, once the foes that mattered were mostly "20-foot crystalline giants," "squid demigods with force fields," "stone dogs," "undead slimes," etc., the gold standard became damage, not skill. Damage costs more . . . people became very interested in ST, Striking ST, Power Blow, Unusual Background (Wielder of Divine Weapon), etc. I don't think I'd have had many takers for a one-point perk per four-point skill level past some cap, but I'd have had a long lineup for a five-point UB per 10-point ST level past a cap and for high-cost UBs that made you a champion of a god so you could get hold of weapons that had big plusses to damage.

[Kuroshima]

In my game, that is nearing 650 points right now, I capped skills at Attribute+10, before talents. The only exception to this is if you've got one of the Wildcard skills DF offers (Knight!, Swashbuckler!, etc). I also allow those skills to give "Wildcard" points as per Monster Hunters and Impulse Buys. This has allowed me to have some niche protection even at these high point levels (you can only buy the wildcard skill from your template, though if you take the mixing professions lens, and then go and buy enough stuff from the other template that you could be technically buillt with the other template - that is, you've got the stat minimums, the required advantages, enough other stuff to cover the optional advantages, and the required skills (by points, no by absolute value) - then you count as the other template too and get access to both the power-ups and the wildcard skill).

Caps are an interesting tool for the GM, because IME, they tend to make people try and reach the cap, even if they would otherwise not invest that heavily in that area. They also serve to make sure people don't invest too many points in one area, while not putting enough points in other areas - Capping skill has made people invest in strength instead, a net win for them.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Capping skill has made people invest in strength instead, a net win for them.

There's some truth to this. In my campaign, we reached the point where I sometimes sped up combat between the 700- to 900-point PCs and huge nonhuman entities by making rolls to hit optional unless the PCs wanted to reduce enemy defenses or try for critical hits. Many enemies didn't defend anyway . . . in which case I was happy to skip straight to damage rolls. Even so, there was a "whiff factor" because some PCs couldn't harm the toughest bad guys even with maximum damage. I know that a couple of the players kind of wished they had DX+10 and +4 to Striking ST instead of DX+15. One PC in particular made a point of stopping at DX+10 and plowing points into Power Blow instead.

Granted, I'm not sure the scale of that campaign would suit every gaming group. My gang was fine with nominal "humans" dishing out 6d damage, wearing DR 12 armor, and dodging blows from monsters that could deliver 12d damage and that had DR 20 and HP 100. I could see some players disliking those stakes, or just being bothered by the unrealism of it all. Given that the PCs were the prophesied saviors of creation, and some were servants of gods, it fit what we were trying to do.

[scc]

Kromm, that's the point where all the PC's should look into becoming enchanters, so they can MAKE better enchanted weapons. Of course it helps if there's an enchanting system that allows people to make enchanted items without years of work