[DF] Maximum Skill Levels?

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

So, just out of curiosity, what is the benefit of having a skill over 20? I know that, with critical failures (at 17 and 18, right? keep in mind, I'm a collector, not a player...), there's always going to be a 1.85% chance of critical failure, so the higher skill levels just lets the character not have to worry about normal failures when doing increasingly wild and improbable actions.

While it lets you soak penalties and you said in a round about way, it also helps you in contests like Feint and Disarm.

[Pragmatic]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

While it lets you soak penalties and you said in a round about way, it also helps you in contests like Feint and Disarm.

Is this one of those things where "realism vs challenge" gets involved? In other words, to challenge these one-trick-ponies, do you have to keep building up the "New and Improved Second-Best Swordsman of the World (tm)"?

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

Is this one of those things where "realism vs challenge" gets involved? In other words, to challenge these one-trick-ponies, do you have to keep building up the "New and Improved Second-Best Swordsman of the World (tm)"?

The DBZ formula 8)

[Lord Carnifex]

I don't run or play DF, but in my other GURPS games, there's a hard skill cap at 24. I feel that letting skills go much beyond that starts to cause difficulty when interacting with the 3d6 normal distribution.

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

Is this one of those things where "realism vs challenge" gets involved? In other words, to challenge these one-trick-ponies, do you have to keep building up the "New and Improved Second-Best Swordsman of the World (tm)"?

If a character has spent a gazillion points to have Skill 30 in Broadsword, I find that the way to challenge them is not by throwing an unending stream of Second-Best Swordsmen of the World at them. They spent a lot of points to be that great, so I do let them enjoy that to some extent.

But there I think it is important to look at things holistically.
Every PC has a weakness. And a PC that has spent all of their points in Broadsword are going to have a lot more than the average PC.

So Best Broadswordsman in combat...
-throw lots and lots of low level mobs at them...people that will flank them...people who will grapple from behind...people who are really good at disarming.
-throw ghosts at them...or monsters who are better attacked with crushing attacks
-give the party combat challenges that involve environmental hazards or other things that lessen some skills...or force DX checks or HT checks or ST checks. That's exciting

Also...there is the whole rest of the campaign. What does the best swordsman do when he has to go to the state dinner and interact with Princes and Dukes? A bet some other characters are going to shine then. Or what if there is a climbing challenge? Or a crafting challenge?

Or what if the trick is not can you kill this person, but should you?

There are lots of ways to challenge best Swordsman in lots of interesting and unique ways besides just throwing another Swordsman with a skill as high as his.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by trooper6

Also...there is the whole rest of the campaign. What does the best swordsman do when he has to go to the state dinner and interact with Princes and Dukes? A bet some other characters are going to shine then. Or what if there is a climbing challenge? Or a crafting challenge?

Or what if the trick is not can you kill this person, but should you?

There are lots of ways to challenge best Swordsman in lots of interesting and unique ways besides just throwing another Swordsman with a skill as high as his.

We're specifically talking about a DF campaign. That means that combat is paramount over just about everything else - state dinners are hardly likely to be all that important.

Your other points, about ways to challenge the man in combat, are good ones, though. I'd allow him to kick ass at swordsmanship - but make him face dozens of monsters, etc. Basically allow him to display how awesome he is, rather than facing endless duels that will basically boil down to 'take a -16 deceptive attack penalty, and perform an action a guy with Skill 14 could do'.

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by Langy

We're specifically talking about a DF campaign. That means that combat is paramount over just about everything else - state dinners are hardly likely to be all that important.

I suppose it depends on how you run your DF campaign. But if you have someone taking a Bard class, then you have to give them situations where their social skills would be important. If you a Scout then you have to have situations where Survival and Tracking will be important. If you have a Sage, then there have to be situations where Smarts skills will be important. Those are all canon classes for DF. pg 29-30 of DF2 talk about Wilderness Adventures and Town Adventures...and the box on making everybody useful are full of things to do--challenges--that will be hard for that person who has spent all of there points in Broadsword...and all of those things are canon for the DF series.

Also a dungeon has, as per the genre conventions, more than just fighting...it also has resource management, and traps, and bars to bend, and things to climb, and beams to balance on, etc. Heck the first few entries under dungeon crawling are not combat, but "Travel"/"Exploring the Dungeon"/"Breaking and Entering"/"Traps and Hazards"

A PC who has spent *all* of their points on Broadsword is going to be mightily challenged by all of the other aspects of a DF campaign. As a DF GM, I'd exploit the weaknesses inherent in being that imbalanced...as well as all of the combat things I mentioned up thread.

Lots of undead.

[Bruno]

Heck, my ur-Minotaur Barbarian ended up at a state dinner in a D&D game. It probably won't happen on as nearly as regular a basis as combat in a DF style game, but once in a campaign can be enough to hammer the point home if he manages to mess things up enough due to his general incompetence.

But note that even in a very combat oriented DF game, someone needs to buy your unwanted stuff, and sell you wanted stuff, and someone else needs to give you your rewards for rescuing princesses or bounties on dragon ears. A socially oriented character can go a long way by multiplying party income via social skills. And socially incompetent characters can deep-six money making opportunities for the rest of the party by being too offensive to deal with. . .

But then there's the temptation for Mr. Sword Only Sword All The Time to try to promote everything to "I sword it!" type solutions.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

Which is Exactly why I enforce skill caps. so that concept actully has meaning. and the player knows what they need to do to fulfill it

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."

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

So, just out of curiosity, what is the benefit of having a skill over 20?

Two words: Deceptive Attack.

More words: Lots of penalties.

You (generally) want your effective skill at 16+ to maximize critical success chances and minimize critical failure chances.

Skill 20 means a DA of -2 to the enemy's defenses, but only with a random location or torso shot.

Skill 25 means a DA of -4 OR DA of -2 and a Neck shot, or -3 and vitals or limbs, or -1 and skull.

Skill 30 means a DA of -4 and neck shot, -3 and a skull shot, a straight up -7, etc.

Add in lighting penalties (-2 for outside of immediate torch radius), bad footing (-2), SM penalties (for whacking smaller foes), etc., or add in -3 for Rapid Strike for a Weapon Master or -6 if you aren't, add in the desire to Feint something all the way to "practically unable to defend", etc. and you'll see why high skill is useful.

Of course you can accept a sub-16 skill, but that just means you're starting to hit less often overall, and the solution to that is more skill or going for less effective attacks. No one seems to like the second one all that much in my games.

Skill 30 sounds amazing until you need to make a Skull shot (-7) on a high-defenses opponent (say, Dodge 15) while on bad footing (-2) in flickering torchlight (-2), and want to Rapid Strike to break it up into a Feint and Attack (each at -3) so the attack gets through . . . and then it suddenly seems so damn inadequate even with a net pair of 16s. Because miss that guy and it's his turn . . .