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Gnome · 06-02-2021, 07:12 AM

I recently ran a campaign in which I decided to apply the 3e advancement rules for Physical skills to combat skills and spells only. These are the skills that seem most abusable at insanely high levels, and they're the skills that if you raise just one of them sky-high you can be extremely effective even without a whole lot of supporting traits.

And it worked great! The PCs had plenty of flexibility, could still focus on important skills, but it encouraged more variety in skills which makes for more interesting gameplay. I've never had a problem with high attributes (they're expensive, so it's a big investment!), but I've often struggled with the cheap combat dominance of characters that just put every available point into a single melee weapon skill, because that one skill gives you attacks (Rapid Strike for multiples if needed), defenses (Parry), and damage (targeting locations, using Deceptive Attack to bypass defenses, etc.).

If I'm making a 250-pt hero, even with DX 10 it "only" costs 80 points to buy Broadsword-30, which will make me an absolute terror, and that leaves plenty of CP left over for essentials like ST, HT, Combat Reflexes, High Pain Threshold and Weapon Master. And if I would prefer Broadsword-40 so that I can do even more Rapid Strikes, etc., it only costs me another 40 points!

Comparing that with the 3e progression, it would essentially cost twice as many points to become god of the sword, making it a dicier proposition, which in turn encourages PCs to take additional weapon skills, invest in techniques, buy better attributes, and in general I think you get a broader variety of fighter archetypes.
I plan to use these rules in future campaigns!

06-02-2021, 07:12 AM	#30
Gnome Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Cambridge, MA	Re: Skill Advancement I recently ran a campaign in which I decided to apply the 3e advancement rules for Physical skills to combat skills and spells only. These are the skills that seem most abusable at insanely high levels, and they're the skills that if you raise just one of them sky-high you can be extremely effective even without a whole lot of supporting traits. And it worked great! The PCs had plenty of flexibility, could still focus on important skills, but it encouraged more variety in skills which makes for more interesting gameplay. I've never had a problem with high attributes (they're expensive, so it's a big investment!), but I've often struggled with the cheap combat dominance of characters that just put every available point into a single melee weapon skill, because that one skill gives you attacks (Rapid Strike for multiples if needed), defenses (Parry), and damage (targeting locations, using Deceptive Attack to bypass defenses, etc.). If I'm making a 250-pt hero, even with DX 10 it "only" costs 80 points to buy Broadsword-30, which will make me an absolute terror, and that leaves plenty of CP left over for essentials like ST, HT, Combat Reflexes, High Pain Threshold and Weapon Master. And if I would prefer Broadsword-40 so that I can do even more Rapid Strikes, etc., it only costs me another 40 points! Comparing that with the 3e progression, it would essentially cost twice as many points to become god of the sword, making it a dicier proposition, which in turn encourages PCs to take additional weapon skills, invest in techniques, buy better attributes, and in general I think you get a broader variety of fighter archetypes. I plan to use these rules in future campaigns!