Skills and skill levels for building an army, intelligence service, bureaucracy

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Hmmm... that seems to make Psychology (Applied) more important for historical conquerors than most of their other skills. Having Psychology (Applied) at -18 would allow you to almost unerringly pick good tacticians, trainers, tax collectors, administrators, bureaucrats, etc. By contrast, being good at Tactics, Administration or Accounting only makes a difference of +1/-1, with +2/-2 on a critical. In fact, by electing not to roll against the supporting skill, you could even select the best people without knowing a single thing about their area of expertise, which seems to be rather odd.

I'd want skill in the field you are selecting for competence in to matter more than that. Psychology (Applied) might be very good for estimating whether someone is trustworthy in personality, but it should not be able to tell you whether he has any skill at his job.

I agree with Polydamas that it's an important skill. While it's good that the spymaster PC has it (although it probably ought to be higher, since he isn't always getting the Empathy bonus), I think the leader PC also ought to have it.

As for using it for an evaluation, I don't envision it working as any kind of "Sherlock Scan" ability, where you can just "know". I'm thinking it's used as the basis for an interview with the person, quite possibly a "covert" interview where the interviewer is trying to conceal the purpose of the interview from the subject, maybe even masking it as everyday conversation. Of course that means a penalty. It also takes time. And it can tax the patience of the subject, especially if he feels he's being judged, which most people find uncomfortable.

If you want to make the supporting skill more important, you could give a larger penalty to Psychology (Applied) and then also award a larger bonus from the CSR, maybe double the normal bonus.

Or you could be more hardcore and use the roll-for-the-lowest-of -principle. That way, if the character has Leadership 14 and Psychology (Applied) 17, he rolls for 14.

Or you could turn it around, and roll for the other skill, but with an optional CSR for Psychology (Applied). Or if legal, make the CSR mandatory.



Also, contemplate the rarity of 17/18/19 skills in world demographic terms. These PCs and NPCs in your campaign are true masters. And in my opinion, GURPS is wrong in not allowing great skill to make a larger difference than what you outline: +/- 1, or +/-2 on a critical.

I think, and I am obviously trying to reflect that in Sagatafl's mechanics, that the truly skilled ought to be able to perform really well, achieving the equivalent of +/-4 or 5 or sometimes even more, on GURPS' scale.

From having read the Mass Combat rules (buth the 3E Compendium II ones, and the new PDF), but not actually played them out, it seems to me that brilliant captains and generals aren't able to achieve results that are at all proportional to their brilliance. Right from the first time I read the PDF, possibly even earlier with the Compendium version, I sat there and wondered "why can't genius strategists kick more butt than that, achieve more with smaller forces?"