Skills as perks

Sir Tifyable · 01-04-2015, 04:33 PM

I like this concept. There are skills which I think are really groundwork for other skills, and they can safely be reduced to Perks.

Knot-Tying, for example. Yes, specialists like sailors know a lot of knots. But specialised knotwork is covered by their professional skills – like Crewman (Sailor). The perk gives knowledge of enough knots, bends, and hitches to handle any situation where something needs to be tied up – probably not much more than about a dozen of them. Sailors and climbers should definitely have it. Obsessive knot-fans can take it as a Hobby Skill, but remember that a point covers 200 hours of learning. You can learn enough knots in that amount of time for all your Crewman needs.

Panhandling is a sub-set or adaptation of Streetwise. The perk gives you the knowledge of the best kinds of places to beg, the approaches that suit your particular appearance, etc. When you actually beg, your roll will be against Streetwise, Performance, etc.

Parachuting. Most of the time this is ‘how to pack a parachute’ and ‘how not to break a leg on landing’, for which you only need a 1-point perk, 200 hours of training. On the rare occasions when you are using a steerable parachute to get to a particular landing-point, it will take fairly hard IQ rolls to judge the factors involved (wind speed & direction, rate of descent). If you do that regularly (e.g. Special Forces training) take a Parachuting speciality of the Piloting skill – it’s basically a non-rigid glider.

Some will depend on the genre. Fast-Draw might be worth using as a skill in a Wild West game where gunfights actually happen. But every other campaign I've ever run or played in, Fast-Draw hasn't been a contest to see who shoots first in a face-off, but just to see whether the characters can shoot in the first round. So turning it into a perk makes sense: anyone who spends 200 hours learning to fast-draw can probably be assumed to continue practicing their fast-draw as they keep using (i.e. improving) their skill with that weapon.

As for Gesture: the point Varyon made about some Gestures can get up to Fluent (i.e. military sign language) misses the point about the skills: military sign language is a Sign Language, and the people being signalled to have trained so they know the signals used. Gesture is to communicate to people who don't share your particular knowledge set. A high Gesture skill would make people good at Charades, but I think few people would work to get better at it. Pricing it as a perk would make sense - you are just someone who has the kind of imagination that lets you get over your message through mime.

01-04-2015, 04:33 PM	#1
Sir Tifyable Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Sheffield, England	Re: Skills as perks I like this concept. There are skills which I think are really groundwork for other skills, and they can safely be reduced to Perks. Knot-Tying, for example. Yes, specialists like sailors know a lot of knots. But specialised knotwork is covered by their professional skills – like Crewman (Sailor). The perk gives knowledge of enough knots, bends, and hitches to handle any situation where something needs to be tied up – probably not much more than about a dozen of them. Sailors and climbers should definitely have it. Obsessive knot-fans can take it as a Hobby Skill, but remember that a point covers 200 hours of learning. You can learn enough knots in that amount of time for all your Crewman needs. Panhandling is a sub-set or adaptation of Streetwise. The perk gives you the knowledge of the best kinds of places to beg, the approaches that suit your particular appearance, etc. When you actually beg, your roll will be against Streetwise, Performance, etc. Parachuting. Most of the time this is ‘how to pack a parachute’ and ‘how not to break a leg on landing’, for which you only need a 1-point perk, 200 hours of training. On the rare occasions when you are using a steerable parachute to get to a particular landing-point, it will take fairly hard IQ rolls to judge the factors involved (wind speed & direction, rate of descent). If you do that regularly (e.g. Special Forces training) take a Parachuting speciality of the Piloting skill – it’s basically a non-rigid glider. Some will depend on the genre. Fast-Draw might be worth using as a skill in a Wild West game where gunfights actually happen. But every other campaign I've ever run or played in, Fast-Draw hasn't been a contest to see who shoots first in a face-off, but just to see whether the characters can shoot in the first round. So turning it into a perk makes sense: anyone who spends 200 hours learning to fast-draw can probably be assumed to continue practicing their fast-draw as they keep using (i.e. improving) their skill with that weapon. As for Gesture: the point Varyon made about some Gestures can get up to Fluent (i.e. military sign language) misses the point about the skills: military sign language is a Sign Language, and the people being signalled to have trained so they know the signals used. Gesture is to communicate to people who don't share your particular knowledge set. A high Gesture skill would make people good at Charades, but I think few people would work to get better at it. Pricing it as a perk would make sense - you are just someone who has the kind of imagination that lets you get over your message through mime.