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Old 02-07-2020, 03:59 AM   #1
awesomenessofme1
 
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Default What's the highest skill level you've ever had for a PC or NPC?

I was filling out some character sheets and on one of them, Avatar of Aphrodite, I saw that I'd given her a ludicrous Sex Appeal-36 (14 from her HT 15, 8 from RSL, 4 from Smooth Operator talent, 2 from Voice, and 8 from Transcendent Appearance). It's not unfitting (though I may trim it down a bit), but it's the highest skill level I've ever seen on a character sheet I've made.

So, what's the highest skill level you've given to a PC or NPC? Could produce some fun stories.
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Old 02-07-2020, 04:25 AM   #2
Icelander
 
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Default Re: What's the highest skill level you've ever had for a PC or NPC?

Probably Sex Appeal and probably without spending a lot of points on it, too, as you describe.

Now that I think about it, I don't recall the exact skill score, but I think that an NPC, Sherilyn 'Cherry' Bell, had Sex Appeal -27 or something. She was a Super with all kinds of manipulation powers, but had spent the past couple of decades in an asylum and was really poorly socialized, so she had at most a single point in Sex Appeal.

On the other hand, I've also established that another NPC has sword skill of DX+10, about four levels of a Talent that affects it and high DX, so that might be higher. But that's an NPC that hasn't actually appeared on 'camera' and was specifically the answer to a PC's query about who the greatest swordsman in the campaign world was.

Edit: Actually, Harmel Artru, the NPC who is the greatest swordsman in the Forgotten Realms, has five levels of Talent that affects combat skills (which is my approximation of higher 'levels', i.e. Base Attack Bonus or THAC0 in (A)D&D), DX 14 and DX+15 in the Saber skill. So he has skill level 34, by far the highest I've ever given any character, PC or NPC. But, again, he hasn't appeared in a scene in my campaign and I noted down these stats only as a mental benchmark for how good 'best in the world' was.
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Old 02-07-2020, 06:53 AM   #3
RogerBW
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Default Re: What's the highest skill level you've ever had for a PC or NPC?

The highest skill in my character archive is John Dallman's medic in one of the Reign of Steel games, with Physician 23. (Action rules and quite a few character points spent.)

Of my own characters, my Cabalist mage has Thaumatology 22, but with IQ 20 and Magery 5 that's not really surprising.
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Old 02-07-2020, 12:39 PM   #4
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Default Re: What's the highest skill level you've ever had for a PC or NPC?

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Originally Posted by RogerBW View Post

Of my own characters, my Cabalist mage has Thaumatology 22, but with IQ 20 and Magery 5 that's not really surprising.
My Cabalist sees your Cabalist's IQ20/Magery5 and raises him 2 levels of Magery.

Since he was a 3e character he was getting bonuses to Spell skill from Photographic Memory too. He knew hundreds of Spells at level 27. A 4e conversion (because Extended Magery is cheaper) would just have gone to Magery 10.
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Old 02-07-2020, 12:50 PM   #5
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Default Re: What's the highest skill level you've ever had for a PC or NPC?

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Originally Posted by Boge View Post
Broadsword 24.

I didn't like it. I like more of the 14-18 ranges.
Broadsword -24-ish can be really fun to see in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing, but I suspect it would get stale quickly. Its nice to have targeting chinks while taking a deceptive attack penalty be an option.

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Originally Posted by Devil_Dante View Post
the problem with skills higher than 20 is that very often, everything loses importance. And the game slows down, if using the "rule of 20".

I capped ability for my DF campaign, to 22. And even in this way, fights tend to last a lot. Because everyone would opt for different attacks with feints and decepting attacks. For non combat abilities, there are other problems too: stealth-30, you are pretty much invisible till you are not in open space.
Social skills tend to become "magic", when you can convince every single NPC you encounter (because with 40, you should succed always)..
The skill curve is really designed around 3-18, with +/- 4 for modifiers. If your target score is above 14 you feel bored when you succeed and cheated when you fail. If its below 6 it feels cheap when you succeed and depressing when you fail. I may be exaggerating a little here, but interesting gameplay happens between 6 and 14.
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Old 02-07-2020, 12:54 PM   #6
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Default Re: What's the highest skill level you've ever had for a PC or NPC?

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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
Broadsword -24-ish can be really fun to see in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing, but I suspect it would get stale quickly. Its nice to have targeting chinks while taking a deceptive attack penalty be an option.



The skill curve is really designed around 3-18, with +/- 4 for modifiers. If your target score is above 14 you feel bored when you succeed and cheated when you fail. If its below 6 it feels cheap when you succeed and depressing when you fail. I may be exaggerating a little here, but interesting gameplay happens between 6 and 14.
Penalties can go up to -10 or even higher, so having high skill levels can still be enjoyable if you're doing difficult things often.
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Old 02-07-2020, 01:03 PM   #7
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Default Re: What's the highest skill level you've ever had for a PC or NPC?

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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
The skill curve is really designed around 3-18, with +/- 4 for modifiers. If your target score is above 14 you feel bored when you succeed and cheated when you fail. If its below 6 it feels cheap when you succeed and depressing when you fail. I may be exaggerating a little here, but interesting gameplay happens between 6 and 14.
While that's true, in combat things can drag when you've got Skill-14 and the other guy does too and you both have 1-hander and shield weapon combos and reasonable armour. You'll both be hitting on 14- and defending on 13- and things can go on for quite some time, as neither of you have enough skill to do much fancy - a Deceptive attack at 10- still gives the defender 11- to defend, for example.

Even if the defending NPC is 'only' professionally skilled (12), they still have 12- attack and 12- defence, so the problem remains.

If, on the other hand, the PCs have skills in the 16-20 range, they can afford aimed attacks, deceptive attacks, and other interesting stunts while still having a good hit chance.

The same applies with ranged combat - merely 'high professional' skills make for a lot of missing, or a lot of aiming (high Acc energy weapons excepted). This is fine in a high realism game, but if you want something where the PCs seldom muck around with careful shots in normal combat range, and the bullets are flying because of the use of autofire rather than because of a high whiff factor, you need higher skills.

Now, the skills in my game are probably a bit too high, and mostly come from a period where there were lots of gun fights, and the players claimed that as that was all they were doing, that was where they had to put their points (this was an exaggeration, IMO). It was certainly where they felt they needed to put them. There was also a bit of an arms race going on between two players, and also a belief in one of those that failing to get one-shot kills on every roll was somehow 'failing'.
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Old 02-10-2020, 01:19 PM   #8
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Default Re: What's the highest skill level you've ever had for a PC or NPC?

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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
Broadsword -24-ish can be really fun to see in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing, but I suspect it would get stale quickly. Its nice to have targeting chinks while taking a deceptive attack penalty be an option.
I agree with you that it COULD be more fun with the right situation. Knowing I could do a rapid strike stab to the eyes of two different foes and still succeed on my rolls can be enjoyable.

The problem I found was that the GM just made his NPCs better too. So in order to hit them, I HAD to do deceptive strikes, or they would just parry with their 12-14 defenses. And on the flip side, with a defense of 14-16 yourself, there isn't much tension knowing that you have an 85% chance to defend. And if you don't, they have to roll high enough to bypass your armor. And if that actually does enough, you still have your health roll, which is another 75% chance of success. And if that fails too, you still have your friends to pick you up.

But in the end, it basically just added more math to our combat experience.
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Old 02-07-2020, 06:55 AM   #9
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Default Re: What's the highest skill level you've ever had for a PC or NPC?

Sex Appeal is probably the highest. I had a supernormal with HT 20, Allure 4, Appearance (Very Handsome), and Voice, so he had a '32' (not the it really mattered at that point). Just out of curiosity, what does RSL refer to?
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Old 02-07-2020, 07:04 AM   #10
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Default Re: What's the highest skill level you've ever had for a PC or NPC?

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Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
Sex Appeal is probably the highest. I had a supernormal with HT 20, Allure 4, Appearance (Very Handsome), and Voice, so he had a '32' (not the it really mattered at that point).
Many vital social skill rules, including 'Influencing the PCs', use Margin of Success, so Influence skills can get quite high without reaching levels where they don't matter.

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Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
Just out of curiosity, what does RSL refer to?
From context, almost certainly Racial Skill Level.
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