What's the highest skill level you've ever had for a PC or NPC?

[Boge]

Broadsword 24.

I didn't like it. I like more of the 14-18 ranges. I think our GM doesn't like it either. So I expect things to be lower here on out.

The problem is that we're not really doing some of the skills properly, like Stealth. So in order to be safe for something like Stealth, you need 18-20 or the GM will roll (he always rolls against you) an 8 (he always rolls 8s) vs your 14. He likes his NPCs to have perceptions of 10-12. So making a skill by 5 is sort of the safe bet. He always rolls for each NPC there as well, even if they're not "specifically on alert."

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by Icelander

From context, almost certainly Racial Skill Level.

Relative Skill Level actually. For my avatars of deities, I like round numbers of total points, and no skill level is really too high, so I pumped 28 points into her Sex Appeal to reach a total point value divisible by 100.

[Devil_Dante]

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)..

[exalted]

The exalted game my group played recently pretty much had people going from barely competent levels to frequently using skill 40+ with bonuses. Looking back through the character gallery of NPC's for the later part of the campaign very few of them have any skill they intended to use below 25 and quite a few of them simply note will probably succede by 20 regardless of difficulties.

Looking back at it required too many modifiers to be entirely smooth and accomplishing the miraculous routinely limits the story a bit too much in some areas.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

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.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Boge

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.

Originally Posted by Devil_Dante

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.

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by ericthered

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.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by ericthered

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'.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1

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.

They can, but they rarely do, and often getting them up there damages suspense of disbelief. +/- 4 may be a bit stingy though: I do see up to -6 on a regular basis.

Originally Posted by Rupert

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.

Yeah, you want the target number to be 6-14, not the base skill. Skills in the 16-20 range work fine if you're commonly soaking penalties or making opposed contests, and with combat skills you usually are.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by ericthered

They can, but they rarely do, and often getting them up there damages suspense of disbelief. +/- 4 may be a bit stingy though: I do see up to -6 on a regular basis.

With ranged combat skills, a darkness penalty of -5 or more is pretty routine and unless the encounter takes place at melee distances, a range penalty of -7 or more is also fairly usual. So -12 or more in penalties isn't a contrived, unbelievable situation, it's pretty much expected for a firefight that the PCs expect to win (because they have awesome skills and the opposition hopefully doesn't).

Aiming can counteract this to some degree, but if there is time to Aim carefully, either the ranges might be even longer or both you and the opposition are in cover, making targeting exposed hit locations at -4 or worse necessary. You'll still be rolling at a net -10 or worse.

Normal soldiers will hit only on critical hits, essentially encouraging them to focus on suppressive fire, fire and manuever into a better position and/or calling in fire support. PCs that are expected to defeat larger units without support and without half of them dying in every encounter will benefit a lot from sky-high skills.