Gaming Outpost Discussions » Tag: skills

Gaming Outpost Discussions » Tag: skills - Recent Topics http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/tags/skills Gaming Outpost Discussions » Tag: skills - Recent Topics en-US Thu, 24 May 2012 11:05:08 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 <![CDATA[Search]]> q http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/search.php M. J. Young on "What I don't like about mixing concentration and chaining" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/what-i-dont-like-about-mixing-concentration-and-chaining#post-17313 Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:33:17 +0000 M. J. Young 17313@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Maxx has been developing psionic skills rather quickly and impressively, and doing two things that make sense within the context, but which I feel inherently ought not work together, and I'm having trouble determining how to disconnect them. He's asked what I don't like about his latest chaining application, and the answer really is that he has already combined two concepts that are contradictory to each other, and now taking advantage of that contradiction to increase the power of his abilities significantly. So I'm using this thread to hammer out my thoughts and get some input hopefully from people who can help me make sense of how it "ought" to work. The problem begins because Maxx has been using preparatory concentration to bonus his psionic skills. Psionic skills are in the main envisioned as "instant activation" skills with carefully circumscribed levels of power--you think it, it happens, but if you want something very powerful to happen you either need multiple success rolls (e.g., to fly is easy, but to fly at supersonic velocities takes a lot of successful rolls to accelerate) or you have to take significant penalties on making it happen (e.g., you can crush with lethal damage at ranges up to 30' long, but if you want to increase the damage to fatal or the range to 60' that's a -10 penalty on chance of success). Thus it makes sense that if instead of doing it at the beginning of the minute (RF1) you do it at the end of a minute of preparatory concentration (1:00 TF), you've gained at least +10 for the conversion. It then follows that for every doubling of the time for you are genuinely focused on preparation you get another +10, and with his 30:00 concentrations he is getting +59. That makes him very nearly failure proof on most skills. Now, I certainly don't disallow "failure-proof" skills, if someone wants to invest the ritual into the magic or whatever the bonuses are to get a chance of success over one hundred percent. The detriments are built into the skill. The problem is that it has also been inherent in psionic skills that they are easily chained. That is, if you have launched a clairvoyance and tracked your target in flight for fifty miles when the end of the skill's duration arrives, in an instant you can restart the skill and keep it from failing. That makes perfect sense, because it would only take an instant to activate the skill anyway, and your chance of restarting it is the same as your chance of maintaining it, and presumably you know where the target is from tracking him, so it's not a big deal. It actually gives the character a bonus, because he gets two rolls--one to keep it from fading, another to restart it immediately. And I would not object to someone chaining a TF skill with a TF of one minute, because you probably have about that long before the skill dies; and thus assuming you're not doing something else that prevents you from concentrating on this, you should be able to put the minute into the preparatory focus necessary to keep the skill alive. Thus without really talking about it, skills with preparatory concentration also get their chaining on a successful roll, and the bonus for the preparatory concentration is included. But Maxx has skills that require half an hour of preparatory concentration which then makes them nearly failure proof, and he is chaining them without repeating the preparatory concentration but at the same probability of success. Part of this is because some of the skills in which he did this initially required skill success rolls to make changes in their effects. If you created a force object such as a support wall and you wanted to move the wall or bend the wall, you would have to make a skill check to see whether you managed to get it to do what you wanted; but this is not really "chaining" the skill in the same sense. It is successfully manipulating the skill while it functions, and incidentally includes extending the time if the new roll happens to add to the time (that is, if you have twenty minutes left on the skill and the manipulation skill check is a 30, you would have thirty minutes from the moment of the manipulation skill check, or an added ten minutes). If you are flying and roll to accelerate your velocity, it is the acceleration that is at issue; the increase in duration, if there is one, is secondary to this. At present, though, Maxx is attempting to chain a retrocognition skill that reads targeted objects in a fashion that allows him to move from one object to another. It strikes me that if he were reading his mother's mind and wanted to read his father's mind, I would not allow that as chaining--that's a different targeted mind, with a different chance of success (because his mother's mind is more familiar to him). I should not permit a chaining of retrocognition to connect to a different object, by that reasoning. If a skill requires an extended preparatory concentration, "chaining" rolls are thereafter limited to such purposes and targets as were envisioned when the preparation was undertaken, and any change in those purposes or targets which takes it beyond the initial parameters will require a fresh performance of the skill including the preparatory time. Thanks for asking, Maxx. That seems the fair solution. --M. J. Young Tadeusz on "Psionic Skill: Kulturfog" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/psionic-skill-kulturfog#post-8292 Thu, 27 Nov 2008 21:49:24 +0000 Tadeusz 8292@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Kulturfog comes from R. Emmitt Tyrell of The American Spectator who took it from the Germanic 'kulturkamp' which is basically 'culture war'. He talked about how even smart, correct people find themselves blunted and weakened in a fog of resistance. So, a Psi Skill: Kulturfog. 1. Its Always Active, and people who use it are not generally aware they have it up. 2. It imposes mental costs on leaving certain accepted lines of thought. Perhaps it means that to be truly creative or logical or original one has to make a Difficult Willpower Challenge. 3. The field covers a large society and is generated by most in that society. Each contributes a very small part, but the result is completely pervasive (or nearly so...maybe thats why some artists go to cabins in the woods) and subtle and strong. It shapes minds without the minds being aware of their shaping. 4. Certain people with 2@ mental traits are more easily able to resist the Kulturfog. If you have multiple 2@ mental traits like Willpower and Intuition or Willpower and Intelligence you find yourself in an odd situation. Most everyone around you is dull, banal, and not very logical, but you're able to push past this to clarity. You're the One-Eyed Man in the Land of the Blind (or Really Near-sighted). I'm not sure what psi level this would have to be. And I bounce it over to the system designer chaps for their consideration. M. J. Young on "Vehicle Operation Skill Questions" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/vehicle-operation-skill-questions#post-6682 Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:44:04 +0000 M. J. Young 6682@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ This comes from our Behind the Screens thread, where John Cross posted <blockquote>MJ, I know you hate it when I beat dead horses, but this is kind of bothering me about my character. My sheet has me listed at 2@1 driving semi trucks, and 2@5 (raised from 1@10) driving normal cars. While it is true that I do posses a class A CDL driver's license, I have not been behind the wheel of a truck since shortly after I graduated truck driving school. I would have at best 1@2 drive semis. It would be like saying you had 1@5 level driving the day you got your driver's license. (If you say that you did, I'm going to call you a boldfaced liar.) No one has skills just because they have a piece of paper that says that they do. I know I'm asking you to lower my skills in that area, but I'd really feel more comfortable with that. Also, with the 2@5 level driving. I delivered pizzas off and on for 3 years. (From age 23 to age 28, for a total of 5 different stores. I'd say 3 or more years total during that time) Driving a car, against a clock, 6-10 hours a day, 3-6 days a week depending on the schedule. I'm happy with 2@5 driving, but I'd really feel more comfortable with 2@7-2@8 driving. I think that pizza delivery job merits it. The boss even commented that I was one of their better drivers, right before she fired me.</blockquote> and Kurt followed up with <blockquote>And I had a 1@5 driving skill, I think, when I got my license. Mind you, I did have a crapload of practice driving and was scrutinous about all my driving, including checking mirrors in a paranoid manner, when behind the wheel at that point. I actually think that driving skill can drop with more driving experience. At the beginning, new drivers are more nervous on the road, and much more careful. With experience comes a point where the drivers are comfortable behind the wheel (and still suceptible to raging hormones) and could potentially be more dangerous on the road. I just thought I'd throw that out there...</blockquote> Let me start this thread and then address those questions in a new post. --M. J. Young M. J. Young on "Beginner's Luck" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/beginners-luck#post-4577 Wed, 09 Apr 2008 21:36:15 +0000 M. J. Young 4577@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ In our <a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/behind-the-screens-2008">Behind the Screens thread</a>, John A1nut asked: <blockquote>Why is it a lower chance of success for something that I've already done? That's like saying it's easier to knit the first time you do it, and it gets harder the next time.</blockquote> Well, from a strictly technical perspective, the answer is that it is sometimes easier (and sometimes harder) to learn something than to do it again because the odds are calculated differently. It's entirely possible that you could design a skill of a low enough bias relative to your bias that the bias difference would make it relatively simple for you to learn it the first time, but the penalties on it would be so great you would never do it again. It's never happened that I recall, but there have been some strong discrepancies in such things, and there are situations in which players decide to design a new skill instead of using an old one precisely to get the advantage of bias (although in the long term this is not as good a strategy, since increasing skill ability level will increase the power of many skills). In the rules, we say that this can be written off to beginner's luck. You, however, want a better justification of it than that. It turns out that I have one. The fact is, your skill learning roll is about whether you teach yourself to work the new skill; if you make it part of the learning process that you would actually do the skill, then successfully learning it means successfully doing it. On the other hand, it's entirely possible to teach yourself a new skill without doing it. Let's take for an example learning to make brownies. Most people who want to learn to make brownies get all the materials together, read the recipe, follow it step by step, and in the end have a pan of brownies, and now they are amateurs at making brownies. However, it is entirely possible for someone to get hold of the recipe, have none of the materials available, but run through the process several times carefully in their own minds until they know how to do it. Now they know how to make brownies, and few would doubt that such a person has as good a chance of making a pan of brownies as the other person who made one once. (We could even include in this that the one person has someone standing there instructing them, and the other person is standing there watching someone who is instructing them--even watching Rachel Ray on television--to get the information.) So whether you successfully do what you are teaching yourself to do depends on whether you have designed the learning process "hands on" such that you are learning by doing. That still doesn't explain why it might be easier for you to do something while you're learning it than it would be the next time; but I'm getting there. You are of course very much focused on thinking through the process the first time, deciding what has to be done. It's not entirely unreasonable to suggest that this level of focus is going to make a difference. Ah, but you will object that you can apply that same level of focus the next time, and I can't really argue with that. I can, though, argue with the very premise. You are asking why it is more likely that you would succeed when you are learning it than after you have learned it. That, though, is an artifact of the mechanics--something your character cannot possibly know. When he is learning it, he knows that he will succeed or he will not succeed. He might have some feel for how easy or difficult it would be to learn this, or to do it once he knows it. In fact, though, he never really knows how likely--or unlikely--it is that he will succeed. He only knows whether he succeeds or not. It could be that he had a one percent chance of success, and he rolled the one; it could be that he had a hundred fifty percent chance of success and it didn't matter what he rolled. He knows that he succeeded. Further, if he succeeded, he never has that particular probability of success again. Thus I am looking at "how likely is it that you can learn how to do this," and giving you successfully doing it once for free. In designing the rules, we gave some consideration to making such situations a double roll: that you had to roll once to see if you could learn the skill (without actually doing it) and again to see whether you could use the new skill successfully. After some discussion and debate, we agreed that if you designed your skill learning process such that you would learn by doing, successfully learning would be successfully doing it exactly once, but if you designed the skill learning process such that you would learn the skill and then do it, you had to face the double roll. It doesn't usually come up; most people attempt to teach themselves new skills by trying to do them, most of the time. --M. J. Young johnosevens on "Rants on Telekinesis - Debate or Ignore" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/rants-on-telekinesis-debate-or-ignore#post-2654 Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:54:24 +0000 johnosevens 2654@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Feel free to ignore this if you feel I'm beating a dead horse, or if you'll be easily offended by being quoted in my rant, but I'm sufficiently annoyed that I feel the need to soapbox a little. "It was pointed out to me on page three of Men of Psience that, firstly, P4@ telekinesis only effects whole objects, and secondly, that it exerts no force on its targets." -- If it exerts no force, then it cannot cause movement, period. Unless this is in utter ignorance of the laws of physics to the point where you're basically moving the entire universe along with it. After all, in one sense electrostatic forces make it so nothing is actually touching, and on the other hand, gravitational forces make it so everything in all the infinite multiverse is basically "touching" in the same way. Force imparts movement, movement begets momentum. "The thread would not prevent someone from lifting or moving the car within the limits of the length of the thread, but you could not pull the stake from the ground or break the thread." "The first is because of the delicacy factor. " --That's ridiculous. I can "delicately" lift a ten-ton shipping truck, but I can't use the same amount of TK (it is an amount of energy whether you call it a force or not) to destroy a quarter-ton Geo Metro? I call shenanigans, sir... "The second is because it makes force generatives necessary for any skill that would break one object into two" --Well, yeah. You move something, you're generating a force. Sir Isaac Newton would spontaneously combust in his grave if you honestly argued that you could cause motion without generating a force. "and thus gives a solid and clear bias distinction between worlds in which you can move independent objects and worlds in which you can break objects. " --Why? I cause a force. If the thing I'm handling can survive that force, it moves. If it can't, it crumples like a beer can. My telekinetic third limb is the same either way. "The TK pulse that can shift the pebble a few feet can shift the sun a few feet just as easily." --Obi-Wan Kenobi can force-push half a dozen battledroids. Why does that imply he can move a star? Even Yoda would swallow himself in astonishment. "On the other hand, I tend to think that simple TK does not, and that suggests that heavy TK does not, either. If you move an object "as fast as your hand can move it" to a particular point, and then release it, you are deemed to have brought it to rest by releasing it. It would fall straight down from there, barring any other interference. So it depends on the skill." --So you're saying releasing it is automatically akin to forcing it to stop? (Force, again...) You can't use Light or Heavy TK to pick something heavy up and fling it, even though they're more complex skills? I'm envisioning this as using TK to pick up a giant rock, swing it like a meteor-hammer, and let it go... and instead of flying off like the fist of an angry god, it drops... well... like a rock. If I saw that happen I think I would just blink my eyes in abject shock and then stand there till whatever I was throwing it at came over and smushed me into the next Verse. JohnA1nut on "3@10" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/310-1#post-744 Thu, 04 Oct 2007 06:49:09 +0000 JohnA1nut 744@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ This might sound kind of rude to some people, but I'm wondering about something. How does a player get to 3@10? The reason I am asking is that a lot of the people at this forum would probably have 3@10 typing ability. MJ almost certainly would have 3@10 typing. However, all of us, including MJ make typos, misspell words, etc. Also, I know that I could type faster than I do. My mom can type over 100 words a minute. I average probably 30-40. Why aren't we all typing impossibly fast, and with no typos?