Skills

[SirEktar]

Well, I'm still waiting for my copy to arrive so to kill some time, I'd like to get everyone's thoughts on the skill system. From what I understand, there are a couple of hundred skills listed in the book. To me, this seems a bit..... excessive. In other games which have large skill lists, I've observed some effects:

- characters tend to not have spotty skill-coverage where they can't do things that they should
- it gets harder to keep track of what skills each charcter has and time is often wasted searching a long skill list for an applicable skill.

Has anyone observed these effects or it this a non-issue? From other reviews, I know there are some skill duplicates. I think that there are dwarven and orkish versions on mining.

[Manicrack]

The skill system is similar to many others i have seen so far. Nothing actually really special(like many other things in BW)

1. When you don't have a skill, you can try to perfom the task by rolling the root staat at double obstacle. This is calle dbeginner's luck. It's needed to learn new skills. You need to have a specific number of beginners luck tests for a specific skill to learn it. You can also learn the skill by a tutor or book(I belive), but that takes time.

2. Well, I didn't really play the system yet(nobosy wnats to play with me :cry: ) but as far as I see it, point 1 negates players from having crowded skill lists. A party is supposed t be set together of adventurers with many different abilities. So, when one can brack a lock, the others never have to learn it.
And you don't nessecarilya skill to perform a given task. Biginner's luck.

Hope, it helps you.


-Crack

[Thor Olavsrud]

Hey SirEcktar,

There may be a lot of skills, but characters don't have access to all of them (for instance, those that are race-specific). Beginning characters will definitely have the skills that define their professions, because you are constrained to the skills dictated by your lifepaths. In fact, you MUST take the first skill listed on each lifepath you take. If you already have that skill, you MUST take the next one on the list.

Each character is free to buy SOME skills outside his lifepaths, but he can only spend General Skill Points on them. Since these are few and far between, characters are unlikely to have more than three or four of these.

After play begins, this is no longer an issue. However, learning a new skill can be a difficult and time-consuming process. You have two options: you can use the Beginner's Luck rules that Manicrack noted (and you have to use it that way for a number of times depending on your Aptitude before actually learning the skill and eliminating the double obstacle penalty), or you can find a teacher and use the Training rules.

Anyway, even if their skill lists are long (and they are only likely to be long at first if you allow them to start with five or more lifepaths), expect that your players will come to learn their skill lists pretty quickly; they'll need to in order to wheedle you into allowing FoRKs for their actions. :lol: