My Skill System - seeking feedback

[SmellHole]

This is the skill system our group uses. It is my creation and hasn't really been tested too much. I'd appreciate it if those who are interested could take a look a give some feedback or just tell me what you think. So far it's been going pretty smoothly.

http://www.othertales.com/downloads/DCC ... les1.4.pdf

Thanks.

[finarvyn]

I moved the thread to the "rules" section. Maybe it will see more action here.

I read the thread earlier but didn't reply since DCC doesn't use skills and I have no plans to add them. If I want a skill-based game I have other games to pick from instead.

Having said that, I looked at your skill rules and they seem pretty well thoght out. I'm not sure if I want to allow my characters to gain abilites faster than the class allows (example, thief skills making the thief better faster) but it might work if all classes get a similar edge. I do worry about a gradual power inflation and wonder if this might start that off.

I downloaded a copy and might try it for a game session just to see how it works in play.

[SmellHole]

Thanks. That'd be great.

Except in the case of spending skill points, I purposefully tried to make sure the other skills wouldn't make the Thief better, faster (we can rebuild him!). We have a Thief in our group who is our testing platform. She chose to improve Perception.

Thanks for reading.

[Exedor]

In your ability score section, you could have said "roll 3d5+3 six times"

[SmellHole]

What can I say, we like to roll and reroll dice.

[Zargon]

I enjoyed reading your thoughts on Skills compatible with the DCC system. I thought the use of the core book fonts and artwork was very tasteful and tempted me further to try out your house rules in upcoming gatherings. Do publish your thoughts from play-testing and any editing you perform on the skill system. Thanks for showing us.

[cthulhudarren]

This was a good read and well presented. I would suggest that for zero levels you allow a single skill point and that it strongly be limited to their profession/background.

For example, unless the character starting background was as a bandit or a hunter I would not allow stealth. Too much powergaming potential.

Also my preference would be to not reroll ones. But I would accept the idea of rerolling if you had 4+ rolls below 9.

[Skyscraper]

Nicely presented document and your rules appear well developped. I cannot speak to balance because the system seems too deep for me to be capable of evaluating it at a glance, but you seem to have put some thought into it and some balance aspects do peek out from behind the curtains

Personally I would not want to add a skill system to DCC. Nothing to do with your system, mind you. Just that I like the simplicity of DCC's skill system and how it induces us to think about the PC's background everytime he wants to use a skill.

Generally, you chose to skip a few key elements of DCC rules with your approach to DCC. Firstly, you skip the funnel. This is incredible to me, as the funnel has been sooooo much fun for me and my group. And in my online game also. I have also read only strong support throughout the boards for the funnel. Rarely has a rule (we could call it a gaming experience really) been so unanimous. If you have not tried the funnel, I would urge you to reconsider your decision to skip it.

Then, I note that you add one additional hit die at level 1 and you devise a way to mitigate low ability score rolls.

While these are of couse fair decisions, have you considered using the rules as is? If your players are concerned about their PCs dying, all the better When players get scared, you're doing something right IMO. (Of course if your game is a slugfest (funnel apart), the players will not be scared, they'll be bored at continuously loosing their favorite PCs.) Secondly, playing ordinary Joes is something that the last 10 years of D&D have steered us away from, but it's pretty cool. Getting to be someone when you start off as a nobody is really a satisfying experience. It's like, if you hike up that 5000 foot mountain from the bottom, you'll be that much prouder than if you get a lift halfway up.

In the end, it's your game and I hope you have fun with it. Your rules seem to make a lot of sense and to be consistent. I'm only curious if you've actually played with the rules as written. In the contrary, I would suggest you try them out. The entire balance of the original game rules yields a playing experience with a special feel. If you houserule away from that, you're diluting this play experience. Try the dish before pouring ketchup on it . This doesn't mean your play experience would be bad, of course! It's not a question of good or bad. It's a question of me suggesting that you try this sort of good, before going to that sort of good

This was a good read and well presented. I would suggest that for zero levels you allow a single skill point and that it strongly be limited to their profession/background.

I believe his campaign starts at level 1 anyway.

[SmellHole]

Thanks for the feedback. Very helpful.

Generally, you chose to skip a few key elements of DCC rules with your approach to DCC. Firstly, you skip the funnel. This is incredible to me, as the funnel has been sooooo much fun for me and my group. And in my online game also. I have also read only strong support throughout the boards for the funnel. Rarely has a rule (we could call it a gaming experience really) been so unanimous. If you have not tried the funnel, I would urge you to reconsider your decision to skip it.

Then, I note that you add one additional hit die at level 1 and you devise a way to mitigate low ability score rolls.

We have played the funnel before. We did the Sailors on a Starless Sea module and it was generally fun and we did enjoy it. However, after much discussion, we decided it just wasn't for us. For one, while it was fun running 8 characters at a time (there's only three of us, with two players playing two 1st level characters), it's not something we want to be doing every time we start a campaign. Secondly, we like to arrange our ability scores to best support the class we want to play. We've done it this way since the 80s. And lastly, while we don't want to have uber high ability scores, we do find straight 3d6 to produce more low scores than high, more often than not - too low for our tastes. The method we've developed has come together over many years - it's our default way to roll ability scores. It's how we've found we get mostly average scores, a couple of high scores, and probably one, maybe two, low scores. It certainly doesn't produce high scores like 4d6 minus low die.

As for the skill system, we're using it in our current game and so far so good. One thing we've noticed is that while we have a Perception skill our GM will make us roll a Dungeoneer, Survival, or Tomb Raider "perception" roll if what we're supposed to notice has to do with one of those non-standard skills. For example, while in a tomb that was near collapse the GM had the player with the Tomb Raider non-standard skill make an Int based Tomb Raider roll to notice something, everyone else made regular perception rolls. This worked out in this case because the character with Tomb Raider had a higher Tomb Raider score than Perception.

We're toying with the idea of adding a Profession skill to address the character's 0-level occupation.

1st level characters don't get one additional hit die at level 1. They get to roll two hit dice and pick the better of the two rolls. We've also done this for years and years.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

[Skyscraper]

Fair points all around.

I actually like the "better of the two HP dice" approach for level 1.

Good gaming!

[SmellHole]

Hi,

My house rules with the skill system have moved here.

The house rules also include an Elven Ranger class based on Raskal's work in Crawl No. 6. My version is designed to work with my house rules and skill system.