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thanks, gc. ps i edited my latest post on "be honest"... if you care.

I care enough to respond to your posts, that should count for something.

sorry if i sounded ungrateful or something similar. i don't have good social skills, which can apply to online conversations...

New skill idea... Underwater Combat. first of all, has it been done already? secondly, would ordinary combat skills or zero gravity combat skills work properly underwater, making the idea sort of useless?

Underwater combat is more difficult because you have the water pressure working against you. Someone trained in underwater combat would basically be able to fight underwater without penalties, or at least reduced penalties. I don't think it has been done. I would have to research how zero gravity combat works to see how they compare.

the only problem is i don't know how zero gravity and underwater pressure works (haven't taken physics class yet), so i don't know how the environment would affect combat. but, i'll try to do it tomorrow.

I will be able to work on it once I can borrow SG's copy of Aliens Unlimited Galaxy Guide. I think that is where the Zero Gravity skill is listed. It is much easier sometimes to work from the book than to try to find it in my files.

I have access to the Zero Gravity combat skills, but as far as i know, underwater and zero gravity are very different environments. also, i have another skill....

Pilot Scooter: Includes standard and engine-driven , 2- and 4-wheeled varieties of scooters (think of the ones kids ride). Base Skill: 50% +5% per level, 40% +4% per level for engine-driven varieties.

I would think that engine driven ones would be harder to pilot.

good point... i'll adjust that.

New Combat Skills:

Underwater Combat: Basic: Requires the Swimming skill. Gives +1 Attack per melee, +1 Strike, +1 Parry, +2 Dodge, and +6 to Speed underwater, and another +2 Strike and Dodge at level 7. Gives +1 Action, +1 Initiative, +2 "Roll" and +1 Parry at level 14. Bonuses only apply underwater.

Underwater Combat: Advanced: Counts as 2 Skills. Requires the Swimming skill. Gives +1 Attack per melee, +2 Strike, +2 Parry, +3 Dodge, +2 "Roll" with impact, +2 Pull Punch, +1 Initiative and +12 Speed underwater. Gives another +2 Strike, +2 Dodge and +1 Initiative at level 6. Gives +1 Action, +1 "Roll", +1 Iniative and +1 Dodge at level 12. Bonuses only apply underwater.

Roughly based on the Zero Gravity Combat skills. Tell me if you have any suggestions.

Percentages seem too low for a piloting skill.

Underwater combat bonuses are a bit low, also.

sigh... alright, i'm on it.

done... hopefully they're better now.

Looking good to me.

whew... thank goodness.

Things to consider;

This skill offers way too much PP. In comparison, the acrobatics and gymnastics skills offer only a single point; break-dancing does not confer some innate or better-trained hand/eye coordination or flexibility.

The awe factor needs context; you are not going to awe anyone in a presidential speech, nor are you going to awe the crowd at a ballroom dancing competition. As for adding +2 to existing Awe Factor, I refer you to the above mention of presidential speeches (and the like).

The streetwise bonus; why? Kids these days are learning break-dancing in gymnasiums and friends' houses. I don't see the connection it gives to the streets anymore. Besides this, I would like you to consider my next point;

+10% to dancing. I do agree that it should offer a bonus to this skill, but try to think of such a percentage as an indication of level. In comparison there are certain skills (such as dance) that can be taken twice. This additional focus brings the user to a "professional" level of quality. As well, you'll note that dance increases at a rate of 5% per level. The bonus you want to give the dancing skill is akin to either two additional levels of experience, or that of a professional. I think the bonus is way too high.

Alternatively you could instead get rid of the percentage that you've attached to break-dancing (ie: 30% +5% per level) and instead offer that this skill (which has dancing as a prereq.) adds 10% to the dancing skill when performing a break-dance (or break-dancing manuever). As dancing is a general skill, this would make sense.

The same could be said for your additional dancing concentrations.

Something else to note; everyone has access to the domestic category. You really don't need to include additional dance-styles in these categories, especially since house-wives are learning to pole-dance, and certainly not in a den of thieves (I would post a link where seemingly average women are doing this, but all the stuff I found may not be board-friendly).


This is redundant as its own skill because disguise offers a higher bonus and does the same thing.

This skill is already covered under Motorcycles. That is, if pilot: Motorcycles and snowmobiles includes mopeds, I think it would also include scooters.

Skill: Reconnaissance (replaces perception*) 25% +5% per level. This skill is also useable by default default**. This is a direct foil to the prowl skill, and can be used to detect camouflaged people and objects. The ability to more perceptive, this skill offers methods of training that can increase a persons' sensory awareness.
This belongs under the Espionage, Military, and Rogue categories.

*instead of rolling a d20 to notice someone who is hidden via prowl, invisibility, camouflage, etc... I've turned it into a skill. Add +5% per point of perception to this skill in-place of the actual perception bonus.

**since everyone can generally sense things (humans have 5 senses afterall), a default of 20% (plus IQ bonuses) is available for everyone.


Any method of defeating detection (loud background noises, like being near an active jet-engine, etc...) should offer a penalty to the detector for each sense disabled. On the flip-side, any situation of advantage should offer a bonus (dead-silence).

As an alternate use, you can have this skill and the prowl skill as opposed skills. What this means is that a character cannot "fail" the roll of these skills; his percentage simply becomes a kind of bench-marker.
For example, a sneaky character rolls 30 on his percentage dice against his prowl skill of 50%; that's a success by 20.
People attempting to detect him with the reconnaissance skill now recieve a penalty of 20% to detect him.

On the flip-side, this sneaky guy rolls a 70 over his 50% (stepped on a twig!); people attempting to detect him instead have a 20% bonus to notice his unfortunate fumble.

This skill could also be used to detect people using the bend light super-power (instead of an initiative check). All you need to do is assign bend-light a visual penalty (I suggest -80%). Because HU doesn't use the perception ability, you'll have to give an arbitrary bonus to characters with heightened senses. Generally speaking (and in my opinion), a character with supervision, hearing, smell, etc... should have around a +50% bonus to detect sneaking characters with these methods. Add +10% to this percentage per additional sense used (ie: a character that has both supervision and hearing would get +60%). If a sense isn't applicable (like trying to see something that's invisible, hear something that is noiseless, or smell something that is otherwise completely masked (a garbage-monster in a garbage dump)), then simply do not allow that method of detection to be used.

Because of your own criticisms about redundant skills, I find it interesting that you post a skill already covered by Detect Concealment. I also find that +50% bonus to detect sneaking characters with superpowers to be outrageously high.

If you've found it funny, it's because you need to re-read both skills presented. Detect concealment confers two things; detecting hidden objects, and the construction of hidden objects.

Reconnaissance replaces perception, or rather turns what should've been a percentage roll into a percentage roll. If there is a redundancy, it's on the part of Palladium.

As well, the unusually high bonuses conferred by super-abilities are because they are super-abilities. You're going to have a hard time convincing anyone that the ability to see body heat (ie: supervisions' infravision) should only translate into +5% to reconnaissance when attempting to spot a burglar in the dark. I only posted what seemed a reasonable suggestion. I also made sure to note that if it's not applicable, then you shouldn't apply this bonus. Really, I don't see what your problem is.

Just playing devil's advocate. I really have no problem with it personally.

Perhaps, but things like that can be adjusted.



It does not get much clarification when it appeares in the Palladium material and most people are smart enough to figure in context.



There are different styles of dancing that even "professional" quality would not cover based on increased difficulty of actually pulling off the moves. The streetwise bonus comes from the fact it was originally mostly street kids doing it and can be ignored for those learning it elsewhere.



No, because the percentage is the chance of doing things like successfully spinning on one's head.



I consider typical dance to be waltzing and slow dances. More difficult dancing should require separate skills the same way Swim also has SCUBA even though they are both swimming.



This was considering there to be added difficulty to make one look convincingly female, but perhaps you are right. Still, being optional skills, people can choose to use them or not.

Perhaps you should stick to writing your skills and leave mine alone.

I agree with you 96.8%, gc.

I don't mind people giving their opinion, but if I did not think those dance skills were significant enough to warrant their own skill listings I would not have posted them and there would not even be a thread here for him to comment on.

and once again, you make a very good point.

If you didn't want them commented on or critiqued, then you shouldn't have posted them period. What I offered was for your benefit; a different point of view. You don't have to take it, but you certainly don't need to be snippy or rude.

besides this, I never said they didn't warrant their own skill, I merely commented on the percentage - why give them one when dancing covers these other forms? (as it is a very general skill)
I can understand a specialization (and thus the piggy-back usage of dancing when pole-dancing, break-dancing, etc...), but don't you think it's odd that your skills only add to dancing when it's completely justifiable for other forms of dance to add again to these forms of dance?

That is, pole-dancing, ballet, even jazz would add some of their skill and technique to better a persons' skill at break-dancing, just as you have these sub-skills adding to dance. So why give them their own percentage when you can simply sub in dancing? (with a bonus when performing the specific style - as I stated above in my other post) All I'm saying here is that it makes sense that a person with dancing would be able to perform moves from other styles given a bit of practice; and like taking the skill twice (for professional quality), having these additional concentrations work as additions instead of stand-alone skills ends up being more PC-friendly.


What I mean by PC friendly is that you create a very strange situation having them as stand-alone skills.
For example....
Break-dancing starts at 30% +5% per level. We'll assume that the practitioner of this skill doesn't in-fact know gymnastics or acrobatics as these skills aren't really picked up all that often on the streets.

This means that in order to have even an 80% chance of success he needs to be 11th level. If he happens to perform 5 dance-moves in a single routine, one of them is statistically sure to fail. This is someone who is 11th level; you don't get that way in a day - this person has had an extremely full life thus far.

From what I've seen of people break-dancing, they are usually young but skilled. A high level of experience in this game usually indicates an older person; this creates an odd situation.

That's why I suggested what I did. To attempt to increase the verisimilitude you were going for.

A lot of people, myself included, find some of the skills to be too general and vague. Breaking them down into skill sets is not unwarranted in the case of law or dance given the many different types of law and he varying styles of dance. Of course people don't have to play them that way, that is just one way of doing it. I agree with you that break dancing should be simplified, like maybe moving the percentage amount and just giving added bonuses to the attributes and dance.
But it is not always what you say but how you say it. People can be rude and defensive when they feel as if you are attacking their work.

Indeed, this is true. It is also true that people can be called out for acting rudely. Especially since an attack on someone's work does not constitute a personal attack nor should it be taken as such.

If someone offers critical assessment of posted material then the poster should realize that the intent is helpful instead of taking it personally.

Dog_O_War's critical assessment of Gryphon Chick's skill suggestions were not a personal attack on Gryphon Chick. It was simply a suggested change. Gryphon Chick's defensive reaction seems to be more over-reaction than anything else.

And to be frank, to post on a public forum is to invite comment on the posted material. Some of those comments will be negative. It comes with the territory.

Quite true, Cybermancer. I am simply explaining why she might have reacted that way, and given that she is still new to the forum, I am sure she will eventually chill out. At least I hope so.

Agreed.

Sorry, just a lot of stress this week.
I just want to expand on skills that seem to have been too general. A lot of them seem to be played down because of not being stuff that applies to combat situations. I think that in many cases, some of the existing physical skills could serve to be modified or expanded. A lot of the problems I have had in doing the skills are due to modeling them after the way Palladium does them, when it is clear it is a flawed system. I just haven't been doing this long enough to really figure it out, so I guess I got frustrated. Sorry.

I have found it gets easier over time, but even I get irritated at things people post from time to time. You just have to try and learn from it and move on.

Doctor Specializations: Specializing in an area of medicine adds +10% to the Medical Doctor Skill while imposing a -5% skill penalty to rolls not related to the specialization. Below are a few examples.
Dermatology: This is the study of skin conditions such as acne, warts, hives, shingles and herpes, as well as various rashes, and their treatment.
Neurology: This is the study of nerve and brain function and various illnesses related to cognition.
Podiatry: This is the study of foot ailments including, but not limited to, bone spurs, corns, fallen arches, malformed or extra toes, and various conditions like Athlete's Foot.

looks good. add more please!

Skill Modification: This is an optional alternative to taking new skills to modify existing skills.

Dance Styles: At each level of progression, the character can move up +5% or choose to learn a new dance style. Learning a style allows the character to reduce penalties to performing that type of dance by -5% per level in addition to the normal dance skill progression each level.

The same could apply to the Cook or Sew skills in learning new techniques.

...i don't get it.

It is a system of trading advancement percentages for the ability to lessen penalties for more difficult applications of a skill. By taking time to learn a specific style of dance, the person reduces their penalties for more difficult moves. She is saying the same could be applied to other skills where certain techniques could be learned to reduce difficulty.

..... i think i'll just stick with skills i understand, no offense to anyone.

That is part of the problem in writing new skill progressions and such, it gets confusing. Personally, I had no problem with just selecting different styles as different skills like she was writing them.

Why? I just did it the way Dog_O_War was suggesting. SG is right, sometimes you can overcomplicate things by trying to rewrite the system. On to writing skills that make sense.

Actually, I never inferred this method at all. The method I mentioned works as follows.


Dance 40% +5% per level.
-sub-skill- Break-dancing (+10% to dancing when performing this skill)
-sub-skill- Pole-dancing (+10% dancing when performing this skill)


A character knows how to dance, and can dance in any and every method given a bit of training, but with the additional training in the sub-skills above, when ever the character attempts he adds the percentage.
So when this character decides to slow-dance with his partner, it's at 40%.
But when he attempts to show off and break-dance, his skill is considered to be at 50% thanks to a regimen of extra training and focus. Like being a professional in your chosen field.

See? Simple.

I think skill specialization is the way to go. They sort of do it already with art and writing (and in N&S, cooking), so I think sewing, dancing, and singing could benefit from specialization. If I were more motivated and inclined I'd come up with say, 20 key skills with specializations for each, but then I'd have to modify the Special Training and Physical Training categories and it might neuter the Hardware class, so I am leery of seeing if any balance issues would be caused by such a change.

Well, write it up and do some game scenario tests before posting it. I admit modifying the mechanical, electrical, communications and piloting could really disrupt existing classes and OCCs.

So do we have any new ideas for skills other than those by specialization?

i'm trying to think of something. gimme some time.

Here's two new skills for you.

Domestic/Technical Skill: Yo-Yo: Provides skill with the children's toy the skill is named after. Included in the skill is basic maintenance (like what to do if the yo-yo goes flying and the string comes off), simple tricks (even getting the yo-yo to come back up the string after letting it go is harder than you'd imagine) and more advanced tricks, which impose skill penalties (GM's determination). Base Skill: 25% +5% per level. Note that while it is possible for professionals to use more than one yo-yo at a time, each additional yo-yo inflicts a skill penalty of -10%.

W.P. Yo-Yo: Requires the Yo-Yo skill. While typically not a very good weapon, experts can learn to use a yo-yo as one if necessary. Damage is usually 1D4 or 1D6.
Level 1: +1 Strike. Level 2: +1 Entangle. Level 3: +1 strike when thrown. Level 4: +1 Disarm. Level 5: +1 Strike, and +1 Parry when the main part of the yo-yo is being held, not just the string. Level 6: +1 Entangle and Disarm. Level 8: +1 Strike when thrown. Level 10: +1 Strike. Level 12: +1 Entangle. Level 14: +1 Disarm. Level 15: +1 Strike, Throw and Parry.
Note: Using a yo-yo to parry is likely to cause it to break, since it was not intended for use in combat. Every time it is used to parry, there is a 30% chance of it breaking.

I usually just use WP Whip for yo-yos. Also, if you have piano wire for string, you can strangle with a yo-yo as with a garotte and would potentially be able to parry with it.

Here is a simple skill modifier:

Indexing: The character knows systems of filing, including the Dewey Decimal System. Can find books by subject quickly and easily. Base Skill: 50%, +5% per level. Adds +10% to the Research skill.

first off, w.p. whip for yo-yo's could work too, i guess. as for the second post, what do you mean by "skill modifier"?