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Combine this with the Dance skill

Wouldn't Juggling be more appropriate?

bot sure if this has been done before, but for splicers how about biotic lore which is the skill of knowing about biotics
base is 34 +5%?
tell if this has been done before & if not how to make this skill fit splicers better.

I'm not sure there's any reason for a Lore: Biotic...it would be like having a Lore: Cyborg or Lore: Infantryman....both of which would be respectively covered by the appropriate Mechanical and Medical skills for the former and Military Etiquette or History for the latter.

In Splicers, Biotics don't qualify as a separate culture onto themselves...they're either regarded as equipment, the particulars of which would be known by their creators, or as combat effectives, in which case Intelligence or Military Et. would cover the important parts. Knowledge of Biotics engaged on socializing and interacting with others in their Houses could best come under Streetwise("Yeah, there's some Biotics running poker game in Tunnel Zero-three, but they use their infrared vision to read marked cards...so sez my cousin the Gardener.").

how about this as trivia: biotics instead, just a thought anyway.

Same problem.
If you're talking about the peculiarities or capabilities of a House's Biotics, it comes under (Military) Intelligence. If you're talking street-level rumor, it's Sttreetwise.

The 800-lb gorilla in this argument is, of course, that Palladium has a Lore: Juicer, but not a Lore: Crazy or Lore: Cyberknight....but the counter-argument is that Juicers had press coverage going all the way back to the pre-Rifts era, whereas Crazies didn't get positive press, and Cyberknights are a more recent development and thus knowledge of their society and pseudo-culture falls into mainstream general knowledge and rumor(unless you have a professional interest in either, in which case it would be covered more succinctly under Military Intelligence).

I always thought Lore skills were more for something ancient or hard to find out about. Basic knowledge of something falls under other skills and so would not fit the description of "lore".

How about Lore: 800lb Gorilla
Basically you know about 800lb Gorilla's.
base is 34 +5%

There is the Veterinarian skill in After the Bomb and I think Splicers.

Actually,I can kind of see a "Lore: Biotics" skill for the Splicers setting.
With all the various Houses in Splicers, some will have their own specific Biotic forms/styles. Yes, this could be covered by "Intelligence" or even a "Lore: Houses" skill, but not everyone is an Intelligence person.

It needs to be more detailed than what abe wrote, though. His skill is too general and ambiguous.

I'd go with Lore: Houses(Technical) as that covers a greater range of topics, including some familiarity with the biotechnology(Warmounts, Dreadguard, Roughriders, and, yes, Biotics) a House possesses. I'd place the overall skill vase as 35%+5% per level of experience with the more commonly known/observed aspects a House, with a -5% penalty leveled against specific knowledge of more elite units and projects(such as the Dreadguard)

Landscaping(Domestic/Technical)
Landscaping is to the outdoors what Interior Design and Architecture are to the indoors. Landscaping focuses primarily on the aesthetically-pleasing arrangement of natural elements(plants, stonework, water, and ground contours) around buildings and outdoor facilities, but it also has applications in land conservation, ground usage, erosion and flood control, military fortification and camouflage(proper landscaping can create natural barriers to easy approach and deny invaders blind spots to hide in). Elements include laying stonework, discerning and implementing proper soil drainage, and placing of appropriate plants. Landscapers can work on scales as small as a suburban house lot to a sprawling golf course or mansion, with needed tools ranging from shovels to heavy earthmoving equipment. Landscapers may also be called upon to work on projects such as flood control dikes or beach repair efforts. A failed roll means that the landscaping effort is an aesthetic flop or a terrain disaster(swampy ground where it shouldn’t be, crumbling hillsides, collapsing stonework, more rapid shoreline erosion, etc.).
Note: Landscapers get a +3% to Detect Ambush/Concealment for spotting concealed security measures and structures on landscaped grounds, and a +1 to Perception for spotting signs of deliberate landscaping(can pick up on patterns of planting or earth placement).
Prerequisites: Gardening
Base Skill: 45 % + 5% per level of experience. +5% if Botany and +3% if Geology are also taken.
+3% to Military Fortification and +5% to Camouflage skills if the landscaper has enough time and resources to spend on a thorough job.

Sweet Landscaping skill Taal. Is it to much to suggest Language: Spanish be mentioned somewhere in the write up? I don't want to break any forum rules, but sometimes the things in my head just have to come out.

on a show I saw on cartoon network they had a Mexican/american landscape artist, so would the Mexican language work for this skill as well?

A specialization of cooking could be ancient with a base skill of 12+2% per level
what do you think?

This is all I can say.
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=107188&p=2756570#p2754696

This is redundant. Cooking IS an ancient art. There are new tools, but any chef worth their salt learned the basics first.

sorry for being serious about the language question!

Lore: Biotic is a perfectly logical specialization
we already have this sort of thing
Lore: Demons and Monsters
Lore: Undead
Lore: Vampire, Lore: Zombie
hrmmm, looks like you can narrow down lore to be specific as you like

A) That comes off as extremely racist. Other people besides Spanish people do landscaping. B) I personally don't add in anything to a skill that is unneeded to perform said skill.

When dealing with the Megaverse, those words, Monster, Demon, Zombie, Undead, and Vampire cover a LOT of ground, and there may be SEVERAL infernal dimensions that 'demons' seem to originate from(the Unholy's forces on Wormwood, for instance, seem to have no connection to the denizens of the Infernal Planes central to the Minion War. There's several different times of Zombie, and there's likely more than one flavor of vampire(indeed, thanks to fans who don't like the whole 'die from squirtguns' weakness).

Biotics, on the other hand, are a human creation and an OCC, and that's a lot narrower than the above categories. The problem is, that we have Lore: Juicer on Rifts Earth, in part because Juicers have this whole kultural thing wrapping up aspects of biker, outlaw, rogue, and drug culture that apparently dates back to the pre-Rifts era, so, thanks to good press and a lot of self-promotion, they get a Lore skill.

My thoughts exactly. In my part of the states, the case could be made that at different times gardening and landscaping were the province of Irish and Latvians, in part because the major employers in the area who sponsored immigrants(especially after WW2) ran orchards and greenhouses, in return for work in the greenhouses while they got settled into the new culture. My grandfather was one of them, working for over thirty years for Pearson's Nurseries.

Truly ANCIENT cooking would be hunter-gatherer, or eating it raw after you picked it or killed it(Identify Plants & Fruits, Hunting).
Applying ancient Recipes would be Cooking/Brewing+Archaeology+Languages(Ancient of your choice). Archaeology to find evidence of ancient cooking styles, Languages to decipher them, and Cooking/Brewing to apply them.
This is how we know how the Sumerians made beer, and how several companies now purport to make 'artisan' brews according to the 'original' recipes(they tend to be thin and sweet, with enough alcohol to purify the water content).

that's quite true!

To everyone who thought my question about applying Language: Spanish to the Landscaping skill was serious and therefore offended by it I offer 2 replies. You make pick whichever makes you feel the best.

A.) Sorry, I was just joking around

B.) Really? REally! Reeeaaaally?? Seriously?

Facesaving(Communications)
The art of verbally back-peddling from an embarrassing slip of the tongue("Yes, that dress DOES make you look fat."), botched off-the-cuff remark(“Nice servant wench you got…oh, she’s your daughter?”), tactless joke("It's not as if he drowned in the cesspool...oh, he did?"), inadvertently caught-on-tape comment("I'm going to throw you off this %$%$^ing balcony!"), or critical fumble of the Public Speaking skill, in the hopes the incident will quickly be glossed over and forgotten. A regularly taught, and all-too-often exercised, skill of public officials and media celebrities, Facesaving is the 'after-the-fact' variant of 'the more commonly known 'fasttalking' and incorporates many of the same movements. Groveling, forced grinning, disarming and hopefully not too nervous laughter, placating hand movements, not-quite-eye-contact, sweat control, and subtle, but rapid, back-shuffling motion are common to Facesaving methodology. So is implied temporary insanity, psychotic break, tragic misunderstanding, and appeals to a common human fallibility. A successful Facesave means that the Facesaving party is not immediately punched out, dragged down, or tarred and feathered, though the offended parties may still bear a grudge.
Bonus: +1 to dodge in the first melee round of an enraged assault. After that, you’re on your own, bub.
Base Skill: 25%+5% per level of experience. Bonuses from M.A. stat apply.

The fact that you were joking around makes it no less racist. Some of us have Hispanic ancestry, after all.

Nice skill Taal and a well made subtle statement also.

It would be nice if we could get more skills posted and less irrelevant banter. Constructive criticism is one thing, but we are getting a lot of other things.

Idea I had from the marx brothers, making gookies-basically a making funny face specialization
base chance-43+6% per level.
what do you think?

I think this falls under the Performance skill.

Have you even read the skills lists in some of the more recent books?

not-really as I usually can't afford them, I have to get them used, usually from amazon.com, sorry.

When I say more recent I mean that the Performance skill has appeared in 7 different books since 1996. 4 of those are core books.

oh, ok then, didn't know that.

animal-psycology
the skill of treating mental conditions in non-sentiants
bonuses +3 to ma(animals only), +2 to speed(if the roll fails horribly you can run from enraged animals) & +3d12 (for when you fail to run far enough from the non-sentient)
base chance is 35 +5% per level
what do you fine people thinik?

How would you go about doing it, exactly? You cannot talk to an animal to know what is wrong with it. And how are you giving a bonus to MA of an animal when most animals do not have actual attributes? unless you are intending this for mutant animals. What is the +3d12 a bonus to and why should a skill give a bonus that high to anything?

I'm having a deja vu moment, because I am quite certain that Abe previously posited that skill suggestion before, and I seem to recall asserting that it was broadly covered under Veterinary Medicine(or Horsemanship if you're horse-whispering).

Yes, I am correct; page 17 of this thread, Halfway down.
(relieved) I wasn't having a senior moment.

Perhaps he's suggesting something more specialized than that, a kind of Veterinary Psychology. It still is so poorly written it is hard to know exactly what the skill is intended to actually do.

The way I parse it, it's really for approaching an an animal(the MA bonus is with regards to the skill-user when approaching an animal, not other people) and spotting the signs of a deranged or angry animal before it lunges at you. This is presuming that the animal is going to go from a somnolent standstill to a full hate-on charge for your throat , after giving you time to check it or question it as to its emotional state.
I'd say that really comes under Perception, spotting the foaming mouth, tensing muscles, baring its teeth or hearing the growing growl. In general, these are good signs the animal doesn't want you around.
I'd also use Wilderness Survival or Biology(Zoology)(Entomology if you're dealing with giant insects) if you're dealing with known predatory animals(for instance, trying to figure out if you should run from a bear or attempt to intimidate it by trying to look larger), or critters with known bad dispositions (Cape Buffalo, bison, elephants, etc.).

And frankly, you're not going to get me close enough to a giant spider to check for signs of agitation, affection, or hunger in it.

I think this time, like last time, the skill is covered under Veterinary Sciences or Veterinary Medicine, or both.

I am also thinking this.

lol u mad bro?

Sorry, I forgot that I did this already, again sorry

W.p caber(see the famous caber toss for details of the sport on Wikipedia)
Bonus is +2d6 to p.s damage is 2d12
attack bonuses are +1 every other level
what do you think, do you think it makes a good weapon skill?

You made a W.P. for what is essentially throwing a telephone pole. To answer your question (which I bolded); No I don't think it makes a good skill.

Also, the point of the Caber toss even isn't to "hit a target" but to flip the caber end over end and toss it farther than anyone else. It is a test of strength, not a display of weapons skill.

To make a good skill it should either add fun to the game (Taalismn's W.P. Duct tape comes to mind as one just for fun.) or be useful in some way (the hobo skill Stowaway - lets you hitch free rides on moving vehicles without getting yourself ran over). While it might be funny to rp throwing a phone pole at someone or even having PC's compete in Highland style games; i don't think WP Caber is a valid skill. You might rework it (following the rules for skill creation that were laid out earlier) to a specialization in highland style games (most likely a physical skill), but I just don't think it works as a WP.

W.P. Caber doesn't cut it because it's more an Athletic skill, what with the overly generous +2d6 PS bonus you've given it; there's also no damage rating for the heavy pole hitting a target, so what you're really posting is WeightLifting with a throw.
W.P.s are about HURTING people with objects, not pumping up.

If you are using a Caber as a weapon, that would fall under WP Staff. You would just need extremely high strength to wield it. It does not warrant its own WP.

I added damage, that better?

HUGMG brawling rules covers the Caber nicely.
And as others have said this is more a test/show of strength than an actual weapon.
Caber Toss as a physical skill? Maybe... but I would think it could be covered under the weight lifting/body building skills better.

ok, but is the concept sound?