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I have been having trouble thinking about how to do rogue skills.Like you have a system for them to sneak, and the question is how do you resolve people other than the rogue sneaking? Then oh noes skills can sneak it in and they can be a pain.
Anyway I like how Lamentations of the Flame Princess and 52 pages rules do it, BUT decided not to do it that way. Kinda of.
Skills are done with a stat check. If you do not have a skill it will be a half stat check.
Rogues additionally will have a rogue die for each skill. This is a d6. There rogue die is rolled at the same time as a stat check. If it gets the value or under you have in it , you get either a reroll (you must take the new result however ) or a bonus. So if you have a value of 2 in your stealth you would get a reroll or bonus if you rolled a 1 or a 2 on the die.
Rogues start with 6 points to spend at level 1. The skills are Stealth, Sleight of Hand, Deceit (a mixture of disguise , bullshiting , and charm) , Climb, Acrobatics, Tampering (find/remove/modify traps).
Spending a point firstly gets you the skill (not having a skill means the stat check required for successful use of the skill is done with the stat halved. Some things cannot be attempted without the required skill) , and additional points are the value that you need to roll on the rogue die.
So a first level rogue could have all the skills without a rogue die in them, or have 3 of the skills with a rogue die of 1 , or one skill with a rogue die of 6.
Examples of bonuses : Flamboyantly (affects the morale of npc), Undetectably , Quickly (takes only a moment to perform), Thoroughly (nothing left behind), etc.
Each time you gain a level you get +1 to either purchase a new skill or increase a rogue die by one.
A point spend on a rogue die after it reaches 6, starts a new die. So the skill has an automatic bonus or reroll, and you are now rolling the rogue die to see if you have an additionally reroll or bonus.
I'm still undecided on how to do skills for the other classes. I think it will be something like 3+int modifier and you can choose them in play ("wait does your guy know how to swim? Umm sure..") if at all.
There is some good "background" systems floating around which replace skills. Basically you count as having training in something if your background would cover it. I was playing around with making big tables that had your background how much money and equipment you had and what skills. They were not so good.
Although having the background table weighted by if you belonged to the "right sort of people" or not was kinda cool.
I'm having trouble parsing this. So let's say BUTTZ the THIEF has DEX 14. He has 6 skill points and he spends one on learning STEALTH and then since this is an example he spends the other 5 on Stealth as well, giving him Stealth 5.
ReplyDeleteSo Buttz is trying to do Stealth by pitter-pattering past a sleepy goblin. He'd make a Dexterity check, and and roll the Rogue die at the same time (a d20 and a d6). For any result of 1 through 5 on a d6, he can chose to either add that amount to his d20 roll OR 'cash it in" to reroll the d20. Is this right? If so, that's a neat mechanic for things!
I don't really understand the second die. If I have Stealth 7 I get to roll a d6 (which 'uses' 6 of my 7 points) and then I get to spend the last point on a +1 or a re-roll? Do I have to pick before rolling?
What if the Stealth is, like, hiding in a crowd by acting naturally and keeping his head down? Could I roll a Charisma check and still use my bonus Rogue die?
Also: Where do the bonuses come in? Do you spend a skill point to gain a bonus? So I could spend my first 6 points like this?:
1-Buy Stealth
4-Four ranks in Stealth
1-Specialize in "drunkenly"
Total 6: Stealth 4/6, +1 when performing thief skills "drunkenly"
What? No. You do not add the rogue did on to the stat check. YOu are making a stat check, and then checking on a d6 if you get a reroll or bonus. The rogue die is not added on to the stat check.
DeleteA bonus is like an extra element to the success.
So if you were trying to do that hide in a crowd thing (which I would allow the rogue die for, it's tied to the skill rather than the stat) and you got a bonus , it could be that you got a chance to just piss bolt without being noticed ("abruptly")or managed to get really close to the person who you wanted to hide from whilst remaining undetected ("brazenly") . You don't have to always tie the bonus to a particular adjective or any adjective at all. I just thought it was a good handle to think about a success+ *
The extra die is when you have your rogue die at greater than 6 , ie you will always succeed on the chance to get a reroll/bonus, and the extra points are to determine if you a getting another reroll or bonus
Savvy?
*originally I was thinking that you would purchase "adjectives" , so your stealth would always be "sudden" or your deceit would always be "audacious"
but just didn't quite work somehow.