Thread: Alternative Skill modifiers ?

I am curious if anyone has used alternate skill category modifiers obviously COC, and BRP use different systems for skills. Has anyone tried a system based on adding all characteristics up and that is the skill modifier, or has anyone tried having skills tied to one characteristic only? if so how well did it work? I am really curious to see what everyone has done or come up!

AEONS uses skill modifiers based on a single dominant characteristic. Modifiers are applied in 5% blocks, which further simplifies things (similar to RQ2).

It really hasn't affected play at all, while considerably simplifying character generation, character advancement and temporary changes to characteristic scores.

Originally Posted by skull

I am curious if anyone has used alternate skill category modifiers obviously COC, and BRP use different systems for skills. Has anyone tried a system based on adding all characteristics up and that is the skill modifier, or has anyone tried having skills tied to one characteristic only? if so how well did it work? I am really curious to see what everyone has done or come up!

Magic World includes a variant take on skill category modifiers that I really like, and have used in an SF variant I ran earlier this year. Basically, each category is tied to ONE stat, and the category bonus is half the stat. In the SF variant I used Half POW as the stat for the Combat category - but I also tweaked the skill list as to where certain skills sat (and significantly revised weapon skills, but that's another thread)...

But it must be said that I also remain very fond of th ebasic categoies, eitehr as they are in RQIII or the revised version in the BGB...

Cheers,

Nick

Originally Posted by skull

I am curious if anyone has used alternate skill category modifiers obviously COC, and BRP use different systems for skills. Has anyone tried a system based on adding all characteristics up and that is the skill modifier, or has anyone tried having skills tied to one characteristic only? if so how well did it work? I am really curious to see what everyone has done or come up!

Yeah. I had a method where I replaced the begging skill percentages with percentages based off the category modifiers, using the characteristics, but without the -10. For instance, Agility skills would start off at something like 2xDEX+STR-SIZ. KNwledge skills are something like 2XINT, and so on. It's fairly quick and easy to work out, and all AGL skills start at the same base, so it's easy to just track the skills that have been improved. For skills that start off with a much higher or lower base in the rules, you can adjust the difficulty.

This what the mordern RQ does.
I remember a post on this forum about skill category modifiers, where the question was that they were only useful when starting and did not change the progression rate in the skills: after all, if somebody is gifted, he should learn faster. We came to the point that using the modifiers as DICE modifiers instead of SKILL modifiers would reduce this issue. A 40% guy with 10% dice bonus would have the same 50% chance of success as a 50% guy without bonus, but better learning rates through experience, since those would base on his 40% rating.

I tend not to use skill modifiers as I actually like how stats and skills are divided entities. One thing that I have done is calculate an over all skill category number for the raising skills over 100.

So, in Elric! to raise a skill over 100 you need to roll 100-INT. I opened it up so that skills that fall under the Knowledge grouping use INT, those that fall under a Manipulation category might use (Str+Dex)/2 and those that fall under Agility might use (Con+Dex)/2.

Problem is, when you average stats, you get pretty average numbers.