Actual Play with Skills over 100%

[Tywyll]

Out of curiosity, how many people have been in campaigns where characters got skills over 100% What kind of effect did that have on play? Where the characters still fun? Did the system hold out?

One of my friends recently suggested that the designers never really meant for players to reach such levels, and I'm not sure I agree. However, its never actually occurred in any of the campaigns I've run or played in (due to their being short mostly). So I was curious to hear from people with more experience with the system.

[Shaira]

Works fine - you can use the multiple attacks rule, you get crits more often, and generally deal the BEM a whole world of pain

I haven't got there with the new BRP yet, so haven't worked through the new perms, but I've regularly played with skill levels in the 100-200% mark in RQ and had a blast.

Now, if you *really* want to know how well high-level skills work, ask Simon (soltakss)... There's a campaign that pushed the envelope!

Cheers,

Sarah

[rust]

Some characters in my science fiction campaign have skills over 100 %. I use
such skill levels to deal with high negative modifiers which make some tasks
impossible for "normal" characters, from scientific breakthroughs over the in-
vention and implementation of entirely new technologies to more "mundane"
tasks like piloting a shuttle through a dense field of space debris or a subma-
rine close to an active undersea volcano.

It takes quite a lot of specialization, dedication and patience for a character
in my campaign to become one of those extremely few "galaxy class"-experts
who can do the "impossible" jobs, but some players enjoy such character con-
cepts and careers. For them, it is something to be the setting's "Einstein" or
"Red Baron". Besides, it also helps to gain influence and money ...

[RosenMcStern]

I have run a RQ3 campaign with characters having several combat and Sorcery skills above 100%, and the skills were really useful. There was a lot of heroquesting in that campaign, and the 120-150% skills were really useful for gameplay. As for sorcery, since we used Sandy's Sorcery, the spells at 120% could be manipulated up to 24 points of effect, so yes, the extra skill was not wasted!

[frogspawner]

I played in a ong-running RQ2 campaign years ago, where we got up to the 100-150% range. The system held up just fine, we had fun, and didn't even know 100 was any sort of barrier...
These days, I run a BRP-like homebrew where plenty of characters (in one group) have 100%+ skills (weapons mainly), and it also works fine at those levels (it's the characters with under 100% I worry about...).

[Jason Durall]

Originally Posted by Tywyll

Out of curiosity, how many people have been in campaigns where characters got skills over 100% What kind of effect did that have on play? Where the characters still fun? Did the system hold out?

One of my friends recently suggested that the designers never really meant for players to reach such levels, and I'm not sure I agree. However, its never actually occurred in any of the campaigns I've run or played in (due to their being short mostly). So I was curious to hear from people with more experience with the system.

Runequest, Elric! (and Stormbringer 5th edition), earlier versions of Stormbringer, and Ringworld allowed skills in excess of 100% without breaking or causing the system to break down.

The reason that skills in excess of 100% are optional is that they're extremely uncommon for Call of Cthulhu, which was by design the default core of the rules.

[Chaot]

My games routinely have skills above 100%, usually at character generation. It doesn't break the system at all, even without the multiple attack rule. It just makes the characters more effective. The Success Matrix scales nicely.

Originally Posted by Shaira

Now, if you *really* want to know how well high-level skills work, ask Simon (soltakss)... There's a campaign that pushed the envelope!

Indeed. Here's a link to the overview. Follow the links in the article to read more. Fun stuff.

[AikiGhost]

Skill levels of 100%+ cause no problems whatsoever in our games, we use the following rules

1. Rolls of 96-99 are always failure and 00 always fumble regardless of skill level.

2. "Feinting", anyone can drop up to half their skill level in an opposed test and drop their opponents defense by the same amount.

This means that guys with 125% broadsword could drop their skill to say 90% thus dropping their opponents parry by 35%. We call it "feinting" because it is mostly used in combat, but we also allow its use in any other contested roll so for example stealth vs listen, etc.

[Shaira]

Originally Posted by AikiGhost

2. "Feinting", anyone can drop up to half their skill level in an opposed test and drop their opponents defense by the same amount.

I like it - very elegant. Sort of like RQ2 only neater.



Sarah

[badcat]

I'd like to point out that the attack/parry cycle was not really a problem in SB5/Elric!, especially at high skill levels, and that feinting was just a matter of splitting that high skill level appropriately. That is, someone with 135% (I had one campaign that got considerably higher than that) and DEX 13 could 'feint' with 50% on his first attack and five DEX ranks later make the 'real' attack at 85%...if that's not at feint I would like to know what is. And that tactic was really effective if used with a long weapon. Of course this is apparently the default method in the new book anyway.

But I simply see NO REASON to add opposed mechanics to this system. It has a solid base mechanic already...the percentile roll...which can be made to do all the tricks necessary for a good solid simulation. Mind, I do use games BASED on opposed rolls sometimes (Talislanta 4) and I wouldn't want to see some percentile mechanics bolted on to that system. It would clunk it up just like opposed rolls clunk up BRP.