Talk:Skill List

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  • Are languages relevant in this world? If so, what are the Big Obvious Known Languages and where do they apply?
    • I added a Miscellany page, with:
      The language spoken by the inhabitants of the Twelve Kingdoms is Xiang. The Northern Barbarians speak Torghut, and the Southern Barbarians speak Senatali. Everyone gets to speak Xiang (or their native tongue) for free. Boojum 13:36, 10 February 2009 (EST)
  • I note that Farming is both a 1pt and 2pt skill. What I'm looking for is a skill on a much smaller scale than farming that covers growing and caring for herbs, flowers, small plants, the kind of thing you find in a peasant's garden as opposed to a farmer's back 40. Gardening, I guess, huh? --Eon
    • Hmm, how did this get missed? I decree Farming to be the 2 point version. Gardening is the smaller one.
  • Also, how much is Concentration, the skill that allows you to stay focused on what you are doing, regardless of the distractions that surround you? --Eon
    • 3 points. (Maybe I added this before...) --Boojum 09:26, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

  • I'm confused by what you have for languages. "4 to be understood, 8 for fluency" but it's a 1 point skill. Do you mean that in any language, 1 point gets bare minimum and the fluency goes up as you spend the points? --Shen Wei Han 00:13, 27 March 2009 (EDT)
    • 4 levels of a language (costing 4 skill points) means you can make yourself understood fairly clearly, but are clearly a foreigner ; 8 points lets you speak without accent. (12 lets you distinguish between different dialects and accents and use whichever you like.) So, 1 point lets you identify the language and speak a few basic words ("Surrender!" and "Do you speak Xiang?"); 2 or 3 is broken pidgin and can't express complex concepts.
      (In Comet, my (native to a different-language-speaking country) character for a long time had only 6 points in the local language, which I claimed meant "Speaks well, but with a charming accent"). --Boojum 09:26, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

  • How about a Bedside Manner skill that incorporates Conversational Interrogation and Breaking Bad News? --Eon 10:55, 25 April 2009 (EDT)
Conversational Interrogation? That's one cold blooded healer! -- Heidi 4/25/09
I don't think so. I think it puts that bedside gathering information in a place that is more business-like than regular dinner conversation yet more pleasant than interrogation... --Eon 15:58, 25 April 2009 (EDT)
Hmm. Conversational Interrogation includes trying to get information out of people at parties and such - were you imagining Bedside Manner doing that? Or just including getting information out of people when you were treating them? --Boojum 16:29, 25 April 2009 (EDT)
Just when I was treating them. --Eon 14:09, 26 April 2009 (EDT)
Bedside Confessor? --Kate 14:02, 27 April 2009 (EDT)

  • I'm thinking about a "live in the now" schtick or skill that those of us with unfortunate events in our past might have. It might be useful for resisting torture and mitigating certain types of mind control ("I am your greatest fear -- flee; flee now!" "Aiee! They're coming to get me! I must flee! But first, I have to kill this guy.") Would that be a schtick or a skill? --HeidiB 13:13, 8 May 2009 (EDT)
Well, if you want to be able to add it to something like a Will roll against a "flee now!" effect, then it could be a skill. If you wanted to be able to say "I have to do this thing before I flee" regardless of whether we asked for a will roll, or even if you didn't get a good roll, then that's a shtick. --Boojum 13:30, 8 May 2009 (EDT)
Ok, it's a skill! What's it cost? (Yes, it is not very well defined. I guess it adds to certain will rolls?) --HeidiB 14:09, 8 May 2009 (EDT)
If it's something like "Skill to resist having my past / my fears used to manipulate me" it's pretty cheap; if it's something more like a general "stay on target", it's a bit broader. I don't have a good sense for what sorts of things it applies to other than the example above ("Resist my Greatest Fear" is x1) yet. :) --Boojum 16:07, 8 May 2009 (EDT)
It also needs a better name than "Resist my Greatest Fear"... --Mjperson 16:54, 8 May 2009 (EDT)
I think "live in the now" gives resistance to a certain type of effect. Perhaps it would have the same cost as "stubborn" (and might often stack with stubborn). Alas, I do not have a better name for it. --HeidiB 17:15, 8 May 2009 (EDT)
Mostly, I don't really know what "Live in the now" means...--Mjperson 17:16, 8 May 2009 (EDT)

  • I'm thinking about a general skill in using shticks in my Snake Dancing shtick tree. It seems like that would be more efficient than buying skills in using the different shticks. Is that a 4-point or a 5-point skill? --Adina 14:00, 9 May 2009 (EDT)
It's pretty variably broad, so 5 points. --Boojum 10:23, 11 May 2009 (EDT)

  • What is Foraging (people)? --HeidiB 19:04, 9 November 2009 (EST)
Finding the right sort of person, as in "where around here would I find a good smith?", not "where is the ninja hiding?". --Boojum 19:33, 9 November 2009 (EST)
Aww, I thought Foraging (people) would be a skill in things like moaning "Grrrrrraaaahhhh! Brains!" and the right ways to do cannibal cuisine. -Derrick

  • If there were a broader skill than "animal handling", I would probably make it one of Lijuan's inherent skills. It might cover hunting, skinning, cooking, and healing animals along with making them do what you want? --HeidiB 19:04, 9 November 2009 (EST)
While we're not averse to the idea of adding extra-broad skills that make sense, we're probably not going to start creating extra-broad skills just for the purpose of making them the inherent ones.
In any case: Hunting (2), Cooking (1), Veterinarian (3), Animal Handling (2), and Skinning (1) are a little too broad a group to fall under a single 5-point skill "Animals".--Boojum 13:55, 10 November 2009 (EST)
Ok! I shall continue with my plotting and scheming, and eventually a skill name will suggest itself! Or else I'll get fed up and have animal handling as inherent. --HeidiB 17:50, 10 November 2009 (EST)
What about forestry? The professional skill for woodsmen who go out and care for the forest. I'd think that would have some of those grouped together. That said, I didn't like the feeling I got in Oath that you got a substantial advantage for buying the biggest version of a skill you could. --Shen Wei Han 17:03, 12 November 2009 (EST)
I get the feeling that having the biggest version of the skill for your inherent skill is the way to go; please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not normally a rules lawyer, but I've found that the game is more fun if my character is at approximately the same power level as those of the other players, so I'm trying to pay some attention this time. --HeidiB 19:15, 12 November 2009 (EST)
Hmm, seems like Hunting, Cooking and Skinning might fall under something like Huntsman (or Huntswoman :), and Veterinarian and Animal Handling seem to go as a pair, perhaps as Animal Mastery or Beastmastery, but getting them all together is hard. -Derrick
Yes, I think beastmastery is what I'm after, assuming we're still with the circus when I choose, though Huntswoman in place of Outdoorsman and some as yet undetermined skill might be more appropriate. --HeidiB 19:15, 12 November 2009 (EST)
Once you've bought a rank of a skill that you have designated as inherent, the only advantage you get is that you can put further saved up skill points into it at any time; this is a fine thing, but does require that you have saved up points, which inherently means you can have been actually using them for anything up to that point. On the other hand, if you don't put any skill points into it, all it does is allow you to make some roll at 7s, which is fine, but again won't get you very far with no skill points. The real issue may be that many broader skills tend to be more useful than a strictly linear function of their additional costs; i.e., people seem to feel that most 5pt skills are more than 5x as "useful" (however you want to define that) as 5 ranks in a 1 pt skill. -Derrick
I'm thinking of inherent skills as ones in which I need more skill *now*, for which buying more skill actually helps. Since I only get 3, I want them to cover things Lijuan is likely to do relatively frequently. I think this means they should be broad and close to her concept. --HeidiB 08:38, 13 November 2009 (EST)
Actually you get five. Xian 08:58, 13 November 2009 (EST)

Unbelievable

It astonishes me that we got all the way to the day of the first run before the skill "Kung Fu" showed up. --堡主冰玉 09:03, 18 April 2009 (EDT)