Topic: Not enough DPs?

[GoblynByte]

In attempting to create an assassin type character (per a thread in the RMC board) I thought I would also try to create the same character in RMSS (I'm always playing the two off each other for comparison purposes).

Well, I know that the assassin I'm trying to create is a bit of a tall order in regards to the number of skills he might need for a first level character, but I spent a little high on stats to get a lot of DPs (and to match the lucky rolls I made for the RMC version), but even with this help it seemed difficult to cover everything he would need even passing familiarity with.

To test the theory I worked up another character with a more realistic stretch of skills and even then, unless I was making a pure fighter, it seemed that I had trouble getting even one rank in things I felt were basic for such a concept.

I know they doubled potential DPs to cover the fact that you essentially need to spend one on the catagory and one on the skill to cover a one skill rank equivelent for a RMC character, but there are also probably three times as many skills.  Is it just me, or is there simply too many skills to cover for the amount of DPs you get?

I'm certainly not suggesting that a character should have two or three ranks in absolutely every skill he or she would expect to use, but even with conservative considerations it seems you're spread awefully thin.  Is this my imagination?

[markc]

GB,
 Yes thier are more skills ut IMO that is a good thing not a bad thing. Also I do condense some skills such as the make poison/use poison skills [I am not quite sure on the make portion but I think it is in thier.]. And yes thier are not enough to get the stuff you want at 1st level. Thier are just not enough points like you said unless you do some serous tinkering with the race creation rules in Talent Law, GM Law or what ever else is out thier.
 In my game I start characters at 3rd-5th level and IMO it still would be tough to make a complete assassin. IMO an assassin is not a 1st level char but maybe a 5-10 level char as their are simply too many skills and spells required to do a good job. Your char might start as a spy, pick pocked, herblist, fighter, thief or rouge and then branch out into the areas of knowledge you are required to have as a assassin.
MDC   

[GoblynByte]

GB,
 Yes thier are more skills ut IMO that is a good thing not a bad thing. Also I do condense some skills such as the make poison/use poison skills [I am not quite sure on the make portion but I think it is in thier.]. And yes thier are not enough to get the stuff you want at 1st level. Thier are just not enough points like you said unless you do some serous tinkering with the race creation rules in Talent Law, GM Law or what ever else is out thier.
 In my game I start characters at 3rd-5th level and IMO it still would be tough to make a complete assassin. IMO an assassin is not a 1st level char but maybe a 5-10 level char as their are simply too many skills and spells required to do a good job. Your char might start as a spy, pick pocked, herblist, fighter, thief or rouge and then branch out into the areas of knowledge you are required to have as a assassin.
MDC  

True, but like I said, even with a more conservative type of character with a more singular purpose (not quite so multi-role as an assassin would need to be) like a thief, fighter, or even a mage require even basic knowledge in a lot of the RMSS skills.  If the skill list was condensed you'd probably have fewer skills but each with a wider scope so you wouldn't have to develop as many.

I agree, I think the list of skills is strong in RMSS (except for a few odd exceptions).  I don't really have any complaints there (other than the catagory system, but that's another story all together).  And I do think that 1st level characters should indeed be hardly able to wipe their own...boots clean.  So, maybe it is appropriate to have so few DPs.

Hmmm...

[markc]

GB,
 Like I said if you are the GM take a look at the race creation rules. The rule I remember from Talent Law allows the GM to assign a number of ranks for background. I think the number is up to 65 ranks, but most of the races I saw only use around 40 something ranks. I could be wrong but my memory says that I remember that thier are around 20 additional ranks you can give for a racial background. IMO those 20 ranks go a long way in flushing out a PC with background skills. But if everyome gets the same number or around the same number it works out fair IMO.
 I am thinking of having the additionl background skill ranks be GM ranks and by that I mean the PC gives me his background and together we place the ranks where we think they should go. I forsee some dickering but that is normal for PC gen. I also may be a little unusual as I help each player create their character to get the most out of the rules I use in my game.

Good Luck,
MDC   

[DonMoody]

I know that the assassin I'm trying to create is a bit of a tall order in regards to the number of skills he might need for a first level character ...

I think this hits the nail on the head.

A first level character is not very skilled.
An assassin - like in Assassin's Creed - is well beyond first level, definitely into double digit levels.

A 'would be assassin' is someone starting to develop [at first level] a few of the aspects of what it takes to be an assassin.
Aach additional level see them develop the diversity of skills needed to be a full fledged assassin.

DonMoody

[munchy]

I agree with DonMoody here and also always found that if you are not able to develop everything to an expert level it supports team play as you will have to find people you can work together with as they might possess skills you don't. And on the other hand, in the long run, you wil be able to develop a broad spectrum of skills if you want to, which enables you to become more independent if you want that.

If you really want a character that is up to most of the jobs that you connect with his profession then you should start at about lebel five I would say. At that level he has got some expertise and if developed straightforward with a goal he will do just fine in his field of expertise.

[Kalu]

I am thinking of having the additionl background skill ranks be GM ranks and by that I mean the PC gives me his background and together we place the ranks where we think they should go. I forsee some dickering but that is normal for PC gen. I also may be a little unusual as I help each player create their character to get the most out of the rules I use in my game.

I agree with this, but have taken matters into my own hands, changing the entire concept of race and culture from RMSS - but that's straying from this topic... Essentially I have taken the slightly more generalistic approach and merely added skills that I find "basic" to all characters to the set of Adolescence skills. These are skills like Jumping, Crafts and basic Influence skills. After all, it's for my own setting, so when I reason that all people there learn certain skills during adolescence, that's how it is!

If you're interested in my work, look here: Taras.

A first level character is not very skilled.
An assassin - like in Assassin's Creed - is well beyond first level, definitely into double digit levels.

Exactly this is modelled very well in the Warhammer FRP concept of Career Paths, I think. In Warhammer the Assassin is an "advanced career", requiring the completion of either one specific "basic career" or another advanced career. Completing a basic career takes about six "major objectives" worth of experience, and an advanced career about three times as much, so here, the assassin character will be quite skilled already at the start of his training.

I don't see why something similar could not be done in RMSS by having certain Training Packages (TPs) require other TPs. I'm working with this concept for religiously-related TPs for my setting, kind of building a career path tree for advancing through the "ranks". I am even thinking of reducing the prices of certain Lifestyle TPs if a character already has a set of relevant Vocational TPs.

Adopting this concept to a religious order or cult (as the real-world Assassins were/are commonly seen as - though I miss that part entirely from the WFRP assassin ), The Assassin TP should be a Lifestyle TP, requiring certain other TPs, e.g., Burglar, Scout and some religious TP. Also, leaving the Assassin Lifestyle TP should be quite dangerous to a character, as that would be the same as leaving the order/cult.

Of course, none of this helps create a level 1 Assassin character...

//K

[Dark Schneider]

3 points:

1) 1st lvl character is only a novice one, so it can't be much skilled. If not, what is the utility of level up?.
2) Use TPs for having more ranks in main skills from lvl 1.
3) You can't know of everything, and this is true simply by observing the real life.

If you have a spell user, when you are developing spell lists, it is clear that you can't have all of them, so choose your speciality, there are many 'spell skills', as detection, defense, improvement, etc., but until very high level you can't have many of them.
That is the case of any other profession, an assassin can hide (stalk/hide of course) in shadows and trying ambush from the beginning, and with higher levels it can develop poison skills and others.

[Arioch]

First level characters in RMFRP are weak, they've just started their career and are probably still very young. They're apprentice wizards, wannabe-fighters, etc...
I give a fixed amount of 100DPs per level, which allows players to buy more skills but first level characters must still sacrifice some skills in favor of others.

[yammahoper]

There is no such thing as a level one assassin.  Trying to twist game mechanics around that will only bring you grief.

lynn

[munchy]

Well, as we are talking RMSS/RMFRP ... there IS Talent Law ... there ARE those rules with flaws for talents ... you COULD ... I suppose ... but that would be really bad working with the rules ... and would really screw up the character in terms of "realism" and playability in a normal sort of game ... BUT he would be a level one bad*** assassin ...

[GoblynByte]

There is no such thing as a level one assassin.  Trying to twist game mechanics around that will only bring you grief.

lynn

Okay, I approached it with a bad example.  Take the assassin out of the question.  Because I agree; first level characters are largely unskilled in most areas and an assassin requires a lot of training in a lot of areas to be successful and this is out of range for even low- to mid-level characters.

But my real point is that the doubling of DPs (from RMC to RMSS, which, in theory share the same outlook in the power level of 1st level characters) seems inadiquate to cover the corresponding increase in the number of skills.  This is evidenced by the fact that most (if not all) of the RMSS skills were produced out of Rolemaster Companions which developed for quite some time, being available for RM2 characters, but without any increase in DPs.  The ability of a character at first level didn't decrease.  The amount of things they needed to learn increased and thus shifting the power level of 1st level characters downward with each new Companion.

Again, I agree that 1st level characters should be "unskilled" and "untrained" but it seems that base power level had a steady downward spiral as each new expansion was released culminating in the massive skill lists of RMSS.  In this latter form the doubling of DPs, meant to counteract the fact that you had to develop twice the DPs in a single skill to equal the skill ranks in RM2, was not enough to counter the fact that, even to reach the previous power level of a 1st level character, you had to learn a wider range of basic skills.

See what I mean?

[vroomfogle]

I totally agree with you GB.     When I was using the full RMSS skill list I was giving 100 DPs per level.   It's not about making low level characters unskilled it's that there are so many skills that you really can't scratch the surface with taking a minimum number of skills.  The end result is that 1st level characters have 0 ranks in many skills that should be a standard part of life.

Perhaps a better way to approach this, as someone mentioned above, is to increase Adolescence Ranks (or increase DPs for Adolescence if you use that method).  This would give them a base level of competency without raising the power gained at each level.   After all, pre-1st level covers many years (~16 to 20 or so), where much more is practically learned then in a single level which takes far less time than that.

I'm talking about basic skills here like many lores, cooking, rope mastery, jumping, a couple crafts, those skills which you learn basic competency at growing up.....NOT things like spells, combat, etc

[Kalu]

The amount of things they needed to learn increased and thus shifting the power level of 1st level characters downward with each new Companion.

This is, in fact, one of the great missing links in RM for GMs: does a relationship between the number of skills available and the amount of Development Points of a character exist, and if so, what is that relationship? As already discussed, it has a great impact on the game if many skills are added to or subtracted from the "standard" set. In other words, it's fine to have new optional skills in Companions, but the rest of the system must adjust with the addition of those skills.

So if we could have some way to count the number of skills in a game (taking all the permutations of Culture Lore, Region Lore, etc. into account), we would be greatly helped. Then it could be left for the GM to decide what the rate of development points to skills would be, adding to the flavor of the game. Some GMs can then settle with a meager game with a lower-than-normal rate, while others can go for a generous game with a high rate, and because of the rates, characters from different games will be much more comparable than they are now.

//K

[GoblynByte]

The amount of things they needed to learn increased and thus shifting the power level of 1st level characters downward with each new Companion.

This is, in fact, one of the great missing links in RM for GMs: does a relationship between the number of skills available and the amount of Development Points of a character exist, and if so, what is that relationship? As already discussed, it has a great impact on the game if many skills are added to or subtracted from the "standard" set. In other words, it's fine to have new optional skills in Companions, but the rest of the system must adjust with the addition of those skills.

So if we could have some way to count the number of skills in a game (taking all the permutations of Culture Lore, Region Lore, etc. into account), we would be greatly helped. Then it could be left for the GM to decide what the rate of development points to skills would be, adding to the flavor of the game. Some GMs can then settle with a meager game with a lower-than-normal rate, while others can go for a generous game with a high rate, and because of the rates, characters from different games will be much more comparable than they are now.

//K

I also think that this can be helped by culling out some of the rather redundant skills.  This is, of course, my VHO, but some of the RMSS skills can be handled just as well by simply widening the scope of many skills to absorb the functions of more refined skills.

It seems that with the RM Companions they got onto a slippery slide with needing subtle variations of skills governed by stats different than those required for existing skills, so a different skill was simply created to cover actions of the same or similar aspect, but using different attributes.  Eventually this just ballooned into a large number of skills that were ultimately only narrowly defined apart from other skills.

Take Alertness and Sense Ambush, for instance.  Is there really a need for both?  I mean, I understand that Sense Ambush is for detecting ambushes specifically, and that developing it denotes specific training in noticing specific signs of an ambush.  But I happen to believe that, at a certain point in an RPG, you have to make a decision between realism and playability.  Sure, one skill of this type won't make things overly complicated, but one after the other starts to add up until you have a list of skills too large for what you're given to spend on them.  The only real defining feature between these two skills is that one feeds off In and the other feeds of Em.  Understandable since ambushed involve predicting the actions of others, but arguments could certainly be made for using In instead of Em for Sense Ambush.  So why confuse the issue with yet another skill.

I'm not really ranting...well...I guess I am.    I honestly think RMSS is a superior system to RMC in general (its more cohesive and consistant with better organization), but it's the character creation, with a focus on the skill development system, that repeatedly frustrates me and prevents me from using it.

[DonMoody]

There is no such thing as a level one assassin.
Trying to twist game mechanics around that will only bring you grief.

Bringing themselves grief was a past time of more than one player I've known in the years I've gamed ...

DonMoody

[mocking bird]

There is no such thing as a level one assassin.  Trying to twist game mechanics around that will only bring you grief.

lynn

Exactly.  You are developing a 1st level character.  The Mouser and Hans Shadowspawn were definitely not 1st level characters.  Besides, I try not to get too caught up on skill development early since I really don't 'know' my character yet.

I do like however like the idea of bumping up background skill ranks just so you don't end up with -30 penalty.  After all, I can see unskilled swimming but exactly what is unskilled jumping?  Some thing like that seem a little silly not to mention it isn't that hard to fail even on the most routine of maneuvers if you are hobbled with unskilled use.

[Joshua24601]

Grabbing a couple of skill talents could help alleviate your level 1 woes.
Get a few "+20 to skill category" talents..
The +20 category offsets the -15 for having no ranks in the individual skills you can't afford to buy at level one.  Ergo the talents effectively simulating a rank in every skill in their category.
And by level 2, you've bought all those skills and they're pretty damn high bonuses.


------------------------------------------

I'm inclined to agree a lvl 1 character wouldn't be an effective assassin.  It's like suggesting a navy seal is level 1.  They trained up to higher levels in schooling.

[GoblynByte]

But, bottom line, is that the number of skills has increased by a lot without an increase in DPs to match.  Any way you slice it you're trying to cover a lot more ground with the same amount of points.  This effectively decreases the power level of 1st level characters from RM2/C to RMSS.

[yammahoper]

I give 100 dp a level, and I have found that to be more than enough dev for developing any non spell user into a compentent level one PC.

If GM's are applying the -30 to any mnv a skill is not possessed for, well, those GM's are making a mistake.  Many actions require nothing more than 3x appropriate stat mod, or a mix of any three stat mods.  A PC is jumping a ditch?  3x Ag mod or Ag+Ag+St if he is carrying a load.  Wanna sprint across the room before the guard can whirl and fre his xbow?  3x Qu should do the trick.   Now, if the player has dumped a bunch of dev into SPRINTING , then that player deserves to be able to use the skill instead, even if other players are limited to 3x Ag mod.

I have developed more than a few characters that I have had dificulty spending ALL the dev because I had covered all the skills I thought he should have, or had developed others as high as I thought they should be.  Except for one, and sometimes two, I refuse to develop catagoeries above 20 ranks.  The last +5 isn't worth the dev hit for those characters, while one or two catagories will demand it because the PC is suppossed to be as good as he can be in those areas.

The bloat in skills is not a RMSS issue, it is a GAMEMASTER ISSUE.  I do not use sense ambush, only alertness, because I believe the skills are redundant.  Your perception when you have no stated action of awareness IS your ability to sense someone sneaking up on you, or being spotted laying in wait up ahead.  GM's get what they want, and if they demand both skills be deveolped, then the problem isnt the number of dev, it is the a mixture of the GM being silly and the players disapointment that his PC cant do everything he thinks it should be able to. 

Which probably means the player has a 4th-8th level character conception in a level one body.

lynn