Topic: Making Skill Ranks Matter More...

[choc]

Maybe I'm mis-reading this, but I thought the note attached to Percentage Based Fumbles on the table:

"* = Fumbles only occur on an unmodified roll of 01? 05 for everything except weapon use. Otherwise, treat the results as a normal failure."

meant there is ALWAYS a 5% fumble chance no-matter what you roll..?

...

Why not just give the skill bonus (which roughly has the same effect) rather than having to ask "How many Ranks have you got?" for every skill roll..?

1st: yes there is ALWAYS a 5% fumble chance. There is always a 5% extraordinary success (open ended roll) too.
I think a fumble can ALWAYS occur regardless of the skill of the character. Remember: even a lvl100 dragon can fumble his natural weapons (01-02). Or as a master builder: an earthquake could fall in his building regardless of 90+ ranks in crafts:fortification

2nd:
no not ask every roll, as a GM you should know of extraordinary skills in your group (or do you play with 10+ PCs?). You can ask once per session.

[Pat]

Pat, I have been toying with this exact same idea for some weeks now, and the result of this slow thinking is exactly what you've written. I will try to post some other ideas next week, but if others can provide theirs, we can through all the skills quickly. I will output a vault doc (pdf) in the end, if Rasyr is OK.

Hi Mando,

I've sent a list through to HARP for possible 21+ skill ranks bonuses and I've asked them to send it on to you for you to have a look at. If you don't receive it in the next couple of days, post a note here and I'll get your email address to send it you direct.

[GMLovlie]

As promised, slightly edited, but most likely not edited enough.
I?ve never used these much, mainly because none of my players ever played a acrobatics buff, nor did they ever get 40ish ranks either.

Any comments would be great!


So without further ado, here?s some stuff I made:

House rules:

Acrobatic and jumping attacks:
Once a character has 20 or more ranks in either acrobatics and/or jump, new combat options are opened.

20 ranks+

Jumping/Acrobatic Charge:

The character may use Jump or acrobatics as part of a charge. The combatant makes an appropriate jump or acrobatics roll, if successful look up the number in the bonus column and add that to the attack. The manoeuvre roll should be Very Hard or worse.

Acrobatic Attack:

The character may use acrobatics in conjunction with the ?press & attack? or ?move & attack? combat options. This combat option is used to flip off walls to attack, swing around pillars or bars and attack a pursuer or get around an attacker to get positional modifiers. This manoeuvre involves mainly rolls, swings and flips. It is a Very Hard manoeuvre or worse, GMs discretion. Also, at the GMs discretion, the character may gain some bonus to his attack, or adjustment to his critical result as a result of his manoeuvre (bonus column divided by 10 for example).
This combat option might take more than one round, GM?s discretion.

Jumping Attack:

Need to jump down on someone? Need to jump over an opponent?
With this combat option the character may use his jump skill to jump over opponents, around them, down on them from a height to attack in the same round, this combat option is used in conjunction the ?press & attack? or ?move & attack? combat options. It is a Hard to Extremely Hard manoeuvre to complete successfully, GMs discretion. Also, at the GMs discretion, the character may gain some bonus to his attack, or adjustment to his critical result as a result of his manoeuvre.
This combat option might take more than one round, GM?s discretion.


40 ranks+

Combo Charge:

The character may use jump and acrobatics as part of the same charge, thus being able to charge over obstacles and around corners. The difficulty should be Extremely Hard, possibly Very Hard. Again the charge bonus comes from the bonus column. This combat option is used in conjunction the ?press & attack? or ?move & attack? combat options. Also this combat option might take more than one round.

Combo Attack:

The character may use jump and acrobatics as part of an attack. Thus he can use his environment to its fullest by swinging around bars, flipping off walls, jumping and somersaulting to attack his opponents. No combatant should be allowed to move more than his BMR x2 (GMs discretion). Bonuses may be gained through these types of attacks, but mostly only positional modifiers, possibly AAR adjustments, to possibly OB modifiers. The difficulty starts at Very Hard.
This combat option is used in conjunction the ?press & attack? or ?move & attack? combat options. Also this combat option might take more than one round, GM?s discretion.