Characteristics and Skill Rules

How to spend experience

OK now you got all this experience what can you do with it. Simply put you can spend experience points on characteristics (with GM approval), skills, spells, etc.

Here is what I would like to accomplish with these rules.

Encourage skill development and improvement.
Encourage developing a variety of knowledge and language skills
Encourage a variety of combat skills
Buy skills like teamwork
Find mentors
Buy contacts, favors, and save points for followers

Characteristics
General Skills
Knowledge Skills
Language Skills
Combat Skills
Magic system

Characteristics

Purpose of these rules

This is to encourage differentiation between the characters. Otherwise everyone’s character is going to end up with human maximum characteristics at some point in time, even though it doesn’t make sense.

Specifics

Fighter type characters
1. Heavy fighters – These are the fighters who are very strong and can wade into a battle, absorb damage and dish it out. These would be classic knights or barbarian types.
  1. STR, CON, BODY, STUN, PD, and ED can be at human maximums and in fact can be bought higher with GM approval
  2. DEX can never be higher than 15
  3. OCV/DCV can never be higher than 5 (size can allow a DCV to be higher than 5).
  4. OMCV/DMCV can never be higher than 3
  5. SPD can never be higher than 3
  6. INT can never be higher than 15
  7. EGO can never be higher than 13
2. Light fighters – These are the fighters who are very nimble and tend to prick and stick their opponents until their opponent bleeds out for being hit so often. Think Three Musketeers, Wesley or Inigo Montoya from the Princess Bride
  1. STR, CON, & BODY can never be higher than 15
  2. DEX can be at human maximum and in fact can be bought higher with GM approval
  3. PD and ED can never be more than 5
  4. OCV/DCV can never be higher than 7 (size can allow a DCV to be higher than 7).
  5. SPD can be higher than 3
  6. OMCV/DMCV can never be higher than 3
  7. STUN can never be higher than 35
  8. INT can never be higher than 15
  9. EGO can never be higher than 13
3. Other types of fighters – archers, rangers and mixed kinds of fighters (thieves, bounty hunters, etc). These are fighters who can hold their own in a fight or are highly specialized in combat. There characteristics are dealt with on a case by case basis. Typically they are stuck with the worse of either the heavy or light fighters because they are not specialized.
  1. DEX can never be higher than 15
  2. OCV/DCV can never be higher than 5 (size can allow a DCV to be higher than 5).
  3. OMCV/DMCV can never be higher than 3
Characters that use their intelligence, strength of will or commanding presence
1. STR, CON & BODY can never be higher than 13 unless discussed with the GM ahead of time. The absolute maximum is 15.
2. PD and ED can never be higher than 4
3. DEX can never be higher than 15
4. OCV/DCV can never be higher than 5 (size can allow a DCV to be higher than 5).
5. OMCV/DMCV can be higher than 3 (with justification and approval of the GM)
6. STUN can never be higher than 35
7. INT can be at human maximum and in fact can be bought higher with GM approval
8. EGO can be at human maximum and in fact can be bought higher with GM approval
Characters that use spells
1. END can be at human maximum
2. REC can be at human maximum

Improving characteristics

The big rule here is time and some ‘reasonable’ justification. An easy one is Eltrois a paladin type, could only afford a 15 STR when being created. The player states, “Eltrois is going to start weight training to build up his strength.” The GM says that over time Eltrois can have a STR of 20. The GM states that it will take 2 months to increase Eltrois’ strength to 20. The player starts setting aside points so when the 2 months are up Eltrois has a 20 strength.

Movement

The distance documented here are combat movement rates.
NOTE: If your character sold back some running, swimming or leaping, you can only increase these by 25% of what your character started out as. So Raganash, a dwarf has 10m of running. The fastest he can ever run is 13m.

Running – Starts at 12m and can be as high as 20m. No justification beyond some general training (running sprints and distances) is required to move running from 12m to 16m. After 16m there needs to be an explanation why the character can run that fast. 20m is Olympic sprinter lever running.
Swimming – Starts at 4m and can be as high as 10m. Swimming fast requires justification. 10m is Olympic sprint swimming capability.
Leaping – See swimming.

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General Skills

Learning

Learning a new skill is based on finding someone who can teach you. Familiarity (1pt) would take two weeks. To get the full skill (+2 pts in skill) will either take another two weeks or a successful base skill roll (8-) during an adventure.
Improving an existing skill is based one of the following:
1. Successfully using the skill during an adventure
2. Finding someone to teach you how to be better. They have to better at the skill than you are. The time to get better is 1 week.
3. Self training would take you 2 weeks

List of available Hero Skills

General

The normal maximum skill level is 13-. The cost of increasing past 13- is 2x the normal cost.

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Knowledge Skills

List of Knowledge Skills

Learning – Being taught

Learning a new skill is based on finding someone who can teach you. Familiarity (1pt) would take two weeks. To get the full skill (+2 pts in skill) will either take another two weeks or a successful base skill roll (8-) during an adventure.
Improving an existing skill is based one of the following:
1. Successfully using the skill during an adventure
2. Finding someone to teach you how to be better. They have to better at the skill than you are. The time to get better is 1 week.

Learning – Self Taught

It is possible to learn a new skill from a book. Self taught learning takes is based on the following time frames:

1 pt Familiarity takes 4 weeks to learn
2 pt Familiarity takes 3 weeks to learn
Improving an existing skill is based on the following
1. Successfully using he skill during an adventure
2. Finding a book that has more information that you do on a topic.

Modifying time to learn by using Books

The book has to appropriate for the subject. The book also has to have a skill greater than the players.

Base Skill Roll for a book 11-

Book Modifier
1. The text is easily readable -1 day & +1 skill roll
2. The text has faded and is hard to read +2 days & -2 skill roll
3. The penmanship is excellent -1 day & +1 skill roll
4. The penmanship is acceptable 0 days & 0 skill roll
5. The penmanship is poor +2 days & -2 skill roll
6. Well researched material -1 day & +1 skill roll
7. Partially researched material +1 day & -1 skill roll
8. Poorly researched material +2 day & -2 skill roll
9. The writing style is easy to read -1 day & +1 skill roll
10. The writing style is hard to read +2 days & -2 skill roll
11. The writing style is impossible to read. +5 days & -3 skill roll
12. The author always stayed on on topic -1 day & +1 skill roll
13. The author mostly stayed on on topic +1 day & -1 skill roll
14. The author meandered on tangents and never stayed on on topic +10 days & -5 skill roll

A very good book will have a knowledge skill roll of 16-. A very poor book will have a knowledge skill roll of 3-. A very good book will reduce the time to learn the material by -5 days and a very book will increase the time by 23 days.

General

The normal maximum skill level is 13-. The cost of increasing past 13- is 2x the normal cost.

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Language Skills

Learning – Being taught

Learning a new skill is based on finding someone who can teach you. Familiarity (1pt) would take two weeks. To get the full skill (+2 pts in skill) will either take another two weeks or a successful base skill roll (8-) during an adventure.
Improving an existing skill is based one of the following:
1. Successfully using the skill during an adventure
2. Finding someone to teach you how to be better. They have to better at the skill than you are. The time to get better is 1 week.

Learning – Self Taught

It is possible to learn a new skill from a book. Self taught learning takes is based on the following time frames:

1 pt Familiarity takes 4 weeks to learn
2 pt Familiarity takes 3 weeks to learn
Improving an existing skill is based on the following
1. Successfully using he skill during an adventure
2. Finding a book that has more information that you do on a topic.

Modifying time to learn by using Books

The book has to appropriate for the subject. The book also has to have a skill greater than the players.

Base Skill Roll for a book 11-

Book Modifier
1. The text is easily readable -1 day & +1 skill roll
2. The text has faded and is hard to read +2 days & -2 skill roll
3. The penmanship is excellent -1 day & +1 skill roll
4. The penmanship is acceptable 0 days & 0 skill roll
5. The penmanship is poor +2 days & -2 skill roll
6. Well researched material -1 day & +1 skill roll
7. Partially researched material +1 day & -1 skill roll
8. Poorly researched material +2 day & -2 skill roll
9. The writing style is easy to read -1 day & +1 skill roll
10. The writing style is hard to read +2 days & -2 skill roll
11. The writing style is impossible to read. +5 days & -3 skill roll
12. The author always stayed on on topic -1 day & +1 skill roll
13. The author mostly stayed on on topic +1 day & -1 skill roll
14. The author meandered on tangents and never stayed on on topic +10 days & -5 skill roll

General

The normal maximum skill level is 13-. The cost of increasing past 13- is 2x the normal cost.

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Combat skills

Learning

Combat skills generally require training time and someone who is better at the skill than you are.

Weapon Familiarity – for each 1 pt in familiarity it would take one week.
+1 increase in CV requires one of the following
1. Training with someone who is more skilled than your character is. The training would take a one week (2 to 4 hours a day)
2. Training by yourself. The training would take two weeks (4 to 6 hours a day). If a player has a professional skill that is combat oriented (warrior, archer, knight, etc) they could attempt to make their PS roll and if they make their roll by -1 then they can reduce the time to one week (still 4 to 6 hours a day).

Combat Skill Levels

Fighter type characters
1. Heavy fighters – These are the fighters who are very strong and can wade into a battle, absorb damage and dish it out. These would be classic knights or barbarian types. Because these characters can typically do more damage in a single hit their maximum skill levels have been capped at +4 with their best weapon. So Eltrois the fighter has an overall combat level of +1, a +1 HtH, and +2 Sword. Eltrois can not buy more capability with swords but he could convert his + swords into HtH, so he can end up +1 overall combat level, and +3 with HtH. This kind of fighter can buy overall combat levels to represent their overall combat training and expertise.
2. Light fighters – These are the fighters who are very nimble and tend to prick and stick their opponents until their opponent bleeds out for being hit so often. Think Three Musketeers, Wesley or Inigo Montoya from the Princess Bride. Because these fighters typically do less damage with a single hit than a heavy fighter they can have more skill levels. But the combat skill levels have to be specialized. These fighters do not have HtH or Overall combat skill levels. This represents the idea that they have spent years specializing in a single weapon. These fighters can have a +6 with any one weapon class (i.e. swords)
3. Other types of fighters – archers, rangers and mixed kinds of fighters (thieves, bounty hunters, etc). These are fighters who can hold their own in a fight or are highly specialized in combat. There characteristics are dealt with on a case by case basis. These kinds of fighters are capped at +4 with their best weapon (there are exceptions). Depending on the type of fighter they may also only be allowed to by specific combat skill levels or overall skill levels.
Non-fighters
1. These characters are capped at +2 with their best weapon. They can not buy overall or HtH combat skill levels without justification.
Spell casters
1. +4 is the highest that can be bought

Combat Penalty Skill Levels

Combat Penalty Skill Levels can never be bought higher than +3 with a single weapon, martial art skill or spell. For instance, a +3 to offset hit locations with a sword. Or a +3 to offset range with a bow. Or a +3 to offset population modifiers with a Mind Scan.

Martial Arts

Initially learning a new martial art
1. Requires a master in that martial art to teach the character the basic skills (10pts)
2. This will require two weeks of training
3. The player will dedicate themselves for 6 to 8 hours
4. The player will also buy a 1 pt familiarity in the martial art style
Learning a new skill within a martial art style the character already knows will require one of the following
1. A master who can teach the character that specific skill(s). This will take 1 week (2 to 4 hours a day)
2. Training yourself takes longer. It will take two weeks (4 to 6 hours a day). If the player makes their KS (or appropriate PS) by -1 they will cut the time down to 1 week (4 to 6 hours a day)

Special Combat Maneuvers

Whirling blades of death, or parry/riposte based on a trigger, etc

Need someone to train with
Must train ahead of time
Training time is Hours = (Active Points * Real Cost) / 4
Halfway through the learning process the character can roll their professional ‘combat’ skill roll. If they make the roll by -3 they cut the remaining time in half. If they miss their roll by +3 the time remaining will double. If the roll is between -3 and +3 then it takes the remaining time to finish.

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