Character advancement???

[Blustar]

Ummm, was this chapter accidently left out? Will there be official rules or are we supposed to come up with our own?


Are you guys going to use the AT system from MT?

Can Mongoose give us a little heads up on which system they're going to be using so I can advance my characters in a similar style?


thanks

 

[hdrider67]

If you mean learning new skills or improving others, it's on page 59.

 

[-Daniel-]

Other then what is in the book already, what else is missing? :?:

Daniel

 

[Blustar]

Wait you guys are implying this is the "advancement" system?

CT (Traveller Book) devoted a whole page and different methods to gain skills and attribute increases. Self-improvement in 4 fields, Education, Weapon Experise, Skill Improvement, and Physical fitness...

MT has a very defined and thorough advancement system splitting it into Experience and Formal training. I'll probably use a tweaked version of this system.


MGT has a 50 word paragraph stating that to gain a new skill you need to train for a number of weeks equal to your total skills plus the new skill level. That's it? Just seems a little sparse you know...

For people who don't have acces to CT or MT I think this paragraph is definitely lacking and inadequate.


As an aside is there a cap on total skills allowed per player in this game?


thanks

 

[-Daniel-]

As an aside is there a cap on total skills allowed per player in this game?

Not that I have seen. I may have missed it.

But I would like to return to my question, not because I thought you were right or wrong, just curious what you were looking for.

Other then the "train to go up" rule. What where you looking for. What was missing? What would have been more like what you wanted? I guess I was hopeing you would expand on what kind of system you were thinking should have been there. Help stimulate some conversation.

I should have been more clear in my first post, sorry.

Daniel

 

[SableWyvern]

MGT covers experience -- gain one XP per session in a relevant skill.
It covers training -- gain one XP per month in a skill being trained.

It's simple, it works, and it's easy to tweak to suit your specific needs.

The only thing missing is characteristic advancement (which isn't difficult to add).

 

[Aged_Traveller]

I already brought this up a week ago:

Whilst I cannot admit (yet) to having read and (more importantly) digested every word in the new Core Rulebook, it does seem to me to be somewhat lacking in the area of Character Advancement.

In MT, characters could advance through experience (via adventure tallys for skills, etc.) and formal training (for both skills and characteristics). In the new Core Rulebook, all I could find was a couple of small paragraphs at the end of the Skills & Tasks chapter (Learning New Skills, p.59).

In the playtest documents I have seen, the time spent training for new skills was originally calculated in months. However, in print this has been changed to weeks. I assume that this was done to speed up skill progression rather than stick to the somewhat slower Traveller "norm"?

There appears to be no mention of how to handle the improvement of the characteristics in either the playtest docs or the Core Rulebook.

Although I have only been playing Traveller since the arrival of MT (though that's now over 20 years Shocked), I am quite comfortable with the concept of not having "character levels" for the purposes of advancement. However, players new to Traveller (or even RPGs in general) may not, and in all these areas the rules are more than a little bit grey.

And no-one replied, so I assumed no-one was bothered :wink:

 

[Cowboy]

MGT covers experience -- gain one XP per session in a relevant skill.
It covers training -- gain one XP per month in a skill being trained.

It's simple, it works, and it's easy to tweak to suit your specific needs.

The only thing missing is characteristic advancement (which isn't difficult to add).

Uh? None of that is actually in the book unless it's been very cleverly hidden somewhere.

Unless, of course, MGT means some other version than Mongoose Traveller.

 

[SableWyvern]

Uh? None of that is actually in the book unless it's been very cleverly hidden somewhere.

Oops. So, here's where I mention I hadn't actually read the final character advancement rules, and assumed they were the same as the playtest version.

The experience through training is still there, but they've changed to weeks, I see. Take the final printed version, convert to months, and allow one bonus month of training in an appropriate skill every session, and you basically have the playtest version.

And, these are my modified advancement rules, based on the playtest system, with characteristic advancement added in:


Character Advancement
At any given time, a character can focus on the development of two skills or characteristics. For each month of game time spent in training (approximately 5 hours a week for skills and 10 hours a week for characteristics is required), the character gains one experience point towards advancment in each area being trained. The player may allocate one extra point per game session. If a skill is not trained sufficiently over the course of a month, one XP is lost from that skill, although XPs will not fall below half of their peak value.

Skill Advancment
The character's skill training threshhold is calculated by adding together all existing skill levels (counting 0-Level skills as half a rank). The training target for any given skill is equal to the STT + 2 x the target rank. For example, if a character has a STT of 14 and is training his Gun Combat/Slug Pistol skill, which is currently at level 1, his training target is 14 + 2 x 2 = 18.

A character gains a temporary +1 improvement to a skill when his XP reach half his training target. When XP reach the training target, the increase becomes permanent, and no longer degrades through missed training. The character's STT is updated at this point as well.

When training in an entirely new skill, the training target is the STT + 10. The character gains the skill at Level-0 when his XP reach one quarter of his training target. Because XP cannot fall lower than half the peak value, this increase becomes permanent when the character has aquired XP equal to half his training target.

When training a skill that is already at 0-Level, the character begins with XP equal to one quarter of his training target.

Characteristic Advancement
The training target for a characteristic increase is equal to the characteristic's current value plus five. Upon reaching the training target, the character may roll to see if his characteristic increases by one point. This is a 2d6 roll with a target of 9, from which the current characteristic DM is subtracted (so, positive DMs act as penalties, and negative DMs as bonuses).

If the character fails to achieve a characteristic increase, he may make further rolls each time he accrues another 8XP towards that characteristic.

 

[Zowy]

I use a skill cap of INT + EDU = total max skill levels.

 

[Jame Rowe]

I use a skill cap of INT + EDU = total max skill levels.

And I don't. In my house rules there's NO max skill level limit.

 

[Stainless]

Hmmm, remember, level 4 in a skill is supposed to be equivalent to "internationally renowned" (says this somewhere in teh rules). I'n not sure there are too many people who are "internationally renowned" in lots of things, so I would put a limit on how many skills you can have at 4+ (say three of them).

As for lots and lots of skills at a basic level...I'm not sure.

 

[SableWyvern]

And I don't. In my house rules there's NO max skill level limit.

Ditto. Int + Edu as a skill cap seems very artificial and arbitrary to me, although I understand why some people like the idea.

 

[FallingPhoenix]

Character Advancement
At any given time, a character can focus on the development of two skills or characteristics. For each month of game time spent in training (approximately 5 hours a week for skills and 10 hours a week for characteristics is required), the character gains one experience point towards advancment in each area being trained. The player may allocate one extra point per game session. If a skill is not trained sufficiently over the course of a month, one XP is lost from that skill, although XPs will not fall below half of their peak value.

Skill Advancment
The character's skill training threshhold is calculated by adding together all existing skill levels (counting 0-Level skills as half a rank). The training target for any given skill is equal to the STT + 2 x the target rank. For example, if a character has a STT of 14 and is training his Gun Combat/Slug Pistol skill, which is currently at level 1, his training target is 14 + 2 x 2 = 18.

A character gains a temporary +1 improvement to a skill when his XP reach half his training target. When XP reach the training target, the increase becomes permanent, and no longer degrades through missed training. The character's STT is updated at this point as well.

Is the peak value different from the training target? Or is that +1 at half value permanent?

Also, what's STT?

 

[SableWyvern]

Is the peak value different from the training target? Or is that +1 at half value permanent?

Also, what's STT?

Heh ... I just had one of my players ask what STT is. It's Skill Training Threshold (described immediately before the abbreviation is used, but not capitalised, which would make it much clearer :wink

Peak value is the highest accumulated number of experience points for that skill at any point. Unless XP are lost by failure to train, the peak value will always equal the number of XP earned.

Frex: You earn 12 XP towards Writing Clearer Houserules. Then, you fail to train for six months. Your peak value is 12 (the highest value you've reached), but your current XP has dropped to 6 due to your lazienss. However, you won't forget everything you've learned (or will pick up the basics again quickly when you resume training), so if you continue to avoid training, your XP won't keep dropping (it can't fall lower than half peak value, or 6 in this case).

The only permanent value you can earn without reaching your Training Target is a zero-level. Frex, with a Training Target of 12 for Medic-1, you gain Medic-0 when you earn 3 XP. Once your XP reach 6, they can't ever fall below 3, even if you never train again.

 

[Dark Lord Skippy]

When GDW printed up a few "famous people" as characters, they gave a bit of a baseline on how to consider skills. I really wish Mongoose would do that because I think it speaks to more people to have a firm example.

Of course, with everyone being IP sue happy these days, it might not work.

IIRC, Scotty's Engineering skill was level 4. Han Solo's piloting was level 3.

I think that gives a much better picture to most people than "internationally acclaimed".

 

[AKAramis]

And I don't. In my house rules there's NO max skill level limit.

Ditto. Int + Edu as a skill cap seems very artificial and arbitrary to me, although I understand why some people like the idea.

It is wonderfully simple, and prevents characters from being "Too skilled"

 

[SableWyvern]

And I don't. In my house rules there's NO max skill level limit.

Ditto. Int + Edu as a skill cap seems very artificial and arbitrary to me, although I understand why some people like the idea.

It is wonderfully simple, and prevents characters from being "Too skilled"

As I mentioned, I can understand why some people like it. Personally, though, if I did decide to institute a skill cap, it would be a fixed value, rather than tied to characteristic values. There's also the fact that, assuming you count skill-0 as half a rank, I'm pretty sure that a few of the PCs in my group don't fit under the Int + Edu cap, right out of the blocks.

 

[WhiteWolf]

And I don't. In my house rules there's NO max skill level limit.

Ditto. Int + Edu as a skill cap seems very artificial and arbitrary to me, although I understand why some people like the idea.

It is wonderfully simple, and prevents characters from being "Too skilled"

So does Death! :shock:

 

[Flynn]

Ditto. Int + Edu as a skill cap seems very artificial and arbitrary to me, although I understand why some people like the idea.

It is wonderfully simple, and prevents characters from being "Too skilled"

So does Death! :shock:

I understand that Lobotomies do, as well, but I'm not about to roleplay one, nor force it on the PCs.

Just Kiddin',
Flynn