Nickbergquist
Mongoose
So, in my Runequest forum group for my local game, we noticed an oddity regarding mentoring and skills. The question from my player and my propose response was pretty much this:
Question: On teaching... those rules seem odd.
Why would I need a HIGHER skill to teach a naturally-adept student? e.g. If the student has a INT+POW of 35, I'd need 70% skill to teach. But a dim-witted, weak student with INT+POW of 20, i'd only need 40% skill to teach. One would think the opposite is true. You'd need a truely gifted teacher to instruct a weak student. Might the 75% to teach rule be a better way to go?
Answer:
On the teaching thing: I think the logic behind it is that you must have a level of familiarity with the subject that will offset your student's own level of expertise; however, I agree that a very skilled teacher could pull it off better on a student with less familiarity of the subject....but the issue with the rules is that a Teaching skill is most likely required in addition to familiarity with the subject. I might suggest (if it hasn't already been presented in a book and I'm just not yet familiar with it) a Craft: Teaching skill, one which adds a bonus to tutoring or something similar.
That said, in the example you give, the 70% teacher can teach both equally well, but the 40% teacher doesn't really know anything more about the subject than the gifted student in the example, so would not be able to impart enough meaningful lore to make a difference. A couple more rules to be aware of:
1. The teacher must make a skill test to teach correctly, and the difference by which he succeeds then becomes a bonus to the improvement die roll of the student, who must also make an improvement test. If I included a Craft (Teacher) skill, I'd suggest that that skill test, if successful, allowed this bonus to happen; otherwise, it would be the case of a brilliant mind who does not know how to impart the knowledge situation.
2. If the student makes his improvement roll, he gets 1d6+1 improvement points instead of 1d4+1. So a mentor can have a noticeable impact. That's something to consider when everyone is using IRs at the end of the session, too; you can start mentoring a weak skill under a more improved comrade to get a potential higher boost.
Getting back to the example: The 40% teacher teaching a 20% student has a 2 in 5 chance of succeeding, but can never give better than a 20% bonus to the IR, although at such a low level, he can only boost the student once before the student can not absorb more knowledge (since one success will net a minimum of 2 SPs, making the student 22% and untrainable by the modest teacher at 40%)
Now, likewise, the 70% instructor can only impart one lesson to the 35% guy, too...but he could teach the 20% guy multiple times, with practically automatic success, until the slow witted student is no longer so slow witted and hits 36% skill or better.
So yeah, I think a Craft (Teaching) skill is a good idea.....otherwise there will be no slow witted folk around in short order.....
Using this variant, then the mentor makes his teaching roll, first. If he succeeds, then he may apply the bonus of the skill being taught (the difference by which it is made) to his student's skill check. If he fails, then the student "didn't listen" or he didn't teach well, and can not get the lesson across.
I think I'll run this up over at mongoose and see what people think....
So, my conclusion is that a Teaching skill makes a whole lot of sense....because otherwise, the rules as written basically suggest that the only reason stupid people are, well, stupid (or at least untrained, ignorant, etc.) is because they don't seek out tutelage. Technically, this might be true, but in the example above, a guy with 20% skill because he has, say, 5 INT and 15 POW should not in all likelihood be able to absorb the sort of teaching necessary to improve a spell skill or something similar, I would think. Maybe the solution lies not in a Teaching Skill test to gain the mentor's IR bonus to the student, but an INT test for the student to see if he grasped the lesson at hand (INTX5...a Know roll from BRP, essentially). That would make high INT characters predictably receptive to new lore, and low INT characters not so readily able to grasp lessons presented.
Ideas?
Question: On teaching... those rules seem odd.
Why would I need a HIGHER skill to teach a naturally-adept student? e.g. If the student has a INT+POW of 35, I'd need 70% skill to teach. But a dim-witted, weak student with INT+POW of 20, i'd only need 40% skill to teach. One would think the opposite is true. You'd need a truely gifted teacher to instruct a weak student. Might the 75% to teach rule be a better way to go?
Answer:
On the teaching thing: I think the logic behind it is that you must have a level of familiarity with the subject that will offset your student's own level of expertise; however, I agree that a very skilled teacher could pull it off better on a student with less familiarity of the subject....but the issue with the rules is that a Teaching skill is most likely required in addition to familiarity with the subject. I might suggest (if it hasn't already been presented in a book and I'm just not yet familiar with it) a Craft: Teaching skill, one which adds a bonus to tutoring or something similar.
That said, in the example you give, the 70% teacher can teach both equally well, but the 40% teacher doesn't really know anything more about the subject than the gifted student in the example, so would not be able to impart enough meaningful lore to make a difference. A couple more rules to be aware of:
1. The teacher must make a skill test to teach correctly, and the difference by which he succeeds then becomes a bonus to the improvement die roll of the student, who must also make an improvement test. If I included a Craft (Teacher) skill, I'd suggest that that skill test, if successful, allowed this bonus to happen; otherwise, it would be the case of a brilliant mind who does not know how to impart the knowledge situation.
2. If the student makes his improvement roll, he gets 1d6+1 improvement points instead of 1d4+1. So a mentor can have a noticeable impact. That's something to consider when everyone is using IRs at the end of the session, too; you can start mentoring a weak skill under a more improved comrade to get a potential higher boost.
Getting back to the example: The 40% teacher teaching a 20% student has a 2 in 5 chance of succeeding, but can never give better than a 20% bonus to the IR, although at such a low level, he can only boost the student once before the student can not absorb more knowledge (since one success will net a minimum of 2 SPs, making the student 22% and untrainable by the modest teacher at 40%)
Now, likewise, the 70% instructor can only impart one lesson to the 35% guy, too...but he could teach the 20% guy multiple times, with practically automatic success, until the slow witted student is no longer so slow witted and hits 36% skill or better.
So yeah, I think a Craft (Teaching) skill is a good idea.....otherwise there will be no slow witted folk around in short order.....
Using this variant, then the mentor makes his teaching roll, first. If he succeeds, then he may apply the bonus of the skill being taught (the difference by which it is made) to his student's skill check. If he fails, then the student "didn't listen" or he didn't teach well, and can not get the lesson across.
I think I'll run this up over at mongoose and see what people think....
So, my conclusion is that a Teaching skill makes a whole lot of sense....because otherwise, the rules as written basically suggest that the only reason stupid people are, well, stupid (or at least untrained, ignorant, etc.) is because they don't seek out tutelage. Technically, this might be true, but in the example above, a guy with 20% skill because he has, say, 5 INT and 15 POW should not in all likelihood be able to absorb the sort of teaching necessary to improve a spell skill or something similar, I would think. Maybe the solution lies not in a Teaching Skill test to gain the mentor's IR bonus to the student, but an INT test for the student to see if he grasped the lesson at hand (INTX5...a Know roll from BRP, essentially). That would make high INT characters predictably receptive to new lore, and low INT characters not so readily able to grasp lessons presented.
Ideas?
