Expert program: Is the DM+1 for skilled Travellers limited by package level? (CSC23 p70)

[MasterGwydion]

The skilled person could also just allow the expert package to do the work and get exactly the same bonus as the unskilled person.

You don't buy an Expert 3 package if you just want +1 to your skill check, Expert 1 is enough and 100th the price.

As far as I am aware, if you exceed the max difficulty of the Expert Software, you don't get the +1 bonus.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

The skilled person could also just allow the expert package to do the work and get exactly the same bonus as the unskilled person.

If the expert program in the example is doing all the work for the unskilled person why do they get their Edu bonus?

In any case that doesn't answer why a Expert program would EVER make an unskilled person more skilled than a skilled person with the same ability bonus.

Now why buy expert 3 when it doesn't help your expert? For situations where an expert is unavailable of course.

 

[Terry Mixon]

I got annoyed that unskilled people got more than those with some knowledge, so I house rule it that the skill level provided is bandwidth -1 for everyone. Added on, if someone has the skill as bandwidth -1 (and only if) they get it at bandwidth. It makes the more expensive ones worth the money.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I just rule it that everyone gets +1, but I am actually preferring the idea from above that just removes up to the Bandwidth from the -3 for using a skill untrained. That is genius! Basically, it becomes Specialized Jack-of-All-Trades. I think that is awesome!

 

[rinku]

It's probably worth remembering that Expert programs have two uses. There's giving the skill, or a bonus, to meatheads; and there's giving the skill to an Intellect program.

In many (most) cases you could double up and use the group task rules with the breathing member getting whatever benefit the Expert program provides, and an Intellect program doing their part at bandwidth -1. All you should need is sufficient bandwidth and maybe a second copy of the Expert program, although if we are talking about all the software being on one chunk of hardware, like a ship's computer that can run everything easily, I'd be cool with one copy in use by multiple users.

 

[swordtart]

If the expert program in the example is doing all the work for the unskilled person why do they get their Edu bonus?

They shouldn't if the Expert is running autonomously, but since these are EDU/INT related tasks you could argue that the results that the Expert package presents to the user still need to be interpreted by the user or perhaps it is a result of how the user framed the original enquiry. You can get wildly different output from a ChatBot if you phrase your query badly (and you may not realise you framed it badly if you have no knowledge of the subject).

In any case that doesn't answer why a Expert program would EVER make an unskilled person more skilled than a skilled person with the same ability bonus.

I don't think they ever need to. It is an edge condition that only needs considering for Skill 0 people using Level 3 Expert packages.

There are two ways to use an expert package, either use Intellect and trust it completely taking the skill-2 that Expert-3 offers or use Intelligent and get DM+1 to your own skill roll.

The rule says unskilled people can use Intellect, it doesn't say that skilled users can't. So a skill 0 person can also use Intellect with an Expert-3 and can use the skill as if they had it at level-2 exactly like an unskilled person can.

Of course since the rules are silent on skilled characters operating Expert packages using Intellect, you could house rule (per Terry Mixon's suggestion above) that a skilled user can exploit the full capacity of the expert package Expert-3 would operate at skill-3 instead. This is how the software works with Robots and it always seemed odd that Expert-3 provides only Skill-2.

 

[rinku]

Characters aren't involved in an Intellect program running an Expert program. Those are autonomous. You tell it what you want it to do and it does it. As I posted before, there's no reason a character could not use that as someone else in a team task or task chain. In theory you could set up several Intellects running in parallel to feed a group task.

Characters use an Intelligent Interface to use Expert programs.

The terminology could be better.

Edit: Okay, I think we've been though this before, but okay. It's the Catalogue text about an unskilled character with Intellect/Expert? Yeah, I take the point with how it's written, but it's more or less only providing the same benefit to the unskilled character that it does for any character who tells it to go do a job and leaves it alone. The only difference there is if positive mods provided by the character (such as INT or EDU) apply (if they're negative they should just let the program do the job).

For consistency it should be either clarified that (as per the core book) it's the only way an unskilled character can use an Expert program (i.e. by telling an Intellect to run it), but that they don't actually affect it. OR allow all characters to closely supervise an Intellect program running Expert and as a result allow their mods. In many cases this will be no better than the character just doing the task, or doing the task using Intelligent Interface and Expert, but that's how it goes. I prefer the former; if you want to combine a character and an Intellect/Expert, that feels more like a skill chain situation anyway.

 

[swordtart]

Characters aren't involved in an Intellect program running an Expert program. Those are autonomous. You tell it what you want it to do and it does it. As I posted before, there's no reason a character could not use that as someone else in a team task or task chain. In theory you could set up several Intellects running in parallel to feed a group task.

Characters use an Intelligent Interface to use Expert programs.

The terminology could be better.

Edit: Okay, I think we've been though this before, but okay. It's the Catalogue text about an unskilled character with Intellect/Expert? Yeah, I take the point with how it's written, but it's more or less only providing the same benefit to the unskilled character that it does for any character who tells it to go do a job and leaves it alone. The only difference there is if positive mods provided by the character (such as INT or EDU) apply (if they're negative they should just let the program do the job).

For consistency it should be either clarified that (as per the core book) it's the only way an unskilled character can use an Expert program (i.e. by telling an Intellect to run it), but that they don't actually affect it. OR allow all characters to closely supervise an Intellect program running Expert and as a result allow their mods. In many cases this will be no better than the character just doing the task, or doing the task using Intelligent Interface and Expert, but that's how it goes. I prefer the former; if you want to combine a character and an Intellect/Expert, that feels more like a skill chain situation anyway.

I both like skill chains and hate them. As a concept they are great, but in actual practice it is difficult to know where to draw the line. In the Glass Cannon episodes, it seems the default way to use skills. It can be inclusive (as every character can chip in to the overall task), but it can also be self defeating if that becomes the expectation and every technician expects to influence the combat that should be the preserve of the combat oriented characters and it just slows things down. It is bad enough having to rule for every skill check what the level of the check is or the stat permitted as a modifier without having to rule for a bunch of tangential skills. It all gets very messy.

Characters should not be able to skill chain with themselves (for the same skill). If they are using an expert package to assist in a task chain it MUST be operating autonomously and therefore shouldn't benefit from their INT/EDU modifier. Of course there is nothing stopping another character driving it and adding in their stat DM.

Without a complete reworking of the Expert package and associated support software in line with all the other supplements (Robots etc.) it is difficult to know what the intent of the rules was, however there seems to be an intent that Expert packages can be either fully autonomous, guided or simply provide support, depending on whether the operator skilled, unskilled or even present. The boundary between what can be achieved autonomously and what requires interaction and when INT/EDU modifiers can be applied is not clear.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I both like skill chains and hate them. As a concept they are great, but in actual practice it is difficult to know where to draw the line. In the Glass Cannon episodes, it seems the default way to use skills. It can be inclusive (as every character can chip in to the overall task), but it can also be self defeating if that becomes the expectation and every technician expects to influence the combat that should be the preserve of the combat oriented characters and it just slows things down. It is bad enough having to rule for every skill check what the level of the check is or the stat permitted as a modifier without having to rule for a bunch of tangential skills. It all gets very messy.

Characters should not be able to skill chain with themselves (for the same skill). If they are using an expert package to assist in a task chain it MUST be operating autonomously and therefore shouldn't benefit from their INT/EDU modifier. Of course there is nothing stopping another character driving it and adding in their stat DM.

Without a complete reworking of the Expert package and associated support software in line with all the other supplements (Robots etc.) it is difficult to know what the intent of the rules was, however there seems to be an intent that Expert packages can be either fully autonomous, guided or simply provide support, depending on whether the operator skilled, unskilled or even present. The boundary between what can be achieved autonomously and what requires interaction and when INT/EDU modifiers can be applied is not clear.

The Example listed was for Streetwise followed by Broker, but for legal goods, it would be Broker followed by Broker. So the specific example in the book would allow for a Task Chain of Broker/Broker. One is finding the opposing broker, the second is the actual broker roll for price. Why would you not allow both rolls to be broker?