Max skill ranks
- Thread starter JRoss
- Start date
). It could replace it of course, but that's not the intent.I took some liberty to make some edits (difficulties, wording, adding examples). I personally am going to test this approach with my players and I feel it strikes a really good balance.
Learning Through Experience
The Referee can award Advancement Points (AP) for a skill in play where he feels that a character could have learned something through experience or observation. A character can have up to three AP on any given skill. A player may improve any of his character's skills that have AP. To do so the player makes an EDU check with the following difficulties:
(Example is with a 0+ EDU modifier)
Gain a new skill at 0: Difficult (27.78% / 41.67% / 58.33%)
Increase a skill from 0 to 1: Very Difficult (8.3% / 16.67% / 27.78%)
Increase a skill from 1 to 2: Very Difficult (8.3% / 16.67% / 27.78%)
Increase a skill from 2 to 3: Formidable (0% / 2.78% / 8.3%)
Increase a skill from 3 to 4: Formidable (0% / 2.78% / 8.3%)
Increase a skill from 4 to 5: Formidable (0% / 2.78% / 8.3%)
The APs associated with the skill are applied to the roll as a DM and are removed regardless of the roll's success or failure.
Awarding AP is entirely up to the Referee which allows them to dictate the progress of Travellers (if any). The Referee might award them for completing adventures, heroic feats or time spent studying and practicing.
Examples where Referee’s might award AP:
A player is caught in the act stealing from a crime boss and his only option is to bluff his way out of it with Deception, but he’s not trained. He takes his chances and by a stroke of luck, deceives the goons and gets out. The referee is impressed with his heroic task check and awards the player with an AP for Deception, figuring he learned a thing or two.
A player is on a long-cruise and will spend many weeks in space. He brought along Programming for Dummies to work on his Computer skill. He spends 24 weeks in total studying the book, and the referee awards him an AP in Computers for what he learned.
A team of Travellers just rescued the space princess from a group of space pirates. It was a multi-week adventure to track them down, infiltrate them and fight their way out. They had to use a variety of the skills as a team to pull it off. The Referee awards one player a Gun Combat AP for all the work they did in the escape; awards another player an Investigate AP for their efforts in tracking down the pirate base and finally the final player with a Mechanics AP for the crucial repairs on their ship that enabled the escape.
Learning Through Experience
The Referee can award Advancement Points (AP) for a skill in play where he feels that a character could have learned something through experience or observation. A character can have up to three AP on any given skill. A player may improve any of his character's skills that have AP. To do so the player makes an EDU check with the following difficulties:
(Example is with a 0+ EDU modifier)
Gain a new skill at 0: Difficult (27.78% / 41.67% / 58.33%)
Increase a skill from 0 to 1: Very Difficult (8.3% / 16.67% / 27.78%)
Increase a skill from 1 to 2: Very Difficult (8.3% / 16.67% / 27.78%)
Increase a skill from 2 to 3: Formidable (0% / 2.78% / 8.3%)
Increase a skill from 3 to 4: Formidable (0% / 2.78% / 8.3%)
Increase a skill from 4 to 5: Formidable (0% / 2.78% / 8.3%)
The APs associated with the skill are applied to the roll as a DM and are removed regardless of the roll's success or failure.
Awarding AP is entirely up to the Referee which allows them to dictate the progress of Travellers (if any). The Referee might award them for completing adventures, heroic feats or time spent studying and practicing.
Examples where Referee’s might award AP:
A player is caught in the act stealing from a crime boss and his only option is to bluff his way out of it with Deception, but he’s not trained. He takes his chances and by a stroke of luck, deceives the goons and gets out. The referee is impressed with his heroic task check and awards the player with an AP for Deception, figuring he learned a thing or two.
A player is on a long-cruise and will spend many weeks in space. He brought along Programming for Dummies to work on his Computer skill. He spends 24 weeks in total studying the book, and the referee awards him an AP in Computers for what he learned.
A team of Travellers just rescued the space princess from a group of space pirates. It was a multi-week adventure to track them down, infiltrate them and fight their way out. They had to use a variety of the skills as a team to pull it off. The Referee awards one player a Gun Combat AP for all the work they did in the escape; awards another player an Investigate AP for their efforts in tracking down the pirate base and finally the final player with a Mechanics AP for the crucial repairs on their ship that enabled the escape.
OculusMortis
Mongoose
Honestly love this system, really addresses the Issue of varying across different GM's campaigns, and comes closest to keeping everyone happy I Imagine. Still not a fan of the EDU over reliance, but that seems to be written in stone by designer fiat.
My only revision that I would make on Kaelic's system is that the loss of the APs on fail seems too harsh. I would say the that the Traveller can't make another check until they would earn another AP in that skill. If the AP count is already 3, then it only opens the gate, not bring it to 4.
Those learning times need to go down by magnitude or so... completely unrealistic times for the vast majority of the active physical skills in traveller (pilot, gun combat, gunnery) and a slew of others. Last comment by matt was something to the affect of 8 weeks a learning period - so I'm waiting for that change. Unless I'm looking at the wrong core rule book version?
It will indeed be 8 weeks for the study period - got missed out in the last update will be present in the final book!
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