Maximum skill level?

[mcathro]

I'm working on a project and I just realized I don't see a maximum skill level listed anywhere. I assumed it was 6 but I don't see anything explicitly listed under character creation or the skills section.

Is there a max level? Also, do any of you ever get skills above 3 or 4 for your characters?

Thanks!

 

[Galadrion]

I see no particular reason to impose a skill cap - every level that goes into the "excessive" skill is one that isn't going into something else, and beyond a certain point, raising the skill level just isn't particularly meaningful any more. That said, the only skill that has a practical built-in cap is Jack-of-all-Trades; as pointed out in the main book, skill levels of zero or above three have no real effect.

Beyond the limitation I pointed out above, another drawback to an exceedingly high skill level is the fact that it raises not only the skill in question, but also your overall skill level... and doing that will lengthen the time it will take to train any skill. So not only are you diverting a limited resource (the levels you could be spreading out to other skills), but you are making it more expensive (in terms of training time) to correct the potential deficit later on.

For most purposes, a skill level of four is probably more than adequate. This translates to the level of skill of a person with doctorate-level knowledge as well as (probably) a decade or more of experience working with the skill. (Assuming a gain of one skill level per term, that would mean the character had studied/practiced for sixteen years - such a person should be a highly skilled, and probably recognized, expert in the field.) A skill level of six would be someone who was world-renowned for contributions advancing the field of knowledge. Beyond that... you're talking about someone as instrumental in their sphere as Paul Dirac or Albert Einstein: a person who completely reshapes what the world knows.

 

[cbrunish]

In the olden days the max skill levels were the total of Int+Edu. But I have not seen that in MGT. And I have not read anything on an individual skill in either MGT, MT, or CT.

Assuming the character is successful for advancement every term and rolls an even giving a skill the character will get approx 3 skill levels a term (not counting automatic skills for rank and what not). So a character whom served four terms would have between 4 and 12 or so skill levels. If a character was able to put all the skill levels into a couple of skills this would really make it hard to have a well rounded character.

But again this would be up to the GM and the player. Maybe the character is an idiot savant. He could have a Mechanical 6 but only a few 0 level skills. It could make for an interesting character to be roll played.

Just my 2 credits.

 

[rinku]

In the olden days the max skill levels were the total of Int+Edu.

That's a MegaTraveller rule, and therefore likely to be a Bad Idea.

Proper Classic Traveller (1st or 2nd edition) had no such rule, and thankfully neither does Mongoose.

The combat skills translate skill -> damage, so having those at unusually high levels can be useful if armour is significantly better than damage.

Also, there is one skill in particular where there is a reason for very high levels: Melee Combat. Since you impose your skill level as a negative DM when parrying, the value of the skill is always relative to your opponent's. Melee Combat (Blade) 4 may be all you need to defeat most swordsmen, but if you face down the finest sword in the sector who has it at level 7, you're just as badly off as that level 1 extra you just dispatched

Totally agree with Galadrion about what a level means. In the back of the old 1001 Characters John Carter, Warlord of Mars, finest swordsman of three worlds (and counting) was only given level six blade combat skills.

 

[rust]

That's a MegaTraveller rule, and therefore likely to be a Bad Idea.
Proper Classic Traveller (1st or 2nd edition) had no such rule, and thankfully neither does Mongoose.

I can give no quote, because I do not have any Classic Traveller material
here, but I am fairly certain that INT + EDU was indeed a Classic Travel-
ler rule - I remember that rule well, and I did not play MegaTraveller. :wink:

 

[rinku]

I can give no quote, because I do not have any Classic Traveller material
here, but I am fairly certain that INT + EDU was indeed a Classic Travel-
ler rule - I remember that rule well, and I did not play MegaTraveller. :wink:

Nope. Just double checked Book 1 and Book 3. No such rule; maybe you were running under a house rule?

Now, it's actually quite HARD to generate a character with more skills than Int + Edu under Book 1 rules, but I did find in 1001 Characters the following:

39 Scout 78934A Vacc-3, Electronics-3, Medic-1, Air/Raft-1, Pilot-1
72 Scout 55943B J-o-T-2, Navigation-2, Medic-2, Gunnery-2, Vacc-1, Pilot-1
134 (Marine)Lieutenant 159436 Gambling-1, ATV-1, Vacc-1, Tactics-1, Cutlass-1, Revolver-3

 

[rust]

Nope. Just double checked Book 1 and Book 3. No such rule; maybe you were running under a house rule?

Must have been that, or it could be something from Book 8 - Robots, this
was the last Classic Traveller material I used extensively, because later
Traveller versions lacked a robot design system.

Anyway, I stand corrected. :wink:

 

[CosmicGamer]

That's a MegaTraveller rule, and therefore likely to be a Bad Idea.
Proper Classic Traveller (1st or 2nd edition) had no such rule, and thankfully neither does Mongoose.

I can give no quote, because I do not have any Classic Traveller material
here, but I am fairly certain that INT + EDU was indeed a Classic Travel-
ler rule - I remember that rule well, and I did not play MegaTraveller. :wink:

Not in LBB1-3 and it came out later and was for specific careers (I believe those that had rolls for every term instead of every year hence a propensity for a higher # of skills). Without pulling the books out of storage and re reading it, I'm not sure if it was a rule that went back and covered all previous CT careers too.

 

[rinku]

I'm pretty certain the first time that rule came up was in MegaTraveller. That's the first ruleset where you had any realistic chance of increasing skill levels during play - the original skill "improvement" system was glacial. As I mentioned, I went through 1001 Characters and was hard pressed to find even a handful of case examples - I don't think there would have been any perceived need to cap levels, and I certainly don't recall it.

I checked books 4 through 7 and could find no rule. I even checked the original JTAS 12 Special Supplement version of Merchant Prince, which was notorious for producing over-skilled characters. Nada.

Possibly there was an optional rule in a JTAS article?

Book 8 does contain a line that "A robot may have no more skills (or total of levels of skills) than the sum of its intelligence and education, just as any Traveller character is limited.", but it's worth remembering that Robots was released only a year before MegaTraveller, and I'm guessing there may have been some playtest cross-contamination. I never had Robots until recently, myself, so that explains why it didn't flag any memory.

 

[impala]

It's from The Traveller Book, page 29:

Maximum Skills: As a general rule of thumb, a character
may have no more skills (or total of levels of skills) than
the sum of his or her intelligence and education. For
example, a character with UPP 77894A would be restricted
to a total of 13 combined skills and levels of skills. This
restriction does not apply to level-0 skills.

The thing that really scares me is that I knew exactly where to find that...

 

[rust]

It's from The Traveller Book, page 29

Thank you, that solves the mystery.

We used the Traveller Book once it was published, because we found it
easier to read than our LBBs, which had mostly disintegrated at the time,
so this is how the rule came into out game.

 

[Fedmahn Kassad]

Strangely enough, this rule was also used in the "MegaTraveller 2: Quest for the Ancients" computer game.

While rolling a character, if you hit the INT+EDU skill cap, you had to choose a stat builder (+1 STR etc.) 'skill' instead. I liked that rule so much, I added it to my campaign.

IMTU, skills go from 0 (I think the bullet comes out of this end of this here bang-stick) to 7 (near god-like accuracy and the ability to construct a working gun from packing crates and some duct-tape). This give a range of 8 which I sometimes use for speed rolling characters (i.e. this guy must have Pilot so its... *roll* Pilot-3)

Kassad

 

[rinku]

Aha! I never had The Traveller Book, so that does explain it. I stand corrected in turn

The Traveller Book dates from 1982, for the record, so it is a rule/suggestion that has some antiquity. I'm guessing they didn't put the rule into Scouts or Merchant Prince because the books released before 1982 didn't mention it.

Anyway, it's not a rule I'll run with. The Mongoose prior career process is generous with skills, but not overly so (1-3 per term plus rank ones) and the experience system caps those with excessive skill totals.

 

[rinku]

Strangely enough, this rule was also used in the "MegaTraveller 2: Quest for the Ancients" computer game.

Not so strange - it was released in the MegaTraveller era (in this case, 1991. The pen & paper book was 1987).

 

[DeadMike]

Also, do any of you ever get skills above 3 or 4 for your characters?

I have a character who has one skill at level 8. Then again, he is a psion who is an integral. The skill in question is his ship integration skill. As a matter of fact, it is the only skill I have ever raised on him.
Mike