Starting new advanced skills

[Great Cthulhu]

I have always liked the RQ experience system. Some of my players are much less enthusiatic. The new edition has very similar mechanics but to me seems vague about how to start new advanced skills during the campaign - the player must find a suitable teacher and/or have appropriate resources available, but how long is it supposed to take? In earlier editions, I recall something like spend one week in training and make an 3xINT roll to start a skill off at 1D6% plus skill category bonus else try again. What is the mechanic in this edition?

 

[Rurik]

It is not clear on the time involved. 1 or 2 weeks sounds like a reasonable amount of time (I would think longer in real life, 1 week of instruction is not going to make a person a capable blacksmith, but for game purposes a week or so is fine).

The starting percentage is stated to be the base chance for that advanced skill (based on the appropriate stats).

 

[RosenMcStern]

It used to be one week in RQ3 (AHRQ?), i.e. 50 hours. Since training times are shorter in MRQ to compensate for the lack of experience ticks, I would assume one week is fine. As for a week not being enough to become a competent blacksmith, well, a smith with 10-15% of doing a decent job is not competent - he's just an apprentice.

 

[Utgardloki]

I've long noticed that Runequest does not have a mechanism like GURPS has to indicate whether a skill is easy or difficult. In Runequest, all skills are the same.

So perhaps different skills take a different amount of time to pick up. Some may take a day. Some may take a week. Some may take a month.

Some skills may be picked up "on the job" as it were, if a player has had a chance to see the skill used and have someone explain it.

 

[RosenMcStern]

In fact RuneQuest 4 had such a differentiation between easy and hard skills, but it was never published.

Learning a skill "on the job" is what is called "Practice" in the rules.

 

[weasel_fierce]

I figure a week is fine.

Alternative, find what the base chance will be, see what the training time is, if you have that skill value and are raising it, and double it

 

[Halfbat]

I've long noticed that Runequest does not have a mechanism like GURPS has to indicate whether a skill is easy or difficult. In Runequest, all skills are the same.

MRQ regards what you you do with the skill as being easy or difficult, hence the skill modifiers (listed in the companion, for example, when making extra-special items or when trying to handle different types of ships)