What skill do I use?

[grauenwolf]

Here are the situations that we ran into in our last session.

* Fixing an antique jet car
* Driving said jet car
* Overriding the lock on the door to the power plant in an alien building
* Fixing an alien power reactor in a building
* Overriding the controls on an elevator in an alien building
* Switching an alien cyropod from external power to battery backup
* Treating radiation sickness
* Treating wounds from a flying animal
* Firing a gun loaded with traq. rounds at flying animals
* Convincing a star port officer to hand over surveillance film on their hanger (some of their cargo was stolen)

Some of the skills were pretty obvious, others not so much. The biggest one that was missing is some sort of electrical engineering to deal with the door lock and elevator controls.

 

[Anonymous]

Here are the situations that we ran into in our last session.

* Fixing an antique jet car

mechanic

* Driving said jet car

Flyer (jet car) OK, that's not an official specialization, but aerodynes and jet cars don't really figure into Traveller cos they went grav at TL8. You may need to ad lib this

* Overriding the lock on the door to the power plant in an alien building

This is gonna depend on how alien you want your aliens to be. If the basic engineering behind the alien infrastructure follows the theme that your PCs norms follow then engineer or electronics skill sill get you the basics of how it works and then mechanic or electronics will over ride the lock itself. I'd chain the tasks together.

* Fixing an alien power reactor in a building

How difficult this is depends on how broken it is. Following on from the earlier task, if the basic design parameters are similar to your PCs norms then it will follow on once they get their heads around the basics.

* Overriding the controls on an elevator in an alien building

See above, there's a pattern here!

* Switching an alien cyropod from external power to battery backup

I don't want to repeat myself but... see above...

* Treating radiation sickness

Assuming the patient is of the species the medic is trained to treat, medic

* Treating wounds from a flying animal

Assuming the patient is of the species the medic is trained to treat, medic

* Firing a gun loaded with traq. rounds at flying animals

gun combat (slug rifle or pistol as appropriate for the weapon

* Convincing a star port officer to hand over surveillance film on their hanger (some of their cargo was stolen)

Persuade

Some of the skills were pretty obvious, others not so much. The biggest one that was missing is some sort of electrical engineering to deal with the door lock and elevator controls.

Ya see, following on from the discussion in the beta, this is where I think the theoretical applications of engineering could prove useful. If engineering is more of a design skill then it's easier to apply it to understanding how things work. Specialisations of mechanic might be more appropriate for actually getting sh!t done but that is open to interpretation, as is most of what I've just typed!

 

[grauenwolf]

Off topic, but a jet car is like a normal car but uses a jet engine for propulsion. If I recall correctly, the stats are in the Vehicle supplement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_car

 

[Anonymous]

I guess that'd make it drive (stupidly fast) then

On a slightly more serious note, I'm not sure there's a specialisation skill for such a car or that there should be, I'd make it drive (ground car) and add to the difficulty as I imagine it would be a handful to drive. Did you give it a negative number for it's agility?

 

[grauenwolf]

Did you give it a negative number for it's agility?

I gave penalty for the difficulty in driving such a monstrosity and a bonus because they were in a wide open field, just rolling hills, so in the end it was a basic 8+ to not kill themselves.

The funny thing was that it wasn't even part of the main story line. They found an abandoned barn and I just through it in as decoration. You know, how every barn needs a least one old car that the owner swore he would fix some day. I didn't expect they would try to fix it, let alone drive it back to base camp.

 

[Reynard]

"Off topic, but a jet car is like a normal car but uses a jet engine for propulsion. If I recall correctly, the stats are in the Vehicle supplement."

That's called the Batmobile.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

The biggest one that was missing is some sort of electrical engineering to deal with the door lock and elevator controls.

What was the situation?

 

[allanimal]

Some of the skills were pretty obvious, others not so much. The biggest one that was missing is some sort of electrical engineering to deal with the door lock and elevator controls.

P.152 has a whole section about locks and what skills to use for various types. Maybe that could help determine which skill to use?

 

[grauenwolf]

Some of the skills were pretty obvious, others not so much. The biggest one that was missing is some sort of electrical engineering to deal with the door lock and elevator controls.

P.152 has a whole section about locks and what skills to use for various types. Maybe that could help determine which skill to use?

That information needs to be repeated in the skills section. There's nothing in Electronics(computers) that suggests it is useful for overcoming electronic keypads. The description implies that it is about hacking into 'normal' computers, not mucking with the wiring.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Some of the skills were pretty obvious, others not so much. The biggest one that was missing is some sort of electrical engineering to deal with the door lock and elevator controls.

P.152 has a whole section about locks and what skills to use for various types. Maybe that could help determine which skill to use?

That information needs to be repeated in the skills section. There's nothing in Electronics(computers) that suggests it is useful for overcoming electronic keypads. The description implies that it is about hacking into 'normal' computers, not mucking with the wiring.

What other skills need re-writing, so AndrewW knows?