Help with skill system

[Lukahn]

A few people have mentioned they've implemented a house rule after character creation of adding up the DP of the characters to make sure they are ~125, since some of the skill combination rules can "bleed" points and make some characters more powerful than others.

My question is how to add up these DP? Most things can be added easily using the DP table in the rulebook, but when it comes to skills things get difficult.

Say for instance I have a skill level of 2(4). Since it costs 3 DP to get a skill at 1(2), what does this 2(4) skill equate to in DP? If we go by the same DP values no matter what the level, you can say that to get a skill to from 1 to 2 costs an additional 3 DP (but does that make it 2(2), or 2(3)?? It isn't clear).

After that, the specialization then costs another 1 DP. So, depending on how you look at it, the DP is either
7 (3 for 1(2) + 3 for 2(3) + 1 to make it 2(4))
OR
8 (3 for 1(2) + 3 for 2(2) + 2 for 2(4))

Things get even more complicated when you have multiple specializations. The gap between the DP costs get further apart with various specializations... a skill at 2(4)(4):
9 (3 for 1(2) + 1 for 1(2)(2) + 3 for 2(3)(3) + 2 for 2(4)(4))
OR
11 (3 for 1(2) + 1 for 1(2)(2) + 3 for 2(2)(2) + 4 for 2(4)(4))

I personally prefer the first style, that when you spend 3 to raise an overall skill, that includes training in your specializations so that you add a point across *all* of them. But with a skill with 2 or more specializations, it becomes more cost effective to simply spend 3 pts to increase the skill as a whole, instead of trying to raise specializations. Which is probably why in the Rewards section it is more than 3 XP to increase a skill (and the scale goes higher as the skill point increases). It is also mentioned somewhere (I think in the Rewards section) that if you raise a skill to the same level as the specialization, the specialization simply goes away (as you are now just as skilled in all aspects of the overall skill). So that doesn't really help to solve the problem.

Any help to clear the confusion would be appreciated, especially for those who have implemented house rules requiring adding up DP totals after character creation. What do you use for skills that are higher than 1(2)?

[Owen E Oulton]

Officially, the skill system is badly broken. They tried to fix it in Dune, but just made it worse... My unofficial house rules help make it work: http://www.coldnorth.com/owen/game/s...s/newrules.htm

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Some changes were discussed here and here.

[Evan van Eyk]

Say for instance I have a skill level of 2(4). Since it costs 3 DP to get a skill at 1(2), what does this 2(4) skill equate to in DP? If we go by the same DP values no matter what the level, you can say that to get a skill to from 1 to 2 costs an additional 3 DP (but does that make it 2(2), or 2(3)?? It isn't clear).

We always ruled that during character creation a rise in the main skill level gives also an improved specialization - otherwise you could end up with skills higher than the specialization. During character advancement, when already in play, we ruled that a specialization does not automatically stay one rank ahead of the governing skill, but at least has the same value.
DP-cost wise we declared that 3 DPs equal one skill rank and 1 RP one specialization seperately. Example:

You have Energy Weapons (Phaser) on 1(2) and get another Energy Weapon skill rank due to a training package. This gives you another complete rank: Energy Weapons (Phaser) 2(3). Anything else would not make much sense. Of course this way there is no rise in DP-costs as there is in Experience and cunning players can really exploit that idea and create characters with very high skill rates. But we also had a rule of thumb that no skill should be higher than 3 at the start of the game unless the characters had a lot of experience, e.g. an XO of a ship. Checking this with the costs of the templates, etc. it comes out pretty good, so I suggest you treat 3 DP as 1 skill rank and +1 on specialization.

Now with that Energy Weapons (Phaser) 2(3) you start playing and spend 3 experience to improve the skill. This would give you Energy Weapons (Phaser) 3(3). It was never explicitely stated what happens to a specialization if you improve the basic skill however. If you spend more experience to improve the skill, this would - according to our house rules - make Energy Weapons (Phaser) 4(4), because during training it would not make much sense to exclude Phasers and leave it on 3. On the other hand we also ruled that skills cannot be rated higher than 5, specializations could reach 6.

I hope that helped a bit. In the end it depends on experience with the game and style of your campaign. But we never had trouble with too good characters.

[RealPity]

I always liked the 0 (1) skills introduced in the Player's Guide ... always thought everything should be re-written to incorporate this more and hopefully smooth out some kinks ... daunting task though it would be ...

[Lukahn]

Thanks all, this helps tremendously. I like the idea of adding up DP costs and then allowing additional skills to be taken if the DP is less than a set number like 125. Some of the characters I've rolled up have been seriously underpowered because of this problem.

I also like the Renown rules on Owen's site, i think I'll give those a try too. I thought the starting Renown seemed a bit low based on the suggested points for higher ranked officers and the suggested rate of giving out Renown points.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

The question is whether you want to do more work up-front (rewriting either the skill-adding rules or the templates) or divest it to the players during chargen (making them add up DPs and everything). Personally, I don't like dumping lots of math on players.

[Evan van Eyk]

The question is whether you want to do more work up-front (rewriting either the skill-adding rules or the templates) or divest it to the players during chargen (making them add up DPs and everything). Personally, I don't like dumping lots of math on players.

If couting to 125 is a lots of math for you players, then maybe you have the wrong ones? Seriously, we did this adding up in no time, actually this was far faster than using the original rules.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

If couting to 125 is a lots of math for you players, then maybe you have the wrong ones? Seriously, we did this adding up in no time, actually this was far faster than using the original rules.

It's not complex, just tedious : P