The Rampant Gamer

One of the things I dislike about Legend when compared directly with BRP is the simplified skill list. Yes, it's functional, but it lacks granularity.

Has anyone put together a more complete skill list - with the understanding that we're talking about fantasy RPGs? I've been bashing the set from BRP, RQ 2nd and 3rd editions, and Legend together in an attempt to come up with something that works for me, but I'm sure I'm missing things and/or have areas of significant overlap.

What I have so far:

Jump

Swim

Climb

Run

Dance

Sing

Track

Search

Spot

Listen

Hide

Stealth

Sleight

Lockpicking

Traps

Acrobatics

Survival

Streetwise

Appraise

Bargain

Persuade

Perform

Fast Talk

Oratory

Seduction

Etiquette

Gambling

Insight

Pilot (Vehicle)

Ride (Animal)

Navigate

Persistence

Resistance

Brawn

Art ()

Play Instrument ()

Craft ()

Lore ()

Culture ()

Language ()

First Aid

Healing

Throw

Missile Weapon (Class)

Melee Attack (Class)

Melee Parry (Class)

Shield Parry

Evade

Unarmed Combat

Spirit Walking

Spirit Binding

Sorcery

Manipulation

Pact

Man, I just have to stop reading these boards. It would certainly make my wallet happier. I'm now curious as to how organizations are arranged...

It's the least well defined portion of the game, and in my mind the most fun and challenging. You can set up shamanistic cults, mainstream religious organizations, sorcerous guilds, mercenary troops or anything else that might provide benefits (and obligations) in exchange for following their rules and meeting their requirements. It can help define what spells you have access to, what skills you can get trained on inexpensively, and provide endless plot hooks for the GM.

I'm the opposite, I hated one-different-skill-for-every-different-weapon. It drove me bonkers that if you lost your sword and picked a spear, your combat skill dropped from 90% to 25%.

I'm sure there's a middle ground that would be both realistic and fun to play, but to my mind even a stabbing sword like a gladius would be different enough to warrant different skillsets. And if you lost your slashing longsword, and replaced it with a spear? You deserve to have a lower skill - barring cross-training, of course.

Or, instead of rounding up, you could simply rule that a successful roll has to generate at least one hit (which makes sense, since a successful roll "hits"), and the subsequent application of AikiGhost's houserule is the number of additional projectiles that hit (rounded normally).

So, with a ROF of two, a successful roll of 49 or less indicates a single strike (automatically one hits with a successful roll), and 50 and higher indicates both hit. This also allows critical hits and specials to not become overly devastating unless you have a high ROF and a very skilled shooters.

As I believe we'd both get the same results, I heartily concur. Think I'll adopt this ruling for the next game I run that it's relevant for.

To my mind, one of the strengths of RuneQuest down through the ages has been the value and thoroughness of the examples. I'm glad to see that idea kept alive with this edition.

I'm not sure if I can comment much further. The font is easy on the eyes. The sidebars are unobtrusive, but broadly useful. I'm concerned with the breadth of the combat styles referenced in the Nomad section of the preview, as I'm a fan of a finer grain of skills, but I'll reserve any judgement until I lay hands on the finished goods.

I agree that Aiki's method is precise, but time-consuming. It also loses some traction at the lower ROF values - what if you have a weapon with an ROF of 2 - you need to roll '00' to hit with both rounds? Maybe we need to be rounding up, so that values from 01 to whatever qualify to hit with one round without resorting to "no fewer than one" rulings?

Doing so gives us these sorts of scenarios:

I'm a strong marksman (100% with pistols) and my ROF is 2. I have a 50% chance of hitting you with both rounds (roll 51-00)

I'm an above average marksman (60% with pistols) and my ROF is 2. I have a 1 in 10 change of hitting you with both (roll 51-60) - one sixth of the time when I do manage to hit.

I'm a novice marksman (30% with pistols) and my ROF is 2. I have literally no chance to hit you with that second round - I'm a poor enough shot that I need an ROF of 4 to have a shot at hitting with a second bullet, and even that only happens on 26-30

Realistic? Anyone?

If so, we can solve the complexity issue with cheat sheets. Figure out the likely numbers of rounds that will be fired from the weapons in your game and create a cross-reference for the impacted player. Guy with an AF7 weapon would need to know where his breakpoints were (15 to hit with 2, 29 to hit with 3, 43 to hit with 4, 58 for 5, 72 for 6 and 86 to hit with all 7)

I'm not sure where all the hate for 2d6+6 comes from - it's a distinction without a difference, but it's not exactly the end of the world, and I'm sure it won't break anything if your world has humans who roll 3d6 for everything.

Wasn't it the case, anyway, that the original RuneQuest utilized a uniform 3d6 for all scores?

The old red book was 3d6 for each. My books tell me that 2d6+6 was first added in the AH version, but it may also have been used in one of the other non-Runequest d100 games as well.

Great discussion thus far, but it raises a question for me - I'm looking into a Traveller style game, and money and economics are very important there, in terms of buying and selling cargos and paying your monthly mortgage and upkeep on a ship for a trading campaign. Yet it seems like it would benefit from the abstract notion of wealth, and the ability to parlay that into some other figure based on the world you're visiting. Has anyone else delved into this discussion, or does that particular kind of scenario demand hard and fast prices, and the universal "credit" as a unit of measure?