Not all heroes are created equal...

[Shiningbrow]

I know RQ has never been big on balance, and I think that's a good thing!

However, it does surprise me that even some starting characters are gimped right from the beginning, and I'm curious if this was intentional, or just merely oversight...

I'm talking about starting skills, in particular Occupational and Homeland.

In going through the character creation rules, I noticed somewhat large discrepancies between the different homelands and occupations, which gets compounded by the equipment list...

Here's the breakdown of skill amounts given to each homeland (excluding Native Language and Own Culture). They are separated as per the book - 'normal' skills and weapon skills:

 

Sartar - 75 + 90 = 165
Esrolia - 90 + 95 = 185
Grazelanders - 95 + 75 = 170

Bison - 120 + 55 = 175
High Llama - 120 + 45 = 165
Impala - 120 + 55 = 175
Pol-Joni - 120 + 60 = 170
Sable - 120 + 55 = 175

Lunar Tarsh - 85 + 80 = 160

Old Tarsh - 65 + 90 = 155

 

So, Old Tarshites are 30% behind Esrolians from the very outset!

 

As for the Occupational skills:

Non-combat:

Assistant Shaman - 180
Bandit - 150
Chariot Driver - 165
Crafter - 160
Entertainer - 145
Farmer - 165
Fisher - 140
Healer - 140
Herder - 170
Hunter - 140
Merchant - 170
Noble - 180
Philosopher - 185
Priest - 150
Scribe - 210
Thief - 175

 

Warriors - (first % is including skill percentages the 25% given to 1 weapon line, the second number is adding the number of weapons by the 25% for each)

Heavy Infantry - (NB - 1H+S OR 2H (or Yelmalio) 140/165
Light Infantry - (3 unit weapons) 145/195
Heavy Cavalry - (3 unit weapons) 120/170
Light Cavalry - (3 unit weapons) 150/200

 

The end result is - if you're a fisher/Healer/Hunter in Old Tarsh (155 + 140 = 295) , you seriously suck compared to an Esrolian Scribe (185+210=395)...

I note that for the most part, Cult skills are basically even - all have a 10, 15 and 20% (bar a couple - Babs Gor and Maran Gor get an extra weapon skill, as do the Orlanthi +10% on one skill for Adventurous,Thunderous gets +10 to Dance, and Ernalda gets another 20 to Dance as well... Yelmalio gets a 5-point bonus, and Yinkin loses out on their 10% - so that Old Tarshite Hunter is really getting stuck into!).

 

(Edit: That means - since Ernalda is a major goddess in Esrolia - a starting Esrolian Ernaldan scribe can be on 460% before the 150% worth of bonuses, while the Yinkin worshipping Old Tarshite hunter starts at 330%, with the Healer or Fisher only 5% higher)

As I said at the beginning of this post - I'm fine with imbalance - but I'd like to know whether it's intended. It's a bit odd to do that to starting characters...

Edited February 5, 2020 by Shiningbrow

[Bill the barbarian]

Of course it is intended,  Unless you are that much cleverer than all the folk at the Chaosium. 

First you say this is not a problem and then you say there is this problem and you conclude with being fine with the problem but... So which is it man? Confused minds want to know.

[Mugen]

Don't forget that not all skills are equal either, and a +25% to Play(Instrument) or Farm is very likely to have less impact on the game than a +5% in Dodge, Search or First Aid. Not counting the need to have 2 skills when you fight with a shield and only one with a 2 handed weapon, or the fact the important of each skill will depend on context...

However, I'm surprised to see that Hunter and Priest are amongst the occupations that got the lowest skill allotments, and Scribe is the winner.

[Shiningbrow]

18 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Of course it is intended,  Unless you are that much cleverer than all the folk at the Chaosium. 

First you say this is not a problem and then you say there is this problem and you conclude with being fine with the problem but... So which is it man? Confused minds want to know.

Im ok with imbalance in general, and expect it across races, and for other reasons.

Humans (and maybe Ducks here) across the major cultures and occupations should probably be a lot closer in numbers. There actually doesn't appear - to me - to be a good reason why one culture or occupation makes a person more or less experienced than any other...

Is there a really good, plausible reason why Esrolians would, as a culture across the board, be 30% more skillful than Old Tarshites? Or why an experienced fisher, hunter or healer is actually about 1/2** as capable in their occupation than a scribe?

That's why!

 

 

(** Scribe 210. Hunter 140. Difference is 70, or 1/2 of the Hunter's skill points)

 

9 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Re: Heavy vs. Light warriors, (either infantry or cavalry.)  Not sure your numbers are correct.  But note that the heavies start with a few hundred Lunars more in the value of their armor.

Yep =- that's why I didn't delve into that bit too much. At least for those guys, there's some offset...

[Bill the barbarian]

3 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Re: Heavy vs. Light warriors, (either infantry or cavalry.)  Not sure your numbers are correct.  But note that the heavies start with a few hundred Lunars more in the value of their armor.

The numbers I have checked are accurate (did them up for power gamers who wish to have the mostest of the most). He does add cultural lore differently than I do but.. that is a minor quibble. And as you say there are other difficulties not noted here. Scribes have harder skills (if not impossible) to gain by experience alone. See Mugen's post above..

[Shiningbrow]

3 minutes ago, Mugen said:

Don't forget that not all skills are equal either, and a +25% to Play(Instrument) or Farm is very likely to have less impact on the game than a +5% in Dodge, Search or First Aid. Not counting the need to have 2 skills when you fight with a shield and only one with a 2 handed weapon, or the fact the important of each skill will depend on context...

However, I'm surprised to see that Hunter and Priest are amongst the occupations that got the lowest skill allotments, and Scribe is the winner.

I would absolutely agree with that... however, just off the top of my head, I don't even recall seeing dodge, and neither Farm nor Play (Instrument) is part of any of the outliers I've used in the examples..

If there's a good argument about relative values of skills in the examples above, I'm all ears.

[Lordabdul]

6 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Is there a really good, plausible reason why Esrolians would, as a culture across the board, be 30% more skillful than Old Tarshites? Or why an experienced fisher, hunter or healer is actually about 1/2** as capable in their occupation than a scribe?

A plausible reason? Yes. A good reason? That's debatable.

But yeah, I think Esrolians are typically more educated and sophisticated, so their education and upbringing is probably more effective than growing up in Tarsh or Sartar where you pick up cow dung and shut up when the Lunar soldier talks to you.

This kind of character imbalance has always been a peculiarity of BRP. Call of Cthulhu also has vastly different skill point totals based on your stats and profession.

Edited February 5, 2020 by lordabdul

[Bill the barbarian]

3 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

This kind of character imbalance has always been a peculiarity of BRP. Call of Cthulhu also has vastly different skill point totals based on your stats and profession.

And of course if ya don’t like it, change it. Come up with your own figures and balance them to your taste.

[Mugen]

10 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

I would absolutely agree with that... however, just off the top of my head, I don't even recall seeing dodge, and neither Farm nor Play (Instrument) is part of any of the outliers I've used in the examples..

If there's a good argument about relative values of skills in the examples above, I'm all ears

Well, to be honest I think that if you try to factor skill utility, it's possible warrior packages will be 400% worth and Scribe 50%

As a side note : really, Farmers receive no points in Farm and Entertainers no points in Play(Instrument)? That's odd.

8 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Call of Cthulhu also has vastly different skill point totals based on your stats and profession.

But it doesn't really matter as you only ultimately need  a handful of skills in CoC.

Edited February 5, 2020 by Mugen

[Bill the barbarian]

1 minute ago, Mugen said:

But it doesn't really matter as you only ultimately need  a handful of skills in CoC.

run and scream in panic are two that come to mind.... though they could be combined by a clever investigator!

[Shiningbrow]

1 hour ago, Bill the barbarian said:

He does add cultural lore differently than I do but.. that is a minor quibble.

???

 

" Scribes have harder skills (if not impossible) to gain by experience alone. See Mugen's post above.. "

While true, firstly I'd argue against that rule... To me, it really seems silly that a person can't increase a Lore skill through 'experience' (although it may be semantics). When reading a book in a foreign language, I think most people have experienced the "Oh, I didn't know you could do that!", or "What does that combination of words I know individually but not in that construction mean??" (oops - R/W has experience checks - silly me!)  Or, for a Lore - "hey, I didn't know dogs sometimes eat grass when they're feeling sick, but I just saw Snoopy doing that!" for Animal Lore. Finding out the hard way that not all red berries are edible! 

(yeah, ok, I know that's really a separate thread...)

 

Edited February 5, 2020 by Shiningbrow
Big boo-boo!

[Shiningbrow]

7 minutes ago, Mugen said:

But it doesn't really matter as you only ultimately need  a handful of skills in CoC.

 

4 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

run and scream in panic are two that come to mind.... though they could be combined by a clever investigator!

Seriously?

 

I thought it'd just be "Entertaining Death".... Perhaps as  a Perform skill...

[Shiningbrow]

12 minutes ago, Mugen said:

As a side note : really, Farmers receive no points in Farm and Entertainers no points in Play(Instrument)? That's odd.

Mine has Farm (+30%) in bold and Play Instrument listed last, in bold - 30%.

Farmers don't get Plant Lore though... "what's this thing growing up in our crops?"

[Mugen]

22 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Mine has Farm (+30%) in bold and Play Instrument listed last, in bold - 30%.

Farmers don't get Plant Lore though... "what's this thing growing up in our crops?"

Ok, I misunderstood your post.

[Akhôrahil]

Skill selection for the professions is a huge headache, and looks like yet another rush job in the rules. Hunters not having Survival is probably my favorite.

It's not that some small differences in skill totals is a giant problem, as much as you wonder why the designers would go to the effort, rather than just balancing it all out. It's like how instead of saying "Spirit Magic costs 50L per level", they cost 30-75L per level and there's this big chart listing it all out. Or how "some skills can be improved with experience and some can't and it's pretty arbitrary which is which". This is a remarkably old-fashioned design, and you have to wonder why anyone bothers.

(The answer seems to be that RQ2 is the sacred gold standard for RQG, despite it being a system that in my opinion would benefit from large overhauls. We really did learn things about game design in the last 40 years! Even RQ3 had a number of improvements over RQ2, and we could do a lot better still these days.)

Edited February 5, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Mugen]

Anyway, there are clearly two different category of skills in all (skill-based) RPGs : those that are necessary for the game, and those that are rarely used and ever more rarely useful in the course of an adventure. It's fine to know how to play Harp, but it's rarely used in-game (even moreso if "Harp" means the ICE game)

IMHO, Character Creation should take this into account and make "less useful" skills easier to learn.

Edited February 5, 2020 by Mugen

[Austin]

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

" Scribes have harder skills (if not impossible) to gain by experience alone. See Mugen's post above.. "

While true, firstly I'd argue against that rule... To me, it really seems silly that a person can't increase a Lore skill through 'experience' (although it may be semantics). ... (yeah, ok, I know that's really a separate thread...)

If you're gonna address things RAW, I think you've gotta handle everything RAW, not just say "well, that rule's silly, so let's ignore how that factors into the design decisions..."

[Shiningbrow]

25 minutes ago, Crel said:

If you're gonna address things RAW, I think you've gotta handle everything RAW, not just say "well, that rule's silly, so let's ignore how that factors into the design decisions..."

I'm quite lost on this ...

This whole site is full of "RAW this doesn't work" threads....

 

Unless you're saying, "because these skills are harder to acquire in-game, these occupations get more skill points". Possibly a good argument - but it only really works for the Scribe (and Philosopher).  I'm not seeing any other rhyme or reason for the large differences - which still don't address the Homelands bit.

(Just as a point of interest, the next most skilled occupation after the Scribe  is the Light Cavalry, followed by Light Infantry - hardly occupations with skills that are harder to either put to use, or difficult to increase)

[JustAnotherVingan]

There are some occupations where I think the lack of points is due to mistakes.

For example Hunter doesn't get Peaceful Cut. Give it +30% Peaceful Cut like Herder gets and the total looks more reasonable (although Peaceful Cut is primarily a flavour skill).

There are some cases where more points doesn't mean a more useful character. Esrolia gets cultural weapon bonus for all 3 types of shield, somewhat redundant I think.

[Akhôrahil]

24 minutes ago, JustAnotherVingan said:

There are some occupations where I think the lack of points is due to mistakes.

For example Hunter doesn't get Peaceful Cut. Give it +30% Peaceful Cut like Herder gets and the total looks more reasonable (although Peaceful Cut is primarily a flavour skill).

Agree. It's downright silly that the herder is a better hunter than the hunter is. 

And Peaceful Cut isn't just a flavor skill - most any hunter heroquest is going to involve successful use of Peaceful Cut. It's the kind of skill you don't realize you're missing until you really miss it!

Edited February 5, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Austin]

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

Unless you're saying, "because these skills are harder to acquire in-game, these occupations get more skill points". Possibly a good argument - but it only really works for the Scribe (and Philosopher).

I think that's the argument which was being made previously, and I think it's a reasonable argument.

I also agree with your take on some of the no-experience skills, but I don't think it is a good argument when trying to determine what the design decisions were based on RAW. And I'm in agreement that it's mostly relevant for Scribe & Philosopher. I also suggest Assistant Shaman, to an extent; basically where the occupation's core functions don't typically overlap with cultural or cult skill bonuses. E.g., none of the cultures give a Read/Write bonus.

[JustAnotherVingan]

21 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Agree. It's downright silly that the herder is a better hunter than the hunter is. 

And Peaceful Cut isn't just a flavor skill - most any hunter heroquest is going to involve successful use of Peaceful Cut. It's the kind of skill you don't realize you're missing until you really miss it!

Fair point.

There are a lot of skills that won't be useful every adventure but when they are needed they will be important.

 

[Sumath]

The Philosopher and Scribe (and to a lesser extent Assistant Shaman, e.g. Vishi Dunn) are occupations that are less likely to lend themselves to traditional combat-oriented play. Therefore, I'd say that their additional non-combat skills are a form of game balance in so far as they make them more generally useful to a party otherwise made up of fighters, and more attractive to players who don't want to play a warrior archetype.

[Rob Darvall]

5 hours ago, Mugen said:

Don't forget that not all skills are equal either, and a +25% to Play(Instrument) or Farm is very likely to have less impact on the game than a +5% in Dodge, Search or First Aid.

EH? That would shock my players who go into battle with bagpipes playing for the augment.

So much so that the piper is now over 100% in bagpipes and not teaching only because the Lunars have banned them within the walls of New Pavis; classing them as a weapon.

His music has often been the difference between heavy and light casualties.

[Tindalos]

5 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Skill selection for the professions is a huge headache, and looks like yet another rush job in the rules. Hunters not having Survival is probably my favorite.

Similarly with Devise. Given they're described as operating lines of traps, and start with snares, you would have thought they'd be better than most at knowing how to use them.

Or Peaceful Cut. On a purely statistical basis, a Seshnelan Wizard, someone banned from spilling blood, is probably better at butchering animals than a Grazelander hunter.