a question on skills

[clay1334]

this may seem like a dumb question to you experienced brp users but im new to the game and could use a little help. in brp a character has a certain number of skill points for occupational skills and hobby skills, my question is can a player spend hobby skill points on an occupation skill? thanks in advance!

[Eric L. Webb]

Yes, a character can spend points from his "personal point pool" on any skill he wants (including Professional skills).Just remember that skills cap at 75% for a "normal" game and 90% for a "heroic" game.

Edited October 7, 2010 by eric71

[threedeesix]

Yes, a character can spend points from his "personal point pool" on any skill he wants (including Professional skills).Just remember that skills cap at 75% for a "normal" game and 90% for a "heroic" game.

But remember, the skill cap "includes" the skill base and any bonus from characteristics if that optional rule is in use. Therefore, if you spend enough points to bring the skill to 75% (including the base), the +7 you may have from DEX won't further raise the skill.

Personally, I didn't really like the idea of the characteristic bonus not adding to an already high skill, not because I wanted the skills to be able to be higher, but because it added more complexity to spending the skill points.

Rod

[seneschal]

One question I had upon reading the Big Gold Book is how many skill points does a starting character get? The answer seems to be 250, but then there is mention of those hobby/personal skill points, too. So is it 250 points (professional skills) plus additional points for those personal skills? Or 250 total including the hobby stuff? Maybe I'm thick-headed, but re-reading the character creation chapter didn't clear things up for me.

Also, after having played other point-buy games, 250 professional skill points seem barely enough to make a well-rounded character passably familiar with his area of expertise. Of course, that sort of gets back to the old "35% really isn't that bad" discussion I've heard before. The perceived scarcity of points would also seem to force a character to choose between being really knowledgeable about something or having good combat skills. If so, that makes sense in Call of Cthulhu, where your tough guy routine probably won't do you much good anyway. But it might become problematic in other genres.

Part of the reason I ask is that whenever I create NPCs I have to beef them up with more than 250 skill points to get them to where I think they should be. I realize that being the villain means never having to say you're sorry (or having to follow the rules PCs do), but this perceived problem seems to affect any NPC except spear-carrying mooks (who typically might have only a single weapon skill and a hobby anyway).

So can y'all enlighten me?

Edited October 7, 2010 by seneschal
More thoughts

[HierophantX]

It's just like Call of Cthulhu. You get your skill points for professional skills (250) or whatever points you get derived from the EDU stat if you are using that rule, and then your personal skill points come from the other pool.

When it comes to percentile-based games I always fall back on FASA Star Trek. If you have a 40% in something that's professional competence. Under routine circumstances you shouldn't need to make a skill roll. Also, having skill percentages above 75% for a normal human is still pretty crazy in my opinion. You know how many rounds are typically expended in a firefight in the real world? Normal human infantry shoot worse than Stormtroopers from d6 Star Wars!

[seneschal]

Thanks for the reply. I appreciate it.

[Nightshade]

But remember, the skill cap "includes" the skill base and any bonus from characteristics if that optional rule is in use. Therefore, if you spend enough points to bring the skill to 75% (including the base), the +7 you may have from DEX won't further raise the skill.

Personally, I didn't really like the idea of the characteristic bonus not adding to an already high skill, not because I wanted the skills to be able to be higher, but because it added more complexity to spending the skill points.

Rod

It also seemed to decrease the value of having a decent modifier, which didn't seem benign, either.

[threedeesix]

It also seemed to decrease the value of having a decent modifier, which didn't seem benign, either.

This is why in Classic Fantasy, I reduced the skill max to 55% but allowed the characteristic bonus to increase it. That coupled with the racial and "class" bonuses brought the skills to around 75% if the player wants to concentrate on them. This makes a beginning CF character equivilent to a normal BRP character and as such makes it easier to convert other fantasy BRP adventures such as "The River Terror" or "In Search of the Troll Slayer".

Rod