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Skill Set to 100%


Jwfortune

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There are suggestions that starting skills are capped at 75% (Keeper's Book page 48)

Let him have 100% in Firearms as he'll still Fumble/Malfunction on 00% anyway. I'd also point out that a lot of Mythos creatures are immune to gunfire and take minimum damage. Spending all those points on Firearms will make him fairly useless at just about everything else so don't offer any opportunities for him to shoot stuff and when he does arrest him and throw him in jail after warning him that shooting things never solved anything.

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Nigel

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I usually limit starting skills to 75%, except Own Language.  As nclarke has said, firearms are not always effective against Mythos creatures.  Maybe suggest to the player not to do so, or enforce a skill cap.  I would not explain the firearms may not be useful, let that be determined through experience.

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I would let him if that's what the player really wants to do. As long as he came up with a believable explanation for the investigator's background and why he's such a master with firearms. And I wouldn't coach or advise the player, as @Insanity suggests. Let that experience and learning opportunity resolve itself through play. But enforce the ramifications of an investigator "solving" problems with his firearm if he does it brazenly or without respect to the law.

I'm not a fan of a heavy-handed Keeping approach where you try to teach the player a lesson by deliberately stacking the deck against them, or altering the nature of the mystery on-the-fly.

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The general theme is that this really can be a self solving problem if the Keeper keeps an eye out for opportunity, and I think that correct.

I once ran a Cthulhu Dark Ages scenario, in which I paid somewhat less attention than I should have to character generation by the players--one rather munchkin-ish type set his investigator's sword skill as high as he could.  I nodded agreeably.

The central monsters were winged,so at a dramatically appropriate moment, one flew over the investigator just out of sword reach.  I, all feigned innocence asked, 'Do you have any skill with any sort of ranged weapon other than throwing rocks?'  (Of course not--all the points went into sword.)

At this point I declared that the creature let out a noise that sounded something like "Ha ha!"  and let go whatever passed for its digestive contents, and that the investigator took 1 hit point of damage and 1d4 SAN (in addition to whatever he had taken for seeing the beastie in the first place.)

Strangely enough the characters drawn up by my players have been reasonably well rounded ever since.

 

Edited by wombat1
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I have only ran two scenarios so far (the ones that came with the keeper screen), and I suspect a 100 percent in firearms is not that much of a game changer (only one of the scenarios had a situation where guns mattered, and even so, winning that combat was by no means winning the scenario, as the players continued to lose sanity until they figured out how to solve a puzzle). It's true that a character with 100 in firearms will be good at shooting things, but even at medium range, he will still only have a 50 percent chance to hit stuff. If the group really want's to be munchkins, each player could put 100 percent in a different skill, so one has 100 with firearms, one has 100 with library use, one with 100 spot hidden etc. But even still, they will only have 50 percent to pass hard tests, and if one player dies/goes insane then there will be no one to serve as an effective backup for the skill they specialized. In reality, you are probably doing the players a favor by capping skills at 75 percent. 

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100% or more... it's so much useless with the rule of the Cthulhu v7. In the old Basic system why not but not with the additionnels dices.
Depend on the way you want to play it with this fellow :
-Cool : Give another PC/NPC a bit over 50% and the bonus dice but always make him shoot in good situation like a shot at less than DEX/10 so another dice bonus. 75% and 2 dices bonus make you hit the target as easily as having 100%.
-Bad : Play on the night, lights and malus to give him a reason to have 100%, always with half of the skill ! (major success only)
-Dirty, like in Dirty MJ : Play the rules stupidly, give him the 100% and the two dices bonus. Make the fight be classic, sometimes easy and whenever you can give a bonus dice, give it and use the rule "at 3 bonus dices : automatic simple success". No test, no fun, strictly never let him touch a dice. Play with the others, explain them the way to get a bonus dice or two to hit. Make them understand that you can always success without having a perfect skill. And when the others get over 50% and 90% give them the extra D10% in another shooting skill.

Always remember : Perfection mean no evolution and also you have and absolute confidence in your skill.... over-confidence had kill a lot of hunters.

Edited by MJ Sadique
hate using tablette, typing correction is ù*^$^ù
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I like characters with defined strengths and weaknesses. Even if they've come about by munchkinism (and they may not, your player may just have had a really strong character concept). Typical Cthulhu games (almost more than any other games) include a wide range of challenges and skills. The checks and balances are built in, I would not sweat it personally. 

Edited by Al.
Missing punctuation

Rule Zero: Don't be on fire

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On 9/19/2016 at 2:07 PM, Jwfortune said:

I had a player create a character and set his shooting skill to 100%.  Does the rule book allow this?  Any thoughts on how to handle this?

Same thing in a campaign I know about, but at 200%! The rules probably allowed it, but it makes a very limited PC. The GM allowed it for a laugh, as CoC PCs generally don't last long anyway, so it didn't make much difference.

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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14 minutes ago, shark_bone said:

I thought that skills maxed out at 99%. Isn't that the pinnacle of human achievement?

What if you have a difficulty rating that halves your skill? Someone who is very skilled could have a 100% chance with a skill at half chance, making his skill 200%. It depends on how you look at it.

CoC has usually capped skills at 100%, but we play RuneQuest that allows skills past 100%.

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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On 9/19/2016 at 9:29 AM, nclarke said:

I'd also point out that a lot of Mythos creatures are immune to gunfire and take minimum damage. Spending all those points on Firearms will make him fairly useless at just about everything else so don't offer any opportunities for him to shoot stuff and when he does arrest him and throw him in jail after warning him that shooting things never solved anything.

hahah, that kills me with my players.  last game i even made repeated comments along the lines of how little the monster seemed to care about being shot.  even with "you just saw it hit with FOUR GRENADES, it seems remarkably uneffected."  it didn't register to anyone that they were basically doing no damage... they were just lucky the monster's goal was literally smash & grab, not kill and destroy...

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 9/19/2016 at 3:07 PM, Jwfortune said:

I had a player create a character and set his shooting skill to 100%.  Does the rule book allow this?  Any thoughts on how to handle this?

In CoC6 you could rule that for shooting a moving target in darkness, he gets -30% for penalty, so there is still a way for him to miss. I wonder how does it work in CoC7? The disadvantage seems to cease to exists at higher skill levels.

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There's no specific penalty for firing in darkness given in 7e IIRC so it's a judgement call. Shooting at someone in Cover (50% + concealment) is generally a penalty die so I might either go for that or make it hard and give a penalty die depending upon actual circumstances (range etc). A fast moving target is also a penalty die so it could be two or more penalty dice with the worst combination counting.

Edited by nclarke

Nigel

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23 hours ago, nclarke said:

There's no specific penalty for firing in darkness given in 7e IIRC so it's a judgement call. Shooting at someone in Cover (50% + concealment) is generally a penalty die so I might either go for that or make it hard and give a penalty die depending upon actual circumstances (range etc). A fast moving target is also a penalty die so it could be two or more penalty dice with the worst combination counting.

I haven't yet bought the 7e - could you explain more how the penalty die works? I thought I knew, but it seems I don't. I had an assumption that it's like in D&D 5e, where skill check with a penalty is like typical skill check but with extra d10 (I assume, the d00) and you must choose the bigger value for rolling under skill %. But if your skill is 100%, the failure is not possible with this mechanic.

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Roll an extra die and take the lower of the two possible values when it is a bonus and the higher of the two when a penalty die.

Roll 85 and 45 with a 5 units die an 80 and 40 tens dice. If it's a bonus then the roll is 45 and if it's a penalty 85.

For firing in darkness I'd say it's hard (50%) or even extreme (1/5th skill) to start and maybe throw in a penalty die for other locational reasons.

Edited by nclarke
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Nigel

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I'll complete nclarke explanation : When you do an action

1/ You sum up all disadvantage (worth 1 or 2 Die Malus) and advantage (worth 1 or 2 Die Bonus). A Malus dice negate a bonus dice. At 3 Die Malus, you automatically failed and at 3 Die Bonus, you succeed without rolling anything. Too much malus or bonus don't matter, it's simply fail or success. you get a scaling like this :

 <--Harder | Failed < -2Die < -1Die < Normal Roll > +1Die > +2Die > Success | Easier -->

2 / If you don't have the needed skill, Your master state if the skill you want to use is as good as the first one (no malus), not the best choice (half skill malus) or too far from (1/5 skill malus). You can see it as a Quality of success change factor because with Aplomb (optional heroic points) you can change the quality of test after the roll. You get a Quality scale like this :

<-- BadExtreme Fail < Special Fail < Normal Skill > Special Success > Extreme Success | Better-->

Sometimes when a peculiar Sadic master want a player to feel how dangerous facing a Shoggoth mean you can accept a player roll a skill with -3/4 Die malus : The third Dice malus should give half skill malus (with -2Die) and the 4th give a 1/5th skill malus with the -2Dices. A player should automatically be given such possibilities if his live depend on it.

You get a Scale (of Cthulhians horrors) like this with five grades of difficulties and 5 of Bonus :

 <--Harder | Impossible < 1/5th Skill & -2D < Half skill & -2D < -2Die < -1Die < Normal Roll > +1Die > +2Die > Normal Success > Special Sc > Extreme Sc  | Easier -->

Edited by MJ Sadique
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V7 Bonus Dice Greatness : Players should be encouraged to play on Dice bonus and malus to make better fight (not just throwing bigger grenade or take bigger guns). Some of my player only had 35% with a gun but shooting at short range (less than DEX/5, ~5m) give a dice bonus, with a full round of preparation (+1D) they can kill a cultist easily and with a surprise strike (+1D), no roll just a success. A good preparation with a bit of RP give a great reward. Bonus and malus Dice are given on the PC sheet, so they can't complain they didn't know !!!

Simple in-game examples with Close combat Dice modifier (don't remember English name) :
-Young Lady trying saving her husband (-1D) vs a Playboy aviator (+1) : Lady's player state "TWO DICES MALUS.... I don't even try, I use my derringer ad shoot him from behind" (Point blank shoot +2D & Surprise +1D = Play boy out).

Over 100% Boring-ness : Like I state earlier, a player at 100% have +2D and any bonus mean he don't roll the dices (no thrill, no fun). There is no human upper than 100% because you have too much bonus. Each 50% skill give a dice bonus, at 200% you've got +4D but a shoggoth got +8D of size bonus in Close combat. And he have 315% in STR which give him +6D bonus for pure STR contest versus a human...

Simple in-game examples with Close combat Dice modifier (don't remember English name) :
-Ghoul vs Locomotive size Shoggoth : +6Dice in favor of the Shoggoth. The master don't even bother roll any dice (oh yeah ! I love this game) and make just a great description of how a terrific being like a 2,2 meters Ghoul get bashed and eaten by a gentle domesticated Shoggy !

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