RQG skills that can only be trained

[PhilHibbs]

Does anyone have any ideas on how to handle skills that can only be raised through training, if a character needs to get them up to 90% for priest or god talker status? Seems to me that one training roll per season is going to take a while, a few years at least, and that's if you go at it relentlessly to the exclusion of everything else. It is going to encourage people to stack as many points and bonuses as possible into these skills in character creation. And having an occupation with those skills isn't going to help, as you get experience rolls which you can't use. Maybe that needs a special case, that occupational knowledge skills can benefit from between-adventures experience checks.

Or am I wrong in thinking it will take that long? I haven't really checked thoroughly what level these skills are likely to start out at. Sorala, for example, has three lores at around 30-35% and one at 60%. Lhankor Mhy needs two lores at 90%. That's on average 36 training checks, so over 7 years of persistent training every season.

Edited June 12, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[Psullie]

well 90% in a Lore skill is pretty knowledgable, easily PHD level so seven years seems appropriate

[PhilHibbs]

35 minutes ago, Psullie said:

well 90% in a Lore skill is pretty knowledgable, easily PHD level so seven years seems appropriate

Even starting out older is of little help, you can only get +5% to a couple of lore skills for being 10 years older.

Daka Fal has two lores out of 5 cult skills, but I don't think that their shamans need to meet priest requirements as well.

Engizi has two lores out of 5 cult skills, so becoming a priest or God Talker is going to take a while for them as well.

Maybe my expectations are off, and it should take 10 years of game play to become a God Talker, but I bet there are plenty that you can pretty much get to in character creation. Seems unfair that only these two have a massive time barrier imposed.

[Atgxtg]

One training roll per season? Is that a hard limit, or just what you get for free? 

 

[PhilHibbs]

8 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

One training roll per season? Is that a hard limit, or just what you get for free? 

Hard limit, not free.

[RosenMcStern]

it is a matter of keeping the characters integrated in their social environment. The old training rules assumed that the PCs were adventurers with nothing else to do but train (apart from initiates/priests) and the money and abilty to focus on training was the only limit. A character who is an active member of his/her community cannot, of course, do that much training.

That said, one trainig roll per season can be a problem in the cases Phil pointed out. And a funstopper for parties which like to develop strong characters.

[Psullie]

Community involvement and one adventure per season is about playing the long game in a similar way to Pendragon. But with Pendragon there was a well structured existing timeline to follow so it was easy to run a campaign for several game years in only a few months real time. RQ however (currently) has a much narrower campaign time. Even going from RQ1 c. 1619 to RQG c. 1627 we only cover 8 years, so the idea of generating a character now (1627) and playing until 1640ish needs a substantial amount of work from the GM not to mention source material.

[Atgxtg]

Yeah, but Pendragon characters advance faster. The typical winter training session is 1D6 points, which is 5%-30% in RQG, or a flat +1 (+5%) if the skill is above 15 (75%)-and that's guaranteed-not just a skill roll. And in Pendragon 6, there are lots and lots  (IMO too many) of ways to get (buy) extra skill rolls and skill checks. Usually along the lines of pay 1-2L to get a check in a skill. So a determined PC who has the money can usually get a starting skill up to 15 over a few years. 

[Jeff]

5 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah, but Pendragon characters advance faster. The typical winter training session is 1D6 points, which is 5%-30% in RQG, or a flat +1 (+5%) if the skill is above 15 (75%)-and that's guaranteed-not just a skill roll. And in Pendragon 6, there are lots and lots  (IMO too many) of ways to get (buy) extra skill rolls and skill checks. Usually along the lines of pay 1-2L to get a check in a skill. So a determined PC who has the money can usually get a starting skill up to 15 over a few years. 

Well except that in Pendragon you get it only once year, while in RQ you get 5 seasons - which means in theory 1D6 experience plus training on one skill each season. You also get Between Adventures experience from your Occupation. Multiply that by 5 and you get 0% to 30% per skill per year, plus 0 to 24% in training in a single skill. I've seen characters shoot up from starting to 75% in less than three years. Overall the rate of progression is comparable to Pendragon, but adventurers tend to also increase more quickly than in Pendragon in secondary skills.

[PhilHibbs]

4 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Well except that in Pendragon you get it only once year, while in RQ you get 5 seasons - which means in theory 1D6 experience plus training on one skill each season. You also get Between Adventures experience from your Occupation. Multiply that by 5 and you get 0% to 30% per skill per year, plus 0 to 24% in training in a single skill. I've seen characters shoot up from starting to 75% in less than three years.

Sure, regular skills are not a problem, but the concern is lores that can't be increased by experience (so occupation doesn't help, since that gives experience checks). Lhankor Mhy requires two, and Engizi requires one lore at 90%.

[Atgxtg]

Okay, nobody mentioned the training bit.That does make a difference. 

 

I'd not so sure about increasing more quickly in secondary skills than in Pendragon though. At least in Pendragon 6. Rapid increase in secondary skill in Pendragon 6 was actually a problem in my last campaign. Once the PCs got successful at tournaments and had good incomes, they could afford to dump 10-20L a year to buy extra improvement rolls and checks in secondary skills. The advancement wasn't fast, but it was steady and could cover a dozen skills, and didn't take away from anything else they were doing. And, it often stacked with whatever else they were doing. 

[styopa]

8 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Sure, regular skills are not a problem, but the concern is lores that can't be increased by experience (so occupation doesn't help, since that gives experience checks). Lhankor Mhy requires two, and Engizi requires one lore at 90%.

Assuming a starting skill of 30, a good skill mod of 15, and that the 'skill fail' roll is ONLY against the skill itself (not skill plus mod; ie the first roll would need to be a 16 to 'fail') some napkin math suggests to me that to get from 30 to 75 is going to take on average about 21.8 skill rolls.  

[Jeff]

Just now, PhilHibbs said:

Sure, regular skills are not a problem, but the concern is lores that can't be increased by experience (so occupation doesn't help, since that gives experience checks). Lhankor Mhy requires two, and Engizi requires one lore at 90%.

As I posted in another thread, you need to make sure you start with one Lore at around 90% if you are going to push for Sage, which isn't too hard. Your second Lore can start somewhere around 65, which isn't as good, but you can get to 90% in a couple of years.

[Atgxtg]

Start with one Lore at 90%? I take it that RQG characters start off with a lot more experience that those from RQ2.

[PhilHibbs]

5 minutes ago, Jeff said:

As I posted in another thread, you need to make sure you start with one Lore at around 90% if you are going to push for Sage, which isn't too hard.

I couldn't see a way to do that. 30+25 for occupation, 20+15 for cult, 5 base, +10 modifier, I guess it is quite easy. Engizi is a problem, since he needs Cult Lore or River Lore, but gives neither.

[Jeff]

7 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Start with one Lore at 90%? I take it that RQG characters start off with a lot more experience that those from RQ2.

They can - it depends on how you want to concentrate. Usually characters have their best skill in the 75% to 90% range.

[PhilHibbs]

20 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Start with one Lore at 90%? I take it that RQG characters start off with a lot more experience that those from RQ2.

Most occupations get two or three skills at +30, you can add +25 to three skills of your choice, and your cult gives some fixed skills at between +10 and +20, plus two choices on top of that at +20 and +15 each. Hence Lhankor Mhy can get +30 and +25 from occupation, and +20 and +15 from the cult.

Engizi just gets Cult Lore +15. Occupations giving Lore are Crafter (any +10), Fisher (River Lore +30), Entertainer (any +10), Philosopher (cult +10), Scribe (any +30, +10).

So a Fisher can get River Lore at 5+30+25+bonus, Scribe can get Cult Lore up to 5+30+25+15+bonus, others can get Cult Lore to 5+10+25+15+bonus. So 50, 75, or 55 +bonus (5-15) are the closest you can get to God Talker of Engizi.

*Edit* Fixed a few numbers

Edited June 12, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[Atgxtg]

Okay. Are there any options for more or less experienced started characters, such as in RQ2 and RQ3? 

 

Don't get me wrong, as a GM I can obviously say, half the adds, or everyone get an extra 50% to break up or some such. Just wondering how it's set up.

Edited June 12, 2018 by Atgxtg

[PhilHibbs]

49 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Okay. Are there any options for more or less experienced started characters, such as in RQ2 and RQ3? 

Not really. The rules for older adventurers are pretty weak, you can get four skills at +5% for each ten years older. It's possible that I've missed another rule, since it's not easy to flick through a PDF.

[Jeff]

7 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Not really. The rules for older adventurers are pretty weak, you can get four skills at +5% for each ten years older. It's possible that I've missed another rule, since it's not easy to flick through a PDF.

Check out page 25 then for rules for both inexperienced characters and more experienced characters.

[PhilHibbs]

5 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Check out page 25 then for rules for both inexperienced characters and more experienced characters.

That just says "See page 81", which is what I quoted earlier. 4 skills at +5 each.

[Jeff]

Just now, PhilHibbs said:

That just says "See page 81", which is what I quoted earlier. 4 skills at +5 each.

It gives info on creating inexperienced characters. And yes, 31 year old characters are not dramatically better than 21 year old characters - their best skills are 5% higher. 

[PhilHibbs]

I'm torn on this one. On one hand, four skills at 5% is nothing, if you want to make an Engizi God Talker then you're going to need to take an additional 30 years at least, the 9 points of POW from that is going to be a big bonus that you weren't looking for, and you'll lose 6 physical attribute points. On the other hand, if you dish out too much then everyone will want it. Personally, I trust my current group of players not to abuse it. If one player wants to be 10 years older and get decent skill bonuses for it to make a sage type character, then I can't imagine the others crying over the unfairness.

Also I think the skill points that you get for training should be increased. Since it now takes anywhere between 5 and 20 times longer to train a skill, maybe you should get slightly more benefit from it.

Edited June 13, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[Atgxtg]

3 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

 and you'll lose 6 physical attribute points.

That's new. I take it that's some sort on inactive penalty like the old DEXx5% limits?

[PhilHibbs]

7 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

That's new. I take it that's some sort on inactive penalty like the old DEXx5% limits?

RQ3 had rules for characteristic loss from ageing, which also started at 40.

Edited June 13, 2018 by PhilHibbs