Abilities and Skills


[2.3.3] Abilities and skills are bonuses to certain types of actions. A character's race gives them bonuses to some abilities and skills, but any ability or skill development beyond that requires extra player points.

Abilities

[2.3.3.1] Abilities are general bonuses which can be applied to many actions. For example: Hand to Hand ability gives you bonuses to close range fighting with hand weapons or natural weapons.

[2.3.3.2] Every game using the Hack and Slash should have it's own ability list. Here is an example:

Acrobatics     Art            Climbing       Communication  Craftmanship
Detection      Hand to Hand   Intelligence   Marksmanship   Music
Power          Recovery       Regeneration   Running        Stealth
Strength       Swimming       Teaching       Toughness

[2.3.3.3] However, there are special abilities (related to Hit Points) that should be included in every ability list:

Strength - general speed and strength relative to size
Regeneration - lasting damage points lost (healed) per day

[2.3.3.4] This table lists the player point value (PPV) of each level of ability bonus:

Bonus  ½  1  1½ 2 2½  3  3½   4  4½   5  5½   6  6½   7    7½   8
PPV    1  2  3  4  6  8  12  16  24  32  48  64  96  128  192  256

[2.3.3.5] Movement abilities give the character special advantages based on their movement ability bonus:

[2.3.3.5.1] Running - The distance a character can run for each hit point they use is their stride plus an extra half stride for each whole level of running ability bonus.

[2.3.3.5.2] Swimming - Swimming bonus is the number of quarter meters a character can travel per hit point each round when over half submerged or over one's head in the water. When attacking from a situation where swimming skill applies, stun damage is halved, except in the case of grappling attacks.

[2.3.3.5.3] Flight - Flight bonus is the number of meters a character can fly per hit point each round. The ability to fly costs 20 PPV in addition to the PPV of the Flight ability bonus.

Skills

[2.3.3.6] Skills are more specialized than abilities and can be used as an additional bonus to related actions with the appropriate ability. Most skills are usually used with one ability, (For example: fencing skill is usually used with the Hand to Hand ability) but a skill can be used with any ability under the right circumstances.

[2.3.3.6.1] These are examples of Skills:

Acting         Animal Handling  Cooking
Gardening      Law              Literacy
Medicine       Piloting         Sailing
Sign language  Slight of Hand   Speed

[2.3.3.6.2] Skills have different levels of expertise than standard abilities: Skills increase thier cost by mulitples of 10 (instead of multiples of 2 as with normal abilities.) It makes sense to specialize in skills before developing abilities, and then to add more skills as ability levels become more expensive.

Bonus   ½  1  1½   2  2½   3    3½    4
PPV     ½  1  5   10  50  100  500  1000

Experience

[2.3.3.7] Ongoing character development - Abilities and skills may be increased by using more player points. This is determined by the Game Master or the rules of the specific game. One player point is equivalent to about 100 hours of training alone.

[2.3.3.7.1] Teaching - If a succesful teaching roll is made, the student gets 2 player points for that 100 hours instead of 1. The bonus for the teacher's roll is how much more ability levels they have then the student's in the ability they are trying to teach, or the teacher's teaching ability level, whichever is lower. Opposition to this roll is primarily the teacher to student ratio, divided by two. (So, 4 students and one teacher would mean that teacher has an opposition of 2.) This bonus is based on the number students present while the teacher is teaching. If multiple teachers are teaching the same student, use the highest of the teachers' bonuses for the teaching roll. Other types of opposition are likely.

A teacher gets normal training PPV for teaching.

[2.3.3.7.2] "Experience" - Experience Points are an optional way to measure very small amounts of experience. If Experience Points are used, 100 experience points add up to one player point. This way "teaching" (see [2.3.3.7.1]) can be rolled for hour by hour (for one or two experience points at a time, depending on if the teacher is succesful.)


Copyright © 1997 - 2001 Seth Galbraith and Benjamin Galbraith