Post by Galadare on Dec 4, 2005 22:54:11 GMT -5
Skills
The Silhouette CORE rules revolve around skills. Each skill has two parts; level and complexity. Level represents a character's depth of knowledge while complexity measures the breadth. Both are purchased using Skill Points at creation time and can be improved with Experience Points later on. The basic skills are listed below, if you don't see something that you think should be there, feel free to email me and well discuss adding it.
Purchasing Skills
For this campaign, characters begin play with 70 Skill Points to spend on skills. The cost of gaining a skill is equal to the square of the level of the skill. Likewise, increasing a skill's complexity is equal to the complexity squared, with the exception that all skills have complexity 1 for free. Note that after the character's creation, intervening levels and complexities may not be skipped. Furthermore, a character may pay 5 SP to specialize in a skill, granting him or her a +1 bonus under certain circumstances.
Example: Suppose I'm buying skills for my midget pilot. I want three levels of Pilot (space) and a complexity of three in the skill as well. This would cost me 18 SP (level 3 costs 9, and cpx 3 costs 9 as well) after creation, if I were to increase either the complexity or the level to 5 I would first have to purchase 4 at 16 SP before buying 5 at 25 SP.
I also wish to specialize in star-fighters, this costs me 5 SP and grants me a +1 bonus to Pilot (space) rolls made while in the cockpit of a star-fighter.
Level, Complexity, and How They Work
When called upon to make a skill test, the player rolls a number of dice equal to his skill level, takes the highest roll, and adds the relevant attribute (as determined by circumstance, aka the GM). The result is compared to the "Threshold" assigned to the task, if the roll exceeds the threshold, the action is successful.
When using a skill untrained, the player rolls two dice and takes the lowest roll, then resolves the situation as indicated above.
In addition to a threshold, some tasks have a complexity greater than one. The difference between the character's skill complexity and the task complexity is applied as a bonus (or penalty as appropriate) to the roll. Note that complexity is not used in cases of opposed rolls unless both parties are using the same skill, in which case the difference is applied as a bonus to the character with the higher cpx.
Level and Complexity in Perspective
As a rule of thumb, level and complexity can be described as follows:
The Silhouette CORE rules revolve around skills. Each skill has two parts; level and complexity. Level represents a character's depth of knowledge while complexity measures the breadth. Both are purchased using Skill Points at creation time and can be improved with Experience Points later on. The basic skills are listed below, if you don't see something that you think should be there, feel free to email me and well discuss adding it.
Animal Handling | Archery | Athletics |
Business | Combat Sense | Craft (specific) |
Defense | Demolitions/Traps | Disguise |
Etiquette (specific) | Forgery (specific) | Gambling |
Gunnery (specific) | Hand-to-hand | Heavy Weapons |
Information Warfare | Interrogation | Investigation |
Language (specific) | Leadership | Medicine |
Melee | Natural Sciences (specific) | Navigation (specific) |
Negotiation | Notice | Personal Flight Device |
Performance Art (specific) | Pilot (specific) | Riding |
Seduction | Sleight-of-hand | Small Arms |
Social Sciences (specific) | Stealth | Streetwise |
Survival | Teaching | Technical Sciences (specific) |
Tinker | Throwing | Trivia/Lore (specific) |
Visual Art (specific) | Zero-G |
Purchasing Skills
For this campaign, characters begin play with 70 Skill Points to spend on skills. The cost of gaining a skill is equal to the square of the level of the skill. Likewise, increasing a skill's complexity is equal to the complexity squared, with the exception that all skills have complexity 1 for free. Note that after the character's creation, intervening levels and complexities may not be skipped. Furthermore, a character may pay 5 SP to specialize in a skill, granting him or her a +1 bonus under certain circumstances.
Example: Suppose I'm buying skills for my midget pilot. I want three levels of Pilot (space) and a complexity of three in the skill as well. This would cost me 18 SP (level 3 costs 9, and cpx 3 costs 9 as well) after creation, if I were to increase either the complexity or the level to 5 I would first have to purchase 4 at 16 SP before buying 5 at 25 SP.
I also wish to specialize in star-fighters, this costs me 5 SP and grants me a +1 bonus to Pilot (space) rolls made while in the cockpit of a star-fighter.
Level, Complexity, and How They Work
When called upon to make a skill test, the player rolls a number of dice equal to his skill level, takes the highest roll, and adds the relevant attribute (as determined by circumstance, aka the GM). The result is compared to the "Threshold" assigned to the task, if the roll exceeds the threshold, the action is successful.
When using a skill untrained, the player rolls two dice and takes the lowest roll, then resolves the situation as indicated above.
In addition to a threshold, some tasks have a complexity greater than one. The difference between the character's skill complexity and the task complexity is applied as a bonus (or penalty as appropriate) to the roll. Note that complexity is not used in cases of opposed rolls unless both parties are using the same skill, in which case the difference is applied as a bonus to the character with the higher cpx.
Level and Complexity in Perspective
As a rule of thumb, level and complexity can be described as follows:
Level | Complexity(cpx) | |
1 | hobbyists | basic training |
2 | green professionals | fully trained |
3 | experienced professionals | advanced courses |
4 | seasoned professionals | wide field of knowledge |
5+ | living legends | renowned expert |