DwD Studios

Bump.

It sounds good, perhaps your character is a specialist in that particular field.

But I worry about power creep, of being too powerful too quickly in a particlar field. One wherein task difficulties become redundant due to hight skill scores.

We never allowed this in any playtest, and the question did in fact arise. We didn't want to make characters so one-dimensional... but we encourage people to house-rule that if they believe such a character to be a good idea. The P/S column is designed as a three-fold game mechanic built with a lot of consideration:

• First, it makes you statistically better at something (duh). Half an ability score is pretty low, but half an ability score plus 20 isn't so bad for a starting character. Add a skill level and you're quite good.
• Second, it provides features for such rules as the spellcaster who gets 2 spells per level if he selects it as "Primary" - allowing other options like this for other skills in the possible future. For instance, maybe someone makes a "combat options" book that allows a warrior skill to learn 1 "combat option" per level, two if "Primary" is warrior, things like that.
• Lastly, it encourages creation of complex archetypes by showing that your character isn't just good at one thing. He's a diverse character with the ability to do more than a one-trick pony. Many modern games try to shoe-horn you into specific tropes (heck - some go so far as to give you a "combat role" which classifies and limits your usefulness to a party). Giving a DIFFERENT secondary skill and then allowing the starting skill level to be in any skill (even one tertiary to your concept) immediately breaks the traditional mold while still allowing creation of strong archetypes if desired.

So you never play-tested it then? I wasn't talking about making it the game rule. I was talking about making it an option. If all someone wants to do is be a pure Spellcaster, they don't have that option currently. They are forced to multi-class, so-to-speak, which seems to me to be a weak point, not a strength.

It's your game, if you allowed a player to use the +20, +10 and pick spellcaster as their first skill they would be really good at it. But terrible at everything else. You could also allow three spells per level since they are dumping the 20 and 10 into one skill. Note that they would gain all the spells in the book (3x6=18)

Right, we never play tested it that way because it was in our opinion anathema to the core concept. But that doesn't mean it's gospel - give it a try and have fun!

Here's a quick surprise statement from someone who helped forge the game mechanics: game mechanics aren't as important as the story, nor as important as the player's fun. If any rule gets in the way of your fun, feel free to house-rule (and share your rulings with the community). Just be consistent so players know how to play in your game :-)

Can I quote you for my d00Lite RPG?