I posted recently about possibly merging weapon skills in Felltower.
I've waived away skills I felt overlapped too much - no Filch, say, and I made Shield cover all shields, with no difference between a buckler and a proper shield.
I've merged a bunch of spells, too - most of the "Instant" versions of spells and Explosive spells and reverses of spells got merged into one.
Why?
Basically, because I think that there are too many skills, and too many spells, splitting hairs a bit too fine. I'd rather deal with broad strokes skills and spells and let the players have wide ability to apply them. Too fine of a distinction and yet get dead-end skills and broad skills that can't do some little thing that's actually important. You get players hunting just the right spell or skill that has wording that covers their specific goal. With wide skills, you get more problem solving and less solution seeking within the rules. In my experience, anyway.
"Basically, because I think that there are too many skills, and too many spells, splitting hairs a bit too fine."
ReplyDeleteAgreed. I've dumped Shadowing and Sleight of Hand, Shadowing does nothing that Stealth and Observation don't already do, and SoH is basically Filch, Holdout, and Performance rolled into one. I'm not dumping the skills those two mirror, so I've dumped them. Same with your take on Spells, don't need Explosive spells, just pay more/spend more time on the regular version to make it explosive.
This post is exactly why I keep going back to bang skills with the advice from Power-Ups and Monster Hunters. I just havent figured out what to do about the pricing. They're hugely expanded capability, but they really REALLY encourage pumping up IQ and DX, since most uses will default to one of those two. That's already an 'issue', but WC skills exacerbate it. A repricing might fix it, but thats hard to honestly test.
ReplyDeleteI hear you. I keep looking at Wild Card skills myself, but the cost is too high to make the single-skill-fighter types even consider them, and is so much you might just want a minimal level and lots of DX. I'm not sure what the right price is - merging skills does seem to help, though, and I plan to go with the merge in Felltower if my players are behind it.
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