[Torg] Skill Knacks in Play

[Benjamin Grant]

Just wanted to report in on the use and evolution of the house mod our group
is using for Skill Knacks.  At this point we have several games underway
concurrently: I am running two as GM, and playing in two others.  All of
which are superhero based games in sharded and somewhat parallel universes.

 

Skill Knacks as we are using them follow the following structure:

 

First rule - you only get one skill knack per character.

 

Level 1 Skill Knack

Costs Five Possibilities

Grants two bonuses: 

-A discount on the purchasing the first add of the skill, if you don't
already have it.  The cost is halved, rounded down.  So if it normally costs
you 5 possibilities to get the first add, but you have at least a level 1
Knack Merit in that skill, it only costs 2.

-A +3 to your rolled Bonus Number, up to a max rolled Bonus Number of 0.  So
if your rolled BN is -8, it become -5.  If you rolled a -2 BN, it does not
become +1, but does become 0.  If your rolled BN is 0 or more, it has no
effect, and you simply use the actual rolled Bonus Number. This ability
effectively transforms the Torg BN chart to this when rolling on the skill
for which you have a level one Knack:

Roll:BN

1: -9

2: -7

3-4: -5

5-6: -2

7-8: 0

9-10: 0

11-12: 0

13-14: +1

15: +2

16: +3

17: +4

18: +5

19: +6

20: +7

This makes it so that you roll slightly better than awful when you roll
badly.

 

Level 2 Skill Knack

Costs Ten Possibilities to go from Knack 1 to Knack 2

Grants two bonuses:

-protection from any botches (in our game, whenever you roll a 1, you
immediately roll again to check for a botch, 1-5 on the second roll = botch,
etc)

-A +6 to your rolled Bonus Number, up to a max rolled Bonus Number of +2,
unless you naturally rolled higher.  This ability effectively transforms the
Torg BN chart to this when rolling on the skill for which you have a level
two Knack:

Roll:BN

1: -6

2: -4

3-4: -2

5-6: +1

7-8: +2

9-10: +2

11-12: +2

13-14: +2

15: +2

16: +3

17: +4

18: +5

19: +6

20: +7

This makes awful rolls become simply poor, and poor rolls become decent.

 

Level 3 Skill Knack

Costs Fifteen Possibilities to go from Knack 2 to Knack 3

Grants the following bonus: When any die for this skill, you may instead
roll two d20s, keeping whichever result is preferred of the two.  So if one
has a Knack in Fire Combat, then one gets to roll two d20's and choose which
result to use of the two.  If one gets a reroll, either through a 10 or 20,
or via a possibility or card use, one also rolls two dice, keeping either
dice as desired.

 

After having used this system for several months, I have to report that it
seems to work.  We had initially started with a Knack level 3 of getting a
free possibility to spend any time that skill is used, but that quickly
turned out to be too powerful, so we changed it to the less powerful "roll 2
d20s and keep either" rule, which has worked well.  While several characters
eventually get a skill knack, not all players are pursuing it. 

 

The only issue at present with it seems to be that the default assumption
that eventually, if played long enough, every PC would eventually get a
Knack.  Perhaps the acquisition of Knacks should be limited to just at
character creation and possibly during the first arc.  Food for thought.

 

Anyways, this is what we are doing, and it seems to be working well enough,
seems to be balanced.  Just thought I would report back given the previous
discussion on this topic before our group went down this path.

 

Cheers.

 

-Benn Grant

eFix Computer Consulting

 <mailto:benn at 4eFix.com> benn at 4eFix.com

603.283.6601 

 

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