[Torg] Skill Knacks in Play

[Benjamin Grant]

Level 2 *had* been still kept when going to 3, but that may be changing.

I talked with some of the other players, who agreed that it seemed corny to
have skill knacks come into play long after the character has been doing his
thing, and me wanting structure, we came up with a revised idea for skill
knacks.  This idea also permits a player to have more than one skill with a
knack, whereas before the rule had been you only get one.

Skill Knacks.

You must decide if you want a skill to have a Knack, and what level of Knack
you want it to have *before* you first roll a use of that skill and of
course before you purchase that skill.  So if you want to have a Knack for
the Fire Combat skill, you have to get the Knack before you first use of
that skill.  If you use the skill prior to getting a Knack in it, you cannot
later add a Knack to that skill.  (The reasoning is simple: any Knack you
have in a skill should first reveal itself when you first use the skill)

If you want a Knack in a skill, this is how you get it:  Pick a skill that
you have not yet rolled on and do not yet have.  (If purchasing a skill
knack at character creation, do so before assigning your adds.)  Then choose
one of the three Knack levels, one, two, or three.  Each level is separate
and the ability granted by one level does NOT include the abilities granted
by any lower levels.  

The cost of the Knack does NOT come immediately out of your possibilities,
instead it gets assigned to you as a possibility debt.  Whenever you get a
possibility award, session or adventure/arc, you get to keep the first two
possibilities off the top, but all the rest go to pay down your debt.  You
can of course choose to use any of your actual possibilities to also help
pay off the debt sooner.

This way, if you are about to pickup up a gun for the first time and make a
Fire Combat roll, you must decide right then and there whether you want the
Knack - if yes, you incur the debt for that level of Knack.  If no, you have
lost the opportunity to get that skill's Knack.

Here are the three levels of Knack and what they do.  Note again, they ONLY
do what they say, meaning that level 3 does NOT include either level 1 or 2,
and level2 does NOT include level 1.

ALL three levels include one extra thing however: They all allow you to buy
the first add in the skill for half cost, rounded down.

Level One Skill Knack:
Cost: 5 Possibilities of Debt
You may reroll any d20 roll of a 1-4 on your first roll of a die.  You must
keep the second roll if you do, even if it is 1-4.

Level Two Skill Knack:
Cost: 15 Possibilities of Debt
You add 6 to the BN you rolled, if that BN is less than +2.  If you use this
ability on a roll, your max BN is also +2 for that roll.  This means that
like before, the only way to get a BN of +3 or higher is to roll 16 or
higher.  You may of course still reroll on 10's when appropriate.

Level Three Skill Knack:
Cost: 30 Possibilities of Debt
Any time you are entitled to roll a d20 for the use of the Knacked skill,
you may instead roll two and keep either one.  This holds true also for
10/20 rerolls, Ups, possibilities, card use rerolls, and any other kind.

Whew!  I think the new system is somewhat simpler than the old, even though
it does make use track a new concept of possibility point debt.  Even that
however is handled rather simply.

Thoughts?

-Benn Grant
eFix Computer Consulting
benn at 4eFix.com
603.283.6601


-----Original Message-----
From: torg-bounces at justintimeadventures.com
[mailto:torg-bounces at justintimeadventures.com] On Behalf Of Kansas Jim
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 2:01 PM
To: torg at justintimeadventures.com
Subject: Re: [Torg] Skill Knacks in Play

Benjamin Grant wrote:

[...]

> Costs Fifteen Possibilities to go from Knack 2 to Knack 3

When you go from 2 to 3, does the two dice bonus replace the +6 to BN
that you get from Level 2 in the way that the +6 replaces the +3 from
Level 1? Or is the extra die bonus in addition to the +6 BN bonus?

[...]

> 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.

Another option would be that you can only acquire Knacks during play
as part of a story arc or subplot worked out with the GM, in the fashion
that comic book superheroes often only gain new powers/abilities as the
result of something dramatic/life-changing happening to them.

-- 
Kansas Jim, Torg guru (ksjim (at) sdc (dot) org)
Torg website: http://www.sdc.org/~ksjim/index.html
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