It took me a little while to get the gist of this, and I'm still seeing confusion amongst my friends. The check to acquire/defeat displays the skills in a list, but there is no differentiation between a primary skill (Str, Dex, Int, etc.) and the skill subcategories (Melee, Ranged, Arcane, etc.)
My suggestion is that there is some visual cue between skills and subcategories. Perhaps make the primary skills slightly bolder, or the subs indented or bulleted. I think this would allow a card to be scanned and understood a little more quickly, and alleviate some confusion for players who may not have all the skills and sub-skills memorized.
Then again, perhaps there's a perfectly legitimate reason for the way it is now, and I'm just not aware of it.
I think one of the reasons they wouldn't do that is that the "sub-skills" (and I've used that term before too) aren't really "sub-skills". Arcane is a skill. Intelligence is a skill. Charisma is a skill. Your Arcane skill can be based off you Intelligence or Charisma skill, but it doesn't matter which one it is based off of, you have Charisma.
In terms of game mechanics, a character could have Divine based off Charisma, Melee based off Dexterity, or Arcane based off Constitution. There might be problems with some of those thematically, but the mechanics would allow for it.
Technically someone could even have a power that said "You have the skill Arcane: 2d10" and have it unrelated to any other skill.
So on the checks, they skills are equally valid options. And the ones printed on the card as possibilities are there because they make sense for how that boon is acquired or defeated. If Seoni uses Arcane to acquire something, it doesn't matter what her intelligence is. Or if they wanted a really powerful spell to just be "Arcane" with no Intelligence or Charisma possible, they could just put Arcane.
I played with a friend the other day who plays RPGs. He explained to me that (assuming I understood him correctly) in the RPG Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma are attributes, which things like Melee, Disable, Ranged, Arcane would be skills. So maybe if you play RPGs you are bringing some of that concept into this game. But it seems to me that the "sub-skills" as we've sometimes called them, are more distinct from the "attributes" in this game than they are in an RPG.
Er... I thought a "sub skill" was based on the skill/attribute it fell under. And that if you came across a check that listed a sub-skill you didn't have, you could default to the base skill. I don't have my box in front of me, so I can't quote any specific cards, if they even exist. But couldn't you have a card with a check of acrobatics X, and if you don't have acrobatics, you'd just roll Dex instead?
Er... I thought a "sub skill" was based on the skill/attribute it fell under. And that if you came across a check that listed a sub-skill you didn't have, you could default to the base skill. I don't have my box in front of me, so I can't quote any specific cards, if they even exist. But couldn't you have a card with a check of acrobatics X, and if you don't have acrobatics, you'd just roll Dex instead?
If the check was a Dexterity or Acrobatics then yes you could defaultuse your dexterity but if it was just acrobatcis and you did not have acrobatics, then you default to a d4.
Blessings are the best examples I can think of. Most blessings seem to need a specific "base skill" (base referring to Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, etc.) or Divine. Since Divine is a specific skill that not every one has, then the player must choose do they try for the "base skill" check or the Divine check.
the reason they aren't sub skills, in my opinion, is because a skill doesnt ALWAYS fall under the 'main' skill. Divine or Survival could be listed under a different 'main' skill depending on the character you are playing.
Also, if it calls for Arcane but NOT intelligence?
You can not roll your intelligence, you MUST roll Arcane, which if you don't have it? you roll 1d4 as it is a skill your character doesnt have.
Yeah, you can't use a skill if it isn't specifically listed on the card as an option for the check.
Determine Which Die You’re Using. Cards that require a check specify the skill or skills you can use to attempt the check. Each check to defeat or acquire a card lists one or more skills; you may choose any of the listed skills for your check. For example, if a check lists Dexterity, Disable, Strength, and Melee, you may use any one of those skills to attempt your check...Even if your character doesn’t have any of the skills listed for a check, you can still attempt the check (unless you’re trying to recharge a card; see Recharge on page 15), but your die is a d4.
So if it was a purely acrobatics check and you didn't have acrobatics, you would roll a d4. If it was dexterity/acrobatics (reading the "/" like an "or") you could use dexterity or acrobatics, whichever you choose, and I'd assume you would choose the one that was best.
Ah, well apparently I rolled a 6 on 5d10 for my Understanding The Rules check. ;-) I guess my suggestion is completely null and void. Move along folks. Nothing to see here. Move along...
Chief Technical Officer
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...alleviate some confusion for players who may not have all the skills and sub-skills memorized.
Just to be clear, there's absolutely no need to ever remember what skills may be related to other skills (or, in RPG terms, which skills are derived from which attributes). All you need to know is if the skill that's called for appears on your character card, you can use whatever it says on the card; if it doesn't appear on your character card, you can use a d4 for it.
...alleviate some confusion for players who may not have all the skills and sub-skills memorized.Just to be clear, there's absolutely no need to ever remember what skills may be related to other skills (or, in RPG terms, which skills are derived from which attributes). All you need to know is if the skill that's called for appears on your character card, you can use whatever it says on the card; if it doesn't appear on your character card, you can use a d4 for it.
I think where I was trying to go with it was one of my friends has trouble playing. Every single turn and on each roll, he forgets where information is on the card (as well as some common rules.) So for example, if the check says he can use acrobatics, he can't find it easily on his card. But if acrobatics were listed as a "sub category" of Dex, it would give him that extra bit of direction.
But apparently, Acrobatics and the other subs could find themselves elsewhere, so my suggestion wouldn't work after all. We will just continue to coach him on each of his turns.
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Most checks come in pairs: You'll see Dexterity/Acrobatics checks more often than just Acrobatics checks. When a subskill follows a main skill, they are related for all characters that have that skill, with the exception of Divine and Arcane (which are Charisma skills for Seoni and Lem). I suggest focusing your efforts on memorising which are the main 6 skills; when your friend needs to do a check, he can look at these skills first and if he notices he has a subskill, it's a nice bonus on top of that.
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Right. There are only skills, which I divide into two categories for ease of comprehension: the main 6 skills that everyone has and subskills that only a few do. There's no mechanical difference, but saying subskill is a lot shorter than saying skill-that-not-everyone-has-and-that-uses-one-of-the-skills-everyone-does-h ave-as-a-base-die
There. Are. No. Sub-skills. In. This. Game. :)
We probably do need a term though to talk about these skills, because while all skills are skills, the there are sort of two "classes" of skills; Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma being in one class and things like Arcane, Acrobatics, Craft, Diplomacy, Disable, Divine. Fortitude, Knowledge, Melee, Perception, Ranged, Stealth, Survival, and potentially others we haven't seen being in another class.
I'd suggest the either the terms "Dependent Skills" and "Independent Skills" or "Core Skils" and "Special Skills". Dependent/Independent works well for when you have the second kind of skill listed on your character. But given that even if you don't have that skill listed, you still have it as a d4, there are cases where the second type are truly independent. So maybe Core/Special would be a better terminology.
Maybe others have another suggestion. Or maybe the designers had a good reason to not have a distinct term for them. And maybe no one really cares about this too much. But I think having a distinct term for them would be useful for when we discuss them, unless there is a good reason not to have it.
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Philosophically:
I will give you an analogous reason why no official term exists for "dependent skills."
A while back, there was a foofaraw about "American women novelists" on Wikipedia. Some well-meaning site editors ghettoized the women novelists into their own category, while removing them from the category "American novelists." So all categorized novelists were male, and all women novelists were invisible. (A similar argument erupts regularly whenever anyone creates a "white rappers" or "white basketball players" category.)
As you might guess from the way I wrote that (especially the charged word "ghettoized"), I am on the side of treating all things as the things they are. So villains and henchmen are usually monsters; all rules applying to monsters apply to them. Loots are items, armors, weapons, etc.; all rules applying to those types of boons apply to them. "Subskills" are all skills; all rules applying to skills apply to them.
But unlike villains and henchmen and loot, no other rules apply to subskills than the rules that apply to all skills. I don't need a word for that, because there is no functional reason for such a word. Anyone who's read The Kobold Guide to Board Game Design knows that one of my ten design tenets is "Use No Intermediary Terminology," and the subskills concept violates that.
In my opinion, anyway. YMMV.
Mike
I've not read your book, though I'm interested to pick up now. If I'm understanding you correctly, you are saying that if you give two things a distinct term, people will assume there must be a distinction between them in the rules. And that can cause problems when there is no rules distinction between them.
Thanks for the knowledge.
I agree with everything that Mike said from a philosophical standpoint. From the perspective of writing the rulebook, I think he's spot on that "sub-skill" is extra terminology baggage that's not really necessary.
However, for the purposes of communicating on these forums, I think terms like "Dependent" and "Independent" skill could be useful. We don't need to advocate having them introduced into the rulebook, but the forum regulars could agree to a common terminology to ease communication about these concepts. The potential risk, of course, is that we might confuse newcomers who are unaware of the terminology.
But I while Mike is correct when he says that "Subskills" are all skills; all rules applying to skills apply to them," the point remains that skills can behave in different ways in different situations. This is indicated by conditional rules like the following:
If, on your character card, the skill you’re using refers to another skill, both skills count for the purpose of determining the type of check.
Usually, recharging requires a skill check; if you don’t have at least one of the skills listed for the check, you cannot attempt to recharge the card.
While it's true those two rules apply to ALL skills, the conditional "if" only "triggers" for some skills. Having terminology for those cases, like Hawkmoon's "Dependent skill" suggestion, would make for much more efficient communication when discussing strategy.
I totally agree with Mike, there shouldn´t be two names in the game, because that would hurt the game.
Having knowledge in RPGs does hurt the game too. I made a lot of mistakes in my first game because i assumed things i knew from RPGs.
Need a Perception check, don´t have it. But i know from the RPG that it is base on Wisdom, so i used that instead. And failed the rules.
Or i found a weapon with the trait finesse and assumed this would point to Weapon Finesse, which allows you to use melee weapons with your Dexterity. Horrible failed the rules here.
If i hadn´t had a background in RPGs, no chance in hell i would have assumed that stuff.
So, what i want to say is, that having different names is bad for the game.
(I don´t think it´s bad for us in the forums who know, or at least think that they know, what they are doing. My suggestion for the Strength, Dexterity, etc skills would be innate skills, because your born with them and anyone can use them. My suggestion for, Melee, Arcane, etc. would be trained skills, because if you´re not trained in something, you will most likly suck at it aka 1d4.)
If I had to pick any names that separated one set of skills from another, "innate" and "trained" would be at the top of my list.
Thanks.
I appreciate the appreciation of my suggestion.
I wasn´t 100% sure if my understanding of those words would be what i had intended, because english isn´t my native tongue.
Can i also suggest that the cards have a more distinctive colour category. When trying to get the cards back into the box after a play, it can be difficult to differentiate some of the colours e.g ally and blessing (blue) weapons, armour and items (grey). Can they each have a colour of their own?
Good point. I've awarded a weapon after a scenario and the card wound up being an item! I caught it then because I knew what the card was supposed to be. But who knows now how many times my location decks have been out of whack because I misplaced a card into the wrong slot from a previous game.
I think the idea would be to be a little less subtle about it. Kinda like how sometimes I have trouble differentiating the light blue from the dark blue on the read/unread posts on the forums.
On a similar topic of sorting the cards correctly when putting them in the box (often in a heated game while joking with friends at the table, munching snacks and enjoying beverages...) here's another idea for the box:
The box slots are all sized for a particular type of card. The rulebook has a guide for where the cards go, kinda like a box of chocolates. But the rulebook may be in use elsewhere. How about an "index card" to put at the back of each slot that has a tab taller than the cards with the card type printed on it. I know this would be easy enough to make on our own, but having it with the official artwork and coloration would be a nice touch.
I actually did make that myself. And with Paizo's community use agreement, I was able to put the PACG logo on it. Here it is if you want it:
http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/99645/deck-dividers
It also lets you store your "Removed" cards somewhere and keep decks separate with out having to put them back in their boxes if you switch between groups that are at different adventures.