Hello all,
Recently a discussion came up in another thread, and I was hoping to get some sort of official-type answer. When creating a character using the rules on page 19 of the rulebook, it says "no more than 5 skill bonuses". Some have asserted that 5 skill bonuses means that you can have no more than 5 skills, regardless of rating (i.e. acrobatics +3, melee +3, craft +3, survival +3, and stealth +3). I assert that it means that you can only have a total of +5 from skills (i.e. melee +3, divine +2).
I guess the question is, which one is right?
Just for a bit more background, part of the argument on the side of 5 different skill bonuses is that five of the iconic characters in RotR have skill bonuses where their magnitude exceeds 5. Harsk leads the group with a total of 9. No iconic character has more than 5 different skill bonsues. So if it was a combined magnitude of 5, Harsk would be illegal as a custom character.
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I think it is the total bonus and also the number of skills. The maximum you could have is 5 skills with +1.
I believe that Harsk is receving skill bonuses from both racial and class abilities. Since the math of each race and class has not yet been made available, it may be hard to decern what those bones are.
I suspect that Survival is a ranger power and Fortitude is a dwarf power.
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For the record, five characters have a combined bonus of more than 5. Of the other six, only one has exactly 5 while all the others have exactly 4.
By contrast, no character has more than 5 different skill bonuses (indeed, nobody has more than 4) and six have only 2 skill bonuses.
If we simply follow the precedent, the rule ought to be no more than 5 distinct skill bonuses. On the other hand, skills are a tricky part to balance. They can be used to offset weaker powers and not all skills are created equal: Arcane, Divine, Ranged and Melee are significantly more useful than Perception or Stealth.
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No more than 5 distinct skills. No more than 9 total bonuses. Both of those should be quite infrequent.
Would the type of bonus not matter? For instance Melee is going to be used more than, say Knowledge.
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It matters a lot.
fair enough.
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To these guidelines, I would add "No individual bonus higher than +3, and only those in specific circumstances, including but not limited to 'not with a d12'."
The iconics should be good guidance for most skills, especially if you're familiar with the characters or their iconic-trope nature. For example, Valeros and Amiri are each both strong and good with melee weapons. Valeros relies more on training, while Amiri relies more on raw ability. A custom character that is also very good with melee weapons could have an effective Melee skill like Valeros's 1d10+3 or Amiri's 1d12+2, but should not have 1d12+3. Similar for Ezren and Seoni's Arcane, or Merisiel's suite of roguey goodness.
Interesting character skills design is usually more about where you want to put the weaknesses than the strengths, and making each character feel distinct. It's certainly not impossible to make a fun character with 3 d6's and 3 d8's, but it's not where I'd recommend you start.
Hope that helps!
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Another good guideline for character design: you're obviously not restricted to things that can fit on a physical card, but it's a good constraint nonetheless. The 'no more than 11 skills' guideline is related: if you had the 6 standard skills and then 6 more, that's a lot of complexity, and a lot of vertical space on a card. Similarly, the more skills you put on a card, the fewer/shorter powers you want. If you build a character and think "there's no way this would fit on a card", then it's likely (not certain) that the result is too complex in addition to being too long.
Put another way: if we can get the ranger, bard, and rogue down to 11 or fewer total skills, your concept can probably fit in that same constraint.
To these guidelines, I would add "No individual bonus higher than +3, and only those in specific circumstances, including but not limited to 'not with a d12'."
Uh, how about the Witch from Skulls and Shackles? (I can never remember the names). Her arcane skill is +3 on a d12. So I'd say that's not a hard rule at all, though one that needs careful consideration: that is, know when its ok to break the rules.
As a guideline of my own, think about how the character will play when you design their powers. Particularly think about that character's first game with only basic cards: if it isn't interesting or fun, the player is unlikely to keep it long enough to unlock those extra powers or acquire more powerful cards.
Seltyiel (the Magus from S&S) falls into this for me, he wants attack spells to combo with his weapons and no character wants 10 cards to punch monsters in the face, especially if you're going to see them over and over again. See this post for an in depth post on my frustrations.
To these guidelines, I would add "No individual bonus higher than +3, and only those in specific circumstances, including but not limited to 'not with a d12'."Uh, how about the Witch from Skulls and Shackles? (I can never remember the names). Her arcane skill is +3 on a d12. So I'd say that's not a hard rule at all, though one that needs careful consideration: that is, know when its ok to break the rules.
As a guideline of my own, think about how the character will play when you design their powers. Particularly think about that character's first game with only basic cards: if it isn't interesting or fun, the player is unlikely to keep it long enough to unlock those extra powers or acquire more powerful cards.
Seltyiel (the Magus from S&S) falls into this for me, he wants attack spells to combo with his weapons and no character wants 10 cards to punch monsters in the face, especially if you're going to see them over and over again. See this post for an in depth post on my frustrations.
They admitted later that the d12 with a +3 was more a guideline than a hard and fast rule. In general, you should avoid it unless the character in question is considered to be one of the BEST at that thing in the world. If it happens more than once in 20 or so characters, you're probably giving it too often.
Siwar with her d12 + 3 Diplomacy is another example, but in that case it seems absolutely warranted, as getting people to do what she wants them to do is her shtick.
They admitted later that the d12 with a +3 was more a guideline than a hard and fast rule.
Cool, I knew this post was old, but it was also linked from somewhere more recent, and I was unaware of anything said in between.
And as I said:
Break the rules...when you know it's deserved.
They admitted later that the d12 with a +3 was more a guideline than a hard and fast rule.Cool, I knew this post was old, but it was also linked from somewhere more recent, and I was unaware of anything said in between.
And as I said:
Break the rules...when you know it's deserved.
Exactly. Another way of thinking about it: By having these rules, it makes it even more awesome when you first see something that breaks them. Unfortunately, by the third or fourth time, it's not nearly as cool.