One of the players in my group ...
Just.
Doesn't.
Get.
It.
The following two things happened last night:
He encounters a gun with DEXTERITY RANGED CRAFT.
"I've got Craft, but it's off Intelligence, not Dexterity ..." (Starts to put card in box)
He encounters a monster that has a BYA Perception (not Wisdom or, just Perception).
"Perception would be under Wisdom ..."
I need a simple, fit-for-a-child way of explaining how this works.
Chief Technical Officer
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He encounters a gun with DEXTERITY RANGED CRAFT.
Ask him if the skills section of his character card lists "Craft." If he says "I've got Craft, but it's off Intelligence, not Dexterity," repeat the question, and point out that the answer is either "yes" or "no."
He encounters a monster that has a BYA Perception (not Wisdom or, just Perception).
Ask him if the skills section of his character card lists "Perception." If he says "Perception would be under Wisdom," repeat the question, and point out that the answer is either "yes" or "no."
The root cause of the confusion and the key thing to explain is this:
Most specialist skills have another skill which they almost always appear in conjunction with, both on checks and as the base skill on character cards. This pairing can be treated as a "co-incidence", and is in no way part of the rules of the game.
Show him all the examples you can find of specialist skills being based off different base skills, and of specialist skills appearing without their typical base skill.
The other thing I expect he's likely to get wrong (because even people who basically "get it" still get this wrong sometimes) is allies which help with a particular skill.
Imagine you have a check that says "Wisdom Perception 7", you don't have the Perception skill, and you have a Lookout ally in hand. In this case, you can either choose Perception and use the Lookout to roll d4 Perception plus d6 Lookout, or use Wisdom and roll just d-something Wisdom. Lots of people make the mistake of thinking they can roll d-something Wisdom + d6 Lookout.
I know it sounds strange, but sometimes explaining something more complex will actually help cement the understanding of a simpler issue that it depends on. In the same way that any school kid will generally be comfortable with maths 1 year below the level they're currently studying. I expect this approach will work on the sort of person who understands it when you explain it but then completely forgets by next week.
Thanks for the advice.
I may also try 'if it worked like that, how would sorcerers or oracles ever pick up spells?'
And yeah, Irgy, I've explained this to him more than once. Our first attempt at WotR he played Imrijka (Ranged: Strength +1) and I had to explain it multiple times.
I think his familiarity with the RPG/Golarion lore confuses him a lot, too, he tends to conflate things like that. Someone was playing CD Kyra and he kept going on and on about how she should pick up all these scimitars when she was better off with stuff like greatswords.
He encounters a gun with DEXTERITY RANGED CRAFT.Ask him if the skills section of his character card lists "Craft." If he says "I've got Craft, but it's off Intelligence, not Dexterity," repeat the question, and point out that the answer is either "yes" or "no."
...
With respect to Vic, this may not be the best thing to ingrain in you player's head. Then you'll have to explain to him that he CAN use skills that are NOT listed on his card, even if they default to d4...
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With respect to Vic, this may not be the best thing to ingrain in you player's head. Then you'll have to explain to him that he CAN use skills that are NOT listed on his card, even if they default to d4...
Well, you just need to ALSO apply the association with "no" and "d4".
"If yes, use the skill on your card. If no, use a d4."
With respect to Vic, this may not be the best thing to ingrain in you player's head. Then you'll have to explain to him that he CAN use skills that are NOT listed on his card, even if they default to d4...He encounters a gun with DEXTERITY RANGED CRAFT.Ask him if the skills section of his character card lists "Craft." If he says "I've got Craft, but it's off Intelligence, not Dexterity," repeat the question, and point out that the answer is either "yes" or "no."
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We had to go over that with the Perception question ...
I think his familiarity with the RPG/Golarion lore confuses him a lot, too, he tends to conflate things like that. Someone was playing CD Kyra and he kept going on and on about how she should pick up all these scimitars when she was better off with stuff like greatswords.
I had players in my group that would have this confusion as well; they'd default skills to their base attributes - such as using their wisdom skill on perception checks even when they didn't have perception.
I addressed this by emphasizing that skills DO NOT have a base attribute they're derived from like they do in the RPG. That Strength, Dex, Con, Int, Wisdom, and Charisma are skills just like Craft, Diplomacy, Survival, and so forth. Remind the player that the base six skills ARE NOT attributes like they are in the RPG. He'll eventually figure it out.
For RPG players, asking them how good their RPG characters' untrained Knowledge, Sleight of Hand, or Spellcraft are might be a decent reminder that even in the RPG you can't always use some default ability.