Ol' Climbing/Swimming Stuff

[Siggi]

Finally, the S&S beta is out and that's pretty exciting! It was only natural to try and create a character with these new rules.

To keep it simple, I decided not to create a brand new character but rather to recreate an existing character with which I'm currently playing. It all went fine and smooth until I arrived at skill points distribution. My character is a very good climber (in our system attributes are used for skill rolls, 'Climbing' is tagged with Agility and he's got a very high Agility). But at the same time, this character can't swim. In fact, he almost got himself drowned during the last session (another player character was 'helping' him to do that, but failed eventually).

Wondering, how to make a good climber and a lousy swimmer, I looked at Agamemnon's comments at "Current direction and skills" (viewtopic.php?f=23&t=279).

Athletics has been axed. It's now just a function of your attributes. Most of what it would have covered are better covered by attributes, and like an attribute nearly all people have some level of athletics. The only real outlier here is swimming (which is an acquired skill.) In a nautical game, I'd be tempted to make this a stand-alone skill. Otherwise, make it an attribute roll or assume it fits under the seamanship skill.

That said, let's clear it out using my character as an example. How do I make him a good climber? Do I just take high Agility and assume that all agile characters are good climbers (which is not necessarily true in real life) or do I take Expertise (Climbing) skill?

Same question with swimming. If I use an attribute for swimming – what would it be? If it's Agility again then it doesn't work out as intended in our case: he would climb and swim equally well. Or maybe Brawn should be used instead? Or should I stick with Seamanship skill for that? The latter option would probably make sense in the case of my character: he's a thief and has zero points in seamanship (but then again, it would mean that all sailors are decent swimmers which is not necessarily true).

Please share with me your opinion on this.

[dysjunct]

Expertise seems like the best fit, since it's knowing how to do anything that doesn't result in a tangible product.

[Benedict]

It's not that simple. When people do know how to swim? They need to take an Expertise: Swim?

[nemedeus]

It's not that simple. When people do know how to swim? They need to take an Expertise: Swim?

i think it depends on the campaign.
nautical campaign: expertise (swimming)
non-nautical campaign: trait (2d Can't swim)

[Agamemnon]

It's not that simple. When people do know how to swim? They need to take an Expertise: Swim?

i think it depends on the campaign.
nautical campaign: expertise (swimming)
non-nautical campaign: trait (2d Can't swim)

Depends on the campaign is how I'd roll with it. My current playtest campaign is set wholly within an urban environment, but it's a port city. For us, it made enough sense to assume that it was a part of seamanship because the sailor character in the group is the only one who would really know how to swim anyway. If I needed to test swimming ability for anyone else, I'd probably make them do a Grit check at TN6 (because it's an untrained thing) and be done with it.

If I were playing a game where everyone was assumed to be some kind of sailor, but I wanted it to be more historical (and thus, most would not know how to swim) then I'd just have them add it as a skill using Expertise.

If you want your character to be specifically good at climbing, above and beyond what their agility might allow, I'd take Climbing (Bouldering, whatever you want to call it) as a skill. It sounds like a bit of a point-tax in character creation, but it will be way, way cheaper to improve after character creation than raising one's agility.

[Siggi]

I chewed on this topic a bit more today and thought that Climbing does require a skill, 'cause it includes using some special climbing equipment (and using it properly). In a situation when a character (Romeo?) wants to climb a tree or whatever, he would just roll Agility at BTN.

With Swimming I see your point: probably, it's the best way to do it. Nemedius' variation is also nice.

[Agamemnon]

I chewed on this topic a bit more today and thought that Climbing does require a skill, 'cause it includes using some special climbing equipment (and using it properly). In a situation when a character (Romeo?) wants to climb a tree or whatever, he would just roll Agility at BTN.

With Swimming I see your point: probably, it's the best way to do it. Nemedius' variation is also nice.

That's probably a good point on its own. First one has to ask whether we're talking about "climbing a fence/tree" or "climbing a sheer cliff face requiring equipment and harnesses," then we have to ask if that difference is important enough to the campaign being played to declare that it needs to be a skill. By default, probably not. But if you were doing specific kinds of campaigns? Sure. Or any time the player really wanted Rappelling/Bouldering to be a thing that his character was good at.

[nemedeus]

That's probably a good point on its own. First one has to ask whether we're talking about "climbing a fence/tree" or "climbing a sheer cliff face requiring equipment and harnesses," then we have to ask if that difference is important enough to the campaign being played to declare that it needs to be a skill. By default, probably not. But if you were doing specific kinds of campaigns? Sure. Or any time the player really wanted Rappelling/Bouldering to be a thing that his character was good at.

Counterpoint: even in a "generic fantasy " campaign, if i were to play a master thief type character, i would INSIST on having a climbing skill for that character, simply because it makes it unambiguous that i can climb up that tower facade like i was some kind of Ubisoft Assassin*, to get into the queen's jewellery stash.


*not meant as an endorsement of the Assassin's Creed series, lol. I couldn't care less about mediocre videogames such as these.

[Agamemnon]

That's probably a good point on its own. First one has to ask whether we're talking about "climbing a fence/tree" or "climbing a sheer cliff face requiring equipment and harnesses," then we have to ask if that difference is important enough to the campaign being played to declare that it needs to be a skill. By default, probably not. But if you were doing specific kinds of campaigns? Sure. Or any time the player really wanted Rappelling/Bouldering to be a thing that his character was good at.

Counterpoint: even in a "generic fantasy " campaign, if i were to play a master thief type character, i would INSIST on having a climbing skill for that character, simply because it makes it unambiguous that i can climb up that tower facade like i was some kind of Ubisoft Assassin*, to get into the queen's jewellery stash.


*not meant as an endorsement of the Assassin's Creed series, lol. I couldn't care less about mediocre videogames such as these.

To the contrary, I think that endorses my point entirely. The first bit of my post was "how do we feel about this on a campaign level?" the second statement was "any time a player feels that..."

If you want your character to do assassin's creed parkour and you want to spend points on it, that's an excellent use of the Expertise skill. The same thing if you wanted your character to be an acrobat or something. To put it in a more mundane context:

At the GAME LEVEL,
Cooking is not a skill by default because the default game doesn't anticipate that cooking is going to be an arena of conflict for the characters at any point. If by some contrivance you had to roll cooking, I'd probably make it a cunning check and be done with it.

At the CAMPAIGN LEVEL,
You could decide that because food was scarce and/or survival was a big question in the thing in the game/setting you want to play, then the Gm is perfectly capable of saying at the start of the campaign "Cooking is a separate skill because I feel like it's important," in the same way that a game focused on nautical adventures could make swimming a skill, or a game about exploring rough countryside could make climbing a specific skill.

At the PLAYER LEVEL,
Regardless of either of these, expertise lets you, the player, say "this is a thing so important to me that I want it to be a skill I have."

[thirtythr33]

Alternately, you can represent being particularly good or bad at swimming or climbing with character traits.

Examples:

2d Sinks like a rock
(-2d for swimming and +2d for tasks where being heavy would help)

2dT Sticky fingers
(+2d to climbing and could be tempted into stealing things)

That way you are rolling Agility to do the task, but it is then modified by tapping. This will also let you "play up" your bad ones for Drives, as well as apply to other situations where an expertise won't.

[Siggi]

if i were to play a master thief type character, i would INSIST on having a climbing skill for that character, simply because it makes it unambiguous that i can climb up that tower facade

That's exactly what's happening in our campaign: my character is a cat burglar (and he climbs up houses and walls, using a grappling hook and stuff, gets into windows, etc.) and a would-be master thief.

not meant as an endorsement of the Assassin's Creed series, lol. I couldn't care less about mediocre videogames such as these.

With all due respect, sir, I would not speak in this tone about the Assassin's Creed franchise, if I were you. The series may have gotten off the course, but the second part was a masterpiece. And that requires some respect.

2d Sinks like a rock
(-2d for swimming and +2d for tasks where being heavy would help)

In Russia we say "Swims like an axe".

[higgins]

2d Sinks like a rock
(-2d for swimming and +2d for tasks where being heavy would help)

In Russia we say "Swims like an axe".

This is funny! In Estonia, not being able to swim is called "to swim like a Russian axe"

[Siggi]

Hilarious!

[Benedict]

[Siggi]

Oh, I know this picture! Where did you get it? I used to have a whole book with illustrations for different Russian expressions, and this one's from that book. Don't know where I put it, haven't seen it for some time.