quote:
Zero Level Skills
Depending on the time and place where characters
grow up, they will be exposed to different Skills as part
of their daily life. When certain cultures depend on a
Skill for survival, or it is considered commonplace, it
doesn’t always make sense that a character would have
no expertise in that Skill unless they put points into it.
As an optional rule, the Gamemaster may provide a list
of zero level Skills that everyone from the culture or era
has some minimal familiarity with. When using these
skills untrained, these characters are able to roll their
base Attribute rating without the usual -2 penalty.
In 1936, some common Skills everyone would have
some familiarity with:
Athletics
Brawl
Drive
Empathy
Stealth
Characters from a rural environment might have
Ride or Survival instead of Drive as a Skill. Gamemasters
should allow players to swap out Skills based on
their specific character background. The asthmatic
son of two college professors might replace Athletics
with an Academics Skill while a wealthy debutante
might replace Brawl with Diplomacy.
Improving a Skill from 0 to 1 at character creation
costs a half point. Improving it during play costs 1
Experience point. After the first Skill level is acquired,
Experience cost reverts to normal.
quote:
From Illy Smith
Assumptions: The optional zero-level skill system makes certain skills as being inherent to characters from a certain time and place. Every person has some familiarity with this skill. Of course, there could be exceptions, and that is explained in SotSW, page 8. In going through the sample characters, these skills would be added. If the character already has them, they gain 1/2 point per skill already possessed. This means there are 5 categories:
No Change Necessary: These characters do not have any of the default skills. Therefore, they simply add all 5 zero-level skills. No change to the character sheet is needed.
One Skill: These characters have 1 of the 5 skills. Add one of the other 4 at level 1, or add 1 specialty to an existing skill.
Two Skills: These characters have 2 of the 5 skills, so have 1 more experience point available. Either bring 2 of the other skills up to level 1, add 2 specializations (or one of each), or add a new skill at level 1.
Three Skills: These characters have 3 of the 5 skills, so have 1 1/2 points to spend. Bring 1 of the 2 missing skills to level 1 and add a new skill at level 1, or add specializations to existing skills, so the combination totals 1 1/2 points.
Four Skills: These characters have 4 of the 5 skills, so have 2 points to spend as outline above.
Five skills: These characters have all 5 of their Zero-level skills already bought. They would have 2 1/2 points to spend. This gives them at least 1 specialization, and 2 more points to spend on skills/additional specializations.
Zero Skills: Intrepid Reporter, Mad Scientist, Snotty Professor, Hermetic Magician, Motion Picture Director.
One Skill: Dying Moneyman, Jungle Missionary, Occult Investigator, Promethian Scientist, Scion of Atlantis, Wandering Hero.
Two Skills: Big Game Hunter, Field Biologist, Fortune Hunter, Imperiled Actress, Rugged Explorer, Daredevil Pilot.
Three Skills: Lost Traveler, Paranormal Investigator, Psychic Detective, Natural Philosopher.
Four Skills: Shadow Stalker.
Five Skills: Amazon Warrior, Cargo Cultist Alchemist, Noble Beastmaster, Sky Raider, Titan Beserker, Tribal Shaman.
Not too huge of a change, but since Books 2 & 3 have this concept included, thought it might be a boon for those who want to add it, but not sure how it changes the pre-published characters.
quote:
STAT Wants
1 2 3 4 5
Has -----------------
0 5 15 30 50 75
1 10 25 45 70
2 15 35 60
3 20 45
4 25
SKILL Wants
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Has ----------------------------------------------
None 2 6 12 20 30 42 56 72 90 110
0* 1 5 11 19 29 41 55 71 89 109
1 4 10 18 28 40 54 70 88 108
2 6 14 24 36 50 66 84 104
3 8 18 30 44 60 78 98
4 10 22 36 52 70 90
5 12 26 42 60 80
6 14 30 48 68
7 16 34 54
8 18 38
9 20
* ignore if not using level 0 skills rule.
