Skills

[SirSpamHammer]

Does Land Navigation come with a free skill, Map Reading, but at a penalty?

[Jack Burton]

Does Land Navigation come with a free skill, Map Reading, but at a penalty?

Yes. Page 61 says it comes at a -20% penalty.

[SirSpamHammer]

Right, at negative 20. How does that differ from being unskilled at anything else? Like, why would I be so bad at Map Reading if I have Land Navigation in the first place?

[Library Ogre]

Right, at negative 20. How does that differ from being unskilled at anything else? Like, why would I be so bad at Map Reading if I have Land Navigation in the first place?

Partially, the game as written doesn't have any rules for trying things unskilled.

[kiralon]

One way to do unskilled checks is pretend to be skilled but make the player make multiple rolls where the worst roll is chosen as representative of the roll, and the more failures the much worse it gets and to succeed all 3 checks have to be under the skill %, so one lucky %01 - %05 doesn't let them disarm a nuke, they have to get 3 of them. Gives them a tiny chance but isn't an outright no.

[SirSpamHammer]

Right, at negative 20. How does that differ from being unskilled at anything else? Like, why would I be so bad at Map Reading if I have Land Navigation in the first place?

Partially, the game as written doesn't have any rules for trying things unskilled.

I'm sure the Core Rules for Rifts has something to say about penalties for being unskilled in anything. I would just use those rules. They have penalties for using Advanced, Unknown, Alien Machines, & Technologies. As well as penalties for using skills while stressed.

[SirSpamHammer]

Another question.....

My Gnome (I call him Barslight!) whom I made a Ranger, has Track Humanoid as a O.C.C. skill. Yet, I cannot find it any where on the interactive active Palladium Fantasy sheet I purchased from the online store from the official site. So, DO I just take Track & Trap Animal again using while submitting the bonus for tracking Humanoids. It's kind of off, because I have the tracking Humans at a penalty of -20% underneath Track & Trap Animals.

Bit of discrepancy there.....Humanoids and humans. I guess that is something to that as well.

??????

[SirSpamHammer]

Another Question.....

I cannot find any sort of Hand to Hand combat on the special interactive character sheet?

[SirSpamHammer]

Another question.....

My Gnome (I call him Barslight!) whom I made a Ranger, has Track Humanoid as a O.C.C. skill. Yet, I cannot find it any where on the interactive active Palladium Fantasy sheet I purchased from the online store from the official site. So, DO I just take Track & Trap Animal again using while submitting the bonus for tracking Humanoids. It's kind of off, because I have the tracking Humans at a penalty of -20% underneath Track & Trap Animals.

Bit of discrepancy there.....Humanoids and humans. I guess that is something to that as well.

??????

Solved, it was under Espionage all along.

[SirSpamHammer]

So, I took Running as one of my Secondary Skills and noticed that it didn't make much of a impression on the interactive sheet. Do I need to add the bonus myself or has this been done already?

[Prysus]

Greetings and Salutations. To answer a few of the issues ...

1: Hand to Hand options are found on the Worktable near the O.C.C. selection.

2: Physical skills (as a general rule) require dice rolls. As such, none of the attribute bonuses are entered. Those you'll have to do on your own. So, for example, with Running, you'll need roll for Speed and S.D.C. and manually enter that data. You'll also need to add the +1 to P.E. All stat and combat bonuses from Physical skills will need to be done this way (I believe Hand to Hand is the only exception).

3: As noted, Track Humanoids is an Espionage skill, because that's how it's listed in the book.

Hope that helps. Farewell and safe journeys.

[SirSpamHammer]

1. Done

2. Done

3. Done

[Gaunilo]

I just heard someone on a podcast suggest handling unskilled skill checks by allowing the unskilled player to try it but using a percentile role at 1/2 the appropriate stat, whereas a character with the skill gets the base skill percentage. They also made the good suggestion as a house rule of, sort of Gumshoe-style, of generally just letting PCs do the thing if they have any appreciable skill percentage unless it's being tested in a high-pressure environment or one with significant consequences for failure. And of course one also can look at similar skills if something is not directly covered (e.g., sense there's no "Spot Hidden" skill and the like).

[drewkitty ~..~]

Does Land Navigation come with a free skill, Map Reading, but at a penalty?

short answer: Yes.
However, I wouldn't list it as a separate skill. Sort of how in climbing, rappelling is a part of the climbing skill.

Un-skilled skill usage is done by rolling a % die vs the relevant attribute score. (This came up somewhere else within the last month elsewhere.)
So even at L1 a 10% can be above the IQ score. As the char levels up it gets better.
However, without literacy the char can only recognize the symbols on the map.

[kiralon]

They also made the good suggestion as a house rule of, sort of Gumshoe-style, of generally just letting PCs do the thing if they have any appreciable skill percentage unless it's being tested in a high-pressure environment or one with significant consequences for failure.

Still make em roll, its just if they fail make it take that much extra time to do (eg if they have general repair at %55 and roll a 76, just make it take 21 minutes longer to do for an ok job.