Character stats for the rolling system

The /rolling system has been used for the past few months and has been shown to be very robust for a wide variety of in and out of combat situations. It was always the plan to add skill modifiers to this system in order to more accurately reflect your character's IC abilities and after discussion we have come up with the following system:

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Brief:
Each member gets 4 points to put into skills/abilities/perks (whatever you want to call them), and each skill has two levels, "advanced" and "excellent". To get a skill to "advanced" costs one point, and "excellent" an additional point (two points in total). Therefore the member can focus skills on getting two areas to "excellent", spread them out to having 4 at "advanced", or balance with one Excellent and two Advanced skills. These modify /rolls in various ways depending on the skill:

Attack skills:
There is only one combat skill that covers all attack rolls, this is to allow players freedom in crafting interesting emotes instead of having to stick with "fires his blaster" repeatedly. Advanced gives +10 to all rolls involving an attack using this type, Excellent gives +20. (Note the bonuses do not stack, someone with excellent level gets +20 total bonus, not +30)

Defensive skills:
Only one of these exists as before. These raise the barriers for a hit and a 2HP hit on you, advanced by +10, excellent by +20 (i.e. Excellent defence your opponent must roll a 50 to hit and a 90 for a 2HP hit). IC this can be explain by either superior armour, a shield, or dodging ability.

Non-Combat skills:
Skills such as:
Explosives
Slicing
Marksman
Awareness
Mechanics
Medicine
Sneaking
Armour crafting
Weapon crafting
These apply +10 (adv) +20 (ex) to any roll involved in using this ability. Note that marksman is separate to combat skills, it is used for out-of-combat delicate sniping, such as taking guards out quietly or hitting security cameras at range.

Negatives:
A character may pick one skill to receive a -5 on all rolls to in order to advance one skill they have no points in to get a +5 for. (i.e. Doc may drop explosives, which he has never used, to get a minor bonus to mechanics, to reflect his knowledge of cybernetics).

IC validation:
All skill points spent must have a valid IC reason. If you play a character who is useless at combat you cannot give him +10 to his attack ability. If you want to get a defensive bonus you must wear armour, have a shield or be above par at dodging.

Character Advancement:
When a character gains a level or has been active in the guild for several months they can be offered a chance to advance one skill. The member OOCly lets officers know which skill they would like a chance to advance and then a multi-part plotline is made for them during which, if they succeed, they are rewarded with the next level up in their chosen plotline. For example someone may make sergeant and decide they would like their Advanced combat skill to become Excellent. They are then IC presented with an opportunity to recover a legendary blaster, involving a series of events catered to them which they must overcome to receive the blaster, upgrading their combat stat. These advancements will be infrequent to keep total skill level down, but present players a chance to advance their character both in terms of stats and story.

Additional bonuses for existing members may be applied and will be decided on a case-by-case basis by officers.

Leadership:
Mandalorians are promoted for their actions, the officers and generals therefore are legendary fighters that can coordinate their men well and inspire their troops to go beyond their abilities. Who would dare miss a target with Kord standing behind them watching? To represent this any squad will have a total leadership value, to which each member of the squad gives input to:

New Blood - 0
Recruit - 1
Sergeant - 2
Captain - 5
General - 8
Commander - 10

The total bonus is summed, then divided by the number of non-officers (New bloods, recruits and sergeants) , the resulting number (rounded to nearest whole) is applied as a bonus to all rolls by all members of a squad to a maximum of +10. Examples:

2 New Bloods, 1 Sergeant = 1
2 NBs, 2 Recs, 1 Gen = 3
5 Recs, 1 Cap, 1 Gen = 4
2 NBs, 2Recs, 1 Ser, 1 Cap, 2 Gens, 1 Kord = 7

Critcals:
All roll modifiers only alter the regular and advance success bands (default 30-70, 71-99). Critical success and failure rolls of 1-5 and 100 still apply regardless of skill, an fantastic sniper can still have his weapon overload, a raw recruit can still get a fluke shot and kill the pilot of a passing fighter. These rolls tend to lead to unexpected RP situations that brightens combat.

Rationale:
This system is designed to highlight the tasks any member is particularly good at, the large bonuses and few points to spend encourages creation of characters that have two or three attributes that set them apart from the rest of Blackscar. This matches the character design I have seen from all members I can think of who have character that excel in a small handful of areas, often one combat and one out of combat area. Additionally limiting the amount of skills available to any one player makes it easier for them, and any officers watching for abuse/cheating, to keep track of their skills. Remembering a maximum of 4 skills is relatively easy, even for players with multiple RP characters.

A limited skill pool per character also encourages teamwork as no one member will have all the skills needed for a particular mission. Each member having a clear bonus can help event designers make sure every player feels their character is really needed, instead of just being along for the ride. For example if I knew going in that in an event there was one sneaky guy, one excellent fighter, one slicing expert and one explosive expert I could make sure the event involved sneaking, slicing, exploding and at least one tough encounter; this gives each member their moment in the spotlight.

It should be noted that any skills not chosen are not necessarily awful or nonexistent in terms of RP, just that they are not at the level to make a significant difference. Someone can still have armour on if they don't pick the armour skill, but that armour is only enough to give them their default level of defence. Someone who does not pick a weapon skill is not necessarily awful at combat, but more is simply average in their use of any weapon.

Larger systems may give more differentiation of minor abilities but would require printed out character sheets for members to remember which minor skills they have. To compare this with an example seen in other games this system would be closer to the Perks system of Skyrim/Fallout compared to the skills system of Oblivion/Morrowind; although they do a similar thing the former allows for more of a feeling of excelling at a handful of chosen playstyles as opposed to many slightly varying skills.

Examples:
Remair - Excellent defence (armour), advanced combat & mechanics - Remair has spent most of his life on a ship tinkering with its parts so learned how to upgrade machinery, this has lead to him spending many hours upgrading and modifying his beskar'gam to the point of it being beyond even what most mandalorians wear. He carries a pistol as a favoured weapon simply due to its compact size and years of intermittent use have made him above average at its use.

Doc - Excelent Medicine, excellent dodging, good mechanic, bad explosives - Doc has spent his entire life either training or practicing medicine and is an exceptional surgeon and field doctor because of this. He forgoes restrictive armour, yet his years of treating wounded in the middle of fire fights and raging battles have sharpened his reflexes and instincts when it comes to avoiding being shot in the first place. His extensive application of cybernetic prosthesis have taught him a thing or two about mechanical parts, however his aversion to mines means he know next to nothing about explosives.

Jack Ov'Alltrades - Advanced combat, shield, explosives, slicing - Jack always believed having as many options as possible was the best way to survive any situation. He trained in sniping from range, when that didn't work he would set explosives, failing that he would slice security doors. He could not stand heavy armour so instead bought a shield to protect him, giving him the protection he needed when explosives backfired. However he knew that doing a bit of everything meant he would never be as good at any one skill as someone who had spent their lives dedicated to them.

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This system is open for input so please post below your thoughts and suggestions, especially if you feel we have missed any skill off the list.

Sounds good! One thing I'm not sure is the command bonus though, seems bit too large.

Is piloting one of the skills too?

Just wanted to make a test sheet, see if I got it right!

Amy C. Baragan

Swordsmanship: Excellent Attack:
Amy is quite skilled with the sword due to several years of hard training... and some study.
Thanks to Kord's "parenting" Amy has adapted a brutish style mixed with some martial arts imbued with the Mandalorian spirit, and even feels the sword as an extension of herself though she can easily replace which sword she holds.

Combat Experience: Excellent Defense:
For years, Amy had been put against various creatures, monsters and wildlife of various planets. When ever Kord saw a beast she could train with, he'd throw her in! Even if it was a pair of Nexu in the middle of mating, which actually happened once...
From these experiences of fighting against beasts, she learned to avoid, block or parry attacks which would otherwise be fatal, that there would be no glory in a conquest if she could not rise from the bloodbath.
Be it her heavy beskar'gam, a shield or her own limber body... She'll face battle head on and survive.

Non-Combat skills:
Marksman -15 : With bad eyesight, comes bad aim!
Awareness -5 : She never payed too much attention to details.
Armour crafting +5 : She makes her own armour and weapons, but if one had to choose she'd be a tiny bit better with armouring thanks to her Cortosis weaving skills.

Sidenote: On Marksman, I felt it necessary to place such a strong negative because Amy has always had bad eyesight. She prefers broad, wide swings rather than a headshot from miles away.

@ Mina

Piloting! That's one a missed, thank you. I've used in in events before so can't see why it shouldn't be there.

Just to clarify, for the Leadership buffs did you mean the initial numbers (ie +8 for a General) or actual roll modifiers? For most of the groups we've been getting for missions modifiers of 2-4 seem to be the most common, the final example I posted is an extreme example of almost the entire leadership taking a few recruits.


@ Reyth

Yup, that works. You won't be limited to just sword attacks, so if you feel kicking a darth in the nuts would make the best emote you can still get your +20 applied to it, but the reasoning behind it all is sound. As for the optional -15 Marksman, personally I don't see any problem with members voluntary taking extra debuffs as long as they only get the single "good" upgrade from it, but will have to see what the others think on this.

Couldn't sleep so I knocked this together, feel free to correct anything I've messed up. Ruu was always ment to be a "support" type character so I've avoided combat skills.

Excellent Explosives (Field Engineer) (+20)
From incendiary munitions to crawling over a ship with nothing but a pair of magnetic boots and a jet pack between her and deep space to crack a hull open.
She’s competent in many aspects of logistics and engineering but ordnance handling and blasting seems the single most demanded aspect.

Sometimes she really would prefer a little more subtle mobility and counter-mobility sabotage or construction but she can’t argue with the tactical value of a really big mine field.

Advanced Armour Crafting (+10)
Daughter of a Mandalorian Blacksmith and current off-world logistics arm of the forge now run by her brother. She was taught the family trade alongside her martial training and specialised in the electronic components of Beskar’gam. While it’s still a minor source of income for her it’s likely this would have been her livelihood had she stayed on Mandalore.

Advanced Mechanics (+10)
Zen and the art of speeder maintenance. Ruu loves to take things apart; sometimes she even puts them back together. Minus that left over screw but you know they always put an extra one in just to confuse you. This has developed alongside the previous two skills. She’s patched ships, waterlines and generators as often as she’s blown them up.

Poor Marksman (-5)
Ruusaan’s mydriasis frequently causes temporary bouts of blurred vision and light sensitivity, particularly without her heavily modified Helm and HUD.
This makes her a poor choice as a sniper or spotter.

Paranoid (good) Awareness (+5)
The events on Tatooine have left Ruu with a persistent state of hypervigilance, the level of anxiety that goes along with this makes it unreliable but she if she spots something out of place she’ll likely fixate on it until she’s satisfied it’s not a threat to the mission or any nearby civilians .

I’m a little unsure as to what awareness defines. This applies quite well if its general situational awareness and spot checks but if its visual awareness then light of Ruu’s vision issues as detailed above then I’m more than willing to change this one. She’s likely to be easy to blind side if it’s purely down to eyesight.

Seems fine Ruu. To clarify awareness (as far as I am imagining it, and have used it) is for general "noticing" what is around the room. Often I will have a section that is easier to complete if someone sees something, such as a passcard dropped by a officer during a firefight, an out-of-the-way console half hidden by some rubble or a fuel pipe conveniently placed over the head of a boss. Not sure if that is what you meant, if not could you give more details on what you were thinking? Maybe another skill we missed

Also just to confirm this system is all subject to change, so don't worry about posting something in this thread to check then thinking "oh no, I actually want -this- skill instead"; of course if your select skills do match with the final system and you want to keep it then its just an easy copy+paste. I for one will be changing Remair's skill from the example to have piloting skill that Mina suggested.

Seems we had the same idea on what it ment, I was just sleep deprived and confusing myself further.

Here's Mina's!

Mina Carrig

Expert Piloting (+20)

Mina is an experienced pilot, having flown Flux Glow for almost a decade. Even if she is most at home on her own ship, Mina is more than capable piloting other vessels.

Advanced Avoidance (+10)

Mina is quick on her feet. In addition she seems to have really taken to using her jetpack to jet around the battlefield quickly.

Advanced Mechanics (+10)

Many years taking care of Flux has left Mina with a variety of tricks to keep machinery running and in order.

Good Medic (+5)

Mina knows how to stitch a cut close and apply kolto. She is also quite familiar with many drugs.

Poor Explosives (-5)

Mina has next to no experience with explosives.