Nuclear Beasts

Social Skills & a Power Stat

I'm not sure how I want to handle social skills. My current method is to give a Charm stat and have it apply to social skills. Psychic skills wouldn't depend upon any traits... but maybe they should. Perhaps they should all get a flat d6? Or a Power trait?

Options:

• Keep Charm, add a Power stat for willpower and psi. It should probably start at d6... otherwise it'll be a junk stat for most non-psychic PCs... after all, what do non-psychics use it for?
• Expand Charm into a "Power" stat. This would apply to willpower, psi and all social skills. It represents your "force of personality". You'd still want social skills to be good at charming people, but it would be hard to be charming and weak-willed without some sort of Edge or Flaw. Actually, a Willpower check could be rolling Guts & Power. We could also rename the Fellowship skill as "Charm"; then it would clearly include seduction.
• Keep Charm, having all psi powers roll alone. This makes them much more unpredictable, though, which is probably a bad thing.
• Keep Charm, psi powers roll with the most applicable stat. Sensory powers with Perception, physical powers with Guts, others with Brains, etc. This is probably the most traditional solution and it can reinforce stereotypes such as the "brainy precog" if desired.

Hm. Perhaps a better name for it would be Spirit? Then you'd roll Guts & Spirit to resist pain, Spirit & Charm to make people like you, Spirit & Psychic Power to zap stuff, etc.

Let's see... Muscles, Guts, Speed, Brains, Perception and Spirit.

To resist physical harm, roll Muscles & Guts. To react to something in time, roll Speed & Perception. To withstand a test of your will, roll Guts & Spirit, or maybe Brains & Spirit instead... if Guts is primarily physical toughness, then it might not apply to mental stuff. To figure something out, roll Brains & Perception. It could work.

Actually, that works nicely. Muscles & Guts is your Fortitude save. Speed & Perception is your Reflex save. Brains & Spirit is your Will save. That's all six stats, without any overlap.

What other combos are there? Muscles & Spirit, Brains & Speed, yeah, there might be a few other combos that are meaningful, but I rather like the fact that your three saving throws are based upon two stats each, without any overlap. I could even change the order of the stats to Muscles, Guts, Speed, Perception, Brains and Spirit.

Posted by Kiz at June 11, 2004 04:37 PM