BUILD YOUR OWN WORLD Like what you see? Become the Master of your own Universe!

Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild

Dancer Rules: Skills

Game rules

Checking on the Coriolis Discord, I read that the publishers are OK with players recreating tables, figures and data from the RPG source material where the only purpose is the facilitation of playing their game and I hereby promise this is my only intent with this article. Here I've taken the Year Zero Engine to modify the Coriolis rules for my own games - Doctor Weather
To see what my guiding principles are for my rules changes, please see the Dancer Rules overview.  

Specialisations

Aim: to improve the chance of success in characters' chosen specialist fields   Specialisations give PCs a d8 instead of a d6
1 XP can buy either an extra d6 in a skill or a d8 in a specialisation, allowing people to specialise into archaeology, ship-based weapons, and so on.   You can still only have up to 5 dice in a skill
You have 5 dice slots to fill for each skill, which can be either a d6 or a d8 specialisation. As soon as you have 5 dice in any combination of d6 and d8 specialisations you can't buy more dice - but you can upgrade them (see below).   At 5 dice you can buy general d8s
Once you have 5 dice in a skill, in any combination of d6s and d8-specialisations, you can spend a further 1 XP to turn either a d6 or a d8-specialisation into a straight d8. Role-play restrictions apply here: to get a straight d8 in a skill you really need to have instruction from a master, access to some serious long-lost technology or to have survived some relevant, momentous in-game event.   JUMP TO CONTENTS  

Success without rolling

This table accounts for specialisations when I follow my GM style: when to roll   Dice greater than d6s
To keep the maths simple I'm fudging the possibility of multiple successes on multiple d6...  
d8treat as 2d6Since getting 1 success on 1d8 is ~38% and on 2d6 is ~31% but you might also get 2 successes on 2d6
d10treat as 3d6Since getting 1 success on 1d10 is 50% and on 3d6 is ~42% but you might also get 2 or 3 successes on 3d6
d12treat as 4d6Since getting 1 success on 1d12 is ~58% and on 4d6 is ~52% but you might also get 2, 3 or 4 successes on 4d6
d20treat as 5d6No doubt the maths here prevents even an approximate comparison but hey, the pattern of dice is just nice
  JUMP TO CONTENTS  

Dice penalties

  You choose the dice you lose
Create your pool of dice from attribute, skill and all bonuses first and then apply any penalties. You then choose which dice to lose. So, if you have a 3-dice penalty then you must remove 3 dice from your pool but you choose which dice. Normally then, you'd likely only choose to lose d6s, keeping all your d8s. For role-play purposes you might choose to lose your d8s but it's up to you... "By my honour I have to fight as well as I can but I really don't want to hit the prince because of the trouble we'll get in, so I'll lose my d8s to the penalty dice and hope I miss him."   JUMP TO CONTENTS  

Specialisations vs. talents

  So, which should you buy with your XP?
Talents often grant 2d6 in a circumstance, compared to the specialisation's 1d8, so which is better? Actually they're both good, and it depends what you want for your character...  
MATHS COMPARISON
Specialisation1d8 gives you a 37.5% chance of 1 success
TalentThe total chance of getting at least 1 success on the talent dice is 30.6%, which is worse than the d8 offers
However, part of that chance is a 2.8% possibility of 2 successes, which the single d8 can't offer at all
 
MEANING BEHIND THE DICE
Specialisation is skill trainingThis dedicated training improves your chance of succeeding in your skilled area - it gives a greater total chance of getting at least 1 success   Buy specialisations if you want more reliable successes
Talents are natural abilityThis less-controlled flair for the subject isn't as good as practiced effort but you can sometimes achieve greater things, allowing that chance of 2 successes
Better still, talent dice are not skill dice and so don't count towards the 5 dice skill maximum: even when you reach 5 skill dice you can still add your extra 2 talent dice to your pool   Buy talents to represent the talent shown in youth that also has a greater long-term benefit even after you've spent XP improving the skill
  JUMP TO CONTENTS  

Assistance bonuses

  When assisting you can give 1 dice, not just 1d6
You can give a dice of your choice from the appropraite skill, giving the person a d8 from your specialisation if you have one.   JUMP TO CONTENTS
Main: Dancer Rules overview Related

Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild


Cover image: cube by anncapictures

Comments

Please Login in order to comment!