Hi everyone. As I work on my hack, I’ve been taking a look at Skills. As my genre is medieval fantasy, not science fantasy infused by Black Sabbath, I had to figure out which to keep and which to toss for incompatibility.
This came with a few questions and potential fixes for some of the skills, which I brought to Hank on the Discord. He encouraged me to bring these to the forums as well, so that’s what I’m doing.
Sharpshot/Weapon Specialist
I’ll start with the most talked about ones in the bunch, which are Sharpshot and Weapon Specialist.
They do the exact same thing, mechanically, so I’ll discuss them as a single thing.
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The wording: “roll this skill instead of a ranged/normal attack [roll]. Score/Inflict a critical hit for each 6 rolled.”
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The problem: Crits are a BEAST in VDS, giving you progression, maximum narrative effect, smashing armor, marking blood rune bubbles… and giving you another turn. In which you can use this skill all over again, and get another turn, and so on.
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Possible fixes: The first fix suggested in the community regarding these skills was “convert from a crit to a hit.” It solves the problem, sure, but I feel they go against the ‘feel’ of these Skills; they’d be less badass. Hank proposed a second fix, which is “taking extra turn off the crit”. Also works, and crits remain a powerful thing to achieve. I’m proposing a third fix, that is adding “You cannot use this skill on your next turn if you succeed in the roll.” to the end of the Skill text. This doesn’t mess with crits, but solves the problem. Add this to both these Skills, and the turn chain is broken. EDIT 3/31/2022: @Arc suggested a fourth fix, a different addition of wording to the skills (I’m rewording it a bit, without losing the intent): “Crits achieved with this skill do not grant additional turns”. Also solves the crit chain issue, also a great fix.
Dual Attack
This one I only caught today. It presents a different issue from the previous Skills, which is quite interesting.
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The wording: “When you attack, any six in your attack roll inflicts an additional hit. You must have two weapons in hand to use dual attack.”
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The problem: The wording makes no reference to the level of this skill. It simply modifies your attack, in a very cool way. BUT, should I just put 1D into Dual Attack, the wording makes it so if I get 2 6’s on my attack, all of them add an additional hit. Is there any incentive to level up the skill? No. It becomes a Skill factory, grabbing progression levels and enabling a veritable ‘skill monkey’ for VDS.
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Possible fix: This fix fortunately doesn’t need to affect the functionality of the Skill too much, just give the player some incentive to evolve the skill. And, in my humble opinion, it’s quite an elegant one. After “an additional hit”, add “limited by how many dice you have in this skill.” Done. It incentives growth of the skill itself, makes its power scale a bit, and doesn’t break anything.
If I find anything else, I’ll bring it here too. Maybe we end up even choosing community-approved fixes in the end!