Re: [dq-rules] Re: Subskills

[Rodger Thorm <dqn@earthlink.net>]

This was going to be just my first pass at a list of skills which could be learned separately.  I wanted to see what the scope of the list would be, and then try to generate some discussion about costs.

There are actually a lot fewer subskills that I would break out and allow characters to obtain individually than I thought there would be.  As I was going through it, most of them seem pretty integral to their respective skills, and while you could make a case for a character having one or another without the whole skill, in most instances I find myself preferring to leave them alone.

As it is, there are only three subskills that I would create:

Proposed Subskills List
 Navigator -- Determine Compass Directions
 Thief -- Climbing
 Troubador -- Acrobatics 

While there may be some things in the list of Courtesan abilities that a character might wish to do, in most cases I would simply suggest the character learn the Courtesan skill in order to reflect that ability (esp. Dance, Dress Well, and Recite Stories, but also Play Instrument, Sing, and the rest).  If a character wants to compose a heroic epic of their great adventure, but does not want to acquire Courtesan skill in order to Compose Story, I would work that out through role-play, rather than force a character to take an unwanted skill.  If they wanted to compose stories regularly and without playing it out, then some skill (either Courtesan, or perhaps more approipriately Troubador) would seem in order.

  To at least partially address the Climbing and Acrobatics issues, I created the Adventure Abilities (Rule 115 in Poor Brendan's Almanac).  This rule does not allow for practice or improvement by Rank, but has worked well enough in my own campaign.  So of the three subskills that I might think are worth creating, I've already addressed two of them in my own way, and would probably handle the third similarly, if it ever came up.  But generally any character who might want such a skill will be a Ranger already, so that too is moot.
  
I came into this whole thing expecting to work on 8 or 10 subskills for DQ and end up writing something up.  But having taken a look at it, I'm more inclined to leave things exactly as they are in the skils themselves, and just add a couple minor adventure abilities to address non-Thief characters being able to climb anything more difficult than a ladder.

Maybe this will trigger some further discussion and alternate points of view anyhow.

  --Rodger Thorm