Re: New skill in draft

["LarsDangly" <larsdangly@yahoo.com>]

--- In dq-rules@yahoogroups.com, "lukeon58" <lukeon58@y...> wrote:
> I am working on skills for samurai, archer and ninja.  I have posted 
> them on the files section of this site.  Please review and provide 
> assistance.  
> 
> Thank you.

These look like great additions to the game, but I suspect they are a little over-
powered.  One of the temptations I always feel when toying with house rules 
for Dragonquest is the urge to 'boost' the fighting abilities of combat oriented 
characters.  Perhaps this is because it is easy to max-out ranks in a favored 
weapon early in a capaign, after which your only way to improve is through 
stats.  However, I think it might not be a good idea in the long run.  One of the 
great strengths of Dragonquest is that it has a relatively realistic 'feel' to 
combat, toughness of monsters, etc.  I think it is actually o.k. that a highly 
skilled, high-stat human has no shot against an armed troll, grizzly bear, 
elephant, whatever, in hand to hand combat.  This balance would be badly 
torqued if combat-oriented characters had a skill that acted like a sort of 'get 
out of jail free' card.  The play balance would start to look more like D+D or 
any of a number of other cinematic RPG's.  This is naturally fine if it is what 
you are after, but you might find none of your players want to be regular 
fighters anymore.    One rule of thumb you could hold these up against is the 
following:  A Samurai should have some interesting skills, but not be 
enormously more dangerous than a western figher with max skills and great 
stats; a ninja should not totally outclass a person with similar ranks in Spy, 
Assassin and a weapon.; etc.

My two cents.