Quote from: CRKrueger;645020Dealing with animals and monsters in a skill system isn't that difficult.  For a predator, it only lives if it kills, so skill level should be at least the equivalent of a Professional level human, if not Expert.

A prey animal that defends by running probably isn't going to have much skill, but one that does fight, probably also fights to mate so is probably going to be just lower then the predator.

So a lot of animals are going to be at least as skilled as a character, but are going to also be stronger, faster, and maybe have armor.  You don't use a sword to kill a big animal, you use a spear or bow and kill it before it kills you.

As far as a Troll goes, if it is still alive, then it's good at killing.  It might be slow, but if it hits you, look out.  Also good luck killing it without a critical hit system.

You could go through and give each monster and animal a completely different skill profile, but that's not really necessary.

I use a catch all skill for this called Natural Weapon, which is informally defined by the animal. So a troll might be Natural Weapon+3 (Expert Level), with a Quality (damage in this case) Mod of +50.

Quote from: CRKrueger;645024Your point is taken though in that what really makes a Troll dangerous is his strength, claws, regeneration, tough hide, etc...  however, that doesn't mean that it has low or average skill when compared to a person.  Yeah it doesn't know 35 different claw moves but it knows a couple and uses them every day - or it dies.

What percentage of the danger in facing a troll is in its skill alone would you say? For my money, maybe 10% to 20%. An arnisador, a batadóir, these are people who know what to do with a knobbly cudgel. A troll would rarely have any need for anything more than a quick bash to get what it wants, without getting into the tos and fros of troll society (although the trolls in the Hobbit seemed to be on fairly amicable terms).

Take away the giant strength, the speed even, and you haven't much left. Some seem to feel that a troll's strength is barely relevant to its combat abilities, this to my mind is self apparently wrong.

20-30 maybe from skill.  Depends on how trolls are described in the setting.  I don't think monsters should have Master level training, but at least a level that corresponds to Professional, in other words, the equivalent of a soldier, not necessarily a Seal.  Now an obviously successful monster or Apex predator might very well have an Expert level skill, but still not Bruce Lee level.

Since science hasnt figured it out yet, I dont expect an rpg to do so. Certain types of games/genres support skill over aptitude, others make them equal, and others favour attributes over skill or treat attributes as a character's base ability in any related skill and only specialities of the character grant a bonus beyond this. None of which really effects game play.

For everyone who says "in reality, its all about skill", try looking up the word savant soemtimes. Human beings are curious creatures.

Quote from: Wolf, Richard;644991"Selection" is the problem in this discussion.  It doesn't take only two years to make a Navy SEAL for some people.  It will just never happen because they've been selected out.  You can't say it's the training unless they are training everyone up to the same standard, but they aren't.  They aren't accepting most, and they are bouncing most of the ones they do accept.  There is no amount of pre-training that is going to result in them taking on a blind retarded midget.

You are just blurring the line of what "skill" represents here by including selection (even Natural Selection) as a factor.  If on your first day at the shooting range the instructor takes your rifle and sends you to file papers, in RPG terminology it's not because Natural Selection hasn't furbished you with the "skills", it's because you rolled a 3 Dex Ranger and need to go do something where your clumsiness is potentially less fatal.

 
Now this is an interesting point and one I put into a Modern squad military game I made up years ago.

The idea is that in each skill a character has a potential based on their attributes but they can only reach that potential through training.

So in the system each skill had a formula (Stat+stat)/2 or similar. the maximum you could get in the skill was 5x formula (stats were 2-20 on 2d10) and your starting score was formula%.
Each skill point spend on the skill got you 1d6 increase in your score.

This system supposed that your final skill level was controlled by your abilities but you had to train to get there.

The system also limited your active skills. So you had a number of skills that were active, a second set that were passive and the rest of your skills were unused. After you used a passive skill a few times it became active if you didn't use a skill for period it slipped down to passive and then down to unused. And these had different penalties.

Some of it I would reuse, skill potential I thought was quite good but active/passive/unused was a pain to bookkeep although has potential in a computerised format.

Quote from: flyingmice;644959No, it *denies* "that mighty creatures with low skill exist". Any dangerous critter is skilled in combat. Your assuming something which is not there. Any troll who makes it to adulthood is a master at troll warfare. Elephants are very skilled at defending themselves. Leopards are extremely skilled at killing things. Why do you assume low or no-skill? These are things they do all the time. Why wouldn't they be skilled?

-clash

Since we seem to be focused on combat:

You, vs. a cat, in a metal cube. The cat has way more "skill", but I'd never bet on it.

A ten year old with a black belt vs. a 6'4" 280 pound farm boy who throws 100 pound bales of hay around all day, but has never been in a fight in his life. I'll take the farm boy.

Quote from: jibbajibba;645098Now this is an interesting point and one I put into a Modern squad military game I made up years ago.

The idea is that in each skill a character has a potential based on their attributes but they can only reach that potential through training.

So in the system each skill had a formula (Stat+stat)/2 or similar. the maximum you could get in the skill was 5x formula (stats were 2-20 on 2d10) and your starting score was formula%.
Each skill point spend on the skill got you 1d6 increase in your score.

This system supposed that your final skill level was controlled by your abilities but you had to train to get there.

The system also limited your active skills. So you had a number of skills that were active, a second set that were passive and the rest of your skills were unused. After you used a passive skill a few times it became active if you didn't use a skill for period it slipped down to passive and then down to unused. And these had different penalties.

Some of it I would reuse, skill potential I thought was quite good but active/passive/unused was a pain to bookkeep although has potential in a computerised format.

That's kind of like the (simplifying a lot of systems here) basic BRP method of roll between your skill and stat x 5 to raise a skill.

I can hit someone in the heart with a paintball gun from 1000 yards in high wind all day long and nothing will happen.  If I hit them in the eye though, it might.

Likewise, if the farmboy with no skill decides to do what he's good at, and throw the ten year old black belt against the wall, he might lose an eye as he picks him up.

Obviously if you go to the extreme of generated force insufficient to injure, then you cannot injure.  But even in that extreme there may be ways skill can be used.

The "clash of extremes" really has nothing to do with whether something that kills everyday should be bad, average or good at killing.

Quote from: apparition13;645252You, vs. a cat, in a metal cube. The cat has way more "skill", but I'd never bet on it.

A ten year old with a black belt vs. a 6'4" 280 pound farm boy who throws 100 pound bales of hay around all day, but has never been in a fight in his life. I'll take the farm boy.

I would hope that the damage system would deal with these sort of differences, if not- that's where the failure exists at.

And if you've lumped your skill and damage together in a single roll and left it at that, you get what you deserve- an inability to represent anything well that isn't clustered around human norm.

Quote from: The Traveller;645027What percentage of the danger in facing a troll is in its skill alone would you say? For my money, maybe 10% to 20%. An arnisador, a batadóir, these are people who know what to do with a knobbly cudgel. A troll would rarely have any need for anything more than a quick bash to get what it wants, without getting into the tos and fros of troll society (although the trolls in the Hobbit seemed to be on fairly amicable terms).

Take away the giant strength, the speed even, and you haven't much left. Some seem to feel that a troll's strength is barely relevant to its combat abilities, this to my mind is self apparently wrong.

You do seem to ignore the fact that a troll possibly fight other trolls as well ... other trolls with similar strength and body/toughness/whatever, and with clubs.
I'm making a guess that that is what CRKrueger is referring to.

Quote from: apparition13;645252Since we seem to be focused on combat:

You, vs. a cat, in a metal cube. The cat has way more "skill", but I'd never bet on it.

A ten year old with a black belt vs. a 6'4" 280 pound farm boy who throws 100 pound bales of hay around all day, but has never been in a fight in his life. I'll take the farm boy.


That's kind of like the (simplifying a lot of systems here) basic BRP method of roll between your skill and stat x 5 to raise a skill.

Everyone on the "Stat-heavy" side seems to love throwing these examples around! It's the same damn thing. That cat is going to scratch the crap out of my hands, hitting me a dozen times and biting me once or twice, all for little apparent damage*. Clumsy me will maybe get one hit in, but that cat will be fucked up. It's all about scaling damage, not attributes. The cat is *way* more skilled than I am. She is far, far, far more agile. Pound for pound, she's far stronger than I am. Thing is, we are not the same scale. All the damage she does is scaled WAY down, and all the damage I do is scaled WAY up. If she and I were the same scale, I'd be whisker lickins in a few seconds.

* I say apparent, because I was put in a hospital for days on antibiotics because of a cat bite. My hand and arm swelled up like a string of sausages and turned black. I would have been dead in a setting without antibiotics or magic.

Quote from: Catelf;645259You do seem to ignore the fact that a troll possibly fight other trolls as well ... other trolls with similar strength and body/toughness/whatever, and with clubs.
I'm making a guess that that is what CRKrueger is referring to.

Yeah - there is no scaling there.

Quote from: Catelf;645259You do seem to ignore the fact that a troll possibly fight other trolls as well ... other trolls with similar strength and body/toughness/whatever, and with clubs.

That's why I said "without getting into the tos and fros of troll society (although the trolls in the Hobbit seemed to be on fairly amicable terms)".

Trolls are imaginary creatures with imaginary social mores, an equally valid description might be that trolls only very rarely fight one another and only pick on things smaller and slower than them that they can squish with one whack from a log. Like sheep. They are also reputedly stupid and lazy in the common understanding, neither of which are qualities which lend themselves to the acquisition of high skill levels.

It's pointless to discuss what trolls do and don't do in definitive terms since they are imaginary; in this case I used them to represent a large and powerful creature of low skill, and there is absolutely no reason why they shouldn't be, nobody can legitimately say "that's impossible". For some reason this seems to have offended some people who flatly deny even the possibility that any large and powerful creature might have low skill.

Trolls as used here are representative of the fact that sheer muscle mass or reflex speed can be just as important as skill if not a lot more so when it comes to outsize monsters. I seriously can't understand why this is a point of contention, never mind bitter disagreement, unless I'm accidentally stepping on someone's pet system or something.

Quote from: flyingmice;645291Everyone on the "Stat-heavy" side seems to love throwing these examples around!

Oh hey I'm not saying stats uber alles at all, just that skill weighting to the extent that jibbajabba was proposing, or anywhere near it, has some serious systemic flaws. If anything I encourage players to develop and focus on their skills.

I had a player once who just wasn't getting that message so we ran a minigame called The Arena - and he knew I was trying to demonstrate something beforehand. As per the name, he jousted and battled with a series of increasingly powerful and dangerous monsters, and won easily every time, from lions to dinosaurs.

Then I put him up against a single scarred knight with an eyepatch. Fearless the PC roared forward, before the knight flipped his morningstar around his wrist once and threw it at the character, buried the thing in his forehead from five meters, killing the PC stone dead. After that he focused on skills, no his character wasn't permanently killed.

Keep in mind though that the knight used four seperate skills in concert here (quickdraw, throw weapon, aiming and use morningstar) so it wasn't as simple as sheer skill versus skill, that's not how my games work. All I'm saying is that the system that jibbajabba outlined is flawed for non humans.

Quote from: The Traveller;645299It's pointless to discuss what trolls do and don't do in definitive terms since they are imaginary; in this case I used them to represent a large and powerful creature of low skill, and there is absolutely no reason why they shouldn't be, nobody can legitimately say "that's impossible". For some reason this seems to have offended some people who flatly deny even the possibility that any large and powerful creature might have low skill.

Trolls as used here are representative of the fact that sheer muscle mass or reflex speed can be just as important as skill if not a lot more so when it comes to outsize monsters. I seriously can't understand why this is a point of contention, never mind bitter disagreement, unless I'm accidentally stepping on someone's pet system or something.

I do think it is a typical case of "talking past one another", where people .. yes, including you, do not seem to grasp what others are saying, and they do not seem to grasp what you are saying.

It is also the case of bad wording, flawed conclusions, plus the tendency to ignore nuances, and the possible middle ground that exist in comments, like "the possibility that any large and powerful creature might have low skill" when you, before that comment, rather came off as sounding like all large and powerful creatures has low skill.
Now, that may not have been what you meant, but it read like that, just like CRKrueger gave the impression of meaning the opposite.

Quote from: Catelf;645308and the possible middle ground that exist in comments, like "the possibility that any large and powerful creature might have low skill" when you, before that comment, rather came off as sounding like all large and powerful creatures has low skill.

I don't see a excluded middle here. A creature with low skill can be said to be large, but few would call a giant slug powerful. Just big, and something you step out of the way of.

The "...and powerful" implies the skilled needed to back up large.