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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: GryMor on January 23, 2012, 06:43:04 AM
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This is driving me a bit nuts, I see skills referred to by categories in several places, most importantly on page 174 under Skill Shuffle, but I can't find anywhere that is clear on which skills are in which categories, or even, which categories exist. On 174 we have:
Social
Knowledge
Physical
Perception
But there are several skills that seem to have mixed aspects (craftmanship, survival, weapons) and some that don't seem to fit under any of those (conviction, discipline, while they are mental they definitely aren't knowledge). Mostly this doesn't matter for Beast Change (though someone being more comfortable and focused as wolf, thus having a higher conviction or discipline doesn't seem unreasonable), but if a full up True Shapeshifter duplicates the well honed body of a master fencer, while they definitely don't get the weapon knowledge, should they be able to duplicate the other trappings?
I really hope I've missed a sidebar somewhere, but failing that, opinions, thoughts and other references would be greatly appreciated.
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I haven't found such categorization in DFRPG either, and I strongly suspect it is a remnant from Spirit of the Century where such a sidebar does exist:
http://www.faterpg.com/dl/sotc-srd.html#id11
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I'm pretty sure those terms (Social, Knowledge, Physical, Perception) do not have any official definition in Dresden Files RPG. I'd say they're open to interpretation, so just go with whatever makes sense for you and your players.
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Welcome to the boards, GryMor.
As far as I know this game has no actual skill categories. Beast Change is just a bit odd.
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I tend to treat the "can't raise non-physical skills" part of beast change as a thematic limitation on the default use of the power, rather than a hard game-mechanics limitation; i.e. I'd have no problem with someone increasing, say, intimidation, on the basis of being a giant wolf - it's thematically appropriate. Similarly, someone who took "beast change" to represent some sort of magical secondary personality (perhaps they're possessed by the spirit of an ancient sumerian priestess) could increase skills appropriate to that - and it'd still be just a one refresh power.
This is, however, a house rule - so discuss it with your gaming group before you assume that they'll let your werewolf be more intimidating as a wolf.
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As far as I know this game has no actual skill categories. Beast Change is just a bit odd.
It's not the only place skill categories are referred to:
YS116 has "perception and knowledge skills"
YS196 "knowledge skills"
YS313 "knowledge skills like Scholarship"
YS154 "whenever using Performance as a knowledge or perception skill"
YS122 "Athletics is often the "when in doubt" physical skill"
YS121 "[Alertness] is the perception skill to notice things that you are not looking for."
YS132 "The target usually gets his choice of social skill to defend against such an attack... Rapport ... Presence ... Discipline"
are a few references, but tracking them down is tricky, covers a few obvious cases (Scholarship, Athletics and Alertness) while making some of the edge cases muddier (Performance, Discipline).
I'm half tempted to argue that the the restrictions shouldn't be on the skills modified but on the application of those skills to knowledge and social trappings, that is, go ahead and True Shapeshift in Great Performance, but you get your base rating for everything but it's perception trappings. This of course, gets a bit messy.