[Murder of Crows] [Murder of Crows] Skills

[Skari-dono]

This thread is for discussing Skills. Do you think any are missing? Do you think some are redundant? Should this be replaced by that? What is the applicable use of this Skill? What is the limit of that Skill? And so on and so forth. Any discussion regarding Skills, their use and whether they belong in the game should be here and not somewhere else.

 

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Acrobatics: This is the Skill for tumbling, balancing and nimble movements.


Athletics: This is the Skill for climbing, jumping, swimming and lifting techniques.


Why are these two split off separately? I feel it ends up being a bit redundant here. Those who are athletic generally speaking tend to have a good sense of balance and they move quickly...given it's used in foot chases. The same goes with acrobatics where you are generally quick and jumping around or climbing something. Swimming and lifting feel more like something that just comes with brawn. You generally want both when you go to pick either of these skill slots so splitting them up makes me it's a waste of character points. You only get 20 to start with barring a certain character trait. Scanning the pdf, athletics goes into all the active uses while acrobatics only seems to be reactionary or useful with talents. Makes the acrobat feel like some sort of requirement for being in combat or just being nimble.


Legerdemain- How does this even work? The only examples of it beyond the given list involves the trickster talent long fingers. Outside of taking the talent I don't know how to use it, so I've only sunk 2 points into it despite being my original intended focus.


What does savvy do? Like Legerdemain, only seeing it appear in a talent which involves dealing with lower class contacts.


Artistry: Characters with the Artistry Skill know how to create art and read the deeper meaning of art.


The latter seems more appropriate for a knowledge skill. What is the use of artistry? Is the world in some sort of renaissance with art flourishing? More of a niche ability by appearance.

 

[Skari-dono]

[QUOTE="Action Replay]Acrobatics: This is the Skill for tumbling, balancing and nimble movements.
Athletics: This is the Skill for climbing, jumping, swimming and lifting techniques.


Why are these two split off separately? I feel it ends up being a bit redundant here. Those who are athletic generally speaking tend to have a good sense of balance and they move quickly...given it's used in foot chases. The same goes with acrobatics where you are generally quick and jumping around or climbing something. Swimming and lifting feel more like something that just comes with brawn. You generally want both when you go to pick either of these skill slots so splitting them up makes me it's a waste of character points. You only get 20 to start with barring a certain character trait. Scanning the pdf, athletics goes into all the active uses while acrobatics only seems to be reactionary or useful with talents. Makes the acrobat feel like some sort of requirement for being in combat or just being nimble.

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Valid points and will be taken under advisement. At the time, I believe I wanted to split the Skill so that Acrobatics was more dexterous based while Athletics was focused on strength and stamina. But like you said, if I were to consider that most players would focus on both rather than just one anyway (and I should consider it), I might as well combine them into one and the same Skill.

[QUOTE="Action Replay]Legerdemain- How does this even work? The only examples of it beyond the given list involves the trickster talent long fingers. Outside of taking the talent I don't know how to use it, so I've only sunk 2 points into it despite being my original intended focus.

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The legerdemain focuses on all fine movements with fingers and tricks, such as small trickery, pickpocketing and picking of locks. It is in fact the Skill used for all sort of thieving and making small tricks. It is an essential Skill used by thieves.

[QUOTE="Action Replay]What does savvy do? Like Legerdemain, only seeing it appear in a talent which involves dealing with lower class contacts.

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If you are familiar with WoD, the Savvy Skill has much of the same properties of the Streetwise Skill you'd find there. I'm not really sure why I wanted to call it Savvy rather than anything else, except it sounded more fitting. Savvy is, to put it in over simplified terms, etiquette for lower classes and criminals. Speaking with the lower classes is different from speaking with the upper classes in terms of how you'd behave, or at least different enough that I believe two Skills are required to represent it.

[QUOTE="Action Replay]Artistry: Characters with the Artistry Skill know how to create art and read the deeper meaning of art.
The latter seems more appropriate for a knowledge skill. What is the use of artistry? Is the world in some sort of renaissance with art flourishing? More of a niche ability by appearance.

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This proves that something needs to be clarified in terms of Skills: You can use any Skill like you'd use a Knowledge Skill, as long as that Skill fits the subject. In case of Artistry, you could use it as Knowledge Skill for art history even though it counts as a Common Skill. The same would go for Fighting Skills like Swords; you could use it to know details about a specific sword technique or design.


To me, this is pretty obvious, but that is the problem in a nutshell. I need to keep in mind that things like this needs to be clarified, so to avoid any confusion for players and GMs who do not find it as obvious.