Talk:Skill based

I was always under the impression that a Skill Based system is opposed to a Class Based, and not Stat Based. In fact, I find this "If a person with poor dexterity and max ranks in open lock try to preform the skill they will probably fail it due to their low dexterity even though they are devoted to opening locks" to be absolutely wrong. Even if you have truly terrible DEX (let's say 6), that's just a -2 penalty, while a level 1 character can have 4 ranks in a skill, not counting bonuses from feats or synergy or whatever, which leaves you with at least a +2 bonus to your roll, at level 1. At level 10, you could have a skill of +15 and more, despite your low dex. This article is wrong. --Teataine 11:05, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

From what I recall, a Skill based system is usually used as the opposite of a Clas/Race based one. Here you have skills instead of classes, and your role is determined by what you can do, not what's your job. At least that's the definition for the term I know. --Rodwell 09:05, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

What is / isn't skill-based?

Please argue here, not in the article. Discussion pages are for back-and-forth and debate, articles are for making statements.

Skill-based

• GURPS. Huge duh.
• RISUS. The Clichés
• World of Darkness / Exalted. Double duh.
• Traveller. Skills during chargen are based on whether you're in Navy/Marines/Scounts/Merch, but after that you're on your own.
• Spirit of the Century. Skill pyramid, there's no restrictions at all for what you can take with what, only that you can't nave more level N skills than you have level N-1 skills. No such thing as pre-set skill suites or abilities, "aspects" can be pretty random.
• Shadowrun, duh.
  • not the Shadowrun I remember, but then I've only played editions 1 through 3. --NotBrandX

Not skill-based

• Dark Heresy & WH Fantasy. You can only spend points on the career you're in during chargen, and what career you're in during play. Some skills you can only get with certain careers, which need you to finish prerequisite careers. One level 2 peon might have skills in hauling, while another might have skills in mud-farming, but you can only get the peasant skills when you finish all 5 levels of peon.
  • Warhammer Fantasy works that way, but Dark Heresy doesn't feature career-switching. Dark Heresy also allows you to theoretically take any advance you like, as long as your GM approves. The main point I was making with Dark Heresy is that although the career and rank determines availability of skills (mostly), the actual mechanical representation of any given character is completely independent of this - they are a collection of attributes and skills/talents. You cannot derive a DH character's abilities simply given their career or rank - "third level fighter" tells you an awful lot about many of the vital statistics of a character in DnD, but "rank 3 guardsman" tells you almost nothing about a character's stats in DH apart from that they have probably spent the majority of their experience on combat-related skills/talents. Consider that you could easily change DH to remove the careers entirely and use a single generic advances list with all the available things on it for every character, and that would involve almost no change to the mechanics of the game whatsoever - it's only really a slight change to the mechanic for spending experience, using a universal list instead of a character-specific one. At any rate, just because what you can spend on may be somewhat restricted, that doesn't make a system any less skill-based. I mean, seriously, look at World of Darkness. Can't spend experience on learning arcana unless you're a mage. Isn't that a class-based restriction? In fact, Dark Heresy is less restrictive, because your GM should let you take any advance you can justify as an elite advance, but you're never going to be able to spend your XP on Werewolf gifts unless you're one of them. --87.194.31.223 21:14, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Regarding Dark Heresy: most of what I know is from reviews. I bow to your judgement.--NotBrandX

The "can't buy spheres unless you're a Mage" thing happens only when you're mixing the world-of-darkness games together. The games are designed so every PC in a Vampire game are vampires; there's even rules in the back on what Discipine-equivalents the werewolf NPCs should have. Bringing Superman into Dark Heresy doesn't automatically mean every Inquisitor can now buy heat vision with experience points (thank the Emperor!) --NotBrandX 15:56, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

• Dungeons & Dragons. Duh. Non-weap proficiencies in AD&D, and skills in 3/3.5 don't count, since your class determines how many points you can spend, and how much each point is worth, and you only get more points in a lump sum when you level-up in your class. 4e doesn't count, because your class determines what you're allowed to be "trained" in, leveling up your class is how you improve attributes for the bonus there, and your 1/2 class level is the HUGEST bonus you'll get and it applies to all skill rolls. A level 20 Wizard will be better than a level 5 Fighter at Athletics checks, I mean COME ON.

On the fence

• Ironclaw. All task-resolution is skill based, and you can level-up your attributes and skills seperately from your career or race... but there's still "Race" and one or more "careers" that attributes that each act like are four-skills suites. The spellcasting skills can only be taken by someone who has a spellcasting "career."