Cepheus Review - Skills
TOC
Skills
Every RPG has a system to determine if you can succeed at various tasks, and a way to define what characters know or can do that others don’t. While the dividing line between class and skill absed systems isn’t as clean as it used to be given proficiencies and feats, nevermind the assortment of skills in Pathfinder 1, Traveller and Cepheus fall under skill-based systems.
As mentioned before, CE generally uses a 2D6 roll against a target of 8 for resolution, modified by the difficulty and any applicable training. Some tasks require a skill, which if missing imposes a penalty. Nearly anyone can pick up a club. Not everyone understands a jump drive well enough to even “check the oil” much less take the covers off and start turning wrenches.
My biggest question starting this chapter is this: does it still assume most basic life skills are a given - and the dedicated skills are for things that may require a check and/or special training that can’t be covered by a basic physical-stat or education based roll. So far, with the assumption that you can try any skill (at a penalty if you don’t have it, neither a penalty or a bonus if at level zero), the answer looks like “yes”. This is further reinforced by the relatively limited and specific number of skills - the listing on page 33 is not that long, and nearly all of them are things that require experience, study, or training. Finally, as initial training for your first term in any career, you get level zero in all six skills in the service skill table. This generally works and fills in enough baseline skills and provides some ore career-specific color compared to CT’s “everyone is assumed weapons level zero”. There are a few things missing here, though.
Combat Skills only appear to be missing: if you look back at homeworld skills, pretty much everyone gets some sort of melee or gun combat skill, based on law level.
Computer is missing from Aerospace defense, belter, barbarian (kindof figures), colonist, drifter, entertainer, marine (haha), maritime defense, mercenary, merchant, navy, noble, pirate, rogue, scout, and surface defense. I’d argue that all of these, excepting possibly barbarian, would require computer-zero skills, especially belter, aerospace defense, scout, and surface defense, where you’re operating complex systems like aircraft and gunnery platforms, or working in space.
Vehicle is another interesting case. Outside of barbarian, I’m not sure there’s a reason to be unable to operate at least basic wheeled, water, or grav vehicles at level zero for any adult TL7 (give or take) or higher. Yet several career paths preclude that, despite being nominally higher tech careers.
Yes, I know computer and some vehicle skills are available by trade code, but while computer skill is available under primary education, I think it’s an oversight not to have basic vehicle skills available there as well, or even as a default for most cases. I also think it’s a mistake to require a character to blow a skill-zero slot for something like computer or vehicle operation that would generally be just part of the background for most higher tech environments.
There is also the “analog future” campaign where computers are specialized devices for plotting jump courses, possibly electro-mechanical like WW2 fire control systems, and datanets don’t exist.
This is also the part where a recruit-training friend of mine points out that they regularly get in a small but significant percent recruits who can’t drive at all. In counterpoint, at least for computer-zero, unless your background/career is barbarian, there are very few of even the lowest tech places in this world where you have people who can’t use a cell phone and text/terminal apps.
In the end, how you choose to address the availability of vehicle skills and computer skills likely comes down to the question of “what kind of campaign universe are you running”.
Back to resolution and mechanical assumptions.
There’s also the ability to adjust and account for time frames - a job that can take seconds, you can instead take several rounds to do it more methodically. Interestingly you have the opposite option as well, at a negative penalty.
The rules also account for multiple actions - like flying and trying to control a gunnery system, with relevant penalties.
The Skills
As noted before - the list of skills is fairly short, and the rules give plenty of opportunity to get familiarity to avoid penalties with many mundane tasks, or at least those that would be mundane to someone with an adventuring itch. There are a few interesting systems tucked in here though.
First, in addition to the “straight” skills, we still have the familiar “cascade” skills where you have to pick a more specific subset of vehicles, gun combat, and so on. More interesting are the skills that have specific mini-systems attached: bribery, Gambling, and leadership.
Bribery has a table that semi-randomly determines the amount of bribe needed based on the degree of illegality to be overlooked, and modifiers to the success roll, as well as modifiers and retries and consequences for failure. Gambling has a table to deal with non-competitive games as well as rules for competitive gambling - and cheating and getting caught. Leadership details how the leadership skill can be used to coordinate efforts and boost skill check rolls for subordinates, as well as improve initiative.
Finally, Zero-G serves double duty. It’s not just about working and operating in zero-G, but also acts as a “vacc suit” skill for maintenance and upkeep. I can see arguments for separating the two out, as there are definitely hostile atmospheres (and vacuum worlds) that require related upkeep skills but don’t grant experience in zero-G, but there’s also the view that they will usually occur in tandem for most people, and that even of you’re not used to zero-G, learning how to move in a space suit still helps.
Learning
Learning new skills appears to be much more forgiving:
A character’s Skill Total is calculated by summing the levels of each skill (level zero skills count as zero). A character with Mechanics 1 and Slug Pistol 2 would have a Skill Total of 3.
To increase a skill, a character must train for a number of weeks equal to his current Skill Total plus the desired level of the skill. So, to advance from Piloting 2 to Piloting 3 with a current Skill Total of 3 would take (three, plus three) six weeks. A character may only train one skill in a given week.
The Jack of all Trades skill cannot be learned.
That said, given the assumption that level zero is familiarity, and the CT assumption - not explicitly stated but despite the higher number of skills, implicit in the still relatively low skill levels - that level-1 is enough to make a living as a journeyman, I think it’s too forgiving. And also too harsh.
First, what is the environment? Are you learning linguistics or engineering in night class after/above your other work? Or are you immersed in the culture 24/7 or spending the day in the engineroom helping out to pay for your passage? Immersion and/or percentage of time dedicated to study should matter. Especially, for example, in jump space - underway, off watch, you can find a lot of time to study without having to get too creative, even if you have steward or sensor/conn duties, even as a solo operator of a scout ship.
Second, I’d consider that one should attain familiarity (level zero) first - basically the classroom phase.
Third, you generally don’t “forget” skills - you may need to brush up but that can be done in days or even a few hours in most cases depending on how much of the skill is academic vs “bicycle”. I don’t see why existing unrelated skills should have an impact on how long it takes to learn a new one below the threshold of total allowed skills, versus having to learn material above and beyond the current knowledgebase.
Aside - it may be too fiddly to discuss allowing skills to “fade out” to pick up new ones.
Fourth, the rules don’t make clear how many skill levels you can jump. Somewhat implied by the example and the rule description is a one level jump at a time, but that likely should be specific.
I know, the rules are trying to wrap up wildly varying degrees of training, and adding a “difficulty rating” would significantly, and perhaps arbitrarily complicate things. On a purely after-hours twice-a-week basis, it can take a couple weeks to achieve level-zero skills in operating a wheeled vehicle. Ditto basic computer operation. Engineering or vehicle maintenance though can take several weeks of intensive daily classes/work to achieve more than mere familiarity. The nuclear pipeline can take well over a year to get someone qualified to start learning the specific systems of whatever ship they end up deployed to.
It can also take years to gain significant martial arts skills, especially after initial familiarity.
In the end, for the sake of simplification, I think one week to get familiarity if not already possessed, and one week per level of desired proficiency, one level at a time, with a significant multiplier for lack of access to facilities ( you need to be able to practice) or lack of focus (night classes, etc, vice immersion/living it) may be reasonable. Perhaps even two multipliers, where the baseline assumes focused study to the exclusion of all else, immersion has a multiplier, and “after hours” and/or study without regular access to materials has an even higher one - it’s great to be working in an engineroom as an engineer but you often have regular duties, and maintenance operations and odd breakdowns don’t come along every day.
Conclusion
Overall, the system here is cleaner and more consistent, and allows for a bit of extra flavor for background and skill familiarity without overcomplicating things compared to CT. That said, I think the skill advancement overcorrected in addressing the slow skill progression of Classic Traveller.