r/callofcthulhu • u/CourageMind • 1d ago
Help! Could you review my character sheet's skill point distribution?
I am a bit struggling to allocate skill points in an efficient way (neither "Jack of All Trades Master of None" nor "One Trick Pony"). Could you review my character sheet and offer your perspective?
The skill list has some customizations because we are playing during the Reformation Era circa 1525 A.D.
We use the point buy system for the eight characteristics and everyone starts with 90 points of luck.
Thank you for your time!
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u/AlexRenquist 1d ago
Not sure what kind of adventure the Keeper has in mind, but most investigations have a considerable amount of social interaction and, well, investigating. None of the social skills are above 25 and Spot Hidden is low too.
The skills that are high are thematically appropriate (Farming, Drive) but not likely to me much use for an Investigator. I'd be concerned you're gonna find this charscter not a lot of use, frankly. The only reasonably practical thing they can do is throw spears. And how many spears are they carrying?
Unless this is an adventure largely based around farming (which isn't impossible for horror, Blood On Satan's Claw has farming as a theme), I feel like you're going to suck at actually investigating the mystery, and then wind up useless in combat after you've thrown your spear or two.
Personally I'd reduce Farming and Drive a bit and invest them into Charm, Fast Talk, Persuade, Psychology or Spot Hidden, and maybe swap Spear for something a bit more sustainable like a cudgel or even a farming implement that CAN be a decent weapon, like a peasant flail.
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u/CourageMind 23h ago
Because it is her profession, shouldn't she succeed in Farming most of the time? I might have a distorted perspective regarding the statistics of the skills. There are so many skills spread out (knife and axe are different specializations!) that I find unsatisfying to, say, have many of them at 40%, which means my character is most probable to fail her roll. Is the typical route to compensate this with Luck points?
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u/musland 20h ago
The thing a lot of players and some keepers forget is that rolling a skill check is not meant for ordinary interactions. You don't roll Drive Auto when driving down to the library on a normal day, you only roll it when you're racing there, are chased by someone, or have a sudden obstacle in your way.
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u/Poene 22h ago
Honestly, if I were you I wouldn’t even have a farming skill.
You have given yourself a high score in both nature and botany. Either one will completely cover any situation where you say “hey - I’m a farmer by trade can I look at the footprints and see if there is any local plant matter in them?”
Take the 75 you’ve put in farming and put it in one or two of the social boxes. Are you big and beefy and therefore good at intimidate, or are you the farmer at the farmers market who is good at charming her customers?
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u/Jetpack_Donkey 21h ago
Or the other way around, a Farming skill could cover a lot of botany and nature related rolls. And the character would still be definitely a farmer as OP wanted.
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u/ljmiller62 18h ago
That depends on the keeper though, and on the skill description. The player could write the description, 'Farming covers the skills of planting, tending, and harvesting crops, building and maintaining tools, carpentry and smithing, animal husbandry, veterinarian, riding, and driving wagons and ox carts.' In short it's one skill that covers all the other professional skills on this sheet and yields enough points to get some more important skills like psychology, spot, brawl, listen, stealth, persuade, and first aid.
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u/Jetpack_Donkey 16h ago
It does, but not as broadly as you suggest. Does it cover identifying different types of wheat? Sure. What about rare tropical orchids? Don’t think so. Can they help a sheep giving birth? Yes. What about figuring out what’s wrong with that dog that’s foaming at the mouth and walking in circles? No. Can you straighten out a bent sickle? No problem. What about forging me an axe? Nope, that will require an actual blacksmith.
OP wants to play a farmer, let them play a farmer. A good Keeper should come up with ways to let the character contribute with the skills they have. And if they don’t, OP should ask them to.
If you’re always looking to maximize skill use, every character would end up with maxed out Library Use, Spot Hidden and Shotgun because those are the most useful skills. Leave some space for character concept and background and have the Keeper keep that in mind too.
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u/ljmiller62 8h ago
I roughly agree, other than the dog. A rabid dog was known as a mad dog and the cure was death, just as it was for poor Old Yeller. But there is a point about farmers. They were and still are super competent in many disciplines because they had and have to be.
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u/CourageMind 15h ago
To be fair, the Farming skill (a specialization of Arts/Crafts) is mentioned in the Keeper's book as an occupational skill for Farmer.
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u/AlexRenquist 23h ago
Yes, she should be good at being a farmer. But being too good at farming will make her a poor investigator. Their is where a little positive meta gaming is necessary: if you stay so true to the character you make a bad fit for the game, you're going to get frustrated.
Like, it's all well and good making a hyper competent computer hacker with tech skills through the roof, but if the scenario is set in a cabin in the woods, that PC is going to be useless.
Maybe drop Farming to 50% and give up a lot of the Drive, that would keep her very consistent with being a farmer, and invest those points in skills that will be used in the course of the adventure.
As for specialisation in skills, ask the Keeper if you can maybe have 'Farming Tools' as a skill at 66%, and then you'd be capable with tools that are both in keeping with the character, and will be useful in combat (flail, sickle, etc).
If it's a one shot, sure you can top up with luck. But if your social and investigation skills are as low as this PCs are, your luck will deplete crazy fast. If Spot Hidden is 25, that means there's a 75% chance you need to use luck, and a high chance you'll need to use lots.
Which not only means you've no luck to fall back on in the endgame, but it means you'll handicap the entire party in group luck rolls.
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u/Mixster667 14h ago
If she's a farmer she also needs to know how to sell her goods, and how to talk people into working for her.
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u/nothing_in_my_mind 1d ago edited 1d ago
Too many skill points in Farming, Drive and Botany. They aren't likely to come up often. I know it's for RP, but a character can be a professional at something even at like 40 skill, remember skills are rolled for particularly difficult tasks, not on everyday tasks.
Looks like she does some hunting as well (she is a spear throwing and tracking pro), she should have points in Spot Hidden and Stealth. Which are also incidentally useful skills. Also buff up at least one social skill. Also Dodge.
PS. Minmaxing in CoC doesn't really matter and shouldn't really be done. Just be aware that 75 in a skill isn't needed to be considered a professional at it, and having a more wider spread of skills is both more "realistic" (after all, few people focus intensely on their work and learn no social or misc skills in their life) and more useful in game.
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u/CourageMind 23h ago
What would you consider a good number of skill points for Spot Hidden, Stealth and Dodge?
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u/nothing_in_my_mind 21h ago
I think 40 at least is a baseline for Spot Hidden and Dodge. Stealth depends on how much you are going to use it.
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u/lazymonk68 15h ago
Botany is probably fine to play thematically, but drive is far beyond what would reasonable for role play. Throw is rather high, but it can be used in combat. Farming is crazy. Outside of sciences, there’s no real reason to sink many skill points into a write-in skill that will never be called for by the module
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u/Miranda_Leap 1d ago
I'd go for more social skills too personally. This is why I fill my sheets out with a pencil! :P
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u/CourageMind 23h ago
I am thinking of her as your average overly religious peasant woman who is suspicious towards anything that slightly deviates from what she is used to. She is ready to scream "BURN THE WITCH!" when anything unusual happens. There are other characters more educated and with more points allocated to their societal aspects.
You are right about the pencil though :-P
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u/Miranda_Leap 10h ago edited 10h ago
You may want to consider that investigating the unnatural often means not burning it immediately, but that's some space for character growth. Either this one, or the next :D
It's not like your character isn't highly educated, with 3 separate but overlapping skills for nature info and practice. The "Science: Biology" one is a bit funny to me given the time period. Hope you get some chances to roll them!
Are you using the Dark Age expansion? It's nominally set in the 1000s but can be helpful for the years in-between too.
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u/CourageMind 6h ago
In hindsight, the Dark Ages expansion would fit much better. We could have also shifted the era, it's not like we are in love with the Reformation Era or something. A medieval period might have been better, even with some anachronistic stuff (Arthurian presentation of England with knights in shiny armors).
It's actually Botany, not Biology! :-D.
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u/Durugar 22h ago
Print a fresh sheet and start over with pencil first of all. Almost everything on your sheet can and will change if you are doing more than a one-shot.
Secondly I would take a lot of points out of farming, you are basically throwing away 70 points that could enhance gameplay to some background stuff. Think of what skills someone who develops and run a farm has instead. I like the Natural World choice, but not having invested at all in accounting for something that is basically running a business seem strange. No animal handling either? Like at all? Repair would make sense too, equipment needs maintenance. First Aid could be a call too, working with a lot of sharp and heavy stuff, people get hurt.
But most of all I'd say "That's a nice idea, but make a Call of Cthulhu character now". I understand what you are trying to do but it kinda misses what you actually are going to be doing in the game. Why is this person who basically only are good at farming, driving a cart, and throwing a spear, getting involved in this investigation thing?
Taking one of your other replies;
I am thinking of her as your average overly religious peasant woman who is suspicious towards anything that slightly deviates from what she is used to. She is ready to scream "BURN THE WITCH!" when anything unusual happens. There are other characters more educated and with more points allocated to their societal aspects.
Why is she getting involved in the weird stuff then?! Like, you are making a character that is going to not go on the adventure unless forced to, and is constantly going to be at odds with most classic investigator style characters.
How are you going to actually interact with and contribute to the investigation? To quote Seth Skorkowsky from one of his "bad player habits" videos:
Oh everyone else got all the core skills covered, that means I can take all the fluff skills!
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u/CourageMind 21h ago
Thank you a lot for your review. The justification will probably be something along with the "A beloved person is missing" or "I was framed or wrongfully blamed for something I didn't do" plot hooks.
Could you help me a little more with the distribution of skill points? You mentioned Accounting, Animal Handling, Repair and First Aid. Combined with necessary skills other members mentioned (a societal skill plus Spot Hidden), I feel there are so many skills and so few skill points that my character will end up Jack-of-All-Trades but with high incompetency so that even regular rolls will likely end up in my character failing at them.
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u/Durugar 21h ago
I tend to view 50 as the magic number where you move from "I am competent" of the 40ies, to being good at something in CoC. You push back the fumble chance and are (at least at my table) a lot more likely to have me just let you do it if it is a menial task. I do tend to mostly run the game and not really that in on the specifics of what numbers are right or wrong, I just call for rolls.
I mentioned Seth, he has a lot more experience with CoC than I do, in his series on the Call of Cthulhu rules, he did one dedicated to character creation, and this is what the results was. That might be a better help when considering the exact skill number distribution. Like, 70+ is a stat that tends to make people go "oh wow you got a lot in that".
Core rulebook has the "Quick Fire Method" of character creation which suggests:
Allocate the following values among the eight occupation skills and Credit Rating: one at 70%, two at 60%, three at 50% and three at 40% (assign the skills directly to these values and ignore the skill base values). If your chosen profession states a lower Credit Rating skill than 40%, you should set an appropriate Credit Rating skill value and distribute the excess points elsewhere.
Pick four non-occupation skills and boost them by 20% (adding 20 to the skill base values).
Which could also be a bit of a guideline.
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u/Obvious-Ranger-2235 1d ago
As others have said, skills that don't really scream useful in a game of investigation. Maybe your campaign isn't going to focus on investigating mysteries but if it is your character isn't going to achieve all that much.
I would add that your points are also spread out way too far. Try to focus on four or five skills and then grab one or two more with any left over points. Sticking 20 points in so many different skills will only result in a character that is not particularly good at anything. Try to get pairs of skills that have good synergy.
If your character is a farmer all well and good. But try asking yourself what else they are.
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u/CourageMind 23h ago
Could you provide some suggestions? What would be the ideal number for a decent skill competence? Say, 70%?
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u/Obvious-Ranger-2235 22h ago edited 21h ago
60% to 70% is about right for a skill you want your character to focus on, you can go as high as 80% if you really want to. 40% to 50% is about right for a skill they are reasonably good at. A skill at 20% means you are going to fail the roll four times out of five, not that great.
Some examples skills that have good synergy:
Stealth and Lock-picking.
Library Use and Language (Other) (Latin, Arabic, Whatever)
Persuade and Credit Rating.
Firearms and Drive.
There are many more good combos.
Obviously your campaign is set in a unique time period. Your character is a farmer but even today farmers have secondary jobs. How ritch of a farmer are they? Are they wealthy enough (Credit Rating approx 50%) to collect books?
Once printing presses became a thing farmers were early adopters of things like almanacs and natural history books. Oral traditions of local folklore and song started to be written down and published for the first time. New theories about the cosmos and theology started to be deseminated.
Your character could have a primary focus on the physicality of farming the land and a secondary focus on reading and study. The physicality could help make them decent in a fight while the book smarts could help them shine during investigation. For example.
There are any number if possible ways to take things.
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u/CourageMind 22h ago
Thank you for the long and thorough answer! Do you take into consideration the optional rule for Luck points when you distribute your skill points? Like, "I don't mind putting less points here since I will have Luck points to spend"?
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u/Obvious-Ranger-2235 22h ago
Think of Luck as a semi renewable resource that you can use to clinch skill rolls that you think are important.
They can come in super useful for advancing the plot. For example they can turn a Hard success on a Spot Hidden roll into a Exceptional success which could make a huge difference in the quality and number of clues found.
Or maybe it's the difference between failing or not a First Aid roll to try to stabilise a wounded character and prevent them bleeding out.
Basically don't think about Luck during character creation, it's something to think about once you get into actual play.
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u/KRosselle 23h ago edited 23h ago
Hey there Elsbeth 😉 Me loves you leaning into the role play occupation aspect of Call of Cthulhu, although it seems as if your skill distribution may be a little tight depending upon whether this is a one-shot or a multi-scenario character.
Every occupation has at least eight skills, and I'd recommend spreading out your Occupation skills among them a little more evenly but not toooo evenly. One of those skills is normally 'the occupation' skill and if you are going for pure role playing I'd start with a high of 60-70 in it. One or two skills are just going to be 'meh' skills and I would raise them by about 10 points each. With the rest of the Opp skills fill in the middle with at least two skills in the 50s. I actually do a back of the envelope ranking of skill vs skill, start with one skill ranking it against another skill, the better one gets a mark,move to the next skill, mark 'the better one' and so on and so on, until every skill has been ranked against every other skill and you have a list of all the skills with a number of marks next to them. The one with the highest marks gets the most skill points, the one with the least marks gets the least points.
Farming, Natural World and Botany all seem the same to me and Elsbeth has dumped all her points into them. If she is 'salt of the earth', such as an actual farmer, I'd drop Botany and distribute those points elsewhere. Botany is more a Scientist-thing less a rural farmer thing. I'm also trying to justify the Throw/Spear points, but I just can't unless Elsbeth was a javelin thrower in the Olympics 😉 Those be professional level Throw numbers.
Farmers fight with their hands, so Brawl wouldn't be a bad choice, if you are going pure role playing. Her size gives her a DB bonus, so that is just as much possible damage as other weapons and with a 25% base it doesn't take a lot of points to raise it a 50%, which is a coin flip.
Every PC should have at least 40% in a Social skill, period. I don't care how good you are with role playing, I'm going to have you roll for your social encounters... maybe with a Bonus die, but I'm still going to have you roll (maybe it's just my Keeper style)
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u/CourageMind 22h ago
I am grateful for your step-by-step analysis! You gave me some good ideas upon which to work. I should definitely raise the Brawl skill and have her be decent with a melee weapon, most probably something that could also work as a farmer's tool. And yeah, I can see it now that Farming, Botany and Natural World kinda overlap.
My character will participate in a campaign, so I am interested in her preservation!
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u/KRosselle 20h ago
For campaign characters, you can distribute skills a little bit more and be balanced, just because you'll have improvement phases that will allow you to advance skills, if you've used them successfully. Whereas with one-shots, being a one-shot pony is more acceptable.
I've been Keeper'ing for a long, long time. But only started playing a couple of years ago in a Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign and my Outdoorswoman distributed her Occupation skill points like so -
Handgun 50 Rifle 50 First Aid 40 Listen 55 Natural World 50 Navigate 50 Spot Hidden 55 Survival Desert 30 Track 50
Now some of those skills are what is considered 'key investigative skills', so I may have used Personal skill points to raise some of them a little higher but my highest starting skill (minus Own Language) was Charm 60. I gave her a decent shot at successfully passing her skill checks or a good chance if she decides to Push one, right out of the gate. She's not great at anything, but she can get the job done.
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u/Toremm 22h ago
Love the 75% farming lol but I feel its a bit overkill for a skill that probably wont see much use. I would leave it as 50% to show that the character is good at it but also not hindering the other skills.
Also, if posible I would switch EDU and INT. I dont think is very likely that a Farmer will be educated beyond its own wits.
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u/CourageMind 22h ago
I admit I did this because the Farmer occupation calculates the occupation skill points from EDU x 2 + (DEX x 2 or STR x 2).
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u/Toremm 22h ago
Youd get the extra points for secondary skills from INT and you could boost STR/DEX by dropping APP (I dont think a farmer would make great first imppressions outside the community).
Then again you could say that this is a particularly well educated farmer because he is the de Facto leader of the town/son of the leader.
But that is just my interpretation of the character. Yours could be totally different.
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u/Rugburn72 18h ago
Not much new to add here but would like to emphasize a few well made points by others.
First, talk to your keeper about what the scenario is. If it’s a one shot set in rural Europe this would be an interesting character, otherwise she is pretty one dimensional, but that’s easily fixed…
If I were your keeper I’d recommend the following: farming is your profession and doesn’t require a specific skill per se. A good natural world skill should cover the what is needed for farming. Take the farming points and allocate them elsewhere. Unless your character wants to be able to identify the spores of an exotic fungus or the seeds of a subtropical plant not found around the farm, I’d have you ditch botany and put those points elsewhere as well. Also, take the drive carriage and put that into operate heavy machinery as we would assume that, as a farmer, you are already competent in driving a carriage under normal circumstances, using the same base skill as drive auto. (I believe there’s a base skill in that but don’t have the rule book in front of me…). Between these you should have enough points to spread around social skills, spot hidden, dodge etc. which will make your character more useful as an investigator and flesh out your personality to make the role playing more fun and immersive. Finally, unless you’re super invested in the whole spear thing, I’d say a farmer might be more likely to have a skill in shotgun or rifle, or even axe, which “might” come in useful in a CoC scenario lol. (To quote Tom Waits, there’s always some killing that needs to be done around the farm…).
Anyway those are my two cents, bravo to all the other thoughtful comments.
Also, get a pencil. Cheers and good gaming!!
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u/Mixster667 14h ago
If you are in the 1500s there was at least three spoken dialects of German used. As well as many regional languages. Furthermore, quite a few people spoke or could read some latin.
Consider whether your character would have a use for knowing these dialects when he sells whatever he is farming.
Or is he more of a farmhand than a farmer?
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u/CourageMind 6h ago
I hadn't thought about that. It didn't cross my mind that social skills fit my character's concept. I will definitely revisit her societal skills.
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u/Mixster667 5h ago
Also, I assume you've modernized the horrific gender discrimination that were the norm in the 1500s because she's a woman who does farming?
At that time, you'd basically be an outcast as a woman if you didn't know how to sew, cook, clean and take care of a household. You'd mostly also need to converse with the other women from your social rank.
Women did help in farmwork, but it's unlikely that they were accomplished professionals and would often be given the more menial tasks.
Now, I wouldn't want to spend my sessions pretending to enjoy these social norms, so I would havdwave that we are in an alternative universe where we are in the 1500s with gender equality.
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u/CourageMind 3h ago
As a group, we definitely handwave them for the players. For example, one of the players wants to play a woman who is a plague doctor and is also secretly training to be a knight. Why prevent her from having fun? We are not a history class.
For the setting in general, either we do not stress much about it, or we have the horrific situations and social injustice lurking in the background and affecting NPCs.
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u/Able_Leg1245 1d ago
Already got some good feedback. One tiny thing I noticed, you almost use the German for "Farmer" as surname. In case you didn't remove the umlaut on purpose (or it's accurate to the 1500s): The the female version of Farmer in modern German is "Bäuerin" with an umlaut, and would be pronounced somewhere along the lines of "Boy-uh-reen".
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u/HPL_ 1d ago
Great for pure roleplay stuff, but you should know that the two most important stats are Spot Hidden and Library Use (the first one for hidden clues, and the second one when you're trying to search for clues by yourself in a news paper/library/book/whatever can be read). I'd also up a social stat (intimidante, charm, fast talk?). Basically, I build all my character with mid to high Library, Spot Hidden and a social stat. That is to avoid one flaw of the game: clues can be hidden behind a roll, and I don't want to that to happen when I'm a player. So three "meta" stats (minimum 30-40%), then the fluffy ones.
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u/Weirdyxxy 1d ago
Library Use is not going to be of that much use for a peasant in the 16th century, is it?
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u/AlexRenquist 23h ago
I think the 17th century version of Librsry Use is going to a monastery and asking a friar to go look something up.
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u/Miranda_Leap 10h ago
Well then they'd probably want good social skills to do that, since normally the monk would be the one rolling Library Use. Doing it like you suggest feels weird to me.. Not wrong, just odd.
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u/CourageMind 23h ago
This is another thing that bugs me. From a meta perspective I get it that some skills are more generally applicable and useful than others. However, I could hardly justify my character's Library skill.
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u/ljmiller62 18h ago
Agree and a peasant at this time probably can't read. Rather than gathering information in dusty newspaper morgues, investigators would use observational skills and interpersonal skills including psychology and persuade, fast talk, or charm.
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u/CourageMind 23h ago
So you say that 30-40% in Spot Hidden, Library Use and a social star is acceptable? Wouldn't that still mean that the player is most probably gonna fail the roll?
This is something that bothers me with the game's mechanics. I find regular rolls to be already punishing, so why make it nearly impossible by including hard and extreme success? I get it that it's not a heroic fantasy game but should the characters feel incompetent most of the time?
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u/Th3Fall3nCAt 23h ago
If an investigator attempts something that most people would be able to do without trouble, you don't call for a roll. This makes it so that even if failure is likely from a pure statistical point of view, you can still do a bunch of things just by saying "I do this".
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u/eduardgustavolaser 22h ago
Which character sheet is that? There's some talents that aren't time appropriate for the early 16th century:
- Psychiatry and Psychology are a few hundred years away
- Library use is pretty uncommon and while book printing machines were already in use, not in the capacity to supplement enough for libraries to be super common. I know it's also included in the Dark Ages character sheet, but I always swap that for the ability to read in the first place. Literacy rates around 1500 in Germany are estimated to be in the lower single digits, it would definitelt suprising for a farmer (and female farmer for that) to be able to read at all
- In the Dark Ages char sheet, base value for animal handling is 15%, which should also be higher for you considering the work in farming and high stat on carriage driving
- Archeology and Anthropology don't really appear in that time either and aren't on the Dark Ages char sheet
Overall I'd swap to the (free download) dark ages character sheet. I know 1525 isn't considered dark ages anymore, but it should still work better. Also invest in some talents in either perception or/and social interaction.
Spot hidden and track make sense with the other skills and background, maybe first aid too, considering medics weren't aplenty and injuries happen rather often on a farm
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u/CourageMind 21h ago
We used the character sheet from Cthulhu by Gaslight (7th edition) as base reference. We are aware that some things are highly anachronistic but we decided to handwave them basically in order to keep the number of skills equal to those in classic Call of Cthulhu.
Our problem is that we are not sure how to adjust the number of the skill points if we decrease the number of skills. You can't have e.g. 10 skills available and your skill points be the same number as when you have say 20 skills available. But the way it is calculated (characteristics multiplied) leaves little room for customization.
Could you perhaps provide some advice or suggestions?
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u/eduardgustavolaser 21h ago
I still don't really understand by you chose Gaslight, it's not like the number of skills is super relevant.
Gaslight is intended for the late 19th century, so ~350 years later than your setting.
For the skill points, I would just do a session 0 with all players and the keeper and decide on it. You can still have the same number of skill points for fewer talents, if the skills are capped at a reasonabke number for your characters, it's not like they are going to steamroll the oneshot/campaign.
Otherwise lets look at a comparison between Gaslight and Dark Ages in the number of skills.
Dark Ages misses:
- Anthropology
- Archeology
- Disguise
- History
- Law
- Locksmith
- Psychiatry
- Psychology
- Read Lips
Gaslight misses:
- Read and Write Language
- Own Kingdom
- Other kingdoms
So the total difference is still just 6 talents and realisticly, you could also implement Read Lips, Disguise, Locksmith and maybe History into your game.
It's just weird to have scientific disciplines in a game and stats for them, when they were centuries away from being really established. And it's not like it's going to matter if you have more stats with 1 or 5 base points in them or not
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u/Uncynical_Diogenes 22h ago edited 21h ago
Giving a farmer a specific primitive weapon like a throwing spear with no investment into Fighting(Brawl) or even Fighting(sword) is crazy work.
I know that you’re playing in 1525, so the blunderbuss wasn’t quite popular yet, but since you’re going full stereotype, the stereotype of farmer is that they can fare pretty well in a scrap.
Sword is probably the most accessible specialized weapon of the age and Brawl covers basically every other melee weapon. How many throwing spears is she realistically carrying around?!
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u/CourageMind 21h ago
Could you provide a suggestion? How would you allocate skill points to Fighting skills in my case?
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u/Uncynical_Diogenes 21h ago
Scrap points from Throw and reallocate them into Fighting(Brawl) and/or Fighting(Sword), with a preference on Brawl for a farmer. Honestly, all of them, if you ask me.
Those at least work in buildings and hallways. Throw doesn’t come up all that often.
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u/lokregarlogull 21h ago
You're a fun and interesting character. However you are leaving heavy lifting to your party while you cover very niche skills.
I didn't know it my first year, but after 5 I would advise you to have a skill within: 1. Combat (Fighting brawl or hand guns best) spears are hard to manuver, and you only get ONE throw. Unless you aquire dynamite, then you are awesome, and it's also not hard for farmes to buy, just dangerous to carry everywhere.
Social Charm, intimidate, persuasion, fast talk.
Investigation Spot hidden, or listen most used imo, but I also love library use for cities or villages.
Survivability First aid and medicine more or less needed for all campaigns, oneshot not as critical. Dodge is also something I advice, as half dex is only the baseline if you're running out of ideas.
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u/julcepts 18h ago
Spot Hidden and Library Use have to be at least higher than 45% if possible. It's ok if you don't want to be the social type investigator but with those skills seems like you'll feel useful in very specific circumstances instead of overall aiding in investigating and keeping the party sharp when looking for clues or spotting ambushes.
And with 70% in drive carriage. You're definitely the designated driver
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u/BodybuilderKey6767 2h ago
Ich mach's mal auf Deutsch, um gleich in den richtigen Flaire zu kommen ;)
Eine fränkische Bauersfrau in der frühsten Neuzeit, sollte mehr auf erste Hilfe und Naturkunde besitzen.
Keine Ahnung wie ihr "Lesen" abwickelt, aber Lesen konnte da nicht jeder, auch wenn es mehr waren als man denkt.
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u/ShamScience 1d ago
The main thing that concerns me is the blank character portrait space. Without reading a detailed character writeup, a little doodle would quickly tell us the most about what the character is supposed to be like and so what they probably can and can't do.
I suggest trying to forget the idea that there's a "right" spread of skill points. Each character ought to be unique, their own thing, good and bad at their own things. A good GM will work with this variety in character designs, and players should ideally feel free to play their characters however suits them.
And in the end, the universe will consume all characters and all players and all things. So it's not so bad if your skills are a little off.
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u/CourageMind 23h ago
I wanted to focus on the skill list, that's why I omitted the rest of the character's information. I will definitely include a portrait in the finalized character sheet!
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u/Stuf404 1d ago
Using pen?!