Should the Big Guns skill exist?

Should there be a "Lore" skill? Something akin to the player's knowledge of history (Pre or post) or Wasteland culture. I'm thinking back to the usage of Survival checks in Lonesome Road to recognize places like Denver and the like, but more as a dedicated branch so you could reasonably be an Arcade Gannon type. Although maybe that just comes under INT.
 
Atomic Postman said:
Should there be a "Lore" skill? Something akin to the player's knowledge of history (Pre or post) or Wasteland culture. I'm thinking back to the usage of Survival checks in Lonesome Road to recognize places like Denver and the like, but more as a dedicated branch so you could reasonably be an Arcade Gannon type. Although maybe that just comes under INT.
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Yeah, application of that skill would just be so unbelievably limited. Gating it behind INT and Survival when it's relevant is good enough.

Also of course this goes without saying, but Survival needs to have some kind of effect on the chances/types of Random Encounters.
 
With how Fallout 1 & 2 distributed its guns I never cared for how it handled their corresponding weapons skills.
Atomic Postman said:
As for Big Guns and Small Guns, I've come to the opinion myself that "Big Guns" like Miniguns and LMGs should be covered under one flat "Guns" skill, but have a strength requirement instead.
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Yeah strength should play a much larger factor over skills when it comes to carrying a weapon designed to be mounted on vehicles. I sure some number nerd could work out the mechanics as to how that would play out.

I've said it before but I've always thought your special stats should play a bigger deal. why lockpick a shack door when you could just boot the fucker off the hinges with a str check or just walk through the son of a bitch with a suit of power armor? I can see wanting to pick locks to stay quiet but what if I'm not in a quiet mood? take a crowbar to that locked tool box pronto.
 
Hardboiled Android said:
Yeah, application of that skill would just be so unbelievably limited. Gating it behind INT and Survival when it's relevant is good enough.

Also of course this goes without saying, but Survival needs to have some kind of effect on the chances/types of Random Encounters.
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I'm partially asking because I'm doing a rejig of my PnP system. Though in that currently there's the Prospecting Skill which is utility in that it's used for looting and salvaging, but also rolls in the character's knowledge of Old World history. Similarly Survival is both the Outdoorsman/Wildlife skill and also the character's knowledge of the Wasteland. I guess that's the fundamental problem with having a Lore/History skill, in that being knowledgeable in pre-war history and wasteland culture are entirely different fish.
 
Atomic Postman said:
I'm partially asking because I'm doing a rejig of my PnP system. Though in that currently there's the Prospecting Skill which is utility in that it's used for looting and salvaging, but also rolls in the character's knowledge of Old World history. Similarly Survival is both the Outdoorsman/Wildlife skill and also the character's knowledge of the Wasteland. I guess that's the fundamental problem with having a Lore/History skill, in that being knowledgeable in pre-war history and wasteland culture are entirely different fish.
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Yeah, I think that segregation is preferable to a dedicated skill. Plus, and maybe this is just me, but it feels like in an RPG (especially a tabletop one) that sort of stuff is one of the few places where player skill should be able to shine through over character skill - rewarding the player himself for asking questions, paying attention, and then making those connectios. Feels like one of the major ways for the player t oexpress agency.
 
Hardboiled Android said:
Yeah, I think that segregation is preferable to a dedicated skill. Plus, and maybe this is just me, but it feels like in an RPG (especially a tabletop one) that sort of stuff is one of the few places where player skill should be able to shine through over character skill - rewarding the player himself for asking questions, paying attention, and then making those connectios. Feels like one of the major ways for the player t oexpress agency.
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Yeah. I do wonder if Science could be split up into Computing and Science, or whether that's just needless segregation.

As for Big Guns being under "Guns" but gatekept by Strength - that also works well because it gives Power Armor the perfect utility if they had the old school style massive STR boost - a normal gunslinger usually unable to slug around a minigun would want to equip PA for the purpose of being able to handle high-ordanance weapons as an infantryman which is precisely what it was invented for in-universe.
 
Iprovidelittlepianos said:
I think Lockpick could be combined with the old Steal skill to create a “nimble fingers/sleight of hand” type skill. Also throw Gambling into that one. I always figured the gambling skill was just your character being good at cheating.
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But they each have nothing to do with each other. Steal and Lockpick could both benefit from a high dexterity score, but aside from that they are unrelated skills. Steal is social stealth, lock picking is mechanical understanding, and Gambling --well technically Gambling should have been the detection of cheating-- but it turned out to indicate skill at play/winning the games. Poker, slots, and roulette have nothing in common with lock manipulation or pick pocketing.

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@topic: Yes, Big guns have different considerations from from smaller ones.

Skill merging in general is a bad idea for role playing games. Varied skills are a big part of avoiding homogenous charaters. When skills are merged, especially disimilar ones, the character is building up two or more skills with one expenditure, and becoming an expert in each.

If unarmed & melee [weapons] were merged, then a fencer and a brawler of the same skill level would each other's match in both fencing and brawling.
 
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Perks should not overlap skills. Perks should be exceptions to the standard rules.

Perks are for further (free) differentiation of the character.

(As opposed to Traits, which come at a cost.)

The whole point of having different skills is so that the PC cannot equally excel at everything; they MUST have limitations.
 
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Gizmojunk said:
But they each have nothing to do with each other. Steal and Lockpick could both benefit from a high dexterity score, but aside from that they are unrelated skills. Steal is social stealth, lock picking is mechanical understanding, and Gambling --well technically Gambling should have been the detection of cheating-- but it turned out to indicate skill at play/winning the games. Poker, slots, and roulette have nothing in common with lock manipulation or pick pocketing.

___________

@topic: Yes, Big guns have different considerations from from smaller ones.

Skill merging in general is a bad idea for role playing games. Varied skills are a big part of avoiding homogenous charaters. When skills are merged, especially disimilar ones, the character is building up two or more skills with one expenditure, and becoming an expert in each.

If unarmed & melee [weapons] were merged, then a fencer and a brawler of the same skill level would each other's match in both fencing and brawling.
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I agree that generally merging Skills is a bad idea but I think it's more that Big Guns is a particularly warped and weirdly arbitrary category - I think the division of Unarmed/Explosives/Melee/Guns/Energy Weapons is more sensical, and having the usage of "Big Guns" like miniguns and LMGs gatekept by Strength but ultimately still under the tent of ballistic firearms as a Skill makes sense.
 
Atomic Postman said:
I agree that generally merging Skills is a bad idea but I think it's more that Big Guns is a particularly warped and weirdly arbitrary category - I think the division of Unarmed/Explosives/Melee/Guns/Energy Weapons is more sensical, and having the usage of "Big Guns" like miniguns and LMGs gatekept by Strength but ultimately still under the tent of ballistic firearms as a Skill makes sense.
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This means that every character with moderate experience with a pistol, has moderate experience with a minigun, and a flamer... and they wouldn't. It damages character backgrounds; allowing easy expertise with esoteric weaponry. The fact the there is a Small Guns is bad enough already, but to combine it, and have it cover rocket launchers too?
 
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so the alternative should be pistol/revolver/semi-auto/rifle/bolt-action rifle skill categories? where would shotguns go?
 
TheGM said:
so the alternative should be pistol/revolver/semi-auto/rifle/bolt-action rifle skill categories? where would shotguns go?
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Realistically yes, [but] in practice... Small Guns should be a catch-all for consumer pistols and rifles; shotgun being a rather common consumer weapon. Big Guns could (and generally does) mean military weapons that most people have never touched much less used, much less trained in.

D&D handles it rather well; they have common, martial and exotic weapon proficiencies. This means that some barmaids in the tavern might know how to use a three sectional staff, but not all barmaids in every tavern would be experts.
 
Gizmojunk said:
This means that every character with moderate experience with a pistol, has moderate experience with a minigun, and a flamer... and they wouldn't. It damages character backgrounds; allowing easy expertise with esoteric weaponry. The fact the there is a Small Guns is bad enough already, but to combine it, and have it cover rocket launchers too?
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I'd suggest personally putting the Flamer in either Energy Weapons or Explosives, and putting a Rocket Launcher under explosives too. The idea that someone who is adept at using an assault rifle is suddenly befuddled when passed an LMG is really silly to me.
 
But it does neither.

Energy weapons are not affected by gravity (in any practical sense), flamers are; affected by the wind too.

A combined skill would again make experts at using both chemical fuel weapons and electronic/refractive weaponry.

Demolition is in a class by itself.

* I think a solution is to have access to more than just level-up skill points for improving skills. For instance, a thankfull grenadier could train the PC in use of a grenade launcher; thus raising the skill by some bonus amount.

The original games had trainers. Some (but not all) skills could be improved by self study using books and manuals. The Fallout gameworld is filled with computer terminals; in Fallout1, Vree suggests skill training using them. Why not find a training course on terminal in a military base, or bombed out technical school?
 
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Gizmojunk said:
This means that every character with moderate experience with a pistol, has moderate experience with a minigun, and a flamer... and they wouldn't. It damages character backgrounds; allowing easy expertise with esoteric weaponry. The fact the there is a Small Guns is bad enough already, but to combine it, and have it cover rocket launchers too?
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It's just combat skill dude. Who cares?????
 
Not you, that is clear. ;)

But RPGs are about character limitations. When you build a character who trained in one skill and not another, that defines a limitation. It's a poor system that takes away from a character's limitations; doubling or tripling up skills like this means that everyone who might have known one of those skills is now equally skilled in all of them.

With a catch-all gun skill, this means that an NPC (or PC) with no military background could drop their pipe-rifle, and pick up a flamer or rocket launcher off of a corpse mid-fight, and use it with their full proficiency; it's absurd.
 
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Gizmojunk said:
Not you, that is clear. ;)

But RPGs are about character limitations. When you build a character who trained in one skill and not another, that defines a limitation. It's a poor system that takes away from a character's limitations; doubling or tripling up skills like this means that everyone who might have known one of those skills is now equally skilled in all of them.

With a catch-all gun skill, this means that an NPC (or PC) with no military background could drop their pipe-rifle, and pick up a flamer or rocket launcher off of a corpse mid-fight, and use it with their full proficiency; it's absurd.
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Nobody is arguing for a weapon skill that broad, though. It's reasonable that someone with knowledge in how to operate an assault rifle would also know how to operate a Bozar.
 
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