[BNW] Splitting Skill Points - Why?

["Steve Crow" <crow_steve@hotmail.com>]

Page 86 of the BNW talks about swapping skill points, as in taking 2 points 
of Spirit based skills and cashing them in for 1 point of Strength based 
skills.

First of all...presumably this deals with _starting_ characters only, during 
character creation.  Presumably you can _not_ trade in points any time 
during the game (i.e., buy two Spirit skills at level 1 for 1 exp each, then 
cash them into raise your Shooting from 5 to 6).

Although why this Swapping is in the Skill section instead of the "Creating 
a Character" chapter is not clear.

Anyhoo, it's not made incredibly clear that swapping skill points is during 
character creation only (it's wedged in-between recommended skills and 
Targeting modifiers).

But assuming it is..._why_ would you "convert" skill points in this 
uneffective method?  There's a much easier way to do so.

Let's say your Gunner character starts with 3d6 Strength and 5d6 Speed. 
Rather than take a "sports" skill, or overby his Running and Swimming, he 
spends 5 of his 9 (Strength 3d6 x 3 = 9) Skill Points on Strength skills, 
and he uses the remaining 4 points to buy Positive Quirks (PQs).

Then...he takes four points worth of Negative Quirks (NQs) and puts the 4 
Skill Points into his Speed skills.

So you get a 1-for-1 tradeoff, which seems a lot better than the 1-for-2 
mentioned on page 86.

The rules say you can use NQs to pay for PQs _and_ Skill Points.  There also 
seems to be no limit on where you get the Skill Points to pay for Positive 
Quirks.

Granted, you can only "convert" 10 SPs in this manner (the limit on NQs you 
can take).  But that would seem to be more than enough for any starting 
character.

Although right off hand, it doesn't look like the archetypes have any more 
points in a particular Skill/Attribute than the Skillx3 (after including the 
"freebies"), there is no limit on doing so, is there (i.e., I can have a 
speed of 5D6 and 18 points in Speed skills)?


Does this all make sense...?  We just couldn't figure out why you would have 
to convert points, when you can simply selectively buy and gain Quirk 
points.

---

Steve Crow

"Worm Can Opener Extraordinare"

Check out my website at:  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/4991/

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