[BNW] [Matt] Continuum and Transferring Skill Points

[MForbeck@aol.com]

>>From: talespinner@mindspring.com

Subject: Re: [BNW]  [Matt] Pulling Punches


Perhaps you could just rule for each success on the to-hit roll, you can

subtract one die of your choice from damage, i.e. roll the dice and then

take away the die that you want for each success.  This would represent the

precision needed to graze a target.   Feel free to write this up as a trick,

as I have a deadline for the Continuum time travel RPG (Matt, are you

reading your copy of Continuum?  I read your book!)  :)<<

I'm working on it Caias. Slowly but surely. It's on my nightstand, and I'm 
about a quarter of the way through it. So far, not bad. ; ) But I'm a sucker 
for time travel stuff. 

And from Steve Crow: 

>>The rules talk about splitting your skill points on page...81 or so.  You 

can use 2 Spirit points to buy 1 level of Strength (or Speed, or Smarts) 

Skill.


It isn't clear that this is talking about initial character creation _only_, 

and it's not in that section.  But assuming it is so...


Why would you?


The rules put _no_ limit on where you can spend Skill Points, or the 

purchase of positive and negative quirks.


So...a character with 9 Strength Skill Points could buy 5 points of Strength 

Skills, and then use the remaining points to buy 4 points of Positive 

Quirks.


This character could also then take 4 points of Negative Quirks and put the 

resulting skill points into _another_ attribute.


In this manner, you can "transfer" up to 10 points (the cap on Negative 

Quirks) from one Attribute's skill points to another.



There seems to be an unstated restriction that you can only buy Positive 

Quirks with points from Negative Quirks.  However, this is NEVER stated in 

the rules.<<

Actually, if you do things in the order they're stated in the book, this 
happens naturally. It's only if you start backtracking that you run into 
those kinds of problems. There's a reason they're in the order they're listed 
in the book. For the record, you can only buy positive quirks with points 
from negative quirks. 


>>Previous games such as Deadlands and Hell on Earth seem to vary on this.  
It 

doesn't seem to have hurt HoE that you can spend your skill points where 

ever you wish.


It is also simpler simply to spend the points wherever you wish, rather than 

have a subsystem that limits where you can spend them (i.e., Strx3 in 

Strength skills, Speedx3 in Speed skills, etc.).  Simplicity isn't 

necessarily always better, but it often is.


Yes, that might lead to a congregation of skills in one attribute, but:


A) Hell on Earth demonstrates this is not necessarily a problem


B) Such "congregating" tends to be its own punishment.  If a character 

really "transfers" all 10 of his Spirit points over to Speed, he's going to 

suffer in the Spirit and Spirit-based skill department.


With that in mind, one of two things seem necessary:


1)  A clear ruling stating that Positive Quirks can only be bought with the 

points from Negative Quirks


2) Lifting of the cap<<

Let's go with #1! I thought it was clear already, but apparently not.

Thanks for playing!

Matt Forbeck
AEG