Skill Changes

[DonM]

I'm throwing these out for discussion, not for errata. For me, they close certain "holes" I see in logic with the MT skill structures. I've used this for a while, but thought I'd post them for public comment.

First, I add two Cascades:

Groundcraft (Cascade: Grav Vehicle, Tracked Vehicle, Wheeled Vehicle): The individual is skilled in the operation, use, repair, and maintenance of a specific type of ground craft commonly available in society.
The selected skill is used in tasks involving operation of the ground craft. Mishaps may involve instrument failure, engine failure, rough terrain, collisions, and so on.
Watercraft (Cascade: Grav Vehicle, Hovercraft, Large Watercraft, Small Watercraft): The individual is skilled in the operation, use, repair, and maintenance of a specific type of watercraft commonly available in society.
The selected skill is used in tasks involving operation of the watercraft. Mishaps may involve instrument failure, engine failure, rough water, collisions, and so on.

Then I make the following changes to the Cascades below:
Academic (Cascade: Admin, History, Instruction, Linguistics, Persuasion, Science, +1 Education): The individual has undertaken a specific area of academic study in one of the arts or sciences.
Aircraft (Cascade: Grav Vehicle, Helicopter, Jet-propelled Aircraft, Lighter-than-air Craft, Propeller-driven Aircraft): The individual is skilled in the operation, use, repair, and maintenance of a specific type of aircraft commonly available in society.
The selected skill is used in tasks involving operation of the aircraft. Mishaps may involve instrument failure, engine failure, rough or crash landings, midair collisions, and so on.
Exploratory (Cascade: Pilot, Prospecting, Sensor Ops, Survey, Survival, Vacc Suit, Vehicle): The individual has training and experience in planetary survey and exploration.
Inborn (Cascade: Artisan, Carousing, Instruction, Jack-of-all-trades, Leader, Persuasion): The individual has innate abilities and has developed one of them through experience.
Interpersonal (Cascade: Admin, Bribery, Carousing, Interrogation, Interview, Liaison, Linguistics, Persuasion, Recruiting, Steward): The individual has experience dealing with others in various settings.
Special Combat (Cascade: Battle Dress, Combat Engineering, Combat Rifleman, Demolitions, FA Gunnery, Forward Observer, Grav Belt, Heavy Weapons, High-G Environ, Recon, Stealth, Tactics, Zero-G Environ): The individual has training in combat activities.
Technical (Cascade: Communications, Computer, Electronics, Gravitics, Mechanical, Robot Ops, Sensor Ops): The individual has training and experience in technical aspects of modern society.
Vehicle (Cascade: Aircraft, Grav Vehicle, Groundcraft, Ship’s Boat, Watercraft): The individual is skilled in the operation, use, and maintenance of a specific type of vehicle which is commonly available in society.
Having skill in one of the categories of vehicle allows the character to operate that specific vehicle in a safe and efficient manner.
Vehicle skill is used by characters for operation and as a DM against accident; it may also be used to assist in repairing and maintaining a vehicle. Mishaps may involve throwing a tread, broken axles, collisions, and so on.

Yes, this does make every skill a member of a cascade somewhere.

 

[sfchbryan]

Yes, this does make every skill a member of a cascade somewhere.

You say that like it's a bad thing. It allows the player to really customise their character. One could go with just a few skills at a high (3+) level, or collect more skills at a lower level.

 

[aramis]

I add drop operations to Special Combat. I honestly don't think tactics belongs there...

And I thought prospecting was eratta'd into exploratory already..

No major complaints. If possible, I am thinking the SRD may make the engine able to be redone into an "openMega" (note the lack of the Traveller name)...

 

[DonM]

Prospecting may be errataed into Exploratory; I keep my variants files far, far away from my errata files. That tells me it's time to run the comparison again.

I never quite felt right on that article with "Drop Operations". The skill feels wrong. If the concept had been done for some other version as well, I'd probably embrace it more. I always feel odd adding a new skill to MT.

And as to making sure every skill was in at least one cascade -- it sure helps characters build to concepts.

 

[DonM]

And I added Tactics to Special Combat a long time ago for some reason; I need to dig through my notes, but it may have been that it was replaced by Special Combat on a CT career, and I cleaned up the lack of Tactics for that career by adding it.

Nope -- found it: Tactics isn't in a cascade, so that's where I put it.

 

[sfchbryan]

Prospecting may be errataed into Exploratory; I keep my variants files far, far away from my errata files. That tells me it's time to run the comparison again.

I never quite felt right on that article with "Drop Operations". The skill feels wrong. If the concept had been done for some other version as well, I'd probably embrace it more. I always feel odd adding a new skill to MT.

And as to making sure every skill was in at least one cascade -- it sure helps characters build to concepts.

I don't think there is anything wrong with adding skills. If the folks doing MT were not interested in something, they didn't go into a lot of detail on it. Their adventure's emphasis was on role-playing, which is a very good thing.

On the other hand, they never got into shoot-em-ups.

Good thing too, because it is real, real easy to die in Traveller.

My favorite adventures had very little, if any violence.

Well, except for the time when my group blew up the Haunting Thunder after salvaging the AHL cruiser out of a Querion gas giant and nearly starting the 6th Frontier War in the process. It's a pity that not only did the pirates trying to seize it died, but also our hired security mercenaries; and those Arden Government reps on board - who had just purchased it from us (We ran a no-questions asked salvage company). We had to go into low berths for a VERY long time to let the heat die down from that one. Other than that, nice and quiet...

 

[aramis]

And I added Tactics to Special Combat a long time ago for some reason; I need to dig through my notes, but it may have been that it was replaced by Special Combat on a CT career, and I cleaned up the lack of Tactics for that career by adding it.

Nope -- found it: Tactics isn't in a cascade, so that's where I put it.

I like having Drop Ops. I think it fits quite well with both the rest of the article and with the striker drop capsules and launchers.

The addenda elements are simple:
Add it to special combat, and Marines all get it at level 0

I'd add it to space combat as well.

 

[DonM]

I don't see adding it to Space Combat -- DropOps has no place with Ship Tactics and Fleet Tactics; it's for jump troops, right?

 

[kaladorn]

I like some skills

I'm a fan of some skills I found missing. One of the JTAS had the Imperial Science Institute (or something like that) that had a breakdown of sciences into things like geogeny, geology, archaeology, etc. etc. and I thought the academic/science cascades should have these sorts of skills.

Also (we've talked about this before): Free Traders can't score Sensor Ops so I like to see it in ways that let that happen.

Tactics should be in Spl Combat. I think Spl Combat is given to folks like commandos.

Marines getting Vacc Suit? I may not like GT as a system, but Doug Berry's descriptions of Marine Basic are gripping and make me think every Marine should have Battle Dress skill. I mean, you get a few Vacc suit levels then get battle dress? This is one of the big flaws in MT skills - getting overlapping skills and no conversion procedure defined. Esp when you get skills that say 'serves as' and they invalidate another skill level you've got whose only role now is to tie up one of your precious INT + EDU skill slots.

From Paranoia Press and other places, I liked:
* Security (or Security Systems) (used by the Purser or by Cops to help spot holes in security, people looking for holes in the security, etc)
* Life Support Systems (Engineering becomes a big cascade in my world to cover drives, power plants, life support, and so on)
* Concealment (mostly got by Rogues in prison)
* Martial Arts (hard and soft cascades) mostly distinct from Brawling so as to keep Brawling pugilism and to reflect a different sort of feel (I've got some rules for dirty fighting and such as a brawler, and martial arts soft form guys can do control locks where hard form are bone breakers)
* Poison (for assassins and so on)
* Cargo Handling (a critical skill for military logistics folks and civilian shippers - how to secure cargo on any type of conveyance, how to know what cargos react which ways in zero G or under accel, how to read and understand all cargo packaging standards, etc) (also justifies someone on your merchant ship with the title 'Supercargo' or 'Cargomaster')
* Religion (used for priests... lord knows this is an underutilized idea in Traveller - someone did do a good job for it in Dragon way back when)
* Sport (so you can play the grav ball athlete or nullboxer... - again from a Dragon years back)

 

[McPerth]

Having found this old thread just two comments:

Prospecting may be errataed into Exploratory; I keep my variants files far, far away from my errata files. That tells me it's time to run the comparison again.

IIRC I myslef suggested that in the Consolidated Errata thread, as Prospecting may not be obtained in MT as it is unless you go to prospecting career, and Exploratory seems a good enough cascade to add it.

And I added Tactics to Special Combat a long time ago for some reason; I need to dig through my notes, but it may have been that it was replaced by Special Combat on a CT career, and I cleaned up the lack of Tactics for that career by adding it.

Nope -- found it: Tactics isn't in a cascade, so that's where I put it.

Also talked about that in the Consolidated Errata thread, again IIRC, but in most MT Alien SUplements (V&V, S&A) Tactics is in the cascade skill Inborn. maybe it could be used also in PH skill tables...

 

[kaladorn]

My long-ago post was good, but I missed some stuff that was missed in the game:

What skills apply to operating Bay or Barbette weapons? Turrets are one thing, what about Bays and Barbettes?

What skill covers CPR cannons - autocannons, larger rapid fire CPR cannons, and high velocity cannons?

What skill covers vehicle mounted missile systems?

I also forgot another place a Concealment Skill makes sense - spies/agents as well as police (drug squads, undercovers, etc).

What skill covers submersibles?

What about paddled or peddled water craft or wind propelled personal water craft? What skill covers those?

Cargo Handling in a military context could be named Logistics - doing pallet loadouts, securing loads in non-space vehicles, and knowing how to run a supply system. That could be useful even for civilian folks running logistics networks for business and to get food to market.

There ought to be a conversion process for similar skills (I'm a Marine, I get Battle Dress 1 from training, then generate Vacc Suit... I should be able to take those levels as Battle Dress).

Medical should probably be some kind of cascade too: Paramedic/First Aid/Trauma Aid, Surgery, Pathology/Oncology, Virology, Xenomedicine, Geriatrics, etc. That matters more if you want ship's medics not to be able to do the really complex doctoring or if you want to differentiate medical staff one from another - I doubt my GP could do surgery worth much and I doubt my endocrinologist would even try. Other medical variations could include: Cybernetics Integration, Pediatrics, Psychology/Psychiatry, and the list could go on.

Where do vehicle mounted fusion and plasma guns get accounted?

Where do systems like tasers, tanglers, pepper sprays, stun sticks, etc live? Some sort of less-lethal weapons skill? We had less-lethal weapons long before neurals came along. Dazzlers (using strobed light to trigger seizures/dizziness) could go there too.

And why do we not see things like vibroblades or crystal knives? The Tech 15-16 Imperial Noble seems to still carry a tech 5-7 foil. There ought to be a bunch more mid-tech close combat weapons.

While I'm carping: Missing off of mid-tech tables: Ballistic scale mail, Incendiary Shotgun Ammo, Flechette Weapons, various police body shields (from riot to ones that might stop a .50 BMG) and similar sorts of things.

And Battledress ought to have: a) Civilian rescue version (fire/rescue), b) Consstruction version (no armour, just exo but with extra tools/load carrying and tool integration), c) a version for Starship Damage Control parties (light hard shell, sensors oriented around damage control, tool add ons like jaws of life, rams, spreaders, and integration to portable tool modules the high strength makes it possible for them to carry - power cable bypass reels, data cable bypass reels, additional fire fighting tools, additional emergency life support modules, etc. And there ought to be plasma torches and other sorts of cutters to clear debris. And light, as they may end up in darkened sections. And life support for some hours. Which leads into a Powered Suit skill for civilian fire and rescue, civilian damage control parties on large commercial vehicles and at ports, and so on. (And that makes me think we ought to have a Starport career stream too!)

That's my thoughts today.