Skill overuse

[Southron]

I have a character that has recently upped his song skill as I realized that in ME it a fairly versatile and useful skill and I simply like it. I was at first concerned that I might drift into over using the skill, but then I thought I use my bow skill 99% of the time in combat situations, so it just the way a character specializes. Also, one will not succeed all the time either.


Has anyone else felt that a PC was overusing a skill in their games?

[zedturtle]

I'm about done with Trader's Savvy, myself.

The good news about the AP rules (if you play them as written)... the AP collection system discourages "spamming" a skill, you're better off using several different skills in each category, because getting that first point in three categories is easier than getting one category up to three points.

Song is powerful, and that's very true to the source material. I'm quite okay with it, 99% of the time.

[Rocmistro]

I have a character that has recently upped his song skill as I realized that in ME it a fairly versatile and useful skill and I simply like it. I was at first concerned that I might drift into over using the skill, but then I thought I use my bow skill 99% of the time in combat situations, so it just the way a character specializes. Also, one will not succeed all the time either.

Has anyone else felt that a PC was overusing a skill in their games?

SL, when I Loremastered my face to face group, I constantly felt like Athletics was a dominant skill. (But that was me as a Loremaster, not me as a Player)

I think it's natural to play to your strengths though. If I have a character with high awe and low courtesy, I'm going to look for ways (or try to even manipulate the scene) to use the social skill that I'm good at. Since you play with me in two of my campaigns, you must have noticed that Nemo (my Beorning) will almost always go for Aweing his audience, while Rignuth, my Barding, will always opt for Courtesy.

The precedent set in the published materials is that there are always a couple ways to skin a cat. A certain event might call for Athletics or Stealth. The player who has Athletics 1 and Stealth 3 is always going to look to use Stealth. Why shouldn't he? Who wants to fail? Unless the Loremaster specifically directs a skill, players are generally going to default to whatever gives the best chance of success, even if that means taking a moment to solicit the Loremaster's approval on a skill and possibly even conduct a small argument on it's behalf!

As Zed says, this is where playing Advancement Points by the RAW comes into play, because playing it by the RAW improves a player's long term growth by allowing more Advancement Points to be awarded. This requires some astute and attentive Loremastering, however, and that is where we sometimes (as LM's fail). Because the minute a player attempts to use a 1 Rank skill when they could have done it with a 3 Rank skill and they get no tangible reward or you (as LM) quibble with them about an AP, you can bet that they will be using that 3 Rank skill from now on!

On a different note, it's also worth mentioning that I've seen Awareness seems to get a lot of play, and I think Loremasters in general are using this skill wrong. I believe that the overuse of it is mostly a holdover from D&D carryover of "Spot/Listen" and "Search". Awareness should be for reactive/passive type tests; when you're really not paying attention, when you're pre-occupied with something else, to represent your ability to notice something after several long hours on the march for example. Search should involve you actively trying to see/hear something, near or far, after you have cause to do so. I think the D&D paradigms that kind of wiggled into TOR are that Awareness is for "far off" stuff, and Search is for things up close and personal like secret doors or the hidden writing on a dagger, and I think that is wrong. Any time a player says something like "Can I see the..." or "I listen carefully for..." then that should prompt a search check, not an awareness test, IMHO.

[Elmoth]

We use Athletics, Awe, Etiquette and Lore a lot. Travel of course, but this generally only for the travel rolls since they do not poffer any alternative here. And of course the combat skills. The skill system could be simplified a lot, but it is fairly OK as written. Some abilities will be used since players play to their strengths, but so do I inmy real life: I will not try to use my weight lifting or brawl skills skills much, while I will try to engage in spoken debates if I have a challenge in front of me

Cheers,
Xavi

[Yusei]

The only skill that's not being used much in my game is Riddle, but that's probably my fault, as a Loremaster. I really need to find new types of adventures that require it, especially now that I have a "detective" character in the group.

[Woodclaw]

Yes, I've often had the impression that skill abuse is one of the easiest pitfalls of TOR. Although the game doesn't push you to make a roll every two meters (opposed to some other systems [cough]MERP[/cough]) the simple fact of quickly gaining APs pushes some players to ask for rolls that are neither significant nor needed.
Recently one of my players event went so far as to spend a Hope point to bring his result over 16 to gain an AP ...

[aramis]

My kids both highlight Athletics, and EVERYONE loves Travel.

Starting character level... One Barding, one beorning, 3 elves, one shire hobbit, one woodman of the valley.
In my group, two have healing 3, one has lore 3 and several have lore 2, 2 have hunting 2+, everyone has awareness 1+. 5 of my 7 have played before.

None added extra weapon skills - none wanted the extra weapon! Two added a 3rd rank to a their primary weapon. (One archer, one melee type.)

They all love using lore and awareness.

[Robin Smallburrow]

A solution I use (and I think it's also in some of the published adventures) to the issue of 'using the wrong skill' is to allow it BUT at a higher difficulty; eg Search is at TN 14 but Awareness at TN 16, Riddle is at TN 14 whilst Lore is TN 16, an so on.

Riddle is the default skill I use for when the PC's are trying to 'find out' stuff so I use it a lot, and as mentioned earlier Search should be the default skill for trying to find something whereas Awareness is when a character notices something whilst doing something else.

Robin S.