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--- compounding_skill_effects [2019/08/31 17:29] – dungeonmaster
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-[[start|Dice Mob Home]] > [[dice_mob_rules|Dice Mob Rules]] > [[skills_in_general|Skills in General]] > [[standards_for_skills|Standards for Skills]]
-====== Compounding Skill Effects ======
-Sometimes there's more than one way to skin a cat. To make a result more powerful might not always mean increasing a skill degree. Skill degrees can get pretty pricey at high degrees, so often it might be better to choose and advance a different skill that also gets the job done. For example, a fighter might choose to increase his brute strength rather than increase his swordfighting skill because both effect the damage he can do with his sword.
-===== Skills affecting other Skills =====
-No skill is an island. Having a skill with one thing could affect other skills a character also has. Or maybe even skills they don’t have. A fitness skill would affect a foot speed skill, especially at longer distances. Proficiency with a staff could provide implied proficiency with improvised weapons like branches. Skills with plants and herbs can affect a first aid skill. A skill in weaponsmithing could allow the character to be at least degree one proficient with any weapon he would have smithed often. A skill with woodcarving could allow a character to carve a crude bow or arrows in a pinch, even if they aren’t really a bowyer or fletcher by trade.
-But a word of warning. Just because a GM could make a complex system of skills interacting with other skills doesn’t mean they should. Most of this should be decided on the fly, especially as it usually just allows another two dice per degree of the skill or otherwise increases the duration, area of effect, or distance of the skill being augmented. A complex system of skills can make for a tedious character creation process and defeats the purpose of making this system easy for anyone to pick up and use. Keep it simple. But have fun too.
-===== Pooling Powers =====
-Akin to skills affecting other skills in a single character, they can also affect each other in a party.
-We’ve probably seen in books, movies, and television shows where magicians pool their powers to make much stronger attacks. In real life, people with the same skills can work faster and better through cooperation. In most RPGs, they don’t even try to handle something like this. In Dice Mob, this is super easy. Both characters must have prowess in the same skill, e.g. fire magic, but then they just add their extra dice together, two dice to try plus one die per degree of prowess for all of the characters involved. The levels, where appropriate, are also added together to determine range, area of effect, etc.
-When determining which form of a skill can be used, it would be the highest degree of one of the involved characters, not a sum of the degrees.
-Example: A trio of magicians want to burn down an orc encampment with a firestorm. Even pooling their powers, at least one fourth degree magician would be required, assuming that the storm version of fire magic required at least a fourth degree magician to cast. (We’ll talk more about elemental magic and how the various degrees work later.)
-So why would characters want to pool skills? Because two second degree fire magicians could roll eight attack dice (“two for trying”, “two for proficiency”, two for one magician’s skill degree, two for the second magician’s skill degree) against a single opponent instead of six dice and six dice. If the opponents are weak, rolling only three dice of defense, it would be better for each character to attack separately, i.e. divide and conquer. But if an opponent is particularly powerful, for example an eight defense against all attacks, eight dice attacking the opponent have a much better chance of causing at least some damage than the two characters acting individually. Also the additional range could mean the difference between hitting an enemy and having the spell fizzle out early.
-With defenses, this would work the same way. But the players would again have to decide whether it’s worth it for two characters to throw up two defenses (each with their own two “try” dice and “proficiency” dice) or to pool their powers to throw up a single pooled defense.
-And some pooling of powers just doesn’t make sense. Mental powers, for instance, can’t usually enhance one another, nor does it make sense for someone to lend a hand in dodging an attack.