The Riddle of Steel Skills

The TROS Companion

The article on Skills and Attribute Checks (p. 29) in the TROS Companion made me think that while the rules are clearer than in the main rulebook, they're still not what I'm after. I'd like skills to work like proficiencies. Keeping skills as close to the system's regular dice pool mechanics game as possible. So here's from the top of my head, I'll try to clean this up as time allows following play-testing.

Skill Pools

Instead of your skill level determining your TN, it works just like Proficiencies and is added to an appropriate Temporal, Mental, or Derived Attribute to create a Skill Pool.

Skill Level	Dice
Untrained	0
Beginner	1
Novice	2
Apprentice	3
Competent	4
Journeyman	5
Master	6
First Rank Grandmaster	7
Second Rank Grandmaster	8
Further Grandmaster Ranks	+1 per Rank

Skill Check Target Numbers

Unless otherwise specified roll versus the default TN of 6, as with Attribute Checks in the TROS Companion.

Skills Checks vs Attributes

A cool thing about Skill Pools is that you can now use one of your opponent's attributes as the TN. That is, if you're sneaking past a guard with a Perception rating of 7 you'll face a much higher challenge than you would sneaking past a half-deaf old man with Perception 2. Since the average attribute is rated at 4, you may want to add 2 dice to the TN, but for my own game the unmodified attribute works fine. See the Simple Checks below for another view on static challenges.

This could go both ways. Say I'm sneaking past a guard, with my AG of 5 and Competent Sneak skill, I have a Sneak Pool of 9 dice. My opponent has Per 4 and has an Apprentice level Search skill, therefore Search Pool is 7 dice. I would roll 9 dice vs TN4 (the guard's Per), while the guard would roll 7 dice vs TN5 (my AG). This actually makes the attributes count twice though, and is not really something I like...

Simple Checks

I'm no fan of the Simple Checks as outlined in the TROS Companion, but by using the Evening the Odds rules (sidebar p. 32) it becomes usable in a jam to simulate static difficulties, or even contested difficulties. The static difficulties would be Easy (2), Average (4), Tricky (6), Difficult (8), Hard (10), and Impossible (12).

Actually, for more fun, combine this with Skills Checks vs Attributes from above. That is, roll the opponent's Attribute in dice vs a static TN of 6 and compare the two rolls as normal. You might want to allow two attributes, or double the rating of one attribute, in order to make it competitive.

Contested Checks

This is the way I enjoy playing TROS the most. In order to best achieve this in TROS a few additional skills are in order, such as Notice, Awareness, Spot, Listen, 6th Sense, or whatever you'd like to call them, but basically your skill at noticing different things. This is because such skills are normally opposing skills such as Sneak, Picking Pockets, Camouflage, etc. I'd suggest just using the Search skill already included in the TROS Companion (p. 38).

Skill Pool Reductions

I really like how easy it is to apply Pain penalties to Skill Pools, showing your lack of concentration as you try to keep your guts from falling to the ground. In short, apply combat penalties for Pain and reduced HT following severe Blood Loss to Skill Pools (Shock also applies of course, but it is very rare that you suffer Shock and in the next instant tries a Skill Check).

Skill Check Resolution

My views on resolving skill checks vary wildly from TROS as printed, even including the TROS Companion updates. Please see my article on Conflict Resolution for how I intend to run the game.

Improving Skill Levels

Stick with the 2 SA points per skill level, as in the TROS Companion, until you reach Grandmaster Skill Levels, at which time it's 3 SA point per level +1 per Grandmaster Rank.

Alternative: You could use the rules for improving Proficiencies, for improving Skills, but this will probably make improving skills too costly, unless you play with a much reduced Skill list — or perhaps using Skill Packets only as in the Quick Start Rules.