So I've been having a discussion with a few other local players of shadowrun and the topic came up about custom skill groups. Skills that arent normally bought together but with a good argument could be clustered. Basically the idea was that skills that could fit together with a certain flavor wouldnt be that game breaking. I mean whats the difference between these groups and the normal groups you can buy? An example was the Ranger skill group which we guessed would be Bows, Blades, Infiltration (or tracking depending on the player), and Survival. Another argument for it was that some skills werent in groups when they obviously could be. So what are your opinions? If a player came to you with their own skill group, that made sense, would you allow it?

((Also ignore any obvious typos. Doing this on a cell with no spell check and a migraine that's the equivalent to sandy lube))

Shadowrunner skill group: (insert every single skill you want here)

Skill groups tend to be stuff that are similar to each other, and I don't have any problems with the canon break down, so I dunno why I would want to make things more complex by introducing custom skill groups. I also don't see how training with a bow is going to make it easier for you to learn how to use a sword, or how being a swordsman makes you better at sneaking around. If you want a bunch of skills that make sense for your character concept, just buy them the normal way.

If you really want custom skill groups though, I don't think it'll be gamebreaking.

How would it make things complex though? Its simply a changing of words, the costs dont change, just the stuff bought. And with that argument how does training with hardware make it easier to use software? They are completely different and I know from personal experience one does not make the other easier. Same could be said for assault rifles and shot guns, unarmed and blade, and infiltration and disguise. None of those skills help the other but their related in what their used for. A specific job. So someone who bought the stealth group would be someone who has been trained to be stealthy while someone who bought the ranger group would be someone trained for the outdoors. Actually replace blade with navigation and I think that would be better.

Your Ranger example is poor and deviates from the point of the skill groups. The groups are 3 to 4 skills than function similar to each other, not skills that are commonly used with each other.

As for some of the current RAW skill groups not fitting - Infiltration & Disguise are fairly different & I can see your arguement there, but are still similar. The same can go for Software & Hardware - they are quite different, but from personal experience, knowing software does help to a degree with working on hardware. As for Unarmed & Blades - trust me, they are very similar. Several martial arts use nearly identical techniques for each.

That being said, I am considering removing skill groups entirely in the game I will be starting soon. Reason being some groups are clearly superior (mathematically) than others, having 4 skills instead of 3. I have tried, & can find no reasonable way to make all groups consist of 3 skills, or all groups consist of 4 skills.

You're right, some of the canon skill groups don't make much sense either except on a superficial level. But enough of them make sense that it isn't really a big deal. Why is allowing custom skill groups more complex? Because then they have to be justified and vetted by the GM, and you'll have to make sure the option isn't abused. Might as well just go with the RAW for less work. It would be totally different if custom skill groups added more flavor or something to the game, which I don't think they do. You can create the characters with the exact same skills, and allowing them to buy their skills wholesale just gives them a few more build points to play around with. As a GM, you could just flat out give everyone 420 build points or whatever instead of 400 and call it a day.

But hey, if you think putting the word "Ranger" above your Archery, Blades, and Infiltration skills on your character sheet makes the game more interesting, there's no reason not to go for it. Skills are already overpriced as is, so it's really no big deal.

Actually I thought about it and I think one benefit of custom skill groups is that it allows the players to take some of the less useful skills like Survival or whatever without gimping themselves. So yeah, there's that too.

While I agree with the rest of your post, this jumped out at me. All the skill groups with four skills have one skill that's just not used much. How often do swimming, Software, Leadership, and Industrial Mechanic come up? I'll give you the Stealth group being good, but they're more closely related than the other groups. Hardware and Software are pretty distant from Data Search. Medicine and Ritual Spellcasting are more like prerequisites for Cybertechnology and Spellcasting, respectively, so how does the discount run both ways? Climbing, Running, and Swimming are all highly distinct efforts, and being good at one doesn't make you much better at the others, not even in terms of general physical condition (which is better covered by a high Strength than cheaper skill points).

Personally, the only skill groups I would miss are Electronics and Cracking, because they each hold three skills that don't stand alone at all. The discount is actually important here, since if Hackers had to buy up six skills independently, they'd be gimped out of doing anything else. (Except maybe Electronic Warfare, I can see many characters with that skill that aren't even part-time hackers).

Most skill group usually make sense, they offer a discount for taking skills that in general people would learn together(which makes sense, if you know how to shot one type of guns for example, others are easier to learn), and they allow characters to take some skills they wouldn't normally be able to fit into their builds. For example Influence has con, negotiate, and etiquette. While most characters will only need one maybe two of those, social characters need all of them, and since they are similar, they should be a little easier to learn. The group also has leadership, which is a skill few people will actually spend karma on, but makes sense for a face to have. Athletics is also similar. Climbing, sprinting, and swimming are all a little narrow to take on their own, get getting all three plus gymnastics(a very useful skill) in one group allows you to play a very athletic character without wasting a tone of karma.

Skill groups are not all good though, keep in mind that you generally cannot break up groups during creation, and since they are quite expensive with karma, you won't see many people raising them during play, and if you get any specializations(which you can't get during creation with groups) you can never again raise the skills as a group without losing your specializations.

As for making new groups, I can see that maybe some groups might make sense, but keep in mind that groups should be brought together based on how similar they are, not if they are used by certain professions.(as a computer programming, I can say that if you know how to use computers and software well, you understand hardware better and visa-versa) Like mentioned above, the ranger group doesn't make much sense because being good with a bow doesn't make you better at pitching a tent.

IMHO, the only purpose of custom skill groups would be to twink out. At least, that's what I would use them for... It might be very easy to make a group that's absolutely twinky, but still has a perfectly plausible realism-based argument supporting it. That's why realistic supporting arguments should never be a basis for adding stuff to the game. Realism poops on game balance, which is, I think, a lot more important for a satisfying game. The groups that exist are in there because they're not broken. I can't really see new groups coming in that wouldn't deviate from that model.

yeah, my favorite is when you get people wanting a vehicle skill group... i mean, as if it isn't already ridiculous enough that one skill lets you pilot blimps, helicopters, fighter jets, T-birds, passenger jets, hang gliders, and toy remote control airplanes... apparently they need to be grouped together with pilot groundcraft, watercraft, and anthroform (or perhaps gunnery )

honestly, just take what you can get... i suspect that most of the skill groups only exist because in earlier editions they were a single skill which was so important you couldn't afford to not take them for the most part (for those of you who are new to SR, sorcery used to be a skill, not a skill group, biotech was the medical skill group, computer skill covered most of the cracking and electronics skill groups (minus electronics b/r, which would be hardware in the current edition) stealth was a skill instead of a skill group, and also included perception i think? (or was that just straight intelligence or whatever? back when it was 1 stat instead of 2).

if those skills hadn't previously existed, i rather suspect we wouldn't even have skillgroups in SR4 =P

(mind you, some skills also got less spread out in SR4, such as weapon skills and the aforementioned vehicle skills)

but yeah, i might consider some skill groups, but overall no. most likely the only ones i could see doing would be something like knowledge skill groups, or perhaps language skill groups, or if you made up a bunch of new skills for a specific campaign.

Echo that. For reasons beyond my understanding ( ), the counter-proposal of making Ground Vehicles skill into a skillgroup is always rejected...

While I do see, that trainign your skills at melee can help you with dodge, perception, infiltration, athletic skills and even social ones, I do not see all of those aspects ending up in a skill group. Furthermore I do not see skillgroups as artifical character-classes. Some of the groups may be a little far stretched, but they still cover a field not a profession. Where a cop will need to have skills with firearms, close combat, athletics and social aspects, a ranger will need his own set of skills - all charakter concepts do. This just doesnt justify a custom skill group.

So no mostly I would not allow it, I would however look into it, if new skills pop up. Still I do not see a major need for this.

I've always wanted to make knowledge skill groups, but always been too lazy to actually make a list because of all the options.

Chris

EDIT: Oh, and otherwise no, not unless you can give me strong logical evidence as to how learning those skills in tandem would reduce the effort involved.

EDIT2: And even then probably no.

I'd rather give a player some more points to spend on "flavor skills" than allow custom groups.

(As far as the OP is concerned: I'd tell a player who came with that concept to me to either play D&D, or make a character based on modern rangers.)

I'd let people have an extreme sports skill group just because paying for all them individually is retarded - and I ban skillwires.

I'd allow a skill group that had all the basic "survival" skills in it for shadowrunners.

Dodge
Ettiquette
Infiltration
Perception

ettiquette and infiltration are already in skill groups. i wouldn't personally put a given skill into multiple groups.

also, dodge isn't really an absolute must. in fact, it's largely only a good choice for those who are non-combat characters.

and cthulhudreams, pretty much all of the extreme sports are going to be a specialisation of one of the skills in the athletics group... well, maybe not skydiving. but the rest should fall in their somewhere if i'm not mistaken (mostly under gymnastics, i think)

Addenum: We have added the heavy weapons skill to the Firearms skill group, and replacing negotiation with Intimidation for the Influence group has been discussed repeatedly.

The Influence group is already well worth the price, and thats probobly the reason why intimidation isnt in the skill group.

Utility is high for both combinations - and both combinations can be justified as originating from one set of personality traits. RAW is the default solution, so we kept Negotiation.

There you go again, choosing realism over balance You took two great skill groups, and made them more great. This creates a lopsided incentive for players to take them (moreso than already exists), reducing player diversity and probably, overall, game fun. Unless you're one of those wierdos who fetishize simulationism I still think game balance is the one important metric for modifying the rules. If you base it on realism, you'll open the door to hundreds of tweaks, requiring a general rewriting of the rules, and the system you end up with will still be grossly unrealistic. And probably less balanced than ever.

I'm curious as to how you think the Influence Group is being made 'more great' by swapping out Negotiation for Intimidation?

Player diversity does IMO happen via specialisation choices. Efficiency with firearms suggests a two-skill combination, as you can´t hold more than two weapons at a time anyway. Balance-wise anything that improves the position of samurai on the mage/rigger/samurai foodchain is good. Opinions may vary of course.

Eep, I missed that detail. I could argue about intimidation being better for shadowrunners than negotiation, but I really don't feel like bothering

@Ryu: I guess you're right that generally a powerful character won't bother with more than two kinds of weapons. What I don't like about modifying the group is the incentive it creates. It creates an incentive for more people to take the same skill group, increasing homogeneity. It might not actually lead to homogeneity, but I think it's bad to even nudge players in that direction. It's not a big deal anyway, since the most powerful people will always start with a 6( in a primary skill rather than a 4 in a skill group. It just creates that undesirable incentive which I have a knee-jerk reaction against

Mhm, there is only diving and parachuting as skills on there on, I thought there was a third. Ah well, it doesn't matter.

In effect it creates an incentive to buy Firearms 1 or 2, before you separate the skills of the group, and buy your primary flavour of deadliness. True combat chars might even bother with Firearms 4. So you obtain some basic competency in Firearms, specialise, then start to get even better. I like.

re: the Extreme Sports Group

We did this for the current game I am in... My adept started Parachuting and Diving, and I wanted a third skill to reflect on things I would think were a bit beyond just "Gymnastics"

We settled on "Body-Controlled Vehicles". Things that could not possibly EVER be based on VR, that needed active (conscious) body control/movement as the main element of mobility: skateboards, hoverboards (skimmer discs exist-how about for people w/o cyberfeet), surfing, sailboarding, waterskiing, etc.

I thought that it would be the compliment to Parachuting that Cybertech is to Medicine: You can be a doctor without learning too much Cybertech, but it helps in the 6th world to know both. If you are a great skydiver, you may know about moving about in formations, but a person with Body-Controlled Vehicles would know how to fly accurately in a wingsuit (look it up on Youtube if you haven't), sky-surfing, etc.

Excellent video of controlled Wingsuit Flight

Further Tangent... As for what someone said about skills being overpriced - I wholeheartedly agree. Pure RAW with no "Tweaking": for the DP you get from skills alone, they are way too expensive... UNLESS they give something more for their rank. We had to houserule Tweak for this, and instituting the "Hits are limited to the Skill Rank + 1" was instrumental to doing 2 things. #1: Stopped cheap power-creep from bonus dice galore (gear, magic, etc) with no or little regard to actual skill development. And #2: Curing the issue of Stat-raise being so much more karma-effective than Skill-improvement.

Then, we lowered the cost of skills (BP and karma improvement) to encourage more development. Works for us, YMMV.

Or anyone with multiple initiative passes who thinks that just maybe they might be getting shot at in the next few seconds.

Which should be every combat character ever built.

Why have 4 dice to "Not getting shot" when you could have 8 for only 10 BP? Double your dice, double you life.

The point Jaid was making is that Gymnastics is an adequete substitute for the Dodge skill if the character also possesses a Melee skill.