Sunday, December 15, 2013

Majestic Wilderlands Fudge Skills

 been asked what the skills I am using for the Majestic Wilderlands RPG.

The basic list comes from my Majestic Wilderlands supplement for Swords and Wizardry. There they are called abilities. I been running Swords and Wizardry with my supplement since 2009 so I am pretty comfortable with that set.

In the MW Supplement I have a catch all ability called Professional Skill. For Fudge I expanded that into something more concrete. Plus I had to add weapon skills which are covered by proficiencies in SnW.

Each skill has an associated attribute and a default level of -3 to +0.   Added to this your skill level. Skill levels cost are as follows.


For example Sword, One Handed is associated with Dexterity and defaults to -2. If you have a Dex of +1 and put 4 points into the skill your final levels is -2 + 1 + 3 = +2 Swords, One Handed.

This is one of the options found in the Fudge SRD and is obviously inspired by GURPS. Which make sense given how fudge is developed.

I have to stress that I haven't subjected any of this to a proper campaign so this is very much alpha level of quality. However given my experience with the list in Swords and Wizardry I have high hopes that it is diverse enough to make for interesting characters but not so huge that one gets lost in figure out what is needed for a given character.

The adventuring skills are pretty much ported over from my Majestic Wilderlands supplement.
The professional skills are from the guild categories found in my price list.

Adventuring Skills
Skill(Attribute) Default
Acrobatic(Dex) -2
Athletics(Str) -1
Climbing (Min(Str, Dex)) -2
Combat Dodge (Dodge) +0
Eavesdrop(Per ) -1
Interrogate(Will) -1
Legerdemain(Dex) -2
Locution(Int) -2
Perceive(Per) +0
Physician(Int) -3
Riding(Dex) -2
Stealth(Dex) -2
Strategy(Int) -2
Survival(Con) -2

Arcane Skills
Alchemy(Int) -3
Divine Ritual(Int) -3
Herblore(Int) -2
Research(Int) -2
Thaumatology(Int) -3

Melee Weapons
Axe/Mace/Hammer(Dex) -2
Axe/Hammer, Throwing(Dex) -3
Knife(Dex) -1
Knife, Throwing(Dex) -2
Polearm(Dex) -2
Shield(Dex) -1
Spear(Dex) -1
Spear, Throwing(Dex) -2
Staff(Dex) -1
Sword, One handed(Dex) -2
Sword, Two handed(Dex) -2

Missile Weapons
Blowpipe(Dex) -2
Bow(Dex) -2
Crossbow(Dex) -1
Sling(Dex) -2

Professional Skills
Accounting(Int) -2
Animal Handling (type)(Int) -2
Artist (type)(Int) -3
Brewing(Int) -2
Carpenter (Int) -2
Cooking(Int) -1
Farming(Int) -2
Finesmith(Dex) -2
Glassblowing(Int) -2
Hideworking(Int) -2
Knowledge (type)(Int) -1 to -3
Knowledge (Heraldry)(Int) -3
Knowledge (Legal) (Int) -3
Knowledge (Ritual) (Int) -3
Knowledge (Social)(Int) -2
Knowledge (Area, local)(Int) -1
Knowledge (Area, region)(Int) -2
Knowledge (Area, cont.)(Int) -3
Lexigraphy(Int) -2
Mathematics(Int) -2
Masonry(Int) -2
Mechanics(Int) -2
Metalsmith(Int)-2
Mining(Int) -2
Natural Philosophy(Int)-3
Performance(type)(Dex) -3
Pottery(Int) -2
Tailoring(Dex) -2
Timbering(Int) -1

2 comments:

Alcamtar said...

Interesting. I like the Savage Worlds list a lot; it is just the right level of breadth. Your adventuring list feels just about right. The ranged weapons list also feels right. Melee weapons feels over specific to me, maybe use Hero-style weapon groups? Swords, hafted weapons, polearms, etc. Hmm that's about what you have. Guess I'm just used to using a single skill here. I also usually have a single user defined professional skill, but breaking it out like you did is a good idea, as it helps define the flavor of the setting, and simulates the imagination.

I think the main thing in any skill list is GM style. Are there too many, can I remember all these and keep them straight? Are they sufficiently diverse? Can I remember the names? (I have favorite skill names emedded in my brain and those are what I call for when I run a game. With a new game I use a cheat sheet to translate between my native terminology and the games specific dialect.)

Anonymous said...

Thanks Rob, I'm going to see if my group fancy playing using these rules as a basis for play in the New Year, it's been ages since we played Fudge. I like the specific skills, and the defaults and costs seem above right for the power level you're proposing with the 15pt PCs.