Summation chart/saved posts

Category: Magic Spells and Systems
Topic: Magic Systems
Message #: 3730
Author: GS4-STAAFL
Date: 12/9/2007 8:29:39 PM
Subject: Re: Seed Chart.

LORDKRIP wrote:
I notice the seed chart goes up to 300 (or the closest that particular seed will ever come to 300 without going over).
 Is this because it is intended, planned, or speculated that some lores may register seeded benefits based on skill bonus, rather 
than number of ranks?

While nothing is impossible, I don't personally think that would be likely. (Some other GM might step in and contradict me here.) Using a summation series is done to make the gaining of benefits progressively slower as you gain more ranks. Using bonus, rather than ranks, would speed up gaining the benefits. The same effect could be achieved simply by using a lower seed value, and would be a simpler calculation.

I don't know why the web page was created that way, but three very strong possibilities come to mind:

1) There's some effect right now that is based on some skill other than lores, which can be triple trained in by some profession.

or

2) Just for completeness, the table was created up to 300 ranks simply because that's the most anybody can can train in any single skill, so it's conceivable that sometime in the future a skill which can be tripled might have an effect based on a summation series.

or

3) You're right and there is something based on bonus. In this case, however, I would have made the table go up to 400 so that it could cover the case where the bonus of a skill you can triple is used.

For mental abilities, one might expect the effects of one or more lores to be the controlling factor, but for physical abilities, where magical abilities aren't used, a trainable skill's summation series could be used.

For example, the following skills currently can be triple trained by at least one profession:

Armor, Shield, Physical Fitness, Dodging, Disarm, Locks, Hiding, Perception, First Aid, Harness Power, Spirit Mana Control, and Spell Research.

Most of those are physical skills.

As a completely false example (at least it's false as far as I know!), when I first started playing GS, someone told me if you train in perception enough, you could hear other people's whispers. While that's not correct, if it were to be designed in, the percentage chance to successfully hear a whisper might be based upon a summation series of Perception ranks. That would have to go up to 300 ranks.

In summary, it's pretty easy to conceive of training benefits based on skills other than the various Lores, and some of those can be tripled. Even within the realm of magical systems (to keep this on topic <cough>), the four pure classes can triple in Harness Power. A benefit based on Harness Power ranks would have to go up to 300 ranks.

Technically, the table really goes up to 303, but there happens to be no summation series (with seeds <= 10) with any points in the range of 301 to 303, so 300 is the highest value on the table.

~GM Staafl