Not all people living at TL2 are desert nomads and the like. Someone from a city wouldn't have Survival.He's got survival 0 by default - any competent ref would grant that
Hans
CT Only: Barbarian
- Thread starter Lapthorn
- Start date
Hans
I just checked and 'Survival' is an Advanced Education skill for barbarians. :rofl:
Hans
In MT, Survaival in among the skills to choose in the Environ cascade skill, that is present on the Barbarian career once in the Service Skills, twice in Adv Education skills (table 3) and again once in the Adv Education table (edu 8+, table 4).
From the rank titles, it appears that barbarians are not just anyone from a low-tech world. They seem to be nomad tribesmen. As such they should, indeed, get Survival (<native environment>). How they get gun combat, mechanical, and streetwise is a bit of a puzzle, and their medical skill can't be all that effective. I doubt that a barbarian with Medical-3 could get a licence to practice on worlds with higher tech levels.
If you want some other kind of low-tech person, you will have to use another career and simply enforce tech level limitations.
Hans
If you want some other kind of low-tech person, you will have to use another career and simply enforce tech level limitations.
Hans
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Hmm, MT is so very yanks in space they even make the barbarians native americans 
So every barbarian in the whole Imperium has the same names for their rank structure, or are those the names the IISS give whatever the locals call themselves?
I also notice that in CotI there are only two named ranks...
Addendum - I just checked SMC and the barbarian character generation table uses the MT rank names, but oh dear what did they do to the skills table
So every barbarian in the whole Imperium has the same names for their rank structure, or are those the names the IISS give whatever the locals call themselves?
I also notice that in CotI there are only two named ranks...
Addendum - I just checked SMC and the barbarian character generation table uses the MT rank names, but oh dear what did they do to the skills table
That's certainly the flavour in Supplement 4, but it's just one part of a booklet. Plenty of room for the ref to draw up additional low-tech careers if needed.
Exactly! This is what I was trying, pitifully, to say! "Local" is important, but there should be some overlap - maybe they get Survival-1 by default on their home planet, but 0 anywhere else?
Gun combat - even Afghans had jezails to shoot at redcoats with. They even shot a Russians with them in the 20th Century, although it was far, far less common. Bedouins traded for rifles and handguns with Western traders and were very comfortable using and repairing them. Even making them when they had the tools. Repairing your flint/cap/wheel lock weapon builds mechanical - the ref would have to say is that applies to fixing a ground car's axle, though.
Streetwise is broad and every sort of crafty thing involved with finding out info and dealing with the less savory, or merely more reticent and distrusting of formal authority figures. The "Arab Street" thing. Speaking from professional experience there are all sorts of vocal and non-vocal cues involved that the average guy who relies on mainly his language and less innate, um naturalistic, communication methods and cues wouldn't notice. That's a streetwise skill. A barbarian may be more attuned to listening to his body's cues - and accordingly pick up the ones given off by even someone who thinks they can hide them. Dominance/submission response behavior...picking out a victim for a crime...how to control a confrontation by reading the other person...that's all part of the streetwise equation.
Medical-3 would be pretty much nontraditional medicine as is practiced today in Asia and the Middle East. Granted, ground up jabberwock horn probably won't crank up the procreative derrick as advertised by some barbarian, but that's only because a civilized person would lack the belief component. Anthropologists have proven that component is an important part of such things for decades. A barbarian has that, so a lot of what he'll try to treat you with may or may not work accordingly, but some of his herbal and similar remedies may work. They may even lead to cures that could be later refined and lead to tasty profits - a good hook for getting players into a barbarian adventure as cultural anthropologists and medical researchers.
Suvival-1 should be an autosuccess for terrain on one world, IMNSHO. Anywhere else should be "roll for it." Anywhere else on world, or same terrain on any world, listed difficulties. Different terrain on different world, up the difficulty by a step.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I remember adapting the environ rules from SPI's Universe to a few skills - no idea where the notes for that went.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
If you view Barbarians in the Imperium as residents of a low-tech level world, with MegaTraveller apparently listing at as Tech Level 3 and lower, which would roughly correspond to about early to mid-1800s, then you have a fairly wide range of possible not-so-standard Barbarian types in the Space: 1889 game. You would have gunpowder, steam locomotives, steamships, the beginning of petroleum technology, and a solid metal-processing industry available. Your so-called Barbarian could be an Alfred Nobel-type working to tame nitroglycerin. Dynamite dates from 1867, nitro from 1847. Percussion firearms became possible with the discovery of mercury fulminate in 1800.
If you take a look at Sprague De Camp's The Ancient Engineers, Hodge's Technology in the Ancient World, or Landels' Engineering in the Ancient World for starters, you could have a lot of fun with a non-traditional Barbarian.
If you take a look at Sprague De Camp's The Ancient Engineers, Hodge's Technology in the Ancient World, or Landels' Engineering in the Ancient World for starters, you could have a lot of fun with a non-traditional Barbarian.
MichaelSTee
SOC-12
Not necessarily germane to the Barbarian character path, but I do see (in MT) that Sailor, Bureaucrat, and Hunter have no tech code requirement, and could be from Pre-Industrial worlds. (And while page 23 of Player's Manual says Nobles must be Pre-Stellar and up, the text on page 12 says Nobles have no restrictions.) Just because your world is Pre-Ind doesn't mean you're a Barbarian...
I don't know about that. Even at TL 13 the vast majority of personal "cars" will be wheeled as a Grav car is too expensive for 90% of the population. You'd need to go with animal transportation.
That's interesting. I've been working on a setting that I'd like to give a "Wild West" vibe, and I've thought that the existence of a TL12 culture on another continent of the same world would be a problem because of the easy access to grav vehicles1. What makes you think grav cars are too expensive for so many people?
1 I've been pondering some sort of population threshold below which grav modules can't be built as cheap as canonical prices indicate.
Hans
Primarily their price.
Based on this thread I am using prices from CT. So, Book 2 Air/raft price (hardly a replacement for an enclosed auto) the price listed in Cr600,000. $600,000 USD in '77. Today, USD 2.3 million. Even at 600,000 it is NOT a vehicle that even the UPPER middle class could afford in the 3I.
But IIRC the CT costs of grav vehicles were reduced by a factor 10 in Book 4. One of the few official CT errata of those days.
Hans
Okay. So that makes an air/raft (not even a real replacement for a modern auto) cost only $230,000 in today's money. Like I said, a vehicle for the rich only. How many people do you know that own and drive quarter of a million dollar cars? (my bad, an enclosed, air conditioned grav vehicle will run you a lot more than that)
In short, it ain't happening unless you ignore micro-econ and have a fantasy setting.
My players first brought this to my attention ~1979...
In 1977 (USA) the average price for a new car was $4,317.00 Average income was: $10,360.00. The amended air/raft price was $60,000.00
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Oh, I wouldn't want to ignore micro-econ1. I must agree with you that it's not going to be a substitute for a family car. But I don't think that rules out some other business model, like community owned vehicles.
1 Although that wouldn't make it fantasy, it would make it bad SF.
Hans
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