After going through my old Skills and Tasks house rules for various other editions of Traveller, I've settled on these T5 house rules for Skills & Tasks...
TASK SYSTEM CHANGES
Spectacular Success. If the actual die roll is all ones, the result is a Spectacular Success. I like having the potential for all tasks to be Spectacular.
Spectacular Failure. The opposite is true – if the actual die roll is all sixes, the result is Spectacular Failure.
Spectacularly Interesting. If the die roll is a combination of only ones and sixes, the result should be Spectacularly Interesting.
This is Hard! I apply TIH! only when the task difficulty has more dice than the character has applicable JOT, skill and knowledge levels. For example, a character with Knowledge-2, Skill-1, JOT-1 trying a Formidable (4D) task will not be penalized by TIH!
Practice. Rather than applying Good Flux as a Mod (page 136), a successful practice reduces the ultimate task difficulty one die. A failed practice attempt has no impact on the ultimate task difficulty.
SKILLS AND KNOWLEGES
Default Knowledges. Instead of the page 142 Default Skills list, I consider the following list default knowledges: Athlete, Beams, Blades, Comms, Computer, Firearms, Grav, Steward, Unarmed, Vacc Suit, and Wheeled.
The Eleventh Trade. An additional trade skill, Builder, is available for selection. This represents the building and construction trades.
Many Knowledges. Turrets knowledge is considered a subset knowledge of both the Gunner and Heavy Weapons skills. The ACV knowledge of Driver skill is renamed Hovercraft. The “Slug Throwers” knowledge of Fighter skill is renamed Firearms. Fighter skill has two additional knowledges, Archery and Archaic Firearms. Tactics skill has two knowledges within it: Military Tactics and Naval Tactics.
Specialized Knowledges. There are four types of specialized knowledges available: Group knowledges (instead of Career knowledges), Location knowledges (instead of World knowledges), Science knowledges, and Trivia knowledges (which never increase past level one). Every term, a character gains a level of Group knowledge based on the their current career. Science knowledges are gained normally. Characters may always apply a skill choice to a Location or Trivia knowledge.
Hobby Knowledge. At the end of character generation, characters select one additional knowledge at level zero as their hobby knowledge. This obviously cannot be a knowledge already possessed.
SKILL ACQUISITION
The first time a character acquires a skill (or a knowledge which is a subset of a skill), the character actually receives one of that skill’s knowledges, but not the skill itself in any fashion – the skill does not become a default skill for that character (“skill-0”). Rather, when the character receives a level in a knowledge which is a subset of a skill, and they already possess knowledge-2, only then is the skill-1 gained. For example, a character with Firearms-2 gains Beams-1. They do not gain Fighter-1; they only possess Firearms-2 and Beams-1. If they then gain two additional levels of knowledge with Beams, that third level of Beams would actually give the character Firearms-2, Beams-2, Fighter-1.
SKILL DURATION
It is recommended that most tasks have a duration based on the time chart below. Hasty tasks go up one level in difficulty, and down one level in duration; extra hasty tasks go up two levels in difficulty and down two levels in duration. Cautious tasks go up one level in duration and down one level in difficulty.
Time Chart
0 Immediate
1 Seconds (30 + (Flux x5) seconds) [combat round]
2 Minutes (6 + Flux minutes)
3 Minutes (30 + (Flux x5) minutes)
4 Hours (6 + Flux hours)
5 Hours (12 + (Flux x2) hours)
6 Days (24 + Flux hours)
TASK SYSTEM CHANGES
Spectacular Success. If the actual die roll is all ones, the result is a Spectacular Success. I like having the potential for all tasks to be Spectacular.
Spectacular Failure. The opposite is true – if the actual die roll is all sixes, the result is Spectacular Failure.
Spectacularly Interesting. If the die roll is a combination of only ones and sixes, the result should be Spectacularly Interesting.
This is Hard! I apply TIH! only when the task difficulty has more dice than the character has applicable JOT, skill and knowledge levels. For example, a character with Knowledge-2, Skill-1, JOT-1 trying a Formidable (4D) task will not be penalized by TIH!
Practice. Rather than applying Good Flux as a Mod (page 136), a successful practice reduces the ultimate task difficulty one die. A failed practice attempt has no impact on the ultimate task difficulty.
SKILLS AND KNOWLEGES
Default Knowledges. Instead of the page 142 Default Skills list, I consider the following list default knowledges: Athlete, Beams, Blades, Comms, Computer, Firearms, Grav, Steward, Unarmed, Vacc Suit, and Wheeled.
The Eleventh Trade. An additional trade skill, Builder, is available for selection. This represents the building and construction trades.
Many Knowledges. Turrets knowledge is considered a subset knowledge of both the Gunner and Heavy Weapons skills. The ACV knowledge of Driver skill is renamed Hovercraft. The “Slug Throwers” knowledge of Fighter skill is renamed Firearms. Fighter skill has two additional knowledges, Archery and Archaic Firearms. Tactics skill has two knowledges within it: Military Tactics and Naval Tactics.
Specialized Knowledges. There are four types of specialized knowledges available: Group knowledges (instead of Career knowledges), Location knowledges (instead of World knowledges), Science knowledges, and Trivia knowledges (which never increase past level one). Every term, a character gains a level of Group knowledge based on the their current career. Science knowledges are gained normally. Characters may always apply a skill choice to a Location or Trivia knowledge.
Hobby Knowledge. At the end of character generation, characters select one additional knowledge at level zero as their hobby knowledge. This obviously cannot be a knowledge already possessed.
SKILL ACQUISITION
The first time a character acquires a skill (or a knowledge which is a subset of a skill), the character actually receives one of that skill’s knowledges, but not the skill itself in any fashion – the skill does not become a default skill for that character (“skill-0”). Rather, when the character receives a level in a knowledge which is a subset of a skill, and they already possess knowledge-2, only then is the skill-1 gained. For example, a character with Firearms-2 gains Beams-1. They do not gain Fighter-1; they only possess Firearms-2 and Beams-1. If they then gain two additional levels of knowledge with Beams, that third level of Beams would actually give the character Firearms-2, Beams-2, Fighter-1.
SKILL DURATION
It is recommended that most tasks have a duration based on the time chart below. Hasty tasks go up one level in difficulty, and down one level in duration; extra hasty tasks go up two levels in difficulty and down two levels in duration. Cautious tasks go up one level in duration and down one level in difficulty.
Time Chart
0 Immediate
1 Seconds (30 + (Flux x5) seconds) [combat round]
2 Minutes (6 + Flux minutes)
3 Minutes (30 + (Flux x5) minutes)
4 Hours (6 + Flux hours)
5 Hours (12 + (Flux x2) hours)
6 Days (24 + Flux hours)
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