Skills & Levels in MgT2e

[RossWinn]

So I’m increasingly concerned that any skill levels above 5 really mess with the probability of tasks and kind of break the system. In my games there’s a hard limit on any skill of five, and only a score of 4 can be attained in character generation.
Most players have no issues with this, but some do.
What are your thoughts?

 

[McPerth]

See that skill 5 will make a Formidable task need a 9+ (adding stat bonus, probably more a 7-8+), so far from a given fact, while skill 5 would represent quite a rare (and probably known) individual.

I personally don't like the skill level caps, as they represent quite specialized people, and will probably be handicapped in other fields for lack of skills, so representing those very rare individuals capable to do what others see as impossible (think on Messi in soccer, Copperfield on illusionism, etc).

If any of those so rare and known individuals make good adventuring material is another question...

 

[Dragoner]

MgT1 though I had a player work so hard to get Pilot 5, and I let them, then they got a 2 landing a Launch, so I said everyone was fine, though the Launch was wrecked. They were really bummed, and I think maybe I should have been more lenient. Usually it is such an edge case I don't mind.

 

[Condottiere]

Use supporting skills to improve, and/or mitigate, results from the primary skill.

 

[Badenov]

Part of this depends on how often and in what circumstances you require a roll and how consistently and conscientiously you apply mods to the roll. If I roll to drive home from work every day, I'm going to wreck my car nearly every month even if I have skill 5. So, if driving in normal traffic and not in combat is worth a +4, then my skill requirement to not wreck once a month goes down. Systems that have some rolls 'always fail' (Looking at you, d20) must therefore assume that rolls are only required when there is at least some risk of failure. Caps to skills generally seem to be an artificial way to force players to risk failure and pushing skills to insane levels seems to be a reaction to the limited vocabulary we have for explaining failed rolls. I used to play on a text-based RP game where you would roll out your action and then type up a paragraph or two describing your success or failure and it gave me a much broader perspective on the small things that can turn out to have significant impacts.

I think if the GM allows reasonable mods for easier rolls, the desire to pump stats to insane levels is reduced.

I think the skill mods for standard rolls sometimes do fail to account for the failure rate they would cause, or else the failures are described poorly. Do 1 in 36 fuel skimming evolutions result in a loss of a ship with all hands? That'd be a catastrophic impact on work in space. No one would survive the year. But if 1 in 36 require crews to perform some extra task to continue the operation safely (and onward through a couple layers of emergency checks), then it's probably OK.

 

[Spinward Scout]

So I’m increasingly concerned that any skill levels above 5 really mess with the probability of tasks and kind of break the system. In my games there’s a hard limit on any skill of five, and only a score of 4 can be attained in character generation.
Most players have no issues with this, but some do.
What are your thoughts?

MgT2e+ has a limit of 4 in Character Generation.

 

[McPerth]

If I roll to drive home from work every day, I'm going to wreck my car nearly every month even if I have skill 5.

Well, that depends on what a failure means... such a failure may mean it takes you more time, you were fined due to a traffic infraction, you had some incident with another driver (probably one with less skill), etc...

Remember that a failure, even a mishap, needs not to be destructive, just some problem arises

(same for your example in skimming, etc)