Advancement of conditional skills

Games Discussion Feng Shui
1

Anyone have an insight (or explanation in the rulebook that I might have missed) on how Advancement works in regards to skills that are granted by Schticks under certain conditions?

Driver has Intimidation and Seduction at 11, but only when they have their Cool Jacket on.
Supernatural Creature has Intimidation 12, but only when in monster form.
(There may well be others along those lines among the other archetypes, but those are the ones relevant to the PCs in my campaign.)

These archetypes have those skills listed in their Awesoming Up block, but there spending an Advancement on it actually gives them the skill at a lower rating than is granted by their Schtick. Per the rules as written, if a Supernatural Creature wants to raise their Intimidation to 13, it appears that they need to spend 3 Advances on it (one to buy it at 9, one to advance it to the 12 they already have when in monster form, and the third to finally raise it to 13). In addition to spending 3 Advances, they're also invalidating one of starting schticks, so effectively the total cost is ~4 Advances.

That's wasteful, and potentially frustrating for the player. ("I chose this Archetype partly because they're really Intimidating, but I can't afford to push that any further" seems like a negative play experience.)

I think I'm going to give my players the option to instead raise these skills from the levels granted by the schtick as if they had the skill itself at that level. If they do this it would still be dependent on the conditional status, so the Driver could raise Intimidation from 11 to 12 for 1 Advance instead of 3, but then it still only counts while they're wearing their cool jacket.

If for some reason the player really wants to get rid of the restriction (e.g.: be scary in human form, or be seductive even without their jacket), I'll probably let them just spend 1 Advancement to do so. I doubt either of my players will do so, as they really like the flavor/thematics of their archetypes... but if they do wanted to go that route, I just don't see any real need to make them jump through 3 (or ~4) hoops to do it.

2

This complaint sounds like two different things.

  • An item that grants a skill. - The Cool Car Jacket is like training wheels. It grants bonuses to two skills associated with the Driver archetype, but only when worn.
  • A skill that is limited to use in a separate form. - The skill usable by a separate form is a limitation. It's actually based on how hideous the Supernatural Creature is. They are naturally intimidating. Their mundane human form (like Bruce Banner) isn't.

The skill purchase should stack with the limited-use Schtick. Buying the skill at base level is +1 to Schtick, buying it at 12 is +2 to Schtick, and buying it at 13 is +3 to Schtick.

  • If the Driver Awesomes Up their Intimidation or Seduction to 10, the Cool Car Jacket would grant an increased skill of 12 (+1 to Schtick) to the selected skill when it was worn and 10 when it wasn't.
  • If the Supernatural Creature Awesomes Up their Intimidation to 9, the Gruesome Appearance schtick would now grant an increased Action Value of 13 (+1 to Schtick).

This fits the Archetype's "shiny thing", the things that make them different. Drivers are cool and Supernatural Creatures are scary. Buying the skill just makes them "shinier" while making them better at it.

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