REPOST: Duelmasters - Skills, I've Seen a Few

From: kanga.caltech.edu!johnjohn (John White)

Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1992 06:03:39 +0000

I guess Demon is still having posting problems despite my frequent suggestions,
so, at my request, he put together from memory his post on skills, as no one
had apparantly seen it or responded to it.  The text follows.  Remember, I
didn't write this, Demon did.  I included his .sig too.  Lovely thing that it
is.  I need some sleep.  Dammit.

============>INCLUDED ARTICLE STARTS HERE<==========================
    One of the biggest parts of the duelmasters game is the skill
system.  As a result (I think), it's also been one of the hardest for
players to get a handle on.  Over the last few years theories have
been tossed about, accepted, revised, and then rejected.  The purpose
of this post is to give newbies and experienced managers alike a look
at all of these, right up to a theory I heard just after the Face-to-
Face from a friend who attended.
    All characters are rated in six skill areas, three offensive, and
three defensive.  The offensive are Attack (Att), Decisiveness (Dec),
and Initiative (Init), while the defensive ones are Defense (Def),
Parry (Par), and Riposte (Rip).  For more description on these, see
the DMFAQ or the Red Book of Alistari.
    Each skill achieved in an area adds five points to the characters
ability.  Thus a character who has the equivalent of 10 skills in
riposte has a rating of 50.  Often, managers talk about their
warriors skill levels with these numbers.  Indeed, while this has
been the practice for a few years, I personally saw confirmation of
this at the summer Face-to-Face in Baltimore.
    Without some inside info, the only way to find out a characters
rating in an area is for one of six ratings to be achieved.  They
are listed below, with the necessary skill level to attain them.

Expert           (Ex)        80
                Advanced Expert  (AdEx)     100
                Master           (Mas)      130
                Advanced Master  (AdMas)    170
                Grandmaster      (?)        220
                Arch-Master      (?)        280

Again, these rating levels were confirmed to me at the Baltimore
FtF.
    Characters begin with a certain number of skills in each area
determined by a number of factors.  These include the character's
stats, the character's style, the wit comments on a character's
overview, and a random roll made at character creation, although the
exact nature of this roll is not known by players at large.  It is
possible for a new character to start with an Ex, or even AdEx rating
in one or more areas.
    After character creation skills can be gained in two ways.  The
most obvious of these is to train skills during a fight.  This will
result in the character learning from 0-7 skills a fight, based on a
number of factors such as the character's WT, the length of the
fight, the experience of the character relative to his opponent, and
perhaps even the character's style, as well as that of his opponent
(although this is mostly conjecture on my part).  A character can
obtain up to 20 skills in each area through this method before the
character "maxes-out" in that area.  In other words, a character can
learn a maximum of 120 skills.
    The second way to obtain skills is to train stats.  If a stat is
trained to one of a number of "skill breakpoints," the character will
learn one or two skills (depending on the breakpoint) in one or more
areas.  The areas that each stat affects are as follows:

Strength: Att, Par
                Constitution: none
                Size: Initiative, Defense (inversely)
                Wit: all but Parry
                Will: Attack, Decisiveness, Parry, Defense,
                      Initiative (above 21)
                Speed: Decisiveness, Initiative, Parry (?), Defense,
                       Riposte
                Deftness: all but Decisiveness

An effort to chart the stat/skill breakpoints has been made by
one manger, David Law Jr., better known in the game as Boss Rat, and
a copy of that chart can be obtained from most experienced managers.
If demand is great enough, I may post a copy of it to the net.
    The down side to training stats for this purpose is that if it is
done, and the character learns a skill in an area that he has not
maxed out in, one skill is removed from the potential maximum of 20
skills that the character can learn from training skills.  However,
if the stat is trained after the area has been maxed out, the skill
is stacked on top of the character's skill learns, thus allowing
development of greater than 20 skills in one area.  This is how
ratings of gradmaster and Arch-Master are obtained.
   This point is where I begin to discuss what all of the patient,
experienced managers who have waded through the stuff they already
know are looking for.  The latest theory I have heard suggests that
in addition to the absolute skill breakpoints, training stats to any
other number also has a chance at raising a character's rating in any
of the areas that that stat affects.  This is not guaranteed to
happen, but instead there is a certain percentage chance of this
happening each time the stat is raised.

eg.  Joe Blow has a 15 Strength, and trains it to 16.
    Strength affects a character's Attack and Parry rating, so there
    is a chance that this stat raise will increase his Att rating by
    5, and another, independant chance that his Par rating will be
    increased by 5.

It is probable that this also occurs during character generation,
and may be the luck factor in a character's initial skill ratings.
    I hope that this has been informative to everyone interested in
Duelmasters, and I expect that at least the last part of it will stir
up some discussion on the net.  Unfortunately, I probably won't be
able to participate in it (at least in so far as any of you will see)
since I have been having problems with my news server distributing
posts beyond Acadia.  If something really draws my attention, I will
ask John to post my response for me.  more likely, i will repond to
the poster by e-mail.

{and ends here}
--

Craig:  So, John, meeting many women at Caltech?
John:   Women?  At Caltech? I think not!
	So Craig, meet many stoners at Santa Cruz?
--

Craig:  So, John, meeting many women at Caltech?
John:   Women?  At Caltech? I think not!
	So Craig, meet many stoners at Santa Cruz?

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REPOST: Duelmasters - Skills, I've Seen a Few

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