NJ Skill Revamp

Ifrit and Sylph are revamping the OS:NJ skill system! Here are the currently proposed changes!

General System Changes
- This is the biggest change. Now, when you taskroll, it won't just roll your skill- it will also roll an appropriate stat that skill is tied to. For example, Agility might be tied to MA, and Strength to Brawling, giving a different flavor to the two skills and making one a better choice depending on your build. The current plan is to average the stat and skill rolls together (codeside).

- Also, rolls will be based on 3dF instead of 4dF. Which means, your Fair can roll between Terrible and Superb, not Terrible-1 and Legendary. Primarily for the sake of reducing Fudge's crazy inherent variability.

- To make all of these changes happen, sheets will have to be wiped. XP will be returned, but possibly in a proportional fashion aimed at reducing the discrepancy between high-powered characters and low. Exact numbers are going to depend on skill costs and many other factors.

Skills

 * About 50 skills will be removed from the system, either via condensing skills (Privilege Escalation, Remote Penetration, Firewall Penetration, DOS Attack and Network Spoofing all become hacking) or sheer removal for being useless (Begging, I'm looking at you). Underwater Basket Weaving, however, will remain.


 * A lot of psionic skills will be either getting the boot or be toned down.


 * Medical skills will likely operate off a prereq system similar to OS:M's, where the racial meds will be a lot cheaper once an initial skill is higher. First Aid will be joined by Emergency Medicine and Alternative Medicine, the only healing skills available to non-doctor characters. Both FA and AM will allow for the treating of Scratches, while EM will allow for the treating of Hurts as well.


 * Skills will be limited Chia-style; this means a limit on the number of Legendaries, Superbs and Greats (possibly Goods) you can have on your sheet. Chia uses 1-2-4-8, OS's will be less stringent but isn't yet decided.


 * OS:M School Quirks will be implemented for Computer Techs, Engineers, Doctors and Fighters. What this means is you can be one of the above- and only one. If you've not got the proper Quirk, you can only raise skills governed by that quirk to Fair or Good (this isn't decided yet either). With a grid where not everyone's a ninja, this will hopefully encourage fewer combat-based plots.


 * +practice will be gone in favor of simply +raising your skills. Legendary might require a special +str or something to justify it, but that kind of decision's way in the future.

Attributes

 * Attributes will be limited in some fashion. We haven't decided yet on a limit in max XP spendable on skills, or a point-buy system where you get all your points at creation. But no more straight Superbs across the board.


 * Racial scaling will be equalized so that the sum of every race's scaling is 0. Also, racial scaling will cap out at +1/-1, and scaling with GFQs at -2/+2. Those are actually pretty huge modifiers in Fudge already.


 * Agility and Reaction will be altered most likely. The current plan is looking at a Manual Dexterity versus Full-body Coordination stat setup. This helps with certain crafting skills that require a delicate touch and need a good stat to represent that.

Combat

 * Tiers will most likely be removed, and weapon skills differentiated by ODF, stun versus lethal, and the attribute they're tied to.


 * Defense skills will be added, so combat rolls will be Attack Skill+Attack Stat versus Defense Skill+Defense Stat.