Fria Ligans forum

For me, the skills are too limited, some don't make sense, and CUF goes up WAY too easily.

some don't make sense

Mmmh...!

Just for instance, could someone please explain to me how "Medical Aid" in a contemporary context is an "Empathy" skill? It's not as it being a skilful medic exactly necessitates a good bedside manner...

Or how hitting a target with a tank gun or artillery or any kind of mounted weapon has anything whatsoever to do with Strength?

Or, is this simply a result of that "well, we only want three skills per attribute — they had to go somewhere, and those two were the only attributes with open slots left"?
So okay, it's perhaps marginally better than "Medical Aid" going under "Strength" and "Heavy Weapons" going under "Empathy" — one somehow relates to people, the other to manipulating physical objects — but I can't see it really being all that much more relevant.

The attributes represent more than just the actual word. Strength for example represent not just raw strength but also toughness and physical endurance. The Medical Aid skill is not only to first aid or remove bullets, it represent everything a doctor does. There will always be situations where attribute description and use is a little bit off, in all games. In the game HârnMaster for example, you have 11-13 attributes (depending on version) and a whole lot of skills and every now and then this discussion happens with that game as well.

Or how hitting a target with a tank gun or artillery or any kind of mounted weapon has anything whatsoever to do with Strength?

It's the skill Heavy Weapons. Of course it needs strength

Personally I find that skill very broad. I'm trained on ATGM RBS-56 and could probably fire a TOW or Milan. But I wouldn't know how to aim a mortar or howitzer. And should-fired machine guns like KSP58 is closer to a rifle than ait is to a HMG (with another grip). But it's the kind of broad strokes that I accept for playability. Specialties take care of some oddities.

Some skills are very broad, yes. Specialties solve that (especially if using the optional rule to make them required for certain skill uses). Also one thing you can do is to for some skill rolls, use another attribute. I think it is mentioned in one of the skills (can't remember), but that is something that even could get its own paragraph, it is very useful.

We can always have more specialties.... I will suggest a few for civilians. For healing, EMP makes a lot of sense if you focus on diagnosis: cf Dr House! For hardcore battlefield amputation, a mean Referee may require both 1 healing roll, and pne AGL or STR roll ..... The system isn't super detailed (4 ranks isn't a lot), so one has to be creative.

The attributes represent more than just the actual word. Strength for example represent not just raw strength but also toughness and physical endurance. The Medical Aid skill is not only to first aid or remove bullets, it represent everything a doctor does.

For certain ... but operating a modern tank gun resembles playing a computer game a lot more than anything that would require toughness or endurance.

And I agree, Medical Aid covers a lot — the knowledge skills of diagnosing symptoms, identifying injuries, etc; performing the manual tasks of CPR or splinting a broken leg, and so forth ... but does any of them really have anything to do with Empathy?

Looking at the specialties, there is a paratrooper specialty (which seems a nice background, but generally useless), but there doesn't seem to be a 'Structural Engineer' (or civil engineer or whatever you want to call it) capability (and the players are much more likely to have to cross a dodgy bridge that needs assessing than make a parachute landing).
The Stamina specialty 'construction' doesn't sensibly cover it.

The specialties could do with a 'heavy equipment operator' as well (for operating cranes, water well boring rigs etc, etc)

Players Manual
Page 46
“SPECIAL: When using HEAVY WEAPONS to fire mounted weapons, use AGL instead of STR, and when firing artillery, use INT.”

Players Manual
Page 46
“SPECIAL: When using HEAVY WEAPONS to fire mounted weapons, use AGL instead of STR, and when firing artillery, use INT.”

Good find! I sort of stopped reading at the end of the paragraph...

However — that then would mean that the "associated attributes" are only somewhat loosely associated. If you can associate a different attribute to the skill roll as per what logic would suggest from case to case, then that would make the default more like a guideline than an actual rule...

Which, to me, makes the whole system so much better!