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Post by zoomfarg on Oct 14, 2016 19:24:08 GMT -8
For Mongoose Traveller 2e, do the rules for study periods (p. 52) mesh well with skill levels (p. 56)?
For example, if someone has a skill at 4 or 5, they are considered world renowned. That seems kinda small to me. Those skill levels could be achieved in as few as 22-27 months. Of course, that timeframe assumes a Traveller passes all their Edu checks.
I haven't/don't know how to run the arithmetic to figure out how many study periods it realistically takes to get to level 4 or 5 when accounting for Edu check failures.
For reference, the magic number of hours of experience to be an expert is 10,000, or almost 42 months of studying 8 hours a day (as Traveller suggests is necessary for learning).
Anyone know how to do the arithmetic?
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maxinstuff
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Post by maxinstuff on Oct 14, 2016 22:36:45 GMT -8
EDIT: I realise I didn't answer your actual question - this page has a 2d6 probability chart which gives you the odds of rolling "at least 7", "at least 8" etc. which is what you need (scroll down a little). www.thedarkfortress.co.uk/tech_reports/2_dice_rolls.htm#.WAHPgxJ96V4So if you have no modifiers, you're odds of rolling 8 or more are 41.66%. 8 weeks ÷ 0.4166 = 19.2 weeks per level, on average. tl:dr; I think the issues you perceive here are not actually a big deal. The rulebook does give some guidelines here. Character progression in Traveller is not simply "do X to get Y" - it's more complicated than that. You're assuming that a skill level of 4 can be achieved by the equivalent of watching youtube tutorials on the ship's library during jumps right? Learning at that level requires a coach or tutor, and probably time off adventuring (you can only do so much in jump space). If it is a purely academic skill I might allow a correspondence course to be purchased, and they could study during jumps, but if you wanted to learn Gun Combat 4 during jumps I would question very hard how you are going about that. You can get skill level 0 just reading the manual and some combat handbooks, then target shooting for a while, but getting much higher than that is going to be very, very difficult on a ship - unless you have a training area (you're on a yaqcht with a holographic training room, or on a capital ship with specialised areas for this)? Also remember the skill limits - INT+EDU is the maximum number of skill levels a person can have, after that, you can only learn something new at 0. This does mean that eventually, if a campaign goes on long enough, all characters could potentially have every skill at 0 - I am not sure how I feel about that. Certain skills would probably require tutoring/purchased materials even at level 0.
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fredrix
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Post by fredrix on Oct 14, 2016 22:54:06 GMT -8
This is slightly (forgive me) academic question, because those study periods have to be entirely devoted to study. Any interruption that week, and it doesn't count. So, in game you would be saying, you guys carry on without me. Then (though it depends what your EDU is) every check only has a 41.66 chance of succeeding. maxinstuff is right there us also a hard limit as to how much you can learn. (Though maxinstuff I think you maybe technically wrong in MGT2e about needing a tutor/mentor beyond level 0. I'm sure it was true in classic traveller, and stated in the rules. But I don't see it ithis edition)
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fredrix
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Post by fredrix on Oct 14, 2016 22:55:15 GMT -8
A speak as a world reknowned Astrogator
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maxinstuff
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Post by maxinstuff on Oct 14, 2016 23:14:19 GMT -8
fredrix is correct that TECHNICALLY there is no rule against getting to level 4 in a skill purely from watching StarTube(tm) videos in your bunk. Also note that it requires a number of study periods equal to the new level, so to get to level 4 from nothing you need a minimum of 8 + 8 + 16 + 24 + 32 weeks, a total of 88 weeks.... years of game time with no modifiers.
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