From ATS: Learning Skills outside your Guild

[Lizzie]

Some skills, you won't learn with your current character, because your character doesn't have the capacity to ever learn them (such as, a ranger PC learning a krathi fire magick spell, or a water-mage learning how to master-craft a bow).

But all main guilds are "skill trees." That is, you show up out of the hall of kings with a set of starting skills, most at low starting levels of proficiency. There are also skills that you don't have YET, but that you will have, if you make use of those starting skills enough.

So for example:

You pick the Journalism guild. It comes with penmanship, typing, word processing, spelling, grammar, and sentence structure.
If you practice your penmanship enough, you'll discover that you have the ability to learn how to make fountain pens. Pen-making wasn't on your skills list when you first started playing, but it is now. Maybe after word processing, you learn the web-browsing skill, and that branches even further into investigative reporting.

To get skills on your list that are -not- on the skill tree of your chosen main guild, they'd generally be found in your subguild. If what you want isn't in either, then you'd need to submit a special application with appropriate character background to explain why your character would have that combination of skills.

[JDGATX]

My question primarily concerns combat skills. What's keeping my character, or anyone's for that matter, from being taught how to kick, or wield two weapons effectively, or disarm someone. I know how to use my, say, club effectively, I am familiar with combat by skills and by background, yet I can't learn some of the special combat skills because I didn't take them at creation?

[Marauder Moe]

My question primarily concerns combat skills. What's keeping my character, or anyone's for that matter, from being taught how to kick, or wield two weapons effectively, or disarm someone. I know how to use my, say, club effectively, I am familiar with combat by skills and by background, yet I can't learn some of the special combat skills because I didn't take them at creation?

Game balance.

[brytta.leofa]

I know how to use my, say, club effectively, I am familiar with combat by skills and by background, yet I can't learn some of the special combat skills because I didn't take them at creation?

Yeah, pretty much.  Call it genetics or call it game balance, but there are some things your PC just won't ever be that good at.

You can't be Gandalf and Aragorn.

[Marauder Moe]

Though to elaborate... it's not "balance" in terms of everyone has some equal measure of universal power, but rather balance in that no one can really do "everything" and thus people need to work together to accomplish some things.

[Riev]

There was a quote from Shal a long time ago, I'm too lazy to dig it up by source though. For posterity's sake, I'll do it from my eidetic memory.


This discussion is similar to subguilds and main guilds and the skill levels of the two. Just because you went Merchant/Thug, and put a background that you have extensive combat training, doesn't mean you'll get skills and levels like a warrior. The difference being one was born and has the innate skills of being a warrior, and the other was more skilled with their hands.

It is like one was the Mario of plumbing, while the other is Joe the Plumber.

tl;dr

You can still learn basic combat stuff, and sure maybe if you practice for IC years on how to kick people you can get it added to your skill list, but at a very low level and it will never be as good as the guilds that get it. If you want to be a warrior, roll a warrior. If you want to be a merchant that is good at combat, join the Byn and work -really- hard for a long time and you might hold your own against the naturally talented.