Perception Bonuses for Opening Skills

Burning Wheel Modifications, Hacks and Expansions
#1

Hello friends!

I’m working on a player stock that gets Perception bonuses through common traits, but overall poor mental stat pools. So I’ve got an idea to offset that:

When opening a skill during character burning, is it appropriate to factor in that bonus when opening certain skills?

For example, if a character has “+1D to Perception when sense of smell matters,” would that factor into opening skills like Observation or Tracking? How about for skill aptitudes?

One character with B3 Perception would open appropriate skills at B2 instead of B1 and/or treat aptitude as 6 instead of 7, for instance. Doing so would also offset the difficulty of 5 point mental pools for certain skills.

What do you think?

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#2

It’s probably easier to just make the traits raise the perception exponent, if that’s the effect you want. There’s a good reason bonuses don’t affect opening skills or aptitude

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#3

Whoo! New stocks!

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#4

Yeah. This is how it works for Great Wolves" Woodland Snout (+1D to Perception for Assess, Scent Tracking, and Pack Hunting) which has the added bonus of being moe effective on skills than stats as you get the same +1D but without the double Ob penalty.

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#5

Yeah.

If I had such a character and there was a situation that made their enhanced sense inapplicable, I’d just add a Disadvantage to their check since they’re “used to relying on that sense for everything”.

And I’d do that even if it’s a group thing: like someone who’s suddenly gone blind vs those who already were from birth, the suddenness of the loss throws them off worse then it does the others in the group!

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#6

Thank you all for the replies! I think I’ll knock their mental pools down even more and let the traits grant direct Perception increases. Considering the theme for these guys, the comparatively lower Will fits perfectly^^

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#7

It sounds like you’re already decided, but another option is to set stat maximums and minimums, like how trolls have a munimum power

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#8

Ooh, I hadn’t thought of that. I don’t think it fits for these guys, but I’ll remember it for my next stock.^^

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