I.Q. Bonus and Special Skills

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Razorwing
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I.Q. Bonus and Special Skills

Unread post by Razorwing »

Recently I came across an interesting situation... namely I was wondering if the bonus a character gets for having a high I.Q. (16+) is also added to the special skills some characters get in addition to their Scholastic and Secondary Skills. Special Skills such as those gained from the Hardware category, the magical lore skills for Mystic Study, not to mention many of the skills from the Special Training category.

Personally I am in favor for this for a number of reasons.

1) The description under I.Q. (pg 15 HU:R2E) states that characters with 16+ receives a one-time bonus to ALL skill percentages (including Secondary Skills). These special skills are still skills and as such should benefit from a high intelligence. I don't buy the argument that the high initial starting percentage a lot of these skills have is a reflection of their high intelligence because even a character with the minimum needed I.Q. (usually 9) would have the skill at that level.

2) Compared to more power-house characters, applying this bonus doesn't really unbalance such characters... it even helps close the gap between them and more powerful characters (though only by a little bit to be honest).

3) Most of these categories had to give up an entire Skill program to gain these skills... or had special training from the get go. In other words, these special skills came at the cost of a number of regular skills they would otherwise have had... skills that would have received the I.Q. bonus.

4) Many of these specialized skills are allowed to go above 100% due to the fact that penalties are likely to be added to the roll, bringing the percentage back down. This is more common in the Hardware category, but other areas also present possible penalties to some of their special skills.

So... the question remains... would you allow a character with a high I.Q. to add the bonus to any special skills they may have due to their Power Category?

Oh... and sorry if this topic was already discussed but I couldn't find a thread dealing with this... my search-fu is weak.
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Glistam
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Re: I.Q. Bonus and Special Skills

Unread post by Glistam »

I allow it.
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Re: I.Q. Bonus and Special Skills

Unread post by eliakon »

Unless there is something in the skill description that says it does NOT benefit from IQ, then the blanket statement that IQ adds to all skills applies to all abilities added to a character defined as a 'skill' (not all %s but all skills). Just because a skill is added from a source other than the regular education portion of character creation does not make it any less of a skill.
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Re: I.Q. Bonus and Special Skills

Unread post by Snake Eyes »

I allow it, plus only the special skills are allowed to be above 100%
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Re: I.Q. Bonus and Special Skills

Unread post by Tor »

That or cooks from PRPG.
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