What skills are support skills?
Starting this discussion off

Brawling is a primary skill.

Source: Slither in https://www.sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/game-problems/th-summer-2020-break-off--martial-arts-466/

What about other skills? Which ones are intended to be support, and which ones are intended to be a primary skill?

Artistry

Bio Tech

Chemical

Forensics

Medical

Aero Tech

Auto Tech

Electro Tech

Munitions

Secure Tech

Cracking

Systems

Programming

Trading

Driving

Piloting

Rigging

Stealth

Thievery

Disguise

Dodge

Brawling - Primary

Martial Arts - Support

Melee

Short Blade

Long Blade

Pistol

Sub-Machine Gun

Rifle

Heavy Weapon

Explosives

Like, sure, of course they are, we get it. But that's not the point.

Defining a skill as support or primary requires a bit more specificity. If we are talking 'Combat', there are skills on that list that have no conceivable way of supporting combat even indirectly, so a third category should be added. Perhaps 'Tertiary skills'?

Slither went out on a limb to delve deeper into mechanics and balancing for an explanation to the community but it's only resulted in people freaking out about something they do not understand. In turn, people are now asking for more insight into mechanics.

I think this thread should probably be nuked from orbit.

"Martial Arts as a skill will never be as good or do as much damage as other weapon based or brawling based skills. It is not intended to. Martial Arts is a skill to give you a fighting chance if you are unarmed, or coming out of the vats."

Does anyone else feel like that's saying two completely contradictory things? How is one t have a fighting chance if the skill is deliberately unable to match up to any other combat skill?

This is the kind of thing that can seriously mess with people trusting the game and saying 'shh just don't talk about it' is exactly the attitude that caused the problem in the first place.

People aren't even going to know what stats to build up until they find out IC from a mentor, just like any of the other 32 skills.

That mentor can tell them how to synergize to take full advantage of the development they're going to put into martial arts. That mentor can tell them the weaknesses in time for them to maybe change directions - just like as can happen with all of the other 32 skills.

All primary skills are useful for a reason and have specific purposes.

Martial arts is good if you don't have a weapon or if you just came out of the vats. It will save your ass if you get disarmed, or you lose your main weapon in combat.

Brawling can achieve the same effect but uses a different combination of stats, much like other firearm-based skill variants.

Saying that one skill is "support" and the other skill is "primary" is a detriment to players who have invested heavy UE in the "support" category and still were successful in their field using that UE investment.

I've just observed how well-recieved IC reading materials have been in the past with never a soul complaining "Well, it's taking away from my RP as a mentor!". I'm off in tangent land here but just hoping anyone who knows something, says something. IC. If you know something, say something, publish something on the shiny new Grid, or exploit it in a book deal. Withmorians just need to read more.

As for Electro-tech and Secure-tech, I don't see the skills as uselessly spread out. I've played a techie for quite a few characters and while the grind to get up and running is harsh. It's no more difficult than say chemistry which takes a lot of stat dedication. I think what you can do at what skill level may need to be looked at and adjusted a little, personally, but I don't know if I think having to dedicate a lot to an role is bad, it'd just be nice to see very dedicated roles like that able to make some flash faster.

For example Chems is a great skill, but It's hard to make bank until you've sank a lot of time in it, so perhaps people working with those support characters more and more, will shift those support skills into something necessary. I'm not sure if I've added anything helpful to this, but this is just my opinion on it I guess.

happy playing!

Do I think this is thematic? Absolutely. It's 2105 and given the host of tech available, the old fashioned sneak has measurable disadvantages before contesting of stats is even a factor.

But I do think this puts sneak very firmly in a support role for any playstyle where obscuring yourself might be even remotely necessary.

That being said, yes, two weeks worth of disguise is a lot more usable than two weeks of stealth for many reasons we can't go into.

I think ideally, the best thing that could come out of this thread is, every skill should be at least a little useful even with just some startup investment, and I do think some skills fall short of that.

Sneak is hands down superior to disguise in many situations, where disguise would simply not work.

It's hard to offer context here without divulging IC info.

Let's just say that between what I'm assuming are more seasoned players (Mentors, higher ranking members of factions, perceived 'elites', and my own experience, the message for me is, "This entire archetype, which touts stealth as primary in the BGBB is actually better served in general by learning disguise."

Add on that ICly, with the exception of Judges and one single other incident, I can't recall ever having been intentionally killed or captured by a character that wasn't wearing a shroud (ballpark of fifteen to twenty times on killings).

Though the street sam archetype doesn't even include disguise as a recommended skill (stealth, in fact, is) , the vast majority of killers I've encountered use disguises to do their dirty work. That isn't to say that all killers are street sams, but even so, when disguise is so heavily used despite so many archetypes that don't even recommend it? At the very least, that seems to imply disguise is a primary skill.

I've use stealth extensively over the last year. Between what I see (In my relatively limited experience) as niche opportunities, and the amount of tech out there that simply beats stealth, its uses are limited from my point of view. Disguise is universally useful in an everyday sense, and for any -character- regardless of archetype.

I think it boils to down to a simple concept mechanically. Concealing your identity is preferable to concealing your presence a lot of the time. Why? The risk of being seen hiding your presence seems higher than the risk of being seen hiding your identity. Disguise doesn't require a contested skill check (to my knowledge). It's just there until it fails. There is no mechanical way to see through a disguise other than your own skill failing or you the player doing it poorly. There are contested stat checks to see a sneak. There are IC devices that see sneaks. It's far more fallible a skill than disguise for concealing yourself. It's far more expensive in terms of UE investment to yield consistent payoff. That last one alone makes it a support skill in my opinion, unless, like Sly (if I'm understanding correctly), you do nothing else.

Besides skills like heavy weapons which aren't codedly supported, I think that most skills have a role. Support and primary are going to be subjective based on the sector, the player, their role, and the job they're trying to achieve. Also down the road there's always a respec available if you feel like you're really missing out. : )

That's a good point. +1