"He had such good aim, he once hit 3 targets with only 2 arrows!" (ridiculous skills)

[enderlord99]

Flying skill would let you do that.

That doesn't exist in 3.5, which is the edition I had assumed you were bothall talking about.

[JoeJ]

That doesn't exist in 3.5, which is the edition I had assumed you were bothall talking about.

I wasn't talking about any game in particular, just that levitation is not an example of superlative balance any more than composing symphonies is.

[Cluedrew]

To JoeJ: Balance could also be seen as the ability to adjust your stance and center of gravity to stay upright and onto of things. So if you want a skill that scales form something pretty standard to something kind of like flying, I can't think of a better one. I might split into, say, gymnastics and flying if I wanted to cover those things with normal skills. Unless that impossible but sometimes thematically appropriate scaling is what I was going for.

Of course I came into this thread thinking "hey, it looks like this might cover endgame/ridiculous power levels for non-magic users that I was thinking about making" so I might be biased.

[Deophaun]

I said they should be impossible IRL. You just confirmed that the original example fits that description.

Yes. That was the point.

[Knaight]

Getting so good at sailing to allow effective jumping with a boat would be one of these - hopping right over sandbars, reefs, booms, whatever with a massive galleon, and doing so reliably. Other advanced to the point of ridiculous sailing techniques would be quickly spinning in place, diving under obstacles (e.g. low cave mouths for large underground caves), and tipping the entire boat sideways to 'slide' through small spaces.

The latter of these also works for riding. There's a semi-famous scene in a Bollywood action movie where someone basically does a bunch of the ridiculous action-movie motorcycle tricks, but on a horse, including sliding under a moving semi at some point. The inclusion of the semi is probably inappropriate; everything done on that horse is totally fair game.

[gkathellar]

use a high spot check to track an enemy's eye movements to figure out where he's intending to strike next and get an AC bonus.

This isn't even unrealistic. Watching your opponent's body language includes watching their eyes.

[Knaight]

This isn't even unrealistic. Watching your opponent's body language includes watching their eyes.

To the point where it's such a basic thing that it should probably show up less as a skill perk and more as AC just sort of going up with level.

[Guizonde]

Getting so good at sailing to allow effective jumping with a boat would be one of these - hopping right over sandbars, reefs, booms, whatever with a massive galleon, and doing so reliably. Other advanced to the point of ridiculous sailing techniques would be quickly spinning in place, diving under obstacles (e.g. low cave mouths for large underground caves), and tipping the entire boat sideways to 'slide' through small spaces.

The latter of these also works for riding. There's a semi-famous scene in a Bollywood action movie where someone basically does a bunch of the ridiculous action-movie motorcycle tricks, but on a horse, including sliding under a moving semi at some point. The inclusion of the semi is probably inappropriate; everything done on that horse is totally fair game.

i'll be really impressed when i see somebody do a kickflip with a viking longship. he shall be named bjorn "tony hawk" sickbro, son of hapjulf "dude" half-pipe. famous line of trick-sailors, capable of getting speeding tickets on a highway. while rowing.

[Knaight]

i'll be really impressed when i see somebody do a kickflip with a viking longship. he shall be named bjorn "tony hawk" sickbro, son of hapjulf "dude" half-pipe. famous line of trick-sailors, capable of getting speeding tickets on a highway. while rowing.

So, jump, spin the boat under you in the air, land*. This sounds entirely reasonable. On the other hand, a wave is basically just a halfpipe made out of water that moves forward**, and it feels like a waste not to take advantage of that. Basically, it's a three part plan:

1. Terraform*** a portion of the elemental plane of water to make a massively oversized skatepark where the concrete is replaced with water. Preferably this is done with the Craft(Landscape Architecture) skill.
2. Sail to the elemental plane of water, and then to that terraformed*** part, in a viking longship.
3. Go full Tony Hawk on it.


*According to my research. I don't know skateboard tricks.
**For certain definitions of the word "basically".
***Hydroform?

[Guizonde]

So, jump, spin the boat under you in the air, land*. This sounds entirely reasonable. On the other hand, a wave is basically just a halfpipe made out of water that moves forward**, and it feels like a waste not to take advantage of that. Basically, it's a three part plan:

1. Terraform*** a portion of the elemental plane of water to make a massively oversized skatepark where the concrete is replaced with water. Preferably this is done with the Craft(Landscape Architecture) skill.
2. Sail to the elemental plane of water, and then to that terraformed*** part, in a viking longship.
3. Go full Tony Hawk on it.


*According to my research. I don't know skateboard tricks.
**For certain definitions of the word "basically".
***Hydroform?

indeed, that's right. now, i don't know about "entirely reasonable", since people can barely do that with a surfboard, let alone with a full-sized boat. then again i'm not a sailor.

[John Campbell]

use a high spot check to track an enemy's eye movements to figure out where he's intending to strike next and get an AC bonus.

Problem is, eyes can and do lie. I frequently use eye-fakes, where I'll deliberately look at one part of a opponent and hit them somewhere else entirely. Or even hit a completely different opponent.

Correctly reading that sort of thing is Sense Motive, not a plain Spot. And in fact there are rules for resisting feints with Sense Motive.

One of the local fighters, I've been training and fighting with for years, and he's gotten pretty good, and has fought me so often that he knows my style inside out. But he's recently started biting on all of my eye-fakes like a newbie. The reason? He just got glasses that he can wear under his helm. Fighting without glasses, he was completely immune to eye-fakes, because he couldn't see what my eyes were doing. Now he can, and his experience with interpreting them doesn't match up with his overall experience. Basically, he got better at Spot, and it made him worse at figuring out where I'm intending to strike next.

[Bubzors]

This whole thread just reminds me of Sir Bearington

https://m.imgur.com/r/gametales/tAV3wHl

[Resileaf]

This whole thread just reminds me of Sir Bearington

https://m.imgur.com/r/gametales/tAV3wHl

I will never not enjoy the Sir Bearington story.