Post originally by William Hostman at 2003-11-26 20:45:07
Converted from Phorums BB System

Well, they don't.

Given that att 4 or 5 is normal. 3 is borderline retarded, then. 1 is a complete imbecille. Mr SubGenius is a 6. Einstein is an eight.

Joe Normal, when picking up said intelligence skill, to a competent professional level (5)
Joe has a 4 att, aptitude1. Buys the primary skill to level 4 (16-1=15 pts). Lets say, General Snarkiness 4.
Next, he takes a secondary skill, On-line snarkiness. Max level he can get is 1/2 primary, or in this case, a two. He only needs a 1. When added to the base general skill, his On-line Snarkiness is a total of 5, for 17 points. For 3 more points, he's at 6 on-line. And he can still add tertiary specializations for even more skill.

So Joe can snark about anything at a 4, and on-line at a 5.

Jordan DimBulb, AWR 3, want's to be a professional snark, too.
General Snarkiness lis limited to his AWR 3. He also gets the one point discount. 9-1=8 points.
Since limits are rounded down, minimum 1, he's got a limit on his secondary of a +1. 1 more point; total level 4 on-line. Each topic he wants to snark on will cost him one more point. We'll give him Snarking about games at +1 as his

So, in general, he snarks at 3, On0line, he snarks at a 4. Snarking about games on-line, he's got a 5. This for 10 points. Joe could have, but he wants to pick up snarking about games, too, and for 1 more point, gains that.

Eisenstein, AWR 6, decideds to be JUST professional: he pays 3 points less than Jordan Dimbulb. so only 7 points.

Hawkingsesque, also AWR 6, wants to have room to grow. He's taken the same as Joe, and also pays 3 points less than joe.

The problem comes when they deciide they need to be snarkier. Jordan can't get better, only broader (buy more secondary and tertiary skills, but they won't be any higher a total)

Joe will max at 4+2+1 = 7

Eisenstein and Hawkingesque can improve to 6+3+1=10's, but eisenstein has to improve the base skill before he can raise the secondary.
Hawkingesque, however, can raise the secondary, just like joe, and the primary, unlike joe.

Mind you, higher stats don't make it significantly easier to learn, but they do make it possible to be both broader, and deeper in skills.

Att Max Skill (P+S+T)
1 3 (1+1+1)
2 4 (2+1+1)
3 5 (3+1+1)
4 7 (4+2+1)
5 8 (5+2+1)
6 10 (6+3+1)
7 11 (7+3+1)
8 14 (8+4+2)
9 15 (9+4+2)
10 17 (10+5+2)
11 18 (11+5+2)
12 21 (12+6+3)

Skills over 10 are FRIGHTENINGLY effective.