It's also possible to just take time to get a bonus for practically anything with triple time earning a +60 bonus. Testing off the a stat at +0 is generally testing at a rush job where time matters a lot.

Urthdigger wrote:

In the games I've played before, I never notice the GM offering a modifier besides what one supplies with complementary skills or gear. Which does, unfortunately, mean a lot of "little over half chance of success" for a guy with skills at 60.

From what I've seen, it's generally expected for the players to ask for modifiers when they believe they would be appropriate. The GM has a lot to manage and can't always break it down to specific actions.

uwtartarus wrote:

It's about the modifier game. An expert sniper has a 60 or 70, but then his smartlink (+10), taking aim (+30), tacnet (+10), and complementary skills in weather and architecture (max +30) so the 60% base becomes 140% before any negative penalties (guaranteed to hit on anything but 99, which is a 1% chance of happening).

I'm sorry, but nobody qualifies as an "expert sniper" with a skill rating of 60. Yes, situational modifiers are useful, but your character will be crippled if you use them instead of actually investing in your skills. The quick & dirty breakdown for skills: 40 is useful for background skills that you use infrequently. This is mostly for knowledge skills or things you know you can take extra time on (like Hardware). You can't use them when your butt is on the line, but they can still be useful to have. In the case of Knowledge skills, you can use these as complimentary on active skill tests. A skill rating of 60 is where you should aim for with your ancillary skills - the ones that are useful, but not *critical* to your character concept. Your core competencies should be in the neighborhood of 70-80. If you budget carefully, you can get 3-5 skills in that range, and routinely use them in the worst situations with some expectation of success. Skills of 90+ are, conversely, not incredibly useful unless you absolutely have to have it that high. I've had a lot of success with a hacker who had Infosec and Interfacing at 90 because then I could take negative penalties to get the job done considerably faster. With things like ranged combat or stealth, you either can't rush the job or don't want to, hence 90 is meh. Also important to note, buy skill specializations where you can. That's 5 points spent for 10-20 points of value. Seriously, players never seem to take advantage of them and it's the easiest way to push up the economy. My usual chargen rules: 1 - you are in a party, so talk to each other. You *should not* be making characters that do all the same things the same way. Yes, cross-training is useful, but jack of all trades is master of none. 2 - spend no more than 1/4-1/3 of your points on morph, gear, etc. EP is the only game I've heard of where you can literally be dropped in the middle of nowhere without even your body to count on. Take a look at how useful the Mercurial Scavenger is when they're alone in a Spare in the Martian TQZ. 3 - When you create a character, make it with the assumption that you are never going to level them up again. This puts you in the proper mindset to make cuts where you can. You create your character with over 1000 points; missions tend to reward you 10. In a Play-By-Post, that's 2 skill specializations or +5 to one skill over 60 in 6 months or so. 4 - Networking is powerful. It is very, very powerful. You don't have to make a Jack of All Trades (see 1). Make your character competent. Broadly competent is ok, but focus on competent. You can call on others (in or out of your party) to cover your blind spots. Usually. But always make sure that when you are dumped naked in the middle of nowhere, you can reasonably expect to survive. 5 - you and everything around you is disposable. It sure is tempting to invest all of your cash into a SOTA seeker rifle, or drop a bajillion credits into that slick sniper rifle. A few good high-quality purchases can keep you alive, but remember that you can get gear far more easily than you can change your character. And you can burn through your gear even faster. Focus on getting the job done economically with the smallest investment of capital and risk (on your part, anyway).

FrivolousVector wrote:

I'm sorry, but nobody qualifies as an "expert sniper" with a skill rating of 60. Yes, situational modifiers are useful, but your character will be crippled if you use them instead of actually investing in your skills. The quick & dirty breakdown for skills: 40 is useful for background skills that you use infrequently. This is mostly for knowledge skills or things you know you can take extra time on (like Hardware). You can't use them when your butt is on the line, but they can still be useful to have. In the case of Knowledge skills, you can use these as complimentary on active skill tests. A skill rating of 60 is where you should aim for with your ancillary skills - the ones that are useful, but not *critical* to your character concept. Your core competencies should be in the neighborhood of 70-80. If you budget carefully, you can get 3-5 skills in that range, and routinely use them in the worst situations with some expectation of success. Skills of 90+ are, conversely, not incredibly useful unless you absolutely have to have it that high. I've had a lot of success with a hacker who had Infosec and Interfacing at 90 because then I could take negative penalties to get the job done considerably faster. With things like ranged combat or stealth, you either can't rush the job or don't want to, hence 90 is meh.

Just to provide a counter, I disagree. 40 is fine for secondary skills, and 60 for (most) primaries. Going back to the Sniper, the Smartlink and Aim bonus can be taken as given, which already pushes him up to 100 - he for all intents and purposes cannot miss at close range, the majority of "active" combat will be within his close/medium range. Beyond that, everything is GM guided, and so hard to make solid statements about; I apply cover as a bonus to Fray whilst others may apply a penalty to hit, for example. Likewise, whilst I'd be hesitant allow weather/architecture as complimentary skills, I'd definitely allow a +30 if the sniper took the time to set up a nest. Sure, that doesn't help in close combat... but in close combat he should really be using a different weapon, such as a rifle which he can full auto for the +30 instead. Skill levels of 60+ are powerful because they regularly produce post-modifier skills of 100+, which in turn allow the user to willingly stack penalties to their benefit. For task actions, this can simply be decreasing the time, but you can also conceal your Networking activity, hide with less cover, lie more blatantly, use called shots and indirect fire...

According to RAW, 60 is supposed to represent expert level. Explicitly: "Expert competence (competitive driver, marksman, PhD)" even though you are right that Sentinels need to be prodigies to mathematically compete apparently.

Like trapped said, the additional cost makes it less cost effective to invest in 80 skills unless you want to be REALLY REALLY good in something very specific, than to invest in other skills and equipment and stay diverse. A Smartlink and a quick Action aim takes you from 60 to 80 for basically no additional cost at Chargen. Throwing more points at the problem may be "easier" but that actually decreases the over-all effectiveness of the character. For instance, you can drop 5 CP on a specialization too, something a dedicated marksman might have (focused training in a weapon), which gives you a +10 to the skill when you're using that weapon class, as opposed to the 20 CP it would take to buy from 60 to 70.