I’ve been thinking a lot about Mongoose Traveller and Cepheus Engine. Specifically I’ve been thinking about the effect of characteristic modifiers stacking with skill levels to determine success rolls.

Example. A character with INT of 12 has a +2 to any INT-based rolls. What if they have Computer-1 skill. This was my character in the recent game I played at North Texas RPG Con.

Now, 12 isn’t the highest INT you can get, but it is the highest you can roll when creating your character. So mabye not Genius-Level, but getting there for sure.

Being able to stack a +2 to a Computer-1 roll changes things a lot. A “difficult” target roll in the system is defined as 10+. Without the INT mod you need a 9+. Chance of rolling a 9 or better are about 28%. Add in the +2 for INT, and you only need to roll a 7. Chance of rolling 7 or better are 58%. More than twice as likely.

The same would hold true of any Characteristic Modifier/Skill Level combo. Shooting a gun, for instance. If you have a high dexterity you don’t really need high skill levels for dexterity-related skills.

I’m not sure I like this.

Does it make sense that having a high related characteristic might help in a skill roll? Yes. Does it make sense that it would IMMEDIATELY give the same benefit as the 4 years of experience and training represented by the skill level? I’m skeptical.

I also think it forces the Ref to inflate the difficulty of everything just to make sure success is not too easy. I’m finding the same thing in D&D 5e. We have a rogue in my campaign that has +10 to his stealth roll. So if the roll needed is a 20, which is normally only a 5% chance of success, this guy needs only a 10 or better, which is a 55% chance of success. That seems crazy to me, and it is like that across the board.

I wonder if it might not be better to apply characteristic mods only to rolls NOT covered by a skill. Example: Does a (Traveller) character know about some obscure historical fact? OK - That’s a difficult Education roll. Needs 10+ on 2d6. Add your Ed modifier.

People complain in some old games like Classic Traveller that characteristics don’t really have any effect. But maybe the Ref just needs some framework to how to use them, without blowing up the game.