In this tome I beat the `level 7' horse completely to death.
I look at it from a bunch of different angles to come up with what
we, as ref's and players, already knew:
Level 7 skills are hard to get, but not impossible.
And of course it costs the character something to get there.
In the process, I got some insight into levels, probabilities,
sector population, character generation, and task difficulty.
Now that you've all been thoroughly warned, if you want to hear my
answer to Bertil's question about how may Pilot-7 folks are in the
Marches, read on.
(sorry this is so long)
Richard Johnson
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Part 1: Tasks and Probability:
I made up this nifty little table to show me how easy it really is
to achieve certain tasks:
# likelihood +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7
3+ 35/36 always * * * * * *
4+ 33/36 35/36 always * * * * *
5+ 30/36 33/36 35/36 always * * * *
6+ 26/36 30/36 33/36 35/36 always * * *
7+ 21/36 26/36 30/36 33/36 35/36 always * *
8+ 15/36 21/36 26/36 30/36 33/36 35/36 always *
9+ 11/36 15/36 21/36 26/36 30/36 33/36 35/36 *
10+ 6/36 11/36 15/36 21/36 26/36 30/36 33/36 35/
11+ 3/36 6/36 11/36 15/36 21/36 26/36 30/36 33/
12+ 1/36 3/36 6/36 11/36 15/36 21/36 26/36 30/
13+ --- 1/36 3/36 6/36 11/36 15/36 21/36 26/
14+ --- --- 1/36 3/36 6/36 11/36 15/36 21/
15+ --- --- --- 1/36 3/36 6/36 11/36 15/
16+ --- --- --- --- 1/36 3/36 6/36 11/
17+ --- --- --- --- --- 1/36 3/36 6/
18+ --- --- --- --- --- --- 1/36 3/
19+ --- --- --- --- --- --- --- 1/
Note that this chart leaves out one important item: the 1/36 chance
that you will get a critical bumble. (oops, `funble' :-)
(aargh, I did it again!)
MT Task levels (fer reference an' those who don't know yet):
Simple == 3+ --> 35 in 36 you succeed (with minimal skill)
Routine == 7+ --> 7 in 12 you succeed with minimal skill
Difficult == 11+ --> 1 in 12 you succeed with minimal skill
Formidable == 15+ --> don't try this at home, kids!
Impossible == 19+ --> only genius nerds need apply
This told me that there probably IS the rare, gifted, and neurotic
individual who can dream the impossible dream (level 7) and out of
those a select handful you hear about (like Nobel laureates) - the
one who rolled 12 at the right moment after years of training.
Unfortunately, this table doesn't really talk about acquiring
skills, only using them. For a level 7, the formidable is *almost*
routine, but the impossible is still nearly impossible. The way
this character operates makes the typical work assignment look
trivial - and to this person it is.
So this told me that level 7 is at least reasonable in game terms.
It does not violate any obvious game balance considerations but does
stretch them a bit. I had to look elsewhere for skill aquisition
information.
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Part 2: How long does it take to get level 7?
How much effort is required to get that much skill? Well, aside
from forgetting about level 1 and 2 in about three other fields (in
our world quite an accomplishment in itself!) because of the maximum
levels rule (not > int + ed)...
How 'bout the AT rules? (not in original Traveller - AT's allow
characters to `get credit' for self-study and for experience.) You
roll at the *beginning* of the adventure:
to add a level roll = difficult (11+)
DM's = + int/5, #of AT in that skill
- level of skill attempted
No more than 2 AT/year are allowed.
Let's say you got pilot 3 in flight school and you're now 22.
Further, let's say you choose to ignore other important fields so
you can become a starship test pilot. And lets also say you ALWAYS
roll 10+ (not too likely, but this IS a fantasy :-). Finally, let's
suppose your INT is 15.
Year 1: +2 AT, +3 INT, -4 level = +1 DM you roll 10+ for Pilot 4
Year 2: +2 AT, +3 INT, -5 level = 0 DM you roll 10 no skill
Year 2.5: +3 AT, +3 INT, -5 level = +1 DM you roll 10 for Pilot 5
year 3: +1 AT, +3 INT, -6 level = -2 DM you don't even try...
year 4: +3 AT, +3 INT, -6 level = +1 DM gets you Pilot 6
year 5: +2 AT, +3 INT, -7 level = -2 DM you don't try now either
year 6: +4 AT, +3 INT, -7 level = 0 DM 10's not enough
year 7: +6 AT, +3 INT, -7 level = +2 DM gets you Pilot 7
REMEMBER: this seven-year plan is for the incredibly gifted and
supremely lucky (1/12 chance at rolling a 10+). The `average'
character will take, just on rolls, seven times this long to get
there == 50+ years! (Your mileage may vary, depending on how often,
game time, each adventure takes.)
Let's look at this another way. It takes roughly 3 months to get a
level 0 skill. If you double the time for each augmented level, it
will take 6 more months to get level 1 (9 months total). It will
take:
1 year level 2 (~2 yr total)
2 year level 3 (~4 yr total)
4 year level 4 (~8 yr total)
8 year level 5 (~16 yr total)
16 year level 6 (~32 yr total)
32 year level 7 (~64 yr total)
Which actually agrees pretty closely with the figures I got from
using the AT method.
Again, just on time, it doesn't seem that level 7 is inordinate.
Really hard to get, and costly in terms of a social life and other
(probably needed) skills, but not out of line.
So finally, I asked myself "How probable is it that someone *would*
have a level-7 skill?"
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Part 3: Enormous numbers:
I said to myself: "strictly by chance, how likely is it that someone
will have a skill level-1?" There's about 160 skills listed (if
memory serves me), and and `average' character will have 20 levels
(10 INT + 10 ED). {Yes, you're right - I picked these numbers to
make things easy...} Thus there's a 1 in 8 chance of a particular
character having a particular skill. I used this value as a base.
This is not good procedure for a number of reasons, but I simply
extrapolated the 1/8 chance to the seventh power. This says that
roughly 1 in 2.4 million folks have a level 7 is something. This
"feels right" to me, looking out at our wonderful world.
Since characters are usually outstanding in some respect (or they
wouldn't be much fun to play), I don't feel that it's terribly out
of line for a character to devote his/her/its time and energy to
being a `nerd' for that one shot at glory. Characters like this can
pretty much write their own ticket, and they do. But they pay for
the ticket with years of antisocial behavior.
==================================================
Part 4: Finally an answer...
OK. Now I can answer Bertil's question: `how many pilot-7 folks are
there in (some region of space)?' A LOT! Just try to find them,
though.
If there's ~10^13 people in a sector, even extremely low probability
events are numerous. Since the probability of level 7 is about
1 in 5*10^6 (I halved it, since characters are `great' people anyway)
and the population is 10^13, we can guess that there's a couple of
million level-7 somethings hanging around the Spinward Marches, more
close to Capital.
Since he specifically asked about *pilot-7*, I'll divide by my
infamous 160 skills and guess that the Marches have 12,500
pilot-7's. (and 12,500 equestrian-7's, and 12,500 etc.)
========================================================
Just to stop the question before it gets asked:
there's probably about 1,000 pilot 8's IF they lived long enough
and about 100 pilot 9's. It'd take over 100 years to get to 8 and
over 250 to get to 9 though...
If you account for consistently lucky rolls and for age,
there's probably 50 pilot-8's in the Marches and probably 50
pilot 9's in all known space who are actually young enough to fly.
I actually did finally guess on this last - the likelihoods are
really extreme and the batteries on my TL7 hand comp died!
If you've read this far, you're more serious about MT than I
thought! :-) Have good day.
Richard Johnson
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