Perform with/vs. Sleight of Hand for...RP/Skill Check

[Steve]

Hello,
So this is a Suggestion for a new (slightly new...) mechanic that I'd hope would increase an RP-type and provide an interesting (new) avenue for wealth/reputation accumulation.

Here it goes:

Perform Skill and Slight of Hand skill employed in parallel to the systems of Picking Pockets and/or Fishing.

Perform: The perform skill allows the character to impress audiences with your talent and skill as a performing artist.

Additionally:

DnD 3.5 comparison

Originally this skill applies to a lot more than just a bard's special abilities. It can be used in association with other skills for entertaining others to earn money. Checks are made against DCs set by the difficulty of the task being performed, and higher performance checks also lead to greater rate of pay if performing for coin. It is also divided into subsets of skills to apply to different aspects of the performing arts.

and (Perform):

In addition to using the Perform skill, you can entertain people with sleight of hand, tumbling, tightrope walking, and spells (especially illusions).

Sleight of Hand: The Sleight of Hand skill allows a character to pick the pocket of an NPC.

Additionally: (Sleight of Hand)

You can also use Sleight of Hand to entertain an audience as though you were using the Perform skill. In such a case, your act encompasses elements of legerdemain, juggling, and the like.

So, what I'm suggesting is that a PC, using either Perform or Sleight of Hand skill, could "apply" this to NPCs around the Server, and gain some coin from it as well as XP, just as they can Pick Pocket NPCs, and just as we have a Fishing mechanic that gains XP.

Now, what I think would make this REALLY AWESOME is if the "application" required some Text/Chat entry, for it to work. If that would be too complicated, AND it would be deemed "too easy" to gain XP/coin in the manner of spamming Macros or something near NPCs, then a very slow rate-of-gain, perhaps?

At the moment, the RP XP System only allows for XP gain when "performing" near another PC. Obviously this is setup so that Players don't SPAM MACRO near NPCs for easy XP gain, and I'm not arguing this point.

But if a PC is made that has such performance skills—Perform, Sleight of Hand, Tumble (?)—would it not make sense to be able to perform without PCs around (though we'd hope they were there...) and still gain something, just as Picking Pockets and Fishing currently allow for gain (without PCs about)?

And perhaps such a system should not just take into account Perform, SoH or Tumble individually, but actually REQUIRE an investment in all 3 in order to really gain anything (or just a greater amount off of a very low standard).

Thoughts?

I realize this may entail A LOT OF WORK and considering I'm not a Dev/scripter in any way shape or form, I can only make the suggestion and help in testing out the system. So cheers if anyone thinks it has merit and wants to implement it for BGTSCC.

[Steve]

Oh...and maybe to add that such a system would only (?) work in Taverns/Inns/Theaters, just like fishing only works in certain locations.

[Aeb Ankor]

I had this idea with Zud in the past, it is a good idea for RP uses of skills

[chad878262]

I like it. There are many different types of performance so it should take that in to account. My recommendation would be to require Perform skill in order to 'open up' the mechanic and then the DC check would be against the characters choice of skills. For example the player could select to entertain by song/music, tumbling, sleight of hand, or illusions/cantrips. Depending on the selection the check would go against the appropriate skill or against spell DC's for casters with perform.

As to XP/Gold exploits, these could be prevented much the same as fishing I would think. Cap how much one can earn per hour or per reset and scale the DC's within a given tavern/location and base the earnings on the number of NPCs in the location. So if a character stays in the FAI using macros or something make the DCs to successfully earn gold/xp get progressively higher until they become impossible to beat, or when the cap is reached just fire a message that the patrons are no longer interested in the entertainment provided.

I actually had an illusionist that had perform and sleight of hand which I RP'd as being such a performer and something like this would definitely have enticed me to keep him. Would also draw more RP to various inn's, in my opinion.

Cool idea Steve.

[Steve]

I like it. My recommendation would be to require Perform skill in order to 'open up' the mechanic and then the DC check would be against the characters choice of skills.

Makes sense that Perform would be a base Skill to "require" in order to build-out a particular type of Skilled performer. But if this was implemented this way, I'd request that Perform was given across the board to all base Classes. Unless of course that would open up some exploitable mechanic.

[chad878262]

I like it. My recommendation would be to require Perform skill in order to 'open up' the mechanic and then the DC check would be against the characters choice of skills.

Makes sense that Perform would be a base Skill to "require" in order to build-out a particular type of Skilled performer. But if this was implemented this way, I'd request that Perform was given across the board to all base Classes. Unless of course that would open up some exploitable mechanic.

The issue would be Dervish access from a mechanical perspective. Cross-class is fine IMO from a lore perspective as well. Just because it is needed doesn't mean the rules for acquiring it should be changed. You can be a Fighter that also has some ability to entertain in some way, be it singing/poetry/whatever...that does not mean you have (or should have) access to be as good at it as a Bard.

[Steve]

Then perhaps a simple 1 pt Perform is required to "unlock" the multiple-Skill calculation? 3pts? 5 pts?

I'm just going with the feeling that if some performance investment would "cost" a build mechanical gain, considering how so much of this game requires fighting (offense/defense investment), that many Players will NOT take advantage of this System, where my goal in suggesting it is to see more investment in all the performance-like things one could imagine, that would take place, in the Forgotten Realms world.

[chad878262]

That would be my thought as well Steve... And realize I'm just spit balling here with you, some developer would likely decide how they could/want to implement it. However, I would think Perform requirement would be based on tiers (5/10/15/20/25/30) that could perhaps increase increase the caps on gold/xp they can earn. This could be done by increasing the perform DC the longer the character stays in a given location. A true Bard or at least something that includes Bard should realistically be better at performing arts, after all.

Meanwhile, some other skill/ability could govern how much gold/xp is earned from a given performance. So if you have 15 Perform, 33 Sleight of Hand you would be able to maximize the gold/xp earned for up to 3 performances (perhaps the DC is 10, 20, 30, 40, etc.) Meanwhile if you had 33 Perform, 15 Sleight of Hand and still chose to entertain via SoH you would likely be able to do more performances, but would get less xp/gold for each. Another cool thing is, for the true Bard or partial Bard, especially Bard/Rogue you could potentially perform longer by switching up your act each time. Start with SoH, then some tumbling, followed by illusion magic, then some song and dance.

Again, these are just my brain dump of thoughts. Might not be what other want and might not be the best way to do it. As I said, I like the idea so just giving my raw thoughts to the topic.