Skill benchmarks, circumstance bonuses and cap

[spikevampire]

Hello everyone,

Quick question:
Can the circumstance bonuses overcome the CAP limit?

Ex. My hero has 20 stealth and wear a night camouflage tactical suit... Plenty of examples are possiblr here


If yes should I then set the max value for a very skilled character at 10+lv?
If no, it is better that I set the max value for a very skilled charactrr at 5+lv? So i can include the circumstance bonuses in my counts and make the roleplaying more interesting?

Also... Most of the cool tasks are achieved with 25. For a cool character should I use +15 as a baseline for his skill bonus?

Thank you guys

[FuzzyBoots]

True circumstance bonuses can indeed exceed caps. That said, I believe that those bonuses cap out at the +1-2 range as per things like Favored Opponent, and I'd personally be loathe to allow equipment to push people past the cap. At best, I'd let things go up to +2 over the cap with additional equipment (for the average soldier, camo fatigues get them a +5 because they have room to their cap. For Batman with a maxed-out Stealth score, they only get him +1, +2 if he's been really clever about accessorizing with local bits of scenery, because at his level of skill, there's only so much that can be done).

[Arthur Eld]

For another thing, whether or not circumstance bonuses actually apply to the character's check or the task's DC is ultimately up the GM. Though the section on circumstance modifiers is small in the core book, it does mention this.

So sometimes its less 'having this bonus makes you better at the task' and more 'the task is easier because of this bonus, regardless of your efforts.'

Remember team checks count as circumstance bonuses, as those can be especially useful when a task might be difficult even for the character best suited to the task by himself.

Batman's Investigation bonus is at PL caps (+22), but Robin can auto-succeed on a Team check (cause its DC 10 and he has +15 Investigation), and with Teamwork, give Batman that +5 check, for a total of +27. Granted, this might be an example of one where a bonus is not truly needed all that much, but you better believe Robin would still roll to help Batman.

[Murkglow]

Yes, Circumstantial Bonuses can break PL. The bonus for Camo Clothing however is not a circumstantial one it's an "equipment" bonus. It does not allow you to break PL in any way.

As a side note, I probably would not allow the book's version of Camo Clothing in my games. +5 to stealth for 1 equipment point (with the dubious drawback that it only works in "one environment" which appearently includes all urban in one) is pretty excessive to me. Not only is it equipment (and thus getting a crazy price discount already) but the fact that it only works in one specific environment isn't much of a flaw in alot of games (heck I probably wouldn't call that a flaw at all and instead say that that is how equipment works, you know since it fails whenever the GM wants it to, ie when the scenery changes).

[spikevampire]

So circumstantial bonus (not equipment) should be able to break the CAP limit (maybe more when they make the task easier instead of providing a bonus)
There are only few occasion when they show themselves anyway, then not a big issue

Thank you

[AdvocateJack]

I agree that "urban camo" at +5 is a bit much if you consider it to be all urban. But I personally wouldn't allow that for equipment since actual real world urban camo doesn't work all the time that way, Wearing blue, gray, and black camo and standing against a red brick wall for example won't help usually, even if you're in a city. Of course hiding amongst the rubble of a concrete and steel building could be a different story...

So it's far from useless, but I'd be pretty strict with when things apply. Especially if it was getting abused.