Does inhuman speed stack with athletics

[Ghostfreak]

I just want to know if inhuman speed stacks with athletics and if so can someone give me an example please so I can show my dm. Because he does not believe that inhuman speed stacks with athletics, when I know it does but can't explain it properly.

[blackstaff67]

Inhuman speed DOES stack with Athletics.  If your Athletics is Good (+3) and you have Inhuman Speed, then it adds to your Athletics skill (+1, I believe) to increase it to a Great (+4).  Also adds to your Alertness, too. Great to avoid betting perforated/fireballed/slashed/whatever.  Also good for making tough Athletics rolls.  Harry refers to "the depressing speed" some monsters have to his magic.

[Ghostfreak]

Can you please point it out to me in the book that I can please show my dm because I tried to tell him it does work but unless I show him an example. Example what I want to know if I am rolling initiative and I have super speed, which gives me 4 and my athletics is also 4 does that mean its 8?

[dragoonbuster]

You don't roll for initiative normally, you take your flat Alertness skill and that's your initiative. In the case of Inhuman Speed, it adds 4 to that number. So if your Alertness is a 2, then w/ Inhuman Speed your Initiative is considered a 6. If your group prefers rolling, then you'd get to roll at 6 instead of 2.

When you're actually making Athletics rolls, though, of course you get the bonus from Inhuman Speed. The proof is in the trapping description of "Athetlic Ability" on YS 178. If your GM can't understand that, find a new GM, I'm sorry.

[Sanctaphrax]

If you really need textual proof that Inhuman Speed makes you faster, and not slower, look at the notes on vampire statblocks. Or the statblocks of anything with Speed. The defense totals given always take Speed bonuses into account.

[Ghostfreak]

Perfectly fine, I just wanted to make sure I have actual proof I can show him rather than go through 20 mins of arguing. But this will help my case immensely, thank you very much. So very much. He's a stickler for the rules but once I show him this then all will be well.

[Taran]

Here is a direct quote from YS: pg 178

Inhuman Speed [–2]
Description: You are very fast, just past the edge
of human capability.

Skills Affected: Athletics, Alertness, and some
other physical skills.
Effects:

Improved Initiative. Your Alertness is at +4 for
the purpose of determining initiative.

Athletic Ability. All your Athletics checks
are made at +1, including dodging.
When sprinting (see page 212), this bonus is
increased to +2.

I added the bolded underlined parts.  It literally says 'skills effected' and then lists the bonus you get to said skills.  I'm not sure it gets clearer than that.

You will note that it says "this bonus"  which means it is a bonus to your existing skill and not just a static value.

[RonLugge]

Reading the actual text... I can actually see where some of the confusion creeped in.  It doesn't say 'add four to alertness for the purposes of initiative'; it actually says 'your initiative is at +4' -- and given that a frequent way of noting skill is "I have +4 alertness", the similarity could, potentially, be confusing.