DFRPG technical Question - Skill points

[The Last Bean]

I dunno if you guys are willing to share this, but I know it's something that falls under the OGL part of the system.... how are you doing Skill point allotments in the new RPG? I notice that what appear to be phase 5 alpha characters already have skills at +5, which is usually something that wouldn't be accessible until Phase 10 or higher. I've been trying to tweak the allotment for my DnD conversion to make it more "epic" and it looks like your setup is doing so nicely.

My current system has people waiting a number of phases equal to the new skill bonus (so if you raised a skill to good (+2) in phase 5 you cannot raise it for two phases (6 and 7) and would then be allowed to raise it again in phase 8 or later) It's simplified raising skill levels by removing the pyramid requirement, but it kinda causes players to plateau a bit without having any standout skills.

Care to help a fellow out?

[iago]

Hard to answer, because this is in mild flux at the moment.  It's more a case of "if you want to create big huge heroes, 35 skill points, if you want more of a street-level game, 20 skill points, etc" thing.

[The Last Bean]

So you're still using the basic pyramid, just with more points given per phase?

I guess I'll have to dig back into the pyramid setup and see if I can make it work for my players. I think one of my big problems has been my habit (from my old WoD days) of handing out experience points on a per-game basis, which really makes modifying a pyramid into a pain. I think I'll shelve that in lieu of a more "level" like payoff where they get an aspect and the skill points all at once, and adapt the flexible pyramid system from the "pyramid reloaded" doc you put up for 2.0. Let things decrease as well as increase and let people swap things out that they don't end up using.

Thanks for the help.

[iago]

Actually right now we're doing multiple columns with a skill cap.

[The Last Bean]

Wow, I hadn't really thought of that. After a day of playing around with the idea, I'm really starting to like it.

I spent a LOOOONG time trying to work the cap into the distribution method via the pyramid setup or the delay system I was using, but I realized that just setting a semi-arbitrary cap or one that's just tied to the number of phases doesn't make the game any more rules-y and allows the skill system to get a lot simpler.

I think I will be adopting the multiple column thing along with the idea of letting people "backslide" skills like you suggested in the "reloaded" article for the pyramid.

Thanks for all your help! I really appreciate your taking the time to answer my overly-involved systems questions.