House of Hell - rules question

[ferg]

(Warning: Heavy Spoilers)

I'm waiting to allow people not to read further...

Ok...

Here goes. 

So, I have a question about the Kris Knife in House of Hell. It is simply this: 

Can the Kris Knife boost your SKILL past Initial SKILL in the last fight, (the showdown)?

From the book: "You may add 6 points to your SKILL score while using this weapon."

I realise its a bit of random one, but any ideas?

[CharlesX]

There's pretty much two sides about this. Technically it is specified in the rules you cannot increase your Skill past its Initial level. Which would mean a Skill bonus (rather than an Attack Strength one) would not let you pass your Skill level.

   However, one wonders why the author even wrote you could get a +6 Skill bonus if you couldn't use most of it? Equally technically the author's intent is unclear in many FF, often in more than one way, for example in House Of Hell where Titannica's errata points out inconsistent rules for Testing your Skill. 

Skill rolls are handled somewhat inconsistently in the text. The rules on p13 state that any rolls against Skill (outside of combat) should be made against Initial Skill, and this is explicitly stated as well in the Skill roll at (79). However, (34), (231) and (384) all also have Skill rolls unrelated to combat but, unlike (79), do not specifically mention rolling against your Initial Skill.

So, most players use a mixture of what seems to be the author's intent, common sense, and their own strictness and subjective interpretation of the rules. The majority would let the +6 Skill bonus go above their Initial Skill, but it's down to your interpretation.

   I too wish there were a definitive answer, there isn't one as it is.

   By the way I hope a moderator would move this as this is in Fighting Fantasy novels thread where House Of Hell is a gamebook most certainly not a novel. So it should be either in House Of Hell under FF gamebooks or else in the solution thread for House Of Hell.

[ferg]

Yes. This is basically what I've been telling myself. Also, if the bonus isn't given, the last battle is virtually unwinnable with a skill of less 10 or 11.

I hadn't found Titannica! I've just been absorbing some of that. I see their errors also list the Kris Knife not being denoted as a WEAPON - I thought that was interesting, but figured is was more likely a design decision.

And yes. Apologies, I posted this under the wrong category. If it can be moved, that would be good.

[Wizard Slayer]

On the whole, the approach to Skill in this book was another of Steve Jackson's novel, interesting and experimental approaches (not starting with a weapon, different bonuses for different improvised weapons) that was poorly applied. It's impossible to lose more than an additional 2 Skill points and face the demon, so you could never use the full +6 bonus if you take the strict interpretation, plus it gives no bonus at all fighting anybody else. The most powerful weapon in the house is actually a letter-opener - it's the only one that lets you fight at your Initial Skill score, so negates any penalties you might get!

[thealmightymudworm]

House of Hell is a book I came to late so I don't know it as deeply as some do, but I don't have much patience with the idea that the Kris knife's bonus is limited by your initial SKILL score.

Following on from Wizard Slayer, I'd say that the variations on SKILL rules are just bad. Making the fight handicap with no weapon a SKILL deduction rather than -3 to Attack Strength is perhaps more eye-catching, but it's treating SKILL as if it's a combat only stat and that's just not how it's used.

Using initial SKILL for the tests seems to be pretty clearly a bodge to avoid the immediate ridiculousness of "...it's really hard for you to barge down the door because you're not holding a letter opener" but it doesn't make much sense either. If you lose a current SKILL point due to e.g. drinking the wrong colour liquid, that should apply to SKILL tests just as much as combats.

As for the Kris knife in particular... Most of us on here like to play by the rules at least some of the time. Sometimes that involves analysing those rules and making a judgement call on how harshly to interpret them in order to avoid cheating without descending into needless masochism. One thing this involves is weighing up a literal reading of the text against the possible intentions of the author.

There has to be an immersion-breaker element to this. The idea that the way the Kris knife is supposed to function is that it has no benefit against the hell demon above normal combat if you're healthy, but that if you've suffered a crippling injury like losing a foot (that's plausibly -3 to SKILL), you can fight as normal... that's not something I can even pretend to make sense of, far less believe it was intentional.

Besides which I'm inclined to agree with the view that it's not even the correct literal reading of section 109, which is:
"You may add 6 points to your SKILL score while using this weapon."

While you can't increase your SKILL past its initial score without specific instruction, it's an interpretation that it's an increase to your SKILL score at all. Why can it not mean that your SKILL score remains the same, but you add 6 points (just a number, not SKILL points) to it before adding the result of the 2d6 to it?

Compare line 2 in the instructions for Battles in the original Puffin HoH (oddly the Wizard rules are phrased slightly differently):
"Roll both dice once for yourself. Add the number rolled to your current SKILL score."
No one yet has been quite masochistic enough to say that this means that someone with an initial SKILL of 9 has a maximum Attack Strength of 9.

That is: it's a cack-handed explanation of an Attack Strength bonus but that's what it is just the same.