A review of the skills in The Old World RPG

Skills in The Old World RPG (TOWR) are not created equal. Some, like Brawn or Athletics, apply to a wide range of situations, while others, such as Throwing or Toil, are far more specialised and rarely used.

This imbalance can make Careers tied to niche skills less appealing and lead new players to make suboptimal choices. While these issues are rarely game-breaking—and are common in detailed systems—it may still be worth exploring if improvements could be made. And by knowing where possible weaknesses in the system are, GMs can take steps to counter any negative effects thereof.

In this post, I’ll examine the skills, highlight perceived problem areas, and consider ways to make underused options more attractive.

It is important to note that I think The Old World Roleplaying Game is a fantastic system, and that Cubicle 7 has done an amazing job of creating a simple system with a surprising depth of character builds and options. We are nitpicking here, so do not take the criticisms as a reason to call the game bad or to avoid playing it. That would be a mistake. But anything created by man can be improved upon, and TOWR is no exception.

As always for a game this young, the following is based on a tiny bit of playtesting and a whole lot of speculation, so take that into account as well.

Tier system

In addition to the discussion, each skill will be graded on an abbreviated Tier List scale: S, A, B, C and F.

• S tier skills are a superior choice in almost all situations, and all characters need to have at least a decent score in them.
• A tier skills are very good, and useful to a broad category of characters and/or situations. They will be used often.
• B tier skills are okay, useful in fairly common scenarios and not something you'll regret improving.
• C tier skills are usually bad choices compared to others available, but some corner-case builds or situations can make use of them.
• F tier skills should be avoided, their mechanics are fundamentally flawed, or what they cover is so niche it is unlikely to impact a game in any significant way.

In a well-balanced game, there should be no S or F tier entries, so hopefully that is the case here.

Format

Each skill will be listed and rated on the form "Characteristic: Skill - Tier", so for instance Weapon Skill: Melee - Tier X or Fellowship: Charm - Tier Y, followed by a discussion of how the skill functions and its value, and then how I would consider houseruling it. 

Before you apply any such houserule to your game (or ask your GM to do so), remember that following the rules as written is a value in itself, to keep things easy to remember for players. So I don't necessarily recommend you apply every house rule I suggest, even if it would technically improve the "balance" of the game - convenience is often more important than balance, use your brain before changing anything.

Weapon Skill: Melee - A-tier

If you want to attack in melee, this is going to be your go-to skill. Unarmed combat uses the Brawn skill, as does attempts at grappling and pushing in combat, but in general this is how you put on the hurt at close (or even short) range. There are 18 weapons to choose from, and many (perhaps even most) allow for interesting gameplay and build choices.

There's not much else to say. The only alternative (Brawn with Knuckledusters), while very good with the rules as written, is limited in scope and only supports one build. Every other melee build needs WS/Melee, and even non-melee builds are likely to rely on it.

A-tier, but still limited enough in scope not to really need any change or balancing. A nice "this is how you fight"-button.

Weapon Skill: Defence - B-tier

One of two main ways of opposing attacks in the game, this can be used against melee attacks if you have a weapon larger than a knuckle duster, and against ranged attacks if you have a shield. If you are unarmed, it cannot be used at all - even against other unarmed attacks.

Good because you can increase Weapon Skill and thus become better at both attacking in melee and defending, bad because a shield is needed to stop ranged attacks - if you don't have one you have to use Athletics against ranged attacks, which limits the two-for-one-deal of weapon skill nicely.

This skill has good support from weapons (bonuses from spears, swords, glaives and greatswords), though only the spear and sword can be used with the important shield. It also has nice talent support, check out Defensive Stance and Riposte.

While extremely specialised, the skill offers interesting tradeoffs and seems generally well designed. B-tier!

I would add a house rule that this skill can be used while unarmed to block other unarmed attacks. Apart from that, it seems to work well as it is.

Ballistic Skill: Shooting - A-tier

If Melee is the main way of attacking in close combat, Shooting is the same for ranged combat. There is a whole range of well designed ranged weapons to choose from for this skill, allowing many different builds and strategies.

As with Melee, there isn't much more to say. The alternative here (throwing) is probably inferior, which leaves this in A-tier despite being very specialized. Combat is common enough and the ranged weapons well enough designed for this to be that useful.

No real changes needed in my opinion (though I reserve the right to change my mind), though some people don't like that you can just leave melee combat and shoot a ranged weapon. If you're in that camp, you may want some house rule to fix it - that is a topic for another day, however.

Ballistic Skill: Throwing - C-tier

The list of throwing weapons is shorter than the list of shooting weapons, but includes several fairly well designed options that I might want to use. Regrettably, there is one major problem: The weapons using the shooting skill have unlimited ammunition, while those using the throwing skill do not. Most thrown weapons give you only one shot per item, and even with maximum Strength, you can’t carry many.

There is still some edge-case play here, for melee characters with high Strength that want a ranged option, and the Quick Throw talent which uses thrown weapons is one of extremely few options that give you more than one attack in a round. And if you are a gold tier character and can use Oil Flasks with abandon, the skill is likely to be worth investing in.

If the game had rules that let you use the throwing weapons as melee weapons, and guidelines for how often you get to pick them up after a fight, and if throwing knives had the same rules as the shooting weapons (more or less unlimited ammo) instead of "enough ammo for a fight", I'd probably call this acceptable... probably still C-tier though, as most characters are likely to get more mileage out of the Shooting skill. And you only want one of those skills.

There is one fun note here: On page 125 of the players guide, it lists using Throwing to catch things. I'm uncertain if this is a mistake, other examples of catching things seem to use Dexterity. But it would make sense to me. Not a big enough use to make this skill more useful, but worth noting.

Apart from that, note that some people say this skill feels like they just really wanted two skills per characteristic, and couldn't find another one for Ballistic Skill - which they wanted to keep for that traditional Warhammer feel. I agree with that, but I also see the value of catering to that nostalgia, and I don't dislike the idea of splitting characters into "those who shoot and those who throw". And I can't think of a better skill to replace it with either. 

If I was to "fix" it and make it interesting, I might add a talent that would let you deflect non-bullet projectiles shot at you using this skill and a melee weapon, leaning into the "catching things" angle from page 125. It's a bit high fantasy for Warhammer, I guess, but still. Being able to use Throwing to counter ranged attacks would be a niche but nice alternative to Athletics for melee fighters specializing in two-handed weapons. If you also fixed the ammunition issue (maybe by allowing 3 thrown weapons of the same type to count as one weapon for encumbrance), that would make it a B-tier skill and a fair alternative to shooting to my mind.

Another interesting angle would be to force mages that cast elemental magic missiles like fireball to check this skill to hit. That would require a fairly major rework of the magic system to work though, as you would suddenly have to contend with how such attacks might be opposed, etc.

Finally, it could easily be made more attractive by including more utility thrown weapons like the Oil Flask. Check out the "stink bomb" suggested in my guide to the apothecary career for an example of what that might look like. I think it likely we will see more things like this in future supplements from C7.

Strength: Brawn - A-tier

Brawn is one of those skills with extremely broad application. In combat, it governs unarmed combat, as well as all attempts at pushing, tripping or grappling. Significantly, it can be used to attack with the Knuckle Dusters, which can do decent damage with high Strength (great synergy) and allows you to forego Weapon Skill and Melee entirely if you focus on it.

Its governing characteristic (Strength) also increases damage of all melee weapons, almost all throwing weapons, and one of the shooting weapons. It increases the range of throwing weapons, and governs how many weapons you can carry. Granted, this isn't a property of the Brawn skill itself, but it gives great synergy.

Outside of combat, Brawn governs all "immediate feats of strength", including smashing, lifting and hauling as long as it isn't over a long distance. While not always useable, this is useful in a lot of adventuring situations, such as breaking down or holding shut doors, holding prisoners, etc.

Even without the existence of Knuckledusters, this would be A-tier for being so generally useful in and out of combat. With the Knuckledusters, it is borderline S-tier - I'm leaving it just outside because Weapon Skill/Melee builds are still highly valid.

I would nerf the Knuckledusters a bit. After that, this skill is still very good but fine, possibly B-tier but most likely low A.

Strength: Toil - F-tier

This skill depends on Strength which is a very good characteristic... but that's about all I think it's good for. It is used for prolonged manual labour, such as plowing fields, building walls or digging ditches. I can count on one hand how many times I've asked for a check for doing that throughout 30+ years as a WFRP game master. Hell, I don't need a single finger, I've never asked for a check for that.

It can be used for Rowing a boat (players guide page 125), which might be useful once or twice in a campaign.

Beyond that, it is used mainly in downtime for Crafting certain things, to learn how to craft them and to ply your trade to earn extra money. That's not useless, but all of those things can be done more efficiently. Want equipment? Have a high tier character buy it, loot it or steal it. Want to practice your trade for more money? Have a trade that requires a more useful skill.

If it had just one real, general use outside crafting, it would be a very cool skill - not a top tier one by any means, but one where using it for crafting (and thus improving it during downtime) wouldn't feel quite as much like a waste of an endeavour.

What might that use be? I'm really not sure. I can see campaigns where building or maintaining fortifications and the like might be important from time to time, but hardly very often. I'm not sure having Toil as a generally useful skill is a salvageable idea. 

If I had designed the game, the crafting parts of this skill would all be rolled into Dexterity, the rest of it into Survival, and I would replace it with a "Physical presence" skill (maybe called Stature?), which would be a variant of Leadership/Charm for those instances where how big, attractive and fit you are is the most important thing. Threatening someone with a beating, or seducing someone with your healthy and well-toned physique. There is room for a third (well fourth if you count awareness) social skill in this game, and this would work well for the "strong but silent type".

Intermezzo: A rant about ranting

Okay, time for a mini-rant due to the negativity that sometimes comes up when I say something in the game is bad: 

If you take ONE thing away from this article, let it be this: That one skill is weak in my (or your) opinion doesn't make the game bad. I can find faults with anything, it's much easier than creating something good. It just means that GMs should keep in mind that someone very invested into Toil won't automatically get anything out of it, and we need to make sure they don't regret their choice by creating and contriving situations where they get to test it and shine, or making it better by allowing them to come up with cool and unique things to craft! Or just remembering to ask for Toil checks to avoid being Drained now and then after a harrowing trek, even though we otherwise wouldn't bother. Or allowing them to replace Survival or Endurance tests with Toil in certain situations when it might make sense. 

That kind of flexibility and adaptability is something I expect of a GM, and it is needed in any roleplaying game. This isn't a competitive computer game, perfect balance isn't needed - or indeed the point. Evocative rules don't have to be good on a point-for-point basis, and Toil does allow a character such as a farmer to have mechanical representation of being good at their job. It just isn't very useful in the game, unless we GMs help it out a bit.

We analyze things like this to understand what we need to keep an eye on, and how to make the game fun for a player who wants to play a character that may be suboptimal from a rules point of view, not to start flame wars about what game is better or to roll our eyes at the rules and being know-it-alls. And maybe, sometimes, to think up improvements we might want to use - or just have fun considering what might have been.

Toughness: Endurance - A-tier

Before we discuss the skill, it is important to remember that Toughness is an extremely valuable attribute in TOWR because it adds directly to Resilience. A couple of points in resilience makes an enormous difference. That synergy means that having a good dice pool for Endurance is good for everyone even before we get to the skill itself.

Endurance lets you resist pain, hold your ground against other characters (that is, resist grappling and pushing in combat), avoid the effects of disease and poison, resist some physical hazards (unless they come from the weather), resist some magical effect, etc. This is generally amazing.

Endurance is also tested to avoid festering wounds, a mechanic that can easily kill you, especially if your group doesn't have a well-spec'd healer.

The only reason this is A and not S tier is that it's a 100% passive skill. Everyone needs it, everyone benefits for it, and while it may not be tested all the time, when it is  tested it can be life-or-death. But you can't do anything with it.

No change needed, but really good.

Toughness: Survival - C-tier

As with Endurance, this skill is based on a characteristic which is very important on its own. That means the dice pool should be good if it can be.

Beyond that, this skill lets you navigate wilds swiftly and without injury, forage for food, find shelter and resist weather-related hazards. You can often get a bonus from environment lores.

If your GM is running a campaign greatly focused on outdoor survival, this is great - but TOWR isn't really built for that, there's just this skill and hardly any other rules around that. So he probably won't.

It is worth noting that this skill has one vital use. If your healer doesn't have a Physicker's kit, a test of either this or Awareness is needed to treat injuries. I think a lot of people overlook this when they say the Recover action is too powerful - the requirement of either a Physicker's kit or a Survival/Awareness test to find what you need to treat a wound means you often won't be able to do it there and then. And a physicker's kit is a GOLD tier piece of equipment.

This skill is very close to F-tier, and with being the skill used for long treks, it seems to be to be very related to Toil which is even worse. As mentioned under that skill, I would merge them - which would make this a bit more interesting. I would also disallow Awareness for replacing a physickers kit, making this vital in that way to most groups. That combination offixes would put it in B-tier for me.

Not useless though, you will be called to test this from time to time.

Initiative: Awareness - A-tier

Awareness, the gold standard of skills in certain games. In TOWR, it is hampered (some would say balanced) by the rule that GMs have to give out clues. In this game a failed awareness test is not a campaign ending failure. That's probably a good thing. It is still almost too good.

Awareness still has several important roles. In investigation, while the GM has to give you the clues necessary to figure out the plot, Awareness may often be used to make them easier to understand (see "Insights"). Awareness is also sometimes used to avoid ambushes (which can be nasty in this game), GM willing.

But there is more. Awareness can be used in lieu of Survival to find what you need to treat a wound, thus replacing the requirement on the gold tier Physicker's kit. Awareness is also used to avoid being pickpocketed, spot hidden characters (which may be useful in combat if your GM likes the Move Quietly rules - and he should), avoiding traps (see page 116), aiming in combat (very useful if you're using a weapon with a significant reload time or when setting your own ambushes), ending the Blinded  and Deafened condition in some cases, adapting to weather conditions when driving a vehicle (WHY ISN'T THIS SURVIVAL?) or using the gather information or lay low endeavour.

Did you think we were done? Apart from any perception test the GM might think to throw at you (and some GMs love perception tests), and everything I listed above, Awareness is a very important social skill. You test it to Scrutinise someone, which lets you ask some important questions - notably what they expect of you, which will give you bonuses to other social actions, and "what do they want" which can solve half an adventure on its own.

Do you think that sounds good? Scrutinise has talent support. Take the Intense Scrutiny talent and become a living lie detector. It can do other things as well, but that should be enough.

This skill is, to my mind, just a little bit too good - not quite S-tier, but problematic because it encroaches on too the territory of too many other skills. To fix it, let Survival be the only skill to replace the Physicker's kit, and let Survival keep its weather-master niche by using that to adapt to the weather when controlling a vehicle. Then remove the "Are they being truthful right now" option from Intense Scrutiny. This would still be an A-tier skill, but Survival would be better.

I will say this though - even though it can be good, Awareness might still not feel very powerful, unless you're good at using Scrutinize. It is mostly a reactive skill. So even though I rate it high, GMs should actually keep an eye on it and make sure players get their mileage out of it. Having enemies hide in combat will be enough. But if the GM doesn't use hiding, ambushes or traps, the player doesn't use scrutinize, and someone in the party has a Physickers kit? This will go from A to F in a jiffy.

Initiative: Dexterity - C-tier

Dexterity represents "manual dexterity", and allows you to craft, though exactly what is left to the GM. To my mind, it should definitely be used for Concoctions, Cooking, Textiles and Blackpowder at the very least.

It is used for reloading ranged weapons, meaning it is vital for anyone using crossbows or gunpowder weapons.

If you have the Criminal Underworld lore, you can use it to pick locks and the like.

With the Anatomy lore, you can use it to perform surgery, which may be a life saver sometimes - though not that often. There is a talent available to make you better at this, though you'll have to have a very good Dexterity skill for it to be worth it.

And you can use it to steer carriages around obstacles or into enemies.

You can use it to distract opponents, but the other skills listed for this are Brawn and Athletics - skills that are so good I didn't even bother to mention this. 

There are some other uses, like "investing money" by cheating at cards, but it's all a bit niche.

A long list of niches then. Most characters do not need to bother with this. Those who do will want it very, very high. That's fine. I'm calling it C-tier for niche use.

Agility: Athletics - S-tier

Ah, Athletics. God skill of god skills in TOWR. Its list of uses may be a bit shorter than Dexterity or Awareness, but the things it does let you do... oh my.

First of all, this lets you oppose any attack in the game that can be opposed - there is even a talent (Lightning Reflexes) that will let you use it to oppose most of the attacks that cant be opposed.

Secondly, it lets you move through difficult terrain. That sounds like it isn't that great, until you see the effects of whole zones of difficult terrain in combat. Granted, how useful this is depends on how much your GM likes difficult terrain, and whether you have the terrain lores to ignore it.

Then it governs moving fast. Any type of moving fast. Climbing, chasing, jumping, swimming, running, falling without taking damage, riding a mount, pursuing, escaping... anything, as long as its fast and not stealthy.

Lets not forget that it's used to control a mount or vehicle, run an extra zone, surviving an attempt to retreat, ending the Ablaze condition, dodging some magic spells... There is more, but you see the point.

This skill does too much. It's great. Everyone wants it. It is too much.

Most opinions I've seen revolve around its combat usefulness compared to defense. I don't actually have a problem with that, if we ignore the other effects it is a nice tradeoff. Athletics can be used to oppose any attack, but doesn't otherwise help you in combat (remember, we're ignoring its other effects), but Defence can get bonuses from equipment and some talents, and significantly has synergy by relying on the same characteristic as Melee. Ranged combatants are balanced by having to invest here. (Lets not talk about dual wielders or two-hander-wielders, they need help, but it's not the skills fault.)

No, to my mind the overpoweredness (is that a word?) of Athletics comes from how much else it does - especially that should be done by something else.

Difficult terrain? That really sounds like Survival to me. Let that be survival (and change the bonus of Staffs to apply to survival instead), and you've more or less fixed it to my mind. That would prevent Athletics from doing two very important things in combat. Still A-tier, but not "broken" anymore.

Want more? Well, ending the Ablaze condition is also Survival. Attempting to retreat from battle should still be possible with athletics, but lets allow Stealth and Survival to be equally viable options. If you keep the Toil skill in the game, let it take over climbing and swimming, even for shorter distances - those things are exhausting. And let Dexterity be the "control vehicles and mounts" skill.

All those things would leave a still very strong Athletics skill, but would let other skills shine more as well.

Agility: Stealth - B-tier

Stealth lets you hide. This can be used in combat, or, obviously, outside it. The combat rules for hiding are actually quite nice and interesting, and if you haven't checked them out, you should. The uses outside combat are obvious, but a bit niche - not all campaigns involve a lot of sneaking.

Thieves can defend themselves using this skill, and there are some downtime endeavours that use it.

Read my article on the thief career to see some advice for GMs on how to prevent stealth from sucking because only one character took it.

Stealth is obviously useful, but quite niche. I'm putting it in B-tier, because if you're good at it and the GM runs stealth challenges in a good way, it is great when it is great. Otherwise, it's probably C-tier. I'm placing any problems here at the GMs feet though, not as a problem with the system - indeed, the system supports stealth better than most roleplaying games, without complicated rules. Kudos to C7 there.

Fellowship: Leadership - A-tier

Leadership. When I first saw this skill, I thought: "Well, that'll be useless compared to Charm". How wrong I was.

Leadership applies whenever you use your force of personality, social status or physical presence. It lets you flaunt status, act aggressively or lead by example. Personally I also tend to let it govern genuine attempts at leadership such as making speeches and so on.

Mechanically, it works to persuade, distract or end the Broken condition. That last one can be game-changing if a GM likes to surround you with mooks to make Giving ground hell, or if he likes to use scary opponents.

And it is so easy to justify using this to Help someone. The helping mechanics in TOWR are great - I genuinely love them. And if you want the easiest way to use them, just be good at leadership. A shouted encouragement, and you're probably there with most GMs.

The suggested complications on a partially successful tests are worth noting: 

• Make an example of someone before the rest will listen.
• Foster long-term resentment in whoever follows your orders.
• Appear as a ruthless, tactless bully

All of these have so much long-term roleplay potential. I love them. But it also means you want to be great at this skill to avoid the GM saying you executed someone to make your point because you only rolled one success. (Okay, hopefully GMs won't do that, but it is a valid interpretation of the first point.)

To be honest though, they're a bit heavy handed. Leadership is clearly not always intimidation. Using social status and personality to get your way could just as easily result in "you get an ardent and impossibly annoying fanboy who stalks you", "you end up using a coin on buying favours", "anti-elitists target you as a living symbol of the oppressive classes" or "the 70 year old duchess approaches you as a possible consort". Wait.... those are ALL awesome consequences! (For the story, not for the character, of course.) GMs should consider how the skill is used, but whatever the case, it'll be fun.

As you read the rules, you will find that it is incredibly easy to use this skill in almost any social situation as well as to Help... and helping is amazing. Because overcoming defenses can be hard in this game, Helping is sometimes a genuinely better option in combat than attacking. Especially if you're not that good at combat but a friend of yours is - but still not good enough to overcome the Resilience of the Dragon or demon-infused Chaos Warrior you're fighting. Well... just say some inspiring words, and those extra dice might just be enough to make your friend cut that enemy champion down to size.

Helping is also useful outside of combat, and Leadership can nearly always be used to help in some way. If in no other way than saying "get it done or your ass is mine".

It isn't S-tier because it isn't always useful, can't be used for all social situations... but it is very close.

Fellowship: Charm - A-tier

Charm is usually where its at for social interaction in roleplaying games, and I once again give great kudos to Cubicle 7 - this time for making Leadership just as useful, if not more. In TOWR, charm is used whenever you are subtle or friendly in your interactions. Indeed, subtlety and guile is emphasized, meaning that... well... charm is basically deception with some slightly more truthful strategies glued on.

Examples of use is persuasion, distraction or faking your identity.

The complications aren't generally as evocative as those of Intimidation, but I do like "Appear as a wheedling, insincere sycophant.". 

Charm helps you barter and haggle, appear harmless, swindle, be genuinely friendly, be falsely friendly, tempt people, entertain, etc.

And then there is the line under the Improvise combat action: "Charm to turn foes into allies, with GM approval". If you wondered, that is an indication that you should be able to use charm to turn some enemies. Probably mostly when you encounter soldiers fighting for the wrong cause, but still. It won't happen often, but when it does... Charm is going to rule. GMs should play Knights of the old Republic or Shadowrun: Dragonfall to the end as social-specialist characters, to get an idea of how awesome it feels when Charm really pays off at the climax. And while this game doesn't outright state that you should run your games that way - it does indeed hint at it.

Charm is A-tier for me, for being generally useful in a very important niche that no other skill - not even the surprisingly great leadership - can reach.

Leadership and Charm are both great, and balance each other out - they need no fixing to my mind, except perhaps that system-wide change where you introduce a Strength-based "Stature" skill.

Summary and thoughts

I am genuinely in love with the TOWR system, and extremely impressed with what Cubicle 7 has done here. I do criticize things, and have suggestions on how things may be better. But while keeping with design goals that obviously included sticking to nostalgic-if-not-mechanically-great characteristics, and a slightly more dubious decision to have exactly two skills per characteristic (that DOES make the skills easier to remember though) - they have made a system where all the skills are useful for something - and where only one skill is problematically narrow in scope.

To my mind, only fairly minor tweaks are needed to bring the more powerful skills into line, and those tweaks have the benefit of increasing the usefulness of other skills. Toil needs a major rework, but as Brawn is good and Strength has value on its own, it is a localized and ignorable problem.

In the end, TOWRs characteristics and skills offers an evocative framework to let the GM and players have a common language to resolve conflicts and let players understand what kinds of characters they are meant to play. That, to my mind, is what makes a great RPG. Not perfect balance, not rules that will never collapse. But quick, easy to adapt rules, that informs the players and GM how the game is supposed to feel - so they can make sure it does.

That said, to get the best experience we should understand the system we're using - and to understand it we need to analyze, criticize and consider tweaks - even if we don't apply them. So let me know your thoughts. Do you like my suggested fixes? Are any unnecessary?  Don't I go far enough? Is my philosophy fundamentally flawed in your opinion? Did you like the idea of replacing Toil with Stature? All comments are welcome!