Wendigo wrote:First, I think the scale is too compressed. 3-stars is basically a Ph.D. in a field, and it's only halfway up the scale? I know a grand total of four people who have more than one Ph.D... it's hard for me to envision characters who aren't hundreds of years old with multiple skills above 3. And most humans (and recently turned vampires) would have, like, one skill at 3 max by that scale... and probably none at four. Heck, 2 is a "University Degree". Only 41.5% of Americans have graduated from college, which means we're talking about more than half of characters with, at most, one star (yes, granted, there may be other ways to get training). Less than 5% have a Doctorate or comparable Professional Degree.
Furthermore, not all of these skills really lend themselves to comparisons with Degrees? What is a Ph.D. equivalent in Cooking anyway? Ph.D. in Hunting? Do they teach Hunting at University? Methinks maybe only at Hogwarts.
So, I suppose my questions come down to: can we either eliminate the degree comparison, or have some other metric by which to assess skill (e.g., years of professional training, years of experience, et cetera?)
The educational examples were the simplest way of doing it. If those aren't enough, play it by ear. I'd say that "proficient, advanced, expert, master, and grandmaster" are fairly self-explanatory. It doesn't need to be spot on.
I made it so that 3 stars is expert for a few very good reasons. The main reason, though, is that we're mostly talking about supernatural beings with greatly enhanced memory, skill and charisma. A vampire after a few years could very conceivably have learned two dozen complicated languages. There are other reasons, but they'd dilute the main point.
