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For the Zero G combat Skill in book 2, it says PP number x5% plus 4% per level. Is it PP multiplied by five to make the percentage or is it multiplied by .05? They both seem either really high or really low numbers probability. Wording seems a bit weird to me.

I'm bad at math or there's something I'm missing. Likely both.

Help a dumb person out?

Ambrosius wrote:For the Zero G combat Skill in book 2, it says PP number x5% plus 4% per level. Is it PP multiplied by five to make the percentage or is it multiplied by .05? They both seem either really high or really low numbers probability. Wording seems a bit weird to me.

I'm bad at math or there's something I'm missing. Likely both.

Help a dumb person out?

The intent is almost certainly that your base percentile is your PPx5. Yes, that has the potential for a very high starting skill, and PP 20 or beyond will max it as soon as you get the skill. The alternative would give a skill of 1% at level 1 with 20 PP. That seems rather unlikely.

dreicunan wrote:The intent is almost certainly that your base percentile is your PPx5. Yes, that has the potential for a very high starting skill, and PP 20 or beyond will max it as soon as you get the skill. The alternative would give a skill of 1% at level 1 with 20 PP. That seems rather unlikely.

Shoot, a decent PP in the mid teens will give a high rating for it. You're right that the latter seems unlikely, if that would be the case then there's hardly a point in taking the skills barring the penalties without it. But rolling against it would mean the impossible.

Ambrosius wrote:

dreicunan wrote:The intent is almost certainly that your base percentile is your PPx5. Yes, that has the potential for a very high starting skill, and PP 20 or beyond will max it as soon as you get the skill. The alternative would give a skill of 1% at level 1 with 20 PP. That seems rather unlikely.

Shoot, a decent PP in the mid teens will give a high rating for it. You're right that the latter seems unlikely, if that would be the case then there's hardly a point in taking the skills barring the penalties without it. But rolling against it would mean the impossible.

That may well have been by design. Even rolling against it is described as a GM discretion thing. I'm pretty sure that when it was never rolled against in the games that I played that would have called for it.

My take on this is that the percentage is there for the rare occasion that the GM feels that you might need to roll. Say you are in a gun fight in zero g and another foe appears behind you and you want to do a controlled turn with out putting your back to the current foe.
Other than that... you don't roll against it anymore than you need to roll against some other skill for normal combat.

So yes, it is very high... because it is one of those skills that you either know or don't. Very few people will be middling on it.