Jack of all trades, master of none.
The Jack of All Trades is the one man who can do anything, the one who’s always ready for anything. Competent at all skills and crafts, though not a master of any, the Jack of All Trades is the classic Renaissance man, or polymath. A Jack of All Trades seeks always to master new skills and improve those he ever has–but he can never master in any trade at the expense of the others.
Taboos
Jack of All Trades, master of none goes the aphorism–and that is the Jack’s taboo. If an avatar of the Jack of All Trades ever buys enough points in a skill to raise his rating in it to the point where it is greater than or equal to his Avatar skill, he breaks taboo.
The toolbox is one of the strongest symbols of the Jack of All Trades, and the Swiss Army Knife, along with the Batman-esque utility belt, is becoming associated with him.
Imhotep (Egyptian), Athena (Greek), Loki (Norse), Sherlock Holmes (Literary)
Leonardo Da Vinci, the Renaissance man, was almost indisputably an avatar of the Jack of All Trades, and the Greek philosopher Aristotle was probably one as well. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were also probably avatars.
1%-50%: At this level, your connection to the Archetype lets you succeed at tasks as if you had years of experience behind you. You get a +5% shift on all rolls made with skills that have a number of points bought in them less than or equal to one-half the points of Avatar (Jack of All Trades) you have, rounded up. If they have one-quarter the points of your avatar skill, the shift increases to +10%. If you have bought no points at all in the skill, the shift increases to +20%–which, when combined with the -30% shift applied to your base stat for making an unskilled action, gives a total of a -10% shift.
51%-70%: At this level, you adapt to new situations fast, and always seem to have the expertise the situation calls for. You may make an Avatar (Jack of All Trades) roll in place of any other skill roll a number of times per day equal to the tens’ digit of your Soul stat. If either Avatar (Jack of All Trades) or the skill you are rolling it in place of is your obsession skill, you may flip-flop the roll.
71%-90%: Even if you’ve never done something before, you find that you catch on easily to. At the beginning of each day, you pick a number of skills equal to half the tens’ digit of your Soul stat. You cannot have any points bought in the skill you chose. For the next twenty-four hours, you are treated as having a number of points in those skills equal to half the number of points you have in your Avatar skill, even this exceeds the stat the corresponds to the skill.
You can gain points in a Magick skill or another Avatar skill, but doing so isn’t quite as easy. First off all, you can only pick one such skill at a time–you can’t suddenly become an expert in every school of magick, and an avatar of the Warrior to boot. In addition, you are only treated as having a number of points in that skill equal to one-quarter your Avatar skill, not one-half. Finally, casting spells or using avatar channels granted to you by this channel mess with your head. Every time you use your newfound skill to cast a spell or use a channel, it calls for a Self stress check, as you invoke forces contradictory to the Archetype you embody. If you’re casting a spell, the rank of the check depends on the spell’s level–rank-4 if minor, rank-8 if significant, and God help you if you somehow pull of something major. When using an avatar channel, the rank depends on which channel. The 1%-50% channel brings on a rank-1 check, the 51%-70% a rank-4 stress check, the 71%-90% a rank-7 stress check, and the 91%+ channel incurs a rank-10 stress check.
91%+: This is where it gets good. It isn’t just all trades–it’s all magick. With a successful Avatar roll, you can cast a minor formula spell of any school without spending any charges. If you roll a matched success or a crit, then you can cast a significant formula spell, you lucky dog. There’s no precise limit on the number of times you can use this ability in a day. Instead, once you’ve cast a number of spells whose combined cost in minor charges would equal the tens’ digit of your Soul stat or higher, this channel is gone for the rest of the day. If you fail an Avatar roll made to use this ability, it counts as one minor charge towards your daily total, even though you didn’t get to cast anything. If you’re lucky enough to cast a significant spell with this ability, its charge cost doesn’t count against your daily total.
For example, Katie, an Avatar of the Jack of All trades, has a Soul stat of 95 and an Avatar skill of 91%. She uses this ability first to cast the Dipsomancy spell moment of truth–which would cost her one minor charge normally–to start the day off with a hunch. Later, she gets into a fight with a couple of thugs, and casts the Entropomancy spell fortune’s fool–raising her total to three charges–to reroll a failed Struggle roll. On her next round, she gets lucky and rolls a matched success, and copies the Plutomancy spell bankrupt will to end the fight, without affecting her charge total for the day. She casts the Pornomantic dazzle to distract the thug’s accomplice so she can run away, raising her charge total for the day to six. She tries to cast Epidermancy’s regeneration spell to patch herself up, but no such luck–she fails three times, raising her total charges to nine, and shutting down this channel for the rest of the day.
The current Godwalker of the Jack of All Trades is Nathan Lizst, man of many talents, and a direct descendant of the Lizst. Nathan is powerful, but he remains stuck in a rut–his interpretation of the Archetype is new enough to let him challenge the present Jack of All Trades, much to his chagrin. This has, of course, brought on a multitude of avatars who do have new concepts, all of whom want Nathan either dead or stripped of Godwalker-dom. However, Nathan’s used his Godwalker channel–the ability to borrow all of a person’s skills for a day–to fend them off, along with the help of a powerful clockwork, built out of his ancestor Franz Lizst’s favored piano, that he built after borrowing a Mechanomancer’s Magick skill.
The last two channels seem a tad too powerful to me. Plus they breaks at least two of the three rules of magic that I can recall.
Also, here’s some suggestions for alternatives to the current taboo:
-The Avatar must have no obsession skill. (Aside from possibly the Avatar skill itself.)
-The Avatar must have at least four skills at 15%, not including those granted to all characters (Struggle, Notice, etc.) or the Avatar skill itself.
-The Avatar’s level in any skill (Aside from the Avatar: Jack of All Trades skill) cannot exceed 75% of the governing stat.
Example: Jack the Avatar has the a mind score of 60 and the skill Navigate at 40%. Jack cannot increase his Navigate skill (Or any other Mind Skill) above 45% until he finds a way to increase his Mind score.
I’m thinking I might swap the last two channels around, or just replace them altogether – they are rather messy. I kind of like the current taboo, though I like your last two suggestions.
The current taboo seems really harsh for a starting avatar. Can’t surpass your avatar skill? That means, to start, you can’t have any skills above 10%. Seems a bit… overly-limiting, even in exchange for cosmic power.
And the last two channels are far far too powerful, particularly the last one.
“Master of none” is the key phrase here.
How about a taboo of: no skill can be more than 5% above any of the others and no skill can be above 65%, apart from the Avatar skill.
Also, accepting any kind of award or achievement for one particular area.
Employee of the Month would be fine, Outstanding Excellence in Office Management would not be, because it’s specific.
I like Chesterberg’s taboo, except that with the UA rules, such as in the case of “Look Pretty” or “Touched by the Devil” which are hard to advance, and the sheer number of skills many players start out with) maybe something like choosing three unrelated skills that can never be more than 5% apart AND must be the highest rated skills. Possibly with the proviso that to reach higher and higher as an avatar, they need to add more skills. So a starting avatar has 3, one at 20% needs 4, 30% needs 5, etc? In that case, a 65% skill cap might not be necessary because, damn, bringing 7 skills to 65% AND trying to get to 50% in the avatar skill? That’s nearly impossible. Maybe nothing past 80% or 90%? Those are unlikely anyhow, what with skills being capped by stats.
I wish there was a … pseudo-taboo, one that CAN weaken, but won’t necessarily depending on importance/psychic impact/greater societal acceptance/etc, because if there was, the accepting an award bit would be perfect. Jacks get very specific awards sometimes, just by being in the right place at the right time, though they more usually get those general “Medal of Honor” or “Employee of the Month” type which are vague.