Untrained/trained Skills....Noooo!

[mach1.9pants]

Hi All,
I was reading through the 'star wars' stuff that 'might' be relevent to 4E. And I was appalled to see that skills are either trained or untrained. I hope that this will not apply to 4E, please someone put my worries to rest 'cos I am excited about another edition. If not, your roll would be:
"1/2 character level + relevant ability modifier + 5 (if trained) + 5 (if Skill Focus)"
I have two MAJOR problems with this:
1. It stops any characters having any flavour through their skill choices, you can do anything you want (fine if your a Jedi, not so if you are a Ftr/Pal etc).
2. A 20th level (or so) adventurer -often with very high abilities- who has never picked up a sculpters tools in his life will be able to make things like an old master, who, lets face it, is unlikely to advance beyond 5th level cos he won't get any XP doing sculpture!
Adventurer: 10+4[ish] vs 2+2[ish]+5+5
Hopefully it is not happening......
Share your 2p...
M1.9P

 

[Jhulae]

I love the SWSE Skill Rules.

I always max the most important skills for my character, and that's what those rules emulate to me.

I also like the PHB2 bard alternate ability, and the SWSE rules emulate that too.

I'm hoping they will be similar.

 

[Gloombunny]

I disliked the concept when I first heard of it, but the more I heard it talked about and the more I thought about it the better it seemed.

Yeah, it's a little weird when you look at high-level adventurers vs low-level artisans, but y'know what? I don't think that really matters. D&D is a game about adventurers. It doesn't need to flawlessly model how good the village basket-weaver is at basket-weaving. No system is going to be perfect, and if this system's imperfections have to do with high-level adventurers being really good at stuff that almost never comes up in-game anyway, then so what? Besides, it's my understanding that SWSE skills still have "trained only" uses, so the high-level guy without training is still markedly inferior to the low-level specialist in some important ways.

I'm not sure what you mean about characters not having any flavor through their skill choices. Don't you still decide which skills to be trained in and whether or not to Focus in them?

 

[WyzardWhately]

Hi All,
I was reading through the 'star wars' stuff that 'might' be relevent to 4E. And I was appalled to see that skills are either trained or untrained. I hope that this will not apply to 4E, please someone put my worries to rest 'cos I am excited about another edition. If not, your roll would be:
"1/2 character level + relevant ability modifier + 5 (if trained) + 5 (if Skill Focus)"
I have two MAJOR problems with this:
1. It stops any characters having any flavour through their skill choices, you can do anything you want (fine if your a Jedi, not so if you are a Ftr/Pal etc).
2. A 20th level (or so) adventurer -often with very high abilities- who has never picked up a sculpters tools in his life will be able to make things like an old master, who, lets face it, is unlikely to advance beyond 5th level cos he won't get any XP doing sculpture!
Adventurer: 10+4[ish] vs 2+2[ish]+5+5
Hopefully it is not happening......
Share your 2p...
M1.9P

The way you limit this is with trained/untrained uses. An adventurer can't perform brain surgery, no matter what kind of bonus he'd theoretically get to the heal roll, if he isn't trained. Similar with craft. You can cobble together an awesome raft out of barrels and detritus, in order to escape a desert island, using your big-ass bonus. However, you cannot carve David out of marble, because you're not trained.

Simple.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Jhulae, Gloombunny and WyzardWhately all make valid points. The only thing I'd like to add is that the 4e designers have already said they've removed the Profession Skill, and I think Craft too, so you "old master" concern is right out the window. The Skills rules are supposed to model stuff that heroic-fantasy adventurers are good at (picking locks, sneaking, etc.). It was never itended to allow you to "stat up" Leonardo da Vinci.

Trained vs. Untrained is a good way of modelling a lot of things, I think. You should really give it some more thought, and playtest it.

 

[pawsplay]

I love the SWSE Skill Rules.

I tolerate them. For Star Wars.

 

[WyzardWhately]

Jhulae, Gloombunny and WyzardWhately all make valid points. The only thing I'd like to add is that the 4e designers have already said they've removed the Profession Skill, and I think Craft too, so you "old master" concern is right out the window. The Skills rules are supposed to model stuff that heroic-fantasy adventurers are good at (picking locks, sneaking, etc.). It was never itended to allow you to "stat up" Leonardo da Vinci.

Trained vs. Untrained is a good way of modelling a lot of things, I think. You should really give it some more thought, and playtest it.

Profession I'd get rid of, Craft I'd probably keep...forging masterwork swords and stuff like that is still kinda cool. Who can forget the intro to LotR where Sauron pounds away in his forge, making the One Ring?

I'm not saying there's no other way to do it, and in fact a few crafting feats or talents would be pretty damn awesome, but Craft I think there's a need for. I'd be willing to have there be only one Craft skill instead of Craft: X, though.

 

[mach1.9pants]

I see that if you just cannot do some things unless trained it takes a lot of my worries away about the artisan disparity, even more if craft/profession is gone.
But it sill has the problem of decreasing your characterisation, I like (esp NPCs- I DM) that have interesting skill sets that trick my PCs. Without being able to put 'a few' skills here and there tha goes out the window. It will be a real waste to use an entire 'trained' slot(?) on an 'off class' skill. Ifyou want (as Jhulae does) to max out your skills- go ahead. But it takes away peoples options if you, like me with my NPCs and PCs (we don't just dungeon bash; a lot of social interaction etc- wider skill set), want to spread it around.
Still, as always, shouldn't be hard to house rule
M1.9P

 

[brehobit]

Yeah,
I'd miss the craft and profession skills. Most of my PCs have some of those. Heck, back in 2nd ed, I used NWP for character things, not pounding things (so smithing, not healing or whatever). I hope something like that continues.

My longest running character is suppose to be a master smith... I want a good way to model that.

Mark

 

[mach1.9pants]

Yeah,
I'd miss the craft and profession skills. Most of my PCs have some of those. Heck, back in 2nd ed, I used NWP for character things, not pounding things (so smithing, not healing or whatever). I hope something like that continues.

My longest running character is suppose to be a master smith... I want a good way to model that.

Mark

COuldn't agree more, not everyone wants to be a specialist killer- some of us want to spend a few (not all) of our points on 'non-standard' skills...