Savage Worlds - do you tweak how skills work?

[S'mon]

High Agility means you can learn to Shoot well twice as fast as the guy with low agility.

If you want your Agility d10 Zulu warrior to pick up a British Martini-Henry rifle and immediately start shooting redcoats like a crack sniper, SW is not the game for you. But it's certainly not unrealistic. Your zulu starts at d4-2, but a little practice gets him to d4, and he can be up at d10 pretty fast.

 

[amerigoV]

It's amazing how often d4+d6 (wild die) aced on untrained skills. we had one guy roll 3 "6"s in a row that gave a 16 (18-2) on an untrained skill in the first session. He basically skull smashed a walking dead with a gun butt with no fighting skill in one quick round.

I don;t know probabilities, but I can recall at least four hugely cascading aces on untrained skills in the first two sessions, and at least two more where a single ace handled the TN 4 on an untrained skill*.

I know the Acing d4 is another thing that some people want to change. To me, I like that d4 is finally useful instead of just being a caltrop.

 

[WhimsyTheFae]

I don't like to focus on Acing, though, as that doesn't address the OP's issue. Acing dice helps all folk, not just untrained high-attribute folk.

Also, thinking even more on it, the increased rate of training isn't truly accurate (except at character creation). A character can't become better at shooting any faster than another character, regardless of attribute. You can only increase a skill one die per advance. Granted, high attributes allow you to increase two skills, instead of one, but they don't allow faster learning.

 

[amerigoV]

Also, thinking even more on it, the increased rate of training isn't truly accurate (except at character creation). A character can't become better at shooting any faster than another character, regardless of attribute. You can only increase a skill one die per advance. Granted, high attributes allow you to increase two skills, instead of one, but they don't allow faster learning.

Perhaps a better way to say it is that you can learn more at the same time. So if you are high Agility character, you can learn fighting AND shooting at the same rate that someone who is low Agility can only learn one of those skills.

I'll just say this - after playing SW for about 2 years in a varity of genres after being a dedicated D&Der, the Attribute/Skill link now feels very natural. Its one of those things that is different from other games and people immediately want to change it. "It does not make sense" tends to come from the context of other game experience (kinda like if you intro someone to TTRPGs and they ask "where is the board?"). You can always tell the new people on PEG's boards when they try to convert their favorite D&D setting - they are trying to covert every Feat/Power in the book instead of stepping back and figuring out what really provides the flavor of the setting. They try tinkering with the attributes/skills, roll a d20 for initiative instead of the cards, less Acing, graph back on HPs. All that is fine, but what you find is it strips away the Fast! Furious! Fun! of the game.

Its not that one must run the the RAW no matter what, but you see people trying to D&D-ize the game (to pick a culprit, since that is the game experience of many) right out of the box without running it for a campaign or two. Once the elegance and interplay is understood, the modifications people make to enhance their settings make more sense without killing the FFF of the system. As an example, to the Core rules I have only one House Rule - if you roll a 1/1, you cannot Bennie out of it (unless its insta-kill), but you get a Bennie for your troubles (cuz you are going to need it!). In the recent release of the Deluxe, they now have a "setting option" that is pretty darn close to that.

Less really is more in this system.

 

[WhimsyTheFae]

I'm with you on SW, as it is my favorite system. I just wanted to make sure that the OP does not get the wrong impression.

 

[amerigoV]

Fickle - I should have drawn a line between my response to your comment (an excellent point that I wanted to echo) and the general stuff below it, which was not aimed at your original comment.

Savages Unite!

 

[Piratecat]

Okay, excellent commentary and advice. I don't like it but I'm sold. I'll swallow my dislike for this, rebuild the characters to better fit what I'm shooting for (and bring them in at Veteran instead of Seasoned for the purposes of this one-shot), and try it for many more games before making a conclusion.

Also? You guys rock. Thank you for helping / offering your thoughts on this.

 

[Is_907]

Okay, excellent commentary and advice. I don't like it but I'm sold. I'll swallow my dislike for this, rebuild the characters to better fit what I'm shooting for (and bring them in at Veteran instead of Seasoned for the purposes of this one-shot), and try it for many more games before making a conclusion.

You trust us? Nice

I think you'll enjoy it. To me, making it a bit "harder" to do thing untrained means people are likely to be more creative rather than just saying "Okay, I'm not trained in acrobatics, so I'll make a Dex check."
(Granted, this speaks more to the thing I hate the most--rolling instead of describing what you do.)

Anyway, let us know how things continue, Piratecat. I'd like to know how SW grows on you!

 

[WhimsyTheFae]

Okay, excellent commentary and advice. I don't like it but I'm sold. I'll swallow my dislike for this, rebuild the characters to better fit what I'm shooting for (and bring them in at Veteran instead of Seasoned for the purposes of this one-shot), and try it for many more games before making a conclusion.

Also? You guys rock. Thank you for helping / offering your thoughts on this.

Another thought that I had. There is absolutely nothing preventing you from giving a high-Agility character a little training in Shooting/Throwing/etc. at character creation and describe it as reflecting the character's attribute rather than real training (maybe to a d4 or d6 if you have the points to spare).

 

[amerigoV]

I'm shooting for (and bring them in at Veteran instead of Seasoned for the purposes of this one-shot), and try it for many more games before making a conclusion.

Also? You guys rock. Thank you for helping / offering your thoughts on this.

Just curious - whats the setting/genre?