Do Star Wars Saga skill rules make d20 better?

[danzig138]

Like Knowledge skills, the issue I have is that the character's experiences have no impact on their abilities.

Spend.
The.
Skill.
Points.

Come on guys, how many times does it have to be said? If you want your Fighter to have some knowledgey bits, put some ranks in Knowledge skills. This isn't a hard concept. You want something for nothing and you shouldn't get it. Heck, I've been around cards all my freaking life, and I've even worked on them a few times with other people.

I don't know the first damn thing about how to fix them. I look at an engine , and I can tell you "Uhh, engine. Hit it." Equally, I've taken apart and tried to put back together more than a few electronic doodads. Hasn't worked. Simple and repeated exposure to some things doesn't necessarily provide any applicable skill. However, I can take my computer apart and do some interior work on it because I've taught myself, just like I taught myself HTML cause I wanted a web page as soon as I first got online.

Obviously, I have spent some points in Fiddle With Computer Guts and I Wanna Web Page and none in Fix StupidCarWhyWont'YouWork? or Unbreak Doodad.

The problem that I see isn't with the way skills advance - I really don't like the way they do in SWSA, but with the number of skill points. I really do think each class should have a couple more points. One of the house rules I"ve been using that I've been pleased with is giving each character a number of free skill points equal to his Intelligence score. My guys have been diversifying their skills a more than usual since I started using that rule.

 

[wingsandsword]

As somebody who used to be a prison guard, I'd have to disagree

There is a big world of difference between a modern day Corrections Officer and a typical medieval or D&D pseudomedieval guard (and "Guard" doesn't mean just the guy watching the prisoners, it is the soldiers on duty at the gates of the town or fort, which is more of what I had in mind).

The typical guard in a D&D game is a peasant conscripted to being a soldier, probably a 1st level Warrior, with little in the way of formal training and they probably know their normal trade plus how to handle a weapon, wear armor, and maybe ride halfway decently. A Corrections Officer has had the benefit of modern-day educational system, and substantially more comprehensive professional training.

Even if he were better trained, would being a guard be his primary task or would he be a generalized soldier on guard duty? Would you think of a typical modern Army Private on Guard Duty as being highly trained at spotting and listening and keeping an eye out (enough to have ranks specifically in Spot and Listen for performing Guard Duty).

D&D classes aren't meant to work for modern-day people, that's what d20 Modern is for. A typical novice law-enforcement professional in d20 Modern would be a multiclassed 1st level Dedicated Ordinary/1st level Strong Ordinary (or Dedicated Hero/Strong Hero), and from the Dedicated Hero levels pretty much all the perception oriented skills would be class skills (and have a lot more skill points than his pseudomedieval counterpart) and could be expected to have a lot more skills.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

That's not really how I view Intimidate. A huge fighter, infamous wizard, etc present a certain obvious dangerousness that people will usually take into account somehow. Intimidate allows characters to amplify apparent threat (perhaps that goblin is more than meets the eye!), and direct other's actions with it. Someone might not laugh off a death threat on a failed Intimidate check, but maybe they scream for help or only feign cooperation instead of submitting.

Mechanically, doesn't this comes down to the same thing as the other post.... the high level character is getting a circumstance bonus to his check? Or perhaps a more accurate model of what you're talking about is essentially passively taking 10 on an intimidate check all the time, because he's obviously a bad-arse? In other words, other characters automatically perceive him as more dangerous because of his obvious competence and air of menace (read: level).

So, in order to reach the verisimilitude afforded by a Saga-like automatic attribution of skill, you have to apply a circumstance bonus to his intimidate or just automatically adjust all NPC reactions by DM fiat.

I would argue this would work the same way for most social skills. If I'm using Gather Information, it logically makes sense for people to be more cooperative if I'm a level 15 character in an obvious state of wealth than they would be if I'm a level 1 rogue with nothing more than a rusty dagger on my belt. The potential reward for helping me is higher, as is the potential consequence of ignoring me or lying to me. The inherent prestige of being a high level character SHOULD bleed through, even if I'm not an expert in dealing with people. Being wealthy and powerful is enough to get people to cooperate with you. In a Saga-type skill system, it does, with no bookkeeping or need for DM fiat.

Still not sure why that's a bad thing. Characters become automatically more competent when dealing with low level NPCs and mooks, but simply maintain parity with their peers. This is good for maintaining drama when it matters but moving things along swiftly when it doesn't (the combat works the exact same way, by my reading). They all get to contribute to mundane tasks while leaving specialized tasks to the specialists. This keeps everyone involved while still providing times for certain people to shine.

It might not be ideal for dungeoneering in a low magic setting, since it's hard to cockblock the party with simple climbing or swimming tasks if everyone is reasonably competent at them. But even standard D&D levels of magic make that trick hard to pull off after the first few levels. Magic makes all those mundane tasks go away anyway. In that respect, I think the Saga system is perfect for a setting where not every party is going to have a few magic users to buff up their skill checks.

 

[Hjorimir]

Spend.
The.
Skill.
Points.

There.
Are.
Not.
Enough.
Skill.
Points.
To.
Spend.
Because.
The.
System.
Is.
Weak.

Just like you spent time fiddling with computers, the 20th-level character has spent time interacting with magic and fighting outsiders, but because he's a fighter he's a dolt when it comes to skills.

Rubbish!

 

[Greg K]

As somebody who used to be a prison guard, I'd have to disagree.
.

If the character started a guard, I'd tell the player and the DM the same thing I have been saying since 3.0. Look at customizing characters (phb 110) which gives an example of creating a variant fighter.

It isn't a question of being forbidden; it is a question of not automatically absorbing some knoweldge skills through 20 levels of experience. "I'm sorry, I know that I've spent the last two years plane-hopping and fighting countless outsiders, but I know nothing about how magic works or what those creatures are up to." Rubbish!

Like Knowledge skills, the issue I have is that the character's experiences have no impact on their abilities.

Spend the points. That is picking up stuff from experience.

I'm not saying the SWSE is perfect with the skills, but I find them far superior to 3E's system.

I find Star wars less superior. It makes no sense to gain bonuses for something you have never encountered or done just because you leveled. spend the points

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Spend.
The.
Skill.
Points.

INT 9 20th level fighter (only a tick dumber than the average man).
23 skill points over the course of his career.

Assume you put 50% of your skill points into cross-class skills...(thats a ton)=6 ranks of cross class skills over the course of a career, and the other 50% in class skills=11 ranks of class skills (I will round up to 12 for easy math)=3 class skills at +4.

Assume you put those 6 points, one each, into: Spot, Listen, Know (Planes), Know (Arcane), Heal, and Know (Dungeoneering).

So you now have 6 skills you can use untrained but are otherwise useless at (the 6 cross-class ones with 1 rank) and you have 3 barely proficient class skills (the 3 class skills with 4 ranks).

How its that a 20th level character?

DS

 

[Hjorimir]

spend the points

Sure, just give me way more points to spend so I can make a guy who is not a complete tool just because he isn't a super genius.

 

[Mallus]

It makes no sense to gain bonuses for something you have never encountered or done just because you leveled.

You mean like the way wizards get better at wizardry by killing orcs rather than by study?

 

[Greg K]

There.
Are.
Not.
Enough.
Skill.
Points.
To.
Spend.
Because.
The.
System.
Is.
Weak.

If you want to reflect unusual or specific training, the player and DM should look at customizing characters (phb p.110). It even demonstrates an example of trading off for extra skill points and extra class skills for the fighter.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

It makes no sense to gain bonuses for something you have never encountered or done just because you leveled.

There is nothing in the rules for vanilla d20 that goes outside this statement, you know. Skill selection is entirely arbitrary, as is combat and casting skill advancement.

Again, the rogue who did nothing but kill kobolds last level might get a whole bunch on non-combat skill increases but no BAB advancement, depending on what level it is. The level 2 rogue could also take ranks in Knowledge(Extraplanar beings of DOOM) if he wanted, albeit cross-class, whether he had faced one in the kobold mine or not, and technically he could do it whether or not the setting included such beings.

There are NO inherent practice assumptions in d20, and I really wish people would stop posting as if there were, or else back it up somehow. It really is abstractions and assumptions all the way down. Just because they're abstractions and assumptions that have been around for a while doesn't make them any more concrete.