Do Star Wars Saga skill rules make d20 better?

[GreatLemur]

There is more to adventuring then just BAB, HD and Saving THrows, though.
Typical adventuring skills in my experience also include things like Balance, Climb, Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Spot, Jump, Swim, Escape Artist. I would also make a case that Bluff, Disguise, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Sense Motive and most Knowledge Skills are often enough needed.
Why would a Fighter never improve his Knowledge (Arcana) skill if he is wandering with a Wizard who constantly tells him and his friends about the weaknesses of particular magical beasts and explaining what spells he can use and what not? (And why doesn't his Knowledge (Religion) improve if he is around a Cleric who certainly constantly promotes his belief?)
Why would a Cleric not pick up a bit of Hide and Move Silently when the group's Rogue and Ranger try to sneak up to the enemy while he has to stay back?
Why would anyone that had to do camp duty not pick up a bit of Listen and Spot?
The reason in the current D&D skill system is simple: It's to expensive to improve non-class skills.

Hell, my solution to that was just to dump the whole class skill bit. I don't really care for niche protection anyway, and it allows both unique character concepts and logical character advancement. I'm finding that people are eager to take ranks in the skills that they previously rolled untrained, and failed at, which makes all the sense in the world, to me.

But I do think there's a very good case to be made for having a few, very frequently-used skills increase by level rather than (or in addition to) feat/point expenditure. Spot and Listen would definitely the best possible examples; who the hell isn't going to become more sharp-eyed and wary after years of adventuring? Other passive skills like Concentration and Sense Motive would make sense, as well.

I don't think it makes quite as much sense for active skills (such as Bluff, Jump, or Move Silently) to increase automatically. They aren't really being used constantly, so it's very possible that they aren't being used at all (for example, there've been no Jump checks in my current campaign, so far).

Knowledge skills, particularly, are an interesting question. While obviously a character absorbs quite a lot of information during even a single adventure, remembering all of that is generally the responsibility of the player. For example, if the Cleric knows from his Knowledge (religion) check that ghouls have a paralytic touch, and warns the whole party of this, the Fighter doesn't need to make a Knowledge (religion) check to know this fact later on; the player just remembers it, and the character certainly can, as well. The Cleric's Knowledge (religion) skill didn't teach the Fighter skill anything about wraiths if the party has never encountered any. Sure, the players can decide that the PCs have had loads of off-screen conversations about all the kinds of undead the Cleric knows about, but I don't see any reason that should be automatic. The Fighter can spend the skill points if the player thinks that's appropriate.

But he has, presumably, spent a lot of that time watching his 1-10th-level Rogue buddy pick locks and disable traps, and has spoken with him at least occasionally around the campfire on how locks are made, etc.

My problem with this justification, though, is that I wouldn't presume that. Hell, the character might not even have a Rogue buddy, and lockpicking might not have been part of the campaign, so far. It's common, sure, but not as ubiquitous as combat.

The best part about Saga skills is that a 3rd-level "sage" type is knowledgeable enough to be an expert.

That's certainly true. It's a really severe absurdity of d20 that a character can't have a really high rank in a skill without also having a bunch of hit points and a somewhat high base attack bonus. I've heard of a houserule that simply removed the level-based cap for skill ranks, to deal with exactly this kind of issue. Sounds like a perfectly reasonable modification for NPCs, at least. Also, it'd make sense to get rid of BAB and HP progressions for non-combatant NPC classes.

 

[GreatLemur]

And in fact, because I didn't want to spend a whole weekend making a new character when my 14th-level PC died a few months ago, he's a single-classed warmage, with max ranks in all of his skills, and I put his high stat in Int and increased his Charisma with level-up bonuses.

Yeah, it's the streamlining of character creation that I really appreciate, with Saga. Allocating giant piles of skill points can definitely be a real hassle, for some folks.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

As I said up-thread, that's a gross oversimplfication that only works if you never multi-class (or only multi-class into classes which have the same class skills that you were maxing out before as class skills, and have the same amount of skill points) and if your intelligence modifier never changes.

Details, and there's better ways to solve these problems than getting rid of skill points.

For example, we always grant retroactive skill points if players get (permanently) smarter.

Multiclassing is indeed a bit of a problem, but I won't abandon flexibility over it, and it won't make it too much worse.

So: I'm okay with "oversimplification", but not gross.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Details, and there's better ways to solve these problems than getting rid of skill points.

For example, we always grant retroactive skill points if players get (permanently) smarter.

Multiclassing is indeed a bit of a problem, but I won't abandon flexibility over it, and it won't make it too much worse.

So: I'm okay with "oversimplification", but not gross.

Remember, these rules are meant to typify a cinematic experience, not a bunch of guys killing things and taking their stuff.

In cinema, and especially the adventure serial milieu that the SAGA rules are ideally suited for, when the hero needs to swing over a chasm while being shot at by Stormtroopers, he can simply do it, regardless of what his class is and how many skill points he had lying around. Mundane uses of skills aren't supposed to be roadblocks, they are minor obstacles that exist ONLY to be overcome on the way to the real set pieces, the fights (preferably with lightsabers, but blaster fights are also fun).

As such... I think the Saga rules are very, very good for d20, in that they provide a wonderful (perhaps more operatic) alternative to the granular, nitty-gritty experience that is typified by low level D&D.

Potentially, they will also help pave a way toward making high level D&D a better compromise between customization and self-inflicted hair-pulling.... but now MY biases are showing.

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

I think the SW Saga skill rules are great... for a swashbuckling type of setting where the heroes are considered to be relatively competent in a broad range of abilities while focusing on a handful. And having run a Saga Ed game for the past few months, it's certainly gotten the players more willing to try something they might otherwise have just simply passed on because it was a skill they never put an points towards it, such as Ride or Swim.

But for a "grim'n'gritty" type D&D game, the skill point system probably works best, since the majority of characters in D&D games are focused more on their class abilities than their skills, with the exceptions of Rogues and to a lesser degree Rangers. Also, most people in a medieval setting weren't well educated. Although the idea of a 20th level fighter or cleric being only slightly less aware of their surroundings than they were at 1st level (since Spot and Listen are separate and cross-class skills) is rather laughable. For character classes that tend to go looking for trouble, one might hope they'd get better at noticing the tell-tale signs of an ambush. But for a more "fast'n'loose" type of D&D game, maybe it would work. D&D skill list could certainly use some consolidation, and having a decent chance at making an untrained check at high levels would help encourage players to play the role of hero and take a few more chances then they might otherwise.

As for the example of the 10th level wizard being able to pick a lock as well as a 1st level thief, there's a very easy way to prevent that sort of thing... it's called the Open Locks portion of whatever macro-skill it's under is a trained only function. So unless the wizard picks up the macro-skill as a trained skill, he can't pick a lock at all.

Yoda may be 20th level with a +10 heroic class bonus to his Mechanics checks, but he can't do anything more than maybe help a 1st level non-heroic mechanic (with Skill Training and Skill Focus in Mechanics) with those repairs, since just about ever aspect of Mechanics is Trained Only. And while Yoda might be able fill out fairly basic government forms, he's not gonna know the best way to get through Senatorial bureaucratic red tape since he's untrained in Knowledge (bureaucracy) beyond waving his hand and saying "process immediately, this form you will" to who he hopes is a high-enough ranking clerk. For Saga Edition, while having the class bonus to skill checks is nice, it doesn't do you as much good if you're not trained in the skill in question.

 

[Arkhandus]

Any particular reasons why it is a believability breaker?

I'm asking since D&D (and other class/level systems) have built in scaling competence - e.g. the high level sage with a better BAB than a low level fighter and more hit points than a heavy warhorse, even though he's just sat in the library all his life...

The saga model actually brings skills into the same kind of logic as BAB, hit points and saves - those all scale automatically with level, so why shouldn't generic skills?

Because skills don't fit in the same context. And they represent a lot, lot broader set of stuff. D&D/d20 is built around the concept of characters gaining levels by fighting and overcoming dangerous stuff, and only sometimes from overcoming other challenges. Naturally, fighting a lot will make you better at fighting. So HP/BAB/saves go up with level.

HP from your greater experience at surviving fights, BAB from your greater experience at trying to hit enemies and seeing the attacks used by your friends and foes, and saves from your growing experience at dealing with tough conditions, monster poisons, diseases caught in the wilderness or whatnot, traps, enemy spellcasters, frightening monsters, and seemingly-hopeless battles.

But skills? They only go up from practice and observation, and the system isn't built around any assumptions that every character practices with every kind of skill at every single level. How the heck do you practice swimming if you're never near a body of water big enough to swim in? How do you practice woodcarving when you're in a desert? How do you study arcane lore when you're on an uncivilized jungle island in a corner of the ocean? How do you practice wilderness survival skills when you're on a sailing ship? Etc.

Skill points go up with level because you do get to practice and study some things over time, but not everything. So you allocate your skill points to represent what you had learned besides combat-stuff, during the time it took you to reach a new level of combat ability. You may've brought a book or two along on the sailing trip, or heard a few stories from an explorer on that jungle island, or encountered some nomads in the desert who taught you a few tricks, or shared tips with one of your adventuring comrades on stuff you each learned as kids before joining forces as an adventuring band.

It would make a lot less sense for characters to just get better at everything as they advance in level. Characters don't practice everything imaginable, let alone at every single level. But in a d20/D&D game, you can bet that the average 3rd-level Joe Somebody has fought some tough fights and struggled through some harsh stuff

 

[Mallus]

How the heck do you practice swimming if you're never near a body of water big enough to swim in? How do you practice woodcarving when you're in a desert? How do you study arcane lore when you're on an uncivilized jungle island in a corner of the ocean? How do you practice wilderness survival skills when you're on a sailing ship? Etc.

Maybe you're just, you know, a natural?

Personally, I think the granularity of the current skill point systems is more or less pointless given the context generated by the actual play I've seen. In other words, I'm all for the Saga system, though as other have pointed out, it ain't perfect.

And I really like the limited numerical bonus part.

 

[GreatLemur]

Maybe you're just, you know, a natural?

At everything? But I guess, like folks have been saying all along, it's a reasonable supposition for a very cinematic game.

 

[Ranger REG]

I don't see the skill system in D&D as being complex.

We got too many bonuses for skills, some due to feats offering such.

Have you tried making a high-level multiclassed PC/NPC? You have to go level-by-level allocating points, and using RAW, it can be a tedious accounting task.

And how often many of you actually waste points on expensive hobby cross-cross skills? I would rather avoid spending points on cross-class skills when it comes to making high-level multiclassed PC/NPC.

 

[Ranger REG]

Having read it, I must now say that it makes the game worse:

If you want quick and easy skills for characters, all you have to do is just max out skills.

With little point allocated, you max class skills in favor of leaving your cross-class skills behind (at 0).

Under SAGA, cross-class skills as well as Trained skills advance automatically (at different rate) when you level up.