Do Star Wars Saga skill rules make d20 better?

[Kae'Yoss]

Using your above formula the 10th level fighter has two skills at 13 ranks, and has no ranks in anything else. He is no better at spotting stuff, knowing about monsters or riding (say) than he was at 1st level.

In the Saga system, although his top two skills might not be as high, he would be slightly better at everything else than he was at 1st level (e.g. +10 at two trained skills, +5 at everything else).

I think you're unto something. I'm just still not sure whether everyone should get better at everything, or whether the difference between being good at something and being bad is a single boost of +5 with no difference after that.

 

[Karl Green]

I think you're unto something. I'm just still not sure whether everyone should get better at everything, or whether the difference between being good at something and being bad is a single boost of +5 with no difference after that.

You can also take Skill Focus that boosts one skill by another +5. It is a feat though...

Another thing that I really like about Saga for this is that most skills have stuff that you can only do 'trained' also... so anyone can make a Knowledge whatever check, but you will only know 'basic' info about something. Something I like a lot... after all in say D&D most 'adventures' are going to know something about undead if they are common in that world... at least the local legends and lore...

 

[mmu1]

I think you're unto something. I'm just still not sure whether everyone should get better at everything, or whether the difference between being good at something and being bad is a single boost of +5 with no difference after that.

That's actually what I most dislike about the Saga system - how alike everyone who's "good" at something ends up being, and how there's no real way to distinguish yourself from other people who decided to specialize in a give skill.

In D&D, there's quite a bit of a difference and a good deal of granularity between someone who:

1. Decides to have his character get good at something, so he allocates a decent score to the corresponding ability and takes as many skill ranks as he feels he needs to be able to use it well enough that it can be considered one of his notable skills, and

2. Someone who decides he wants his character to be excellent, world-class, so he allocates a good score to the appropriate ability, maxes out the ranks, puts 5 ranks into a related skill or two for a synergy bonus, and maybe gets Skill Focus on top of it.

In SWSE, if you try to make your character world-class, you end up with a +5 modifier over everyone who's merely trained in it, and as everyone advances, you lose your lead because the +5 is an ever shrinking percentage of your skill bonus total. You also have virtually no way of distinguishing yourself from other people who did take Skill Focus. (short of increasing in level) The end result is stuff like all Force users of a given level having a Use Force check within 1 or 2 points of each other...

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

In SWSE, if you try to make your character world-class, you end up with a +5 modifier over everyone who's merely trained in it,

Except if you're really good, you keep picking up feats and talents that back up that goodness.

Thus, the best pilot in the galaxy isn't the one who's trained and skill focused in Pilot. There's lots of those guys around.

It's the one who's done that, then picked up Juke, Vehicular Combat, Vehicular Evasion, Hyperdriven, Starship Raider, Vehicle Dodge, Keep it Together, and Relentless Pursuit..

 

[drothgery]

That's actually what I most dislike about the Saga system - how alike everyone who's "good" at something ends up being, and how there's no real way to distinguish yourself from other people who decided to specialize in a give skill.

Yes, if they're the same level, both have (or don't have) skill focus, and have the same ability modifier, and have the same race/class talents that grant rerolls and/or allow taking 10 when it wouldn't normally be allowed, then they'll look the same. If you get rid of the scores of weirdly-stacking means of getting bonuses to skills, then everyone focused on that skill (of the same level, with the same ability modifier) will look similar with skill points or Saga-style progressions. That's not a bug, that's a feature.

 

[BryonD]

That's not a bug, that's a feature.

If you are trying to model the actions in the SW movies (which saga mostly obviously is) then it is a feature. If you port it over to standard fantasy where the archetypes are much more segregated, then it is a major bug.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

If you are trying to model the actions in the SW movies (which saga mostly obviously is) then it is a feature. If you port it over to standard fantasy where the archetypes are much more segregated, then it is a major bug.

Which begs the question.... is that segregation a good thing? Or is it simply one of the factors that makes the hobby relatively impenetrable?

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Why, oh why, would Joe Dirtfarmer from the deserts of Athas, or Tattooine, or Arrakkis/Dune, or whatever, who has never even heard of a body of water larger than his bathtub, be a better swimmer than Bob Swimmerguy from Hawaii, Mon Calamari, or whatever, just because Joe Dirtfarmer is 12th-level while Bob Swimmerguy is a 1st-level Olympic swimming champ-in-the-making? Or more knowledgeable about random trivia and occult lore than Tim the Wizard just because Tim is 3rd-level at the time?

*slaps that absurd level of excessive abstraction with a dead fish*

Its just about as absurd as the current DnD ruleset. I present to you Headsmasher-Buttstomper 20th level fighter, slayer of demons and devils, conqurer of hoards, slayers of dragons, owner of a 9 intelligence.

Party: Lets go guys, we have to catch up with the BBEG!
Headsmasher: I get on the cart...I still can't ride a horse and my armor give me a check penalty of -8.

*party arrives at small 15' brick wall*
Headsmasher: I still can't climb, I spent my points on swim and jump. *rolls* I got a -3, did I climb it?
*Headsmasher crashes through wall*

*party encounters a charismatic 1st level goblin warrior who out-intimidates Headsmasher*
Headsmasher: He's got a stick! Run!

DS

 

[Ranger REG]

It makes the "fast paced heroic cinematic star wars game" better, but it doesn't make the d20 system better.
One of the aspects I like most about D20 is its flexibility of styles (gamist, narrativist and simulacionist), and Saga skill rules killed most of this flexibility in order to make a game focused solely on cinematic/narrativistic gaming,

Query:

What are gamist, narrativist, and simulationist styles?

Wait, forget about the simulationist. RPGs and simulation games are two entirely different entities.

 

[drothgery]

If you are trying to model the actions in the SW movies (which saga mostly obviously is) then it is a feature. If you port it over to standard fantasy where the archetypes are much more segregated, then it is a major bug.

I really wasn't referring to the 'general competence' effect of Saga with 'not a bug, but a feature'; I was referring to Saga's elimination of all skill bonuses except training, skill focus, equipment, teamwork effects, and force point use.

But since you asked... I guess I missed where Aaragorn, Conan, Rand al'Thor, Vlad Taltos, Croaker, and Sam Vimes weren't pretty competent in areas far from their specialty. The hyper-specialized character is, like the arcane/divine split, very much a D&D-ism; in the fantasy fiction I've read, characters are broadly competent. Heck, from the handful of D&D novels I've read, it seems like Drizz't and Elminster and Tanis and Raistlin are too.