Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Donovan Morningfire" data-source="post: 3687380" data-attributes="member: 39532">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.</blockquote>

Verification