How do Saga skills work?

[GoodKingJayIII]

No. But why is it hurting your brain so much that you have to multiclass to do so (or just take the Force Persuasion talent and fake it, or just get by on the high Cha you probably have anyway and the standard 1/2 level bonus)?

People really get hung up on the multiclassing thing. I don't quite get it either, but I'll add my two cents.

Class and concept often go hand in hand. However, there's a level of broad flexibility in the SECR that encourages you to create your concept by thinking outside the box with classes. So say for instance I want to play a Jedi character, however I'm less concerned with combat and more about negotiations, politicking, and using my reputation and leverage to win my battles, rather than my lightsaber. Easy to do. We can start building that concept at level 1.


Noble Jedi
Medium human noble 1
Initiative +7; Senses +8
Languages Basic, Bocce, Bothese, Shyriiwook
---------------------------
Def Ref 15 Fort 12 Will 16
hp 19 Threshold 12
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Speed 6 squares
Melee +0 lightsaber (2d8) or
Ranged blaster pistol +2 (3d6)
Base Atk +0; Grp +2
Atk Options Presence
---------------------------
Abilities Str 10 Dex 15 Con 13 Int 14 Wis 16 Cha 17
Talents Presence
Feats Force Sensitive, Linguist, Weapon Proficiency (lightsabers, pistols, simple)
Skills Deception +8, Gather Information +8, Initiative +7, Knowledge (bureaucracy) +7, Knowledge (galactic lore) +7, Perception +8, Persuasion +8, Pilot +7, Use the Force +8
Possessions lightsaber, jedi robes, comlink, datapad



If you don't have the book, some of this is probably foreign, but hopefully you get the idea. The character is Force sensitive, proficient with a lightsaber, is conceptually part of the Jedi Order. She calls herself a Jedi and wears the badge with honor and supreme authority. Those who approach her would quickly find themselves cowed by the strength of her words.

Now, depending on how you wanted to build this character, one might eventually take Jedi levels in order to grab some of the talents and bonus feats. However, it'd be perfectly valid to stick with Noble, pick up Noble talents, and supplement with appropriate feats like Weapon Finesse, Melee Defense, Force Training, and so forth. If you distance yourself from the idea that class is concept, you can start creating some really interesting and unique characters with a variety of different abilities.

 

[szilard]

No. But why is it hurting your brain so much that you have to multiclass to do so (or just take the Force Persuasion talent and fake it, or just get by on the high Cha you probably have anyway and the standard 1/2 level bonus)?

It isn't hurting my brain, and I ended up multiclassing - playing a Force Sensitive Scoundrel at level 1 with the intent to multiclass to Jedi... but, honestly, the ONLY thing I really wanted out of the scoundrel class was Bluff. To be forced to multiclass for a single skill seems like bad design to me.

It would have been OK, if only barely satisfactory, if there had been a feat to add a trained skill to a PC whether or not it was on the character's list of class skills. Really, though, it just needs to be easier to be good at skills that aren't on your class list. This is something that I found problematic in 3.5. SWSE went in the wrong direction there (though, otherwise, I don't have serious problems with how they did skills). I hope 4e reverses course.

(Oh, and don't leave Climb, Swim, and Jump as separate skills... OK?)

-Stuart

 

[Plane Sailing]

Also remember that we designed the skill system in Saga so that, when you reach 20th level and are fighting the Sith Lord, it makes more sense for you to whip out your lightsaber and have a climactic duel than it does to just use move object to throw him off of one of the many no-handrails walkways that populate the SW universe. Given the lethality of Star Wars weapons (dealing 3d6 damage for a standard blaster pistol) the Jedi also need something to keep them survivable at low-levels while they're out in the fray with no cover and such.

Star Wars and D&D are very different animals thematically, and we designed the Star Wars skill system to fit the way Star Wars should play, not the way a generic d20 game should play. I'm not saying there won't be similarities between SWSE's skill system and 4E's, but I doubt you'll see it work exactly the same way.

Hmmm. I wonder if that means they plan to tone down the +5 trained and +5 skill focus, while keeping the base 1/2 character level for all skills and have a certain number of trained skills?

I could imagine them perhaps having trained skills at (level+3) and all other skills at (half level), keeping the following benefits of Saga:

a) ease of creation
b) useful general ability in all skills as level improves

while
a) maintaining the typical D&D breakpoints of maxed out skills at level+3
b) avoiding the massive skill ranks possible as 1st level Star Wars characters
c) maintaining the larger skill differentials possible in high level D&D.

Cheers

 

[Ranger REG]

But it seems very much like a "simplified" system that folds things together and uses a more blunt, take-a-step-back-and-squint approach to skills. Which is drastically opposite my preferences for a skill system.

And exactly what is your preference for a skill system, in addition to being complex?

 

[Ranger REG]

Hmmm. I wonder if that means they plan to tone down the +5 trained and +5 skill focus, while keeping the base 1/2 character level for all skills and have a certain number of trained skills?

I doubt we would like to start with less than +5 bonus to a Trained skill at 1st level (not counting ability modifier). Unless the Skill Focus feat would change from offering a straight +5 bonus to a reroll benefit.

Query: what if you have other feature that allow reroll of skill? Does that means you could have multiple rerolls on a check/roll?

 

[Wolv0rine]

And exactly what is your preference for a skill system, in addition to being complex?

Hmmm, that's actually fairly hard to answer without posting a good skill system (or referring directly to one, either way my sleep's way off atm).
In general though, I'm a fan of detail and granularity. I rather liked 3E's skill system for the most part (not with a kind of "You're perfect!" love that Linus holds for his blanket, mind you). It had a decent range of skills, each of which tracked with fair granularity. In comparison SAGA skills seem to (mind the "seem to") come in "average', 'good', and 'gooder', and there's your range. I know, it's all impression, but I don't feel the precision from it. For what it's worth, I do think it probably works great for Star Wars, which it was specifically designed to do. It's when it started to be a 'preview' of other things that I started to worry. I was quite happy to see Moridin's post earlier, saying what I'd hoped they would say.

 

[drothgery]

Hmmm, that's actually fairly hard to answer without posting a good skill system (or referring directly to one, either way my sleep's way off atm).
In general though, I'm a fan of detail and granularity.

See, I've alwyas felt like D&D/'classic' d20 skills were far more granular than the rest of the system. They were at about the same level of detail as pure point-based games like GURPS, and the rest of the system's most definitely not. And that never seemed to fit very well. It was a huge improvement over non-weapon proficiencies (which didn't cover nearly enough) and thief skills (which were even more hyper-granular in a system that wasn't), but still didn't quite work.

 

[Nikosandros]

Oh, and don't leave Climb, Swim, and Jump as separate skills... OK?

Agreed. It makes little sense to me to fold spot, search, listen and sense motive into perception and then leave those three skills separate. I hope that 4e has just an athletics skill.

 

[KarinsDad]

Hmmm, that's actually fairly hard to answer without posting a good skill system (or referring directly to one, either way my sleep's way off atm).
In general though, I'm a fan of detail and granularity. I rather liked 3E's skill system for the most part (not with a kind of "You're perfect!" love that Linus holds for his blanket, mind you). It had a decent range of skills, each of which tracked with fair granularity.

I think the opposite.

Put Spot, Listen, and Sense Motive into a single Perception skill.

Put Climb, Jump, and Swim into a single Athletics skill.

Put Balance, Ride, and Tumbling into a single Acrobatics skill.

Put Disarm Traps, Escape Artist, Open Locks, and Use Rope into a single Mechanics skill.

Put Hide, Move Silently, and Sleight of Hand into a single Trickery skill.

Have only 5 Knowledge skills so that the PCs have a fair chance of being at least trained in most of them (even if not Skill Focused), not 10 Knowledge skills (and more as more books come out).

It's not too hard to combine most skills into larger skill groups like SWSE did.

At least by doing this, many of these skills might actually be taken by PCs in a game and not just by the Rogue.

The skill system is klunky because they broke it apart into too many little tiny individual skills.

They basically did this in 3E for Weapon Groups (i.e. Simple, Martial, Exotic). What's so special about skills that they have to be broken down so drastically?


And, add in two new rules that bonus Int skills can be used for skills outside your core class and that a skill can be changed from untrained to trained with a feat. The concept of having to multiclass into a class just to get one skill is totally lame.

 

[FadedC]

Well they said that hide and move silently would be lumped up into a single stealth skill in 4E. It would make sense then if Spot and Listen were lumped into one skill as well. I'm not sure that I agree that sense motive should be bundled into there, but I like the general concept of skills being more broad.