Skills?

[AllisterH]

You set it so that it is not automatic for the rogue, and ignore the non-skilled character.

The rogue will use the skill, the other character sits and watch.

But how come in combat, we don't tell the rogue, "Sit by the sideline and watch"? In fact, the system itself is designed so that even without trying, at 15th level and below, a rogue doesn't have to do anything special (other than taking Weapon Finesse) to be useful in combat.

That is all I ask for the skill system. If WOTC wants the skill system to see more use than it has to be designed in such a way that irrespective of what you do, you AT LEAST have a chance of using a skill successfully.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

You set it so that it is not automatic for the rogue, and ignore the non-skilled character.

The rogue will use the skill, the other character sits and watch.

Anyway I have the feeling that they are trying to make many things (skills, ST... maybe even BAB) work like the 3edition Epic rules, where basically the rate of advancement per level is fixed and the difference between classes is in a flat bonus... Funny since I've heard most people despising 3ed Epic rules, and now many like this idea, but perhaps the Epic rules were hated for something else.

At first i had trouble understanding the changed rate of advancement, but I quickly understood why it is needed. Personally, what I didn't like was the epic spell system. Admittedly, I didn't really ever use it, but it didn't look like anything that would actually work within the frame and the balancing of the game. If you keep the epic game between non-spellcasters, it would probably work out ok.

 

[IanArgent]

The difference is that it also forces the players to do this and doesn't leave room for flexibility nor creating unique characters.

There is enough flexibility to make the system work. Too much "flexibility" and we have what we have now, where every adventure has to be tailored to the particular group because the adventure author cannot write a general purpose adventure without simultaenously being too easy for one style of character/party and too hard for another, equally valid, style of character/party. It's not liek they are saying "everyone MUST have the EXACT same skillset"; there's plenty of room for variance in the SWSE skill system, and therefore unique characters. Plus, unique characters aren't unique because their character sheet has different numbers on it, they are unique because they are played differently. I'm really rather hoping that 4E goes farther along the lines of uniqueness by play, not by mechanics.

As for premades, you simply modify them to fit your group. It doesn't take that long to prep changes like that.

I don't have any time during the week to prep for a game. So when I can find time on the weekend to run a game (which is much less often than I'd like), I want to be able to use all the time to run it; IE I don't want to have ot spend any time rewriting an adventure. At any rate, it can be quite difficult to "adjust" higher-level encounters to match the range of skills my party has, without throwing off the balance of the adventure. This goes back to the lack of fundamentals in the math of 3.x - without having a good grasp of why the numbers are the way they are, it is much harder to adjust them properly.

 

[szilard]

You'll probably be able to burn a talent or feat to gain a skill, right?

Not if they follow the the SWSE model - you can spend a feat to become trained in one of your class skills, but you can't add something to your class skill list without multiclassing... and you can't become trained in a non-class skill.

-Stuart

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

But what about the reverse? Why in the world does Master Po have any sort of penalty to detect creatures that are Invisible but otherwise unconcealed to the senses. And if the answer is that he doesn't, then why (mechanically, not from a RP perspective) would anybody not be Master Po?

The result in-game is that he has the same penalty as everyone else, but since we're rolling half as often and moving the game forward at every opportunity, no one is nitpicking at why Invisibility improved that NPCs stealth skill vs Master Po and why Silence improved it against Hawkeye.

If you ONLY have Perception, it doesn't matter what you call it. Maybe you're detecting them by scent. Or, realistically, via intersensory redundancy, since real people are only reliable in threshold situations when they use multiple senses anyway.

And, incidentally, people don't play Master Po because there's still that combat penalty associated with blindness.

 

[IanArgent]

Not if they follow the the SWSE model - you can spend a feat to become trained in one of your class skills, but you can't add something to your class skill list without multiclassing... and you can't become trained in a non-class skill.

-Stuart

It is a minor problem; but at the same time, you can't get very good on a cross-class skill now. At least this way you don't have to waste skill points to be barely competent. I wonder if they will loosen up on the outside-of-class skill thing, as SWSE practically encourages multiclassing to a certain extent. OTOH, dipping a level of a class shouldn't be a big deal, based on what the devs have been saying.

If multiclassing isn't encouraged, I'd hope to see a feat that allows you to add a skill/talent to your skill list.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

The difference is that it also forces the players to do this and doesn't leave room for flexibility nor creating unique characters.

Bushwah!

SWSE merely takes the flexibility and creation of unique characters out of the skill point system, and puts it into the Feat and Talent systems. In 3.XE, you're a better swimmer than I am because you have a 4 skill ranks and I have 3. Woohoo! :roll: In SW, you're a better swimmer than I am because you can Take 10 at will, or roll twice and take the better result, or gain a +5 bonus when you make a single Swim check as a full-round action, or ...

Anyone who says that SWSE doesn't allow the creation of unique characters has no clue what they're talking about.

 

[med stud]

I really like the saga- skill system and implemented it in my game as soon as I read the preview of it. I already had narrowed the skill list down, but I did that back in the early 2000; I come from a very Runequest- like RPG from Sweden were there were lots of skills and not many skill points. That made the characters very incompetent at lots of things and it restrained certain character concepts; if you wanted to play a knight with a sophisticated background there wasn't a chance that you could pay for all your skills. 3.x has some of these problems, especially with fighters and clerics.

I'm also curious, am I the only one who don't think that skills for Craft, Perform and Profession are needed? They have never been needed in any of my games and have only been used for role playing reasons. In that case I think they can be moved to the backstory; if you want your fighter to play the lute well, just write down that he is a good lute player and the next time the PCs hit a tavern, let him play. If he wants to do something concrete with it, let him use Persuasion with the the performance.