Skills?

[IanArgent]

It is bad design in more that a way, an encounter challenge should never be based around the result of a roll, it should be based on the players thinking a way increase their odds to solve it or finding a way to go around it, 3.xrd edition with his level based DC for skills fail at it (If I just rolled a 40 on my bluff check, why should I specify what kind of bluff I'm using, I'm afraid 4ed edition will fail even more.

but on the othr hand I kinda liked 2nd edtion NWPs so what do I know?

Isn't a combat encounter a challenge based on the result of several rolls? It appears that the devs are taking this into account that an encounter should be similar whether its combat or non-combat...

Not in the context it has been used in this thread.
The implication has steadily been that it can not be made to work. Which is very false.
Plus, ime, we are hearing a vocal minority here. I'd say your more-or-less everyone criteria is not missed by much, if at all.

Which is why I changed my argument. I'm no longer arguing that I as a DM can't make it work, I'm arguing that an adventure designer cannot design an adventure that can be made to work without DM customization, and that differing levels of familiarity with character creation leads to differing effectiveness of characters. In other words, I'm moving my argument from character design to game design. In the specific case, where the DM knows the capabilities of his party and all the players can design their characters to the same degree of efficiency, the DM can set appropriate challenges to individuals and to the party as a whole. But if the adventure designer has no idea what the capabilities of the party are or could be, the system breaks, because the adventure designer has no idea what to set the difficulty to.

It's obvious by reading the dev blogs that they are embracing this philosphy of simplicity in design, where it will be easier for the DM to set a challenge (whether combat or non-combat) wihtout having to guess at what is the "right" leevel of challenge. See the changes in monster design, for example.

If a group of complete newbies cannot generate characters, elect one of their number as DM, and have him run a module without knowing only what is in the rules, the system is broken. The system needs to be accessible and usable by someone with no experience whatsoever, and right now it's not.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Not in the context it has been used in this thread.
The implication has steadily been that it can not be made to work. Which is very false.
Plus, ime, we are hearing a vocal minority here. I'd say your more-or-less everyone criteria is not missed by much, if at all.

The entire hobby constitutes an extreme minority. I think that may be what concepts like "You don't flop over dead when the cat looks at you funny" are trying to address

 

[Li Shenron]

The biggest downfall I've seen so far discussed about Star Wars Saga-like skills is that all of them consistently increase, whether trained in them or not. Conan the level 20 barbarian will know as much about spellcraft as the level 1 wizard who spent all of his formative years in the academy of magic. Also, the negative connotation is that you won't have a character who ISN'T skilled in any skill whatsoever - the tweaking and customization that some players enjoyed would be gone.

I'm a fan of 3.0 skills much more than 3.5 skills, so for me the SW skills are not very nice. Some musings...

1. A trained skill has a bonus = level/2 + ability bonus + 5.
This means that a level 1 character has ab+5, compared to a maximum of ab+4 in 3.x.
A level 10 character has ab+10, compared to ab+13.
A level 20 character has ab+15, compared to ab+23.
A level 30 character has ab+20, compared to ab+33.

This actually means the 4ed character advances more slowly, BUT the skill focus feats is going to be +5, and eventually there will be something like improved skill focus (+10) and maybe even a greater skill focus (+15) available only after a certain level.
Otherwise the other option to keep the real skills about as good as in 3ed would be to re-design all the DCs to make them lower, which I think it's much more complicated for the designers.

Maybe it doesn't really change that much in the game. The new system would be good for NPC who can be 1st level and still be very good at their skills. For example the "greatest cook on earth" could be a 1st level commoner (weak in any fight) but have ab+10. This is good except that... the typical NPCs skills (craft, profession) are being removed from the game, so this benefit will not be used at all :\


2. An untrained skill (that can be used even if untrained) is always going to be 5 points lower compared to a character than has it trained, and 10 points lower compared to someone who has it trained and focused (makes sense that you need it trained before you get the focus).

I don't like the image of a wizard who learns to jump/swim better by living as an average wizard, but ok there's not much damage to the game. This will have a benefit on group skills like move silently (the worst of the group makes the group fail, but now the worst of the group is not "as worse" as before).

I don't like very much that the difference is constant. But once we factor Skill Focus in (and now SF is a much bigger and a much more needed bonus than before, so we'll see it taken more often), the difference is not constant any more. Basically we are just seeing a reduction of the difference, but it will still pratically scale with levels.


3. So now Skill Focus is VERY important to keep up with the challenges. There's a problem here: a Rogue has a lot of skills trained, therefore he NEEDS a lot of Skill Focuses to keep up in ALL her skills. Let's hope that the Rogue gets loads of bonus feats that can be spent on SF, otherwise a high-level Rogue may seriously suck if half or more of her skills are lagging behind the DCs.


4. I do not like the idea of merging skills. I understand that WotC noticed a lot of people do it as house rules, and wanted the please the audience, fine. I don't like it because it reduces the difference between characters. Also, when you get very few skills using the same ability, you could go ahead and just turn it into an ability check. 3ed introduced skills exactly to differentiate between a wise character that's good at listening, one that's good at spotting, one that's good at both and one that's good at none. Now you can only be good at both or none. Something you could be in 3ed only, but now you have some choices less. But ok, if everyone likes it the new way, then no big deal.


5. You cannot spread your skill points anymore. This is tricky... People complain that this was "difficult", but that's not true, because it's totally optional in 3ed. If you want it simple, just max as many skills as your skill points and you're done. However it happened to me many times in 3ed, particularly with Rogues, that I wanted to have more skills: i could choose for example to spread my skill points of 2 skills over 3 skills instead and have each of them 2/3 max, which isn't bad, effectively becoming able at 1 new skill. Some skills don't need to be maximized to be effective, so this option was good.

Now if you're a Rogue and get 8 skills, then you just have to max 8 skills. However, I suspect there will be a feat that will simply add 1 more skill to your set, so maybe this will be back in the game just in a different form.

 

[Li Shenron]

One more thing...

6. Now you don't need to worry about backtracking a permanent increase of Int during the game. In 3ed we needed a rule that said that if your Int increases permanently, you get more skill points from now on but you don't get more points from your previous levels. In 4ed increasing Int will add you 1 new trained skill, which is the same as indeed applying it backwards.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Good compilation of advantages and disadvantages of the system.

Just one point: I don't think there will be an improved skill focus feat that improves your bonus with a skill. That would defeat the purpose of making the suitable ranges of DC more predictable. What I can see is an Improved Skill Focus feat granting the character an additional reroll (Starwars has many racial abilities and talents in this regard), or maybe reducing the time for take 20, or allowing to take 15 instead of take 10.

Difficult DCs that are still supposed to be made within an average group (with retries/take 20) will probably be around range of 15 + 1/2 level, meaning that a Rogue doesn't have to skill focus all his critical skills, only those that he wants to be really good at, because that's his shtick. (Sneaky Halfling takes Skill Focus Stealth, while the Dwarven Trapmaster takes Skill Focus Disable Device).
Difficult DCs that are to be made only by real professional should make regularly will a DC of 20 + 1/2 level.
Tasks beyond this difficulty probably belong in the area of "extra special benefits". Like allowing PCs to bypass some encounters, or getting helpful information or items that will make things easier in the adventure later on, but nothing that will mean they simply cannot succeed in their adventure goals.

 

[IanArgent]

I'm a fan of 3.0 skills much more than 3.5 skills, so for me the SW skills are not very nice. Some musings...

1. A trained skill has a bonus = level/2 + ability bonus + 5.
This means that a level 1 character has ab+5, compared to a maximum of ab+4 in 3.x.
A level 10 character has ab+10, compared to ab+13.
A level 20 character has ab+15, compared to ab+23.
A level 30 character has ab+20, compared to ab+33.

This actually means the 4ed character advances more slowly, BUT the skill focus feats is going to be +5, and eventually there will be something like improved skill focus (+10) and maybe even a greater skill focus (+15) available only after a certain level.
Otherwise the other option to keep the real skills about as good as in 3ed would be to re-design all the DCs to make them lower, which I think it's much more complicated for the designers.

Feature, not a bug. As I've said, if you know within +/-5 or so what the party's skill level is, adventure design is much easier (not harder). Yes, the DCs have to change, but because the skill bonuses are more predictable, the DCs are much easier to set - game design can spend more time on other things.

Maybe it doesn't really change that much in the game. The new system would be good for NPC who can be 1st level and still be very good at their skills. For example the "greatest cook on earth" could be a 1st level commoner (weak in any fight) but have ab+10. This is good except that... the typical NPCs skills (craft, profession) are being removed from the game, so this benefit will not be used at all :\

NPCs (and monsters) no longer follow the same design sequence as PCs. At any rate, in 3.x, skill level is STILL tied to class level, so the "greaters cook on earth" has to be a high level expert. And again, NPCs have never used the same craft/profession skill as PCs anyway, so no big loss.

2. An untrained skill (that can be used even if untrained) is always going to be 5 points lower compared to a character than has it trained, and 10 points lower compared to someone who has it trained and focused (makes sense that you need it trained before you get the focus).

I don't like the image of a wizard who learns to jump/swim better by living as an average wizard, but ok there's not much damage to the game. This will have a benefit on group skills like move silently (the worst of the group makes the group fail, but now the worst of the group is not "as worse" as before).

I don't like very much that the difference is constant. But once we factor Skill Focus in (and now SF is a much bigger and a much more needed bonus than before, so we'll see it taken more often), the difference is not constant any more. Basically we are just seeing a reduction of the difference, but it will still pratically scale with levels.

This really is a good thing for adventurers (who are not average and do not lead average lives. An adventuring wizard PC is going to be a good deal more athletic than the one who stays homeewr, because he spent a good chunk of his life walking or in the saddle. at any rate, for me Fun > Realism.

3. So now Skill Focus is VERY important to keep up with the challenges. There's a problem here: a Rogue has a lot of skills trained, therefore he NEEDS a lot of Skill Focuses to keep up in ALL her skills. Let's hope that the Rogue gets loads of bonus feats that can be spent on SF, otherwise a high-level Rogue may seriously suck if half or more of her skills are lagging behind the DCs.

Feats are much "cheaper" (more available) in SWSE than in 3.x. For that matter, this is already a problem in 3.x, the rogue doesn't have enough skill points to cover all the bases anyway. Compression of skills will probably solve this problem more than increasing the number of feats avaialble. Also, game design should not require that all PCs be focused in every class skill. Focus should be optional, not mandatory. To make skill checks more important, have the skilled PCs make more of them; just as the fighter's BAB is important now not because the wizard is around +5 behind the fighter for the "swet spot" of 3.x play, but because the fighter can more reliably hit the higher AC creatures, and do more damage when he does. If skill challenge DCs for trained characters are calibrated at what the "skilled" character with a decent stat bonus can make, the untrained will have a hard time making the DC on anything like a regular basis. Really, a +7 differential (+5 skilled, +2 stat) is enough for this. And that makes Skill Focus special.

4. I do not like the idea of merging skills. I understand that WotC noticed a lot of people do it as house rules, and wanted the please the audience, fine. I don't like it because it reduces the difference between characters. Also, when you get very few skills using the same ability, you could go ahead and just turn it into an ability check. 3ed introduced skills exactly to differentiate between a wise character that's good at listening, one that's good at spotting, one that's good at both and one that's good at none. Now you can only be good at both or none. Something you could be in 3ed only, but now you have some choices less. But ok, if everyone likes it the new way, then no big deal.

It may be cool in theory, in practice it sucks. Especially for new players. Also, it makes it much easier to min/max. Past time for it to leave.

5. You cannot spread your skill points anymore. This is tricky... People complain that this was "difficult", but that's not true, because it's totally optional in 3ed. If you want it simple, just max as many skills as your skill points and you're done. However it happened to me many times in 3ed, particularly with Rogues, that I wanted to have more skills: i could choose for example to spread my skill points of 2 skills over 3 skills instead and have each of them 2/3 max, which isn't bad, effectively becoming able at 1 new skill. Some skills don't need to be maximized to be effective, so this option was good.

Pure min/maxing. Plus, it mucks up adventure design - being able to figure out what is an appropriate DC becomes that much harder if you have to target both the person who full-maxed the skill, and the one who half-maxed it.

Now if you're a Rogue and get 8 skills, then you just have to max 8 skills. However, I suspect there will be a feat that will simply add 1 more skill to your set, so maybe this will be back in the game just in a different form.

There is a feat that makes you trained in a skill. Plus, if there are less possibilities to train skills than skills available, characters can be differentiated.

Just as a tangent, SWSE characters get 17 feats in 20 levels as opposed to 7 for D&D3.x characters. 10 of them are bonus feats drawn for your class(es), but most classes have a fairly large list of bonus feats. I'm hoping that they go with one of my house rules and move feats to an every odd, instead of every 3, level progression, for a grand total of 20 feats,but I don't anticipate that. There's also less "chained" feats (Running Attack, the equivalent of both Spring Attack and Shot On The Run is obtainable at 1st level), but many feats are less powerful either because of rules changes or because the feat changed. Running Attack no longer cancels AoE, and Rapid Shot just adds a die of damage to your siongle attack (where most ranged weapons do 3dX of damage) instead of adding a second chance to damage.

 

[szilard]

My biggest concern about 4e having SWSE roles for skills?

You can never be trained in a cross class skill. Want a fighter who is a good lute player? Tough. You can't have it.

-Stuart

 

[Sun Knight]

I just don't like how generalized the point structure is. I like to know exactly how skilled my character is in a particular field and have direct control on how skilled he or she is. Skill ranks of 3.5e allow for this. SWSE skill system does not.

 

[drothgery]

This actually means the 4ed character advances more slowly, BUT the skill focus feats is going to be +5, and eventually there will be something like improved skill focus (+10) and maybe even a greater skill focus (+15) available only after a certain level.
Otherwise the other option to keep the real skills about as good as in 3ed would be to re-design all the DCs to make them lower, which I think it's much more complicated for the designers.

At least for SWSE, they have been pretty clear that they're not going to introduce anything beyond what's in the core rules that produces a skill bonus beyond a small equipment bonus. And they've made point to cut-off top-end DCs.

I don't think redesinging the 'hard' DCs to make them lower (and the 'easy' DCs to make them higher) is any more complicated than introducing skill checks with DCs was to begin with, especially when you were replacing 2e-style purely arbitrary thief skill values for the most common skills...

 

[Wormwood]

My biggest concern about 4e having SWSE roles for skills?

You can never be trained in a cross class skill. Want a fighter who is a good lute player? Tough. You can't have it.

-Stuart

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