Skills

[drothgery]

3)Getting rid of points and making it untrained/trained/focused. Lots of people hate this but I can take or leave it. I find points unnecessary, I think people who want "granularity" have a different idea of what a character sheet means than I do, but I don't think the slight ease of use you get from this system is really enough to care about. I have seen some people vaguely annoyed they don't get to mess around with skill points every level, even if it is just adding +1 to int+2 skills they enjoy the illusion of choice.

FWIW, as someone who's completely in favor of the SWSE/4e-style skill system, I always thought the 3.x/standard d20 style skill system was something of a mismatch to the rest of the game. You've got this extremely fine-grained skill system bolted on to characters that are largely built on binary (on/off) choices of feats, class abilities and spells. I think it works a lot better in a pure point-based game like Mutants and Masterminds than it does in D&D.

 

[Owen K.C. Stephens]

I ultimately think play style has a lot to do with how much people like or dislike skill points. There are places where they absolutely make sense -- everything is done on points in Mutants and Masterminds, why wouldn't skills be?

My own play style actually leans towards skill points, to allow characters to have "just a smattering" of training in a skill. Which is a weird thing for an author of SW:Saga to admit, but my early gaming background comes from equal parts D&D and Champions, so I'm a psychologcially conflicted gamer to begin with.

But for Star Wars, it semed the right solution. Micromanaging characters seems less in keeping with the broad, sweeping style of Star Wars in general than quick get-to-it rules that let you focus on blaster bolts, youthful yearnign and adventure, great destiny and, or course starfighters and lightsabers.

And really, anyone with an experience houseruling could shoehorn skill points back in with little difficulty. I make rules changes in home games to match my play style all the time. But the feedback I have gotten aver the past couple of years suggests Saga did the right thing for most people playing it, most of the time.

 

[pawsplay]

The SWSE skills system works well for resolution. Unfortunately, from a character development standpoint it's the worst thing ever printed in a d20 product. At least in A&D it was possible to train in outside proficiencies...

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

The SWSE skills system works well for resolution. Unfortunately, from a character development standpoint it's the worst thing ever printed in a d20 product. At least in A&D it was possible to train in outside proficiencies...

If you're referring to being shoehorned into taking only certain skills without the option of going outside that list, then the Background optional rules in the Rebellion Era campaign guide might be of interest to you.

I could certainly see GM's using part of those to allow their players to expand their list of starting class skills based on where they came from but without the full perks of that option. Something I know that a few DM's have done for 3e in a certain campaigns.

 

[pawsplay]

If you're referring to being shoehorned into taking only certain skills without the option of going outside that list, then the Background optional rules in the Rebellion Era campaign guide might be of interest to you.

It wouldn't be that bad, except that without houserules, it's impossible to train in a skill outside your original class before level 3, and many uses of Computer and Mechanics are restricted to trained-only for dubious reasons. Still, it manifests the simplicity of the system relative to the breadth of background options that are likely to interest players.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

The SWSE skills system works well for resolution. Unfortunately, from a character development standpoint it's the worst thing ever printed in a d20 product. At least in A&D it was possible to train in outside proficiencies...

I'll disagree with you slightly.

It might be bad from a _mechanical_ character development perspective. If your idea of "character development" means acquiring lots of skills and mechanically differentiating your character from another character with the exact same class.

But that's really a playstyle issue.

I could point to Han Solo and ask just how many new skill the boy was picking up over 3 movies. It looked to me to be pretty minimal. On the flip-side, Skywalker definitely was learning some to go along with the whole Jedi thing. *shrug* End of the day, it's a playstyle issue. There's an awful lot of fiction out there that is about competent people that kick ass and learn few (if any) new skills. Heck, even improvement of skills isn't even a factor.

As for the houserules thing... *shrug* I have never met a gamesystem that didn't need houserules of one sort or another. 30 playtesters isn't going to cover the range of approaches that hundreds or thousands (theoretically in the case of D&D, millions) of people have.

I'm not saying you're wrong, just that not everyone is approaching the game the same way it seems you might be.

Obviously, I like the system and plan on continuing to use it for my fantasy games.

 

[pawsplay]

I'll disagree with you slightly.

It might be bad from a _mechanical_ character development perspective.

Actually, I meant from an in-game perspective. Mechanically it works fine; you get to level 3, bam, you can have any one other skill you wanted. In-game, it leads to awkward situations where Nobles can't repair hypderdrives until 3rd level, dedicated martial artists (Soldiers) can't use Acrobatics until third level (unless they are badly written published NPCs), and so forth. The quintessential example I always bring up is Tenel Ka from the New Jedi Order series; she appears as a young teenager, yet is clearly a Noble who is also trained in Survival. Starting her at level 3 makes her more formidable than Luke or Anakin Skywalker, who begin their journeys at approximately 2nd level...

 

[small pumpkin man]

FWIW, as someone who's completely in favor of the SWSE/4e-style skill system, I always thought the 3.x/standard d20 style skill system was something of a mismatch to the rest of the game. You've got this extremely fine-grained skill system bolted on to characters that are largely built on binary (on/off) choices of feats, class abilities and spells. I think it works a lot better in a pure point-based game like Mutants and Masterminds than it does in D&D.

I agree in the sense that it completely doesn't fit with the rest of the 3.5 system. I'm not sure I agree about it fitting with M&M however. The fact that individual skills are too expensive makes them rarely taken (an intentional design choice), and the fact that it's capped by rank not your total bonus is completely opposite to how much of the rest of the game works means they really don't feel integrated into the rest of the system at all.

 

[Toric_Arthendain]

Actually, I meant from an in-game perspective. Mechanically it works fine; you get to level 3, bam, you can have any one other skill you wanted. In-game, it leads to awkward situations where Nobles can't repair hypderdrives until 3rd level, dedicated martial artists (Soldiers) can't use Acrobatics until third level (unless they are badly written published NPCs), and so forth. The quintessential example I always bring up is Tenel Ka from the New Jedi Order series; she appears as a young teenager, yet is clearly a Noble who is also trained in Survival. Starting her at level 3 makes her more formidable than Luke or Anakin Skywalker, who begin their journeys at approximately 2nd level...

This problem has been corrected somewhat by the Rebellion Era Campaign Guide. The book introduces a Background system that is meant to be used in place of the Destiny system for a grittier game with grittier heroes. Essentially you choose either an Occupation, Event or Planet of Origin Background (there are multiple Backgrounds under each Occupation, Event and Planet of Origin and you choose one) and that choice gives you a list of three skills to choose one from that becomes a class skill regardless of whether it is a class skill for your chosen class. You also get one other little bonus in addition to the bonus class skill. For Event Backgrounds, you gain a small enhancement which vary according to the Event chosen. For Occupation Backgrounds you gain a +2 bonus to using untrained skills from the Occupation's list of three skills. For Planet of Origin Backgrounds you gain a bonus language.

So this system, if used in place of Destiny, allows you to have a Noble with the Technology Background for instance and choose the Mechanics skill as a class skill or a Soldier with the Criminal Background and Stealth as a class skill. It allows for a bit broader character concepts to be workable at 1st level.