So...wut's the deal with NWP?

[Imperialus]

Not that it helped much, but remember that if you spent more than one NWP on a skill, you got an additional "+1" to your target number to roll under. It was either in the rulebook, or in a Sage Advice column, I forget which. Still not a good fix for it.

Were I doing it from scratch, I'd probably do it a lot closer to 4E's skill system, since the number of NWPs you get maps to "trained" or "untrained" pretty well, and every new NWP you stick into the same skill nets you a +3 bonus to your roll. That way, the totals still stay within a +20 range of the die roll, and set an 18 or 20 for the target number.

That makes a lot of sense... Convenient timing too since my group might be switching back to 2E after I'm back in school and won't have time to dedicate to GMing Shadowrun.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I found they worked just fine in actual play, probably thanks in large part to a particularly good DM at the time. But no, they don't look much - "enough or not at all" seems to be what most will prefer. Myself included, now I think about it.

 

[Diamond Cross]

The hate comes because people simply don't like change. The idea is once something's been established it should never be changed under any circumstances. That's why there's edition wars of RPGs and fan wars of TV shows and music and so on.

But personally, I really appreciated NWPS in 2e. It helped me to better role play my skills, and actually got me more curious as to how these skills would actually work in real life.

Before though, it was left up to the DM to allow a character to do something. This put a lot more choices in both the DM and players hands.

 

[JustKim]

I find the 3E skill system just as crude sometimes. I have a character with +27 to Spot who can reasonably see an invisible creature. She has +25 to Survival, so she can follow week-old tracks across tundra. In a recent game I try to track down the source of an attack in a busy area, and because the situation is investigative, the DM asks me to roll Search, in which I have no ranks and default to a +3 bonus.

Given the DCs of tasks at high levels, there is practically no difference between being unable to try something without a NWP in 2E, and being unable to succeed in it without skill ranks in 3E. Even if I roll a 20 I can't accomplish anything.

 

[Agamon]

It was the mechanic that wasn't any good. Your NWP score was equal to the associated attribute score. Then when the situation came up that you need to use it, it was successful if you rolled the score or lower on a d20. Not very elegant.

 

[Agamon]

I find the 3E skill system just as crude sometimes. I have a character with +27 to Spot who can reasonably see an invisible creature. She has +25 to Survival, so she can follow week-old tracks across tundra. In a recent game I try to track down the source of an attack in a busy area, and because the situation is investigative, the DM asks me to roll Search, in which I have no ranks and default to a +3 bonus.

Given the DCs of tasks at high levels, there is practically no difference between being unable to try something without a NWP in 2E, and being unable to succeed in it without skill ranks in 3E. Even if I roll a 20 I can't accomplish anything.

Yeah, but that's high-level 3e, which is a whole other discussion.

 

[eyebeams]

They made sense in a setting that assumed that most people were level 0 but could still have useful professional skills from a PC adventurer's point of view. Otherwise, you have a stupid situation where being a high level fighter makes you a better armourer than a professional armourer.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Non-weapon proficiencies are from 2nd edition, and they were mostly replaced with the skill system in 3rd edition.

<pedantry>1E actually. Dungeoneer's Survival Guide</pedantry>

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

The hate comes because people simply don't like change.

While I sometimes agree with this sentiment, I can't this time. Most people posting here call NWP a good idea, just bad implementation. No gripes about change. In fact, the idea came from 1E AD&D and B/X modules. A task outside of combat often called for an attribute check in those old modules. The idea was more fleshed out and codified in the Dungeoneers and Wilderness Survival Guides.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I dislike NWPs because I think they're a clunky and unnecessary attempt to graft a skill system onto D&D's class/level approach. I like skill systems when they suit the game and are part of the design. But I prefer D&D's class/level approach without a granular skill system. I think the best "skill system" devised for D&D is the "Secondary Skills" approach described in the 1e DMG.