D&D 4E Star Wars Saga Edition as preview of 4e?

[Plane Sailing]

With an 8th-level human character having only two skills (TRAINED skills that is), there's a question of whether some resource has to be expended just to train up.

It is part of the big question about how multiclassing will work in this skills ruleset too, isn't it?

We know that there are such a thing as 'class skills' still, and presumably trained skills are a subset of your available class skills - but I can't see enough data yet to make an educated guess at how the number of trained skills might be set or changed.

Eyes peeled, eh?

 

[Plane Sailing]

What's with no more iterative attacks?

Is Threshold equal to your Ref?

And you get half your character level (rounded down) as bonus damage on melee and ranged attacks (see Han's stats)?

I do like encounter based design (ala ToB) – I can't stand the fact that D&D is designed around this assumed 4 encounters a day malarkey.

All I know is that when SWSE comes out (over here in the UK), I will grab that little bastard and see what I can implement into my D&D campaigns. I'm especially interested in the Condition Track, triple hp at first level (to stop characters going down to a carrot thrown at them by a gnome), the new Skill system, and Defences.

Getting rid of iterative attacks is a great way of simplifying the system, while keeping playability high (it has been used in SpyCraft for quite a while now to great success). Plus iterative attacks worked against mobile, dynamic combat in a couple of ways. Firstly once you've got an iterative attack it encourages players to start standing still and slugging things out. Secondly, higher level characters get discommoded more by tripping etc than lower level characters (since losing their full attack can dramatically reduce their damage output)

Threshold appears to be equal to your Fort defence (so far)

Bonus damage... difficult to say (Han is only getting +4 with the stormtrooper rifle, so perhaps it is a side effect of his weapon focus(pistols)?

 

[nerfherder]

Bonus damage... difficult to say (Han is only getting +4 with the stormtrooper rifle, so perhaps it is a side effect of his weapon focus(pistols)?

Weapon Specialisation gives +2 damage.

Do you have a feeling of deja vu...?

 

[Blue]

Inconsistant design goals

Look, the first one was about allowing more customization. About people of the same class not having the exact same abilities. One design consideration is player flexibility and that always comes at the cost of more time for character & NPC creation.

The second one was about making every one of the same class have the exact same skills. The design consideration is to make it quick, and it comes at a HUGE cost of making characters of the same class cookie cutters of each other. And if I multiclass, do I suddenly get to be as good at all the skills as someone who took just that class? That's crazy.

They're undercutting themselves and no one will benefit. PCs with the same class will have the same skills - a scoundrel can always do X, Y, and Z, just about as good as another scoundrel. Makes them more generic. That's unforgivable in my book, who the characters are is very important.

Really, I don't care to save 10 minutes every few months while leveling up a character vs. losing all that ability to make it MY CHARACTER.

Speaking as a DM, when creating high level characters unless they are a major villain I just worry about their main skills - in other words do a short cut much like they have. But as a aid to turning out fodder, not trying to impose it on the players.

I like some of the ideas - the condition track could be quite fun, though I would hate to track it for 20 goblins when DMing. I like the reduction of core classes, and I'd give talent trees a try to make up the flexibility for it. But the skill replacement, both reducing to fewer generic skills and also taking away ranks, would feel my ire.

Regards,
=Blue(23)

 

[Plane Sailing]

The second one was about making every one of the same class have the exact same skills. The design consideration is to make it quick, and it comes at a HUGE cost of making characters of the same class cookie cutters of each other. And if I multiclass, do I suddenly get to be as good at all the skills as someone who took just that class? That's crazy.

I think you may be missing something. Each class will have a bunch of class skills, then they choose a subset of those to be TRAINED skills.

I bet that you will be able to have three soldiers, three scoundrels or whatever, and have them look VERY different in terms of the trained skills (the ones where their particular emphasis is). Add on different talent trees and there will be far more customisation than you have in the current system, while still being simpler to set up people of any level.

 

[Ry]

Can someone tell me what compensates characters for losing iterative attacks? Is there anything, or is it just gone?

 

[RedFox]

Can someone tell me what compensates characters for losing iterative attacks? Is there anything, or is it just gone?

3xhp @ 1st!

 

[Ry]

Oh, so we don't have higher damage output as a melee-oriented character advances in level, then?

 

[nerfherder]

Can someone tell me what compensates characters for losing iterative attacks? Is there anything, or is it just gone?

It looks like characters get extra damage equal to half their heroic character level (I make this distinction, because the example stat block for the Death Star Trooper has no damage bonus).

 

[Greg K]

Pretty darn good idea.

The problem of 'I'm 10th level and I don't know how to swim, ride, climb a rope, reliably jump a short chasm, or mant other utility skills of adventuring that are not used a lot but really, really slow down the game when we have to use them and makes my character look like an idiot' is solved..

Thats not a system problem. To me it seems as if
a) Either the characters background and experience did not warrant the player putting ranks into the skills.
b) the player was too concerned with optimizing in order tp lee[ short list of skills maximized and ignored putting a rank or two in skill skills to round out things that the character might have picked up. In such a case, I consider it to be player attitude problem.

Knowing the level means you automatically know the skill bonus for many skills.

And to me this should not be the case. As far as I am concerned, level should be a general idea of how experienced the character is. IMO, there is nothing wrong with an experienced character not knowing how to ride or repair devices if does not fit their background or experiences and just being as unskilled as everyone else.

Getting rid of the plethora of '+2 bonus to two related skills' feats is a great idea. (Especially when this easily could have been one feat, like it is in Arcana Unearthed. Sorry, guys, all those feats are just padding the word count right there.)

Here I agree with you. I initially thought that the +2/+2 feats were a good idea until I looked at them more closely and the skill pairing did not always make sense to the feat name.