Suggestion: Fixing skills for 4 E

[Roman]

We already know from designer statements that the Star Wars Saga can be looked at as a preview of the skill system of D&D 4E, even though there will be differences between the two skill systems. Some people are thrilled, but some of us intensely dislike some aspects of the Star Wars Saga skill system. Rather than complain incessantly about the new system and accomplish nothing, I thought I would instead state the exact issues some of us have with the new skill system and suggest how these could be rectified within the system.

My main problem with the new system is the lack of an ability to create characters with serious flaws. Yes, I accept the oft repeated phrase that the characters are heroic, but even heroes can have flaws and it often makes them more interesting. Instead of discarding the automatic advancement of skills every second level, though, this could be rectified by enabling the use of character flaws.

I envision something like a character flow called “Inept” followed by a noun derived from the skill, for example: “inept swimmer”, or “inept climber” and so on. This flaw would mean that the character does not automatically advance in the given skill and would conversely provide some other mechanical benefit. The mechanical benefit could be an extra feat or some smaller benefit to prevent abuse. Another way to prevent abuse would be to have a rule that each subsequent character flaw requires more “inept” skills to be chosen to grant further feats (1 non-advancing skill for 1 feat, 2 more non-advancing skills for a 2nd feat, 3 more non-advancing skills for a 3rd feat, etcetera) or abuse could be prevented through limiting the number of character flaws that can thus be taken. For added flexibility, we could also enable the skill to revert from ‘inept’ (non-progressing) to ‘normal’ (progressing at 1 point every two levels, or whatever the rate of skill advancement will be in 4E).

Many people also have a problem with what they deem insufficient granularity in the new skill system (only three levels at each level: untrained, trained and skill-focus). For me this is less of an issue than the inability to simulate character flaws. In any case, it is easily rectified by simply changing the bonuses trained and skill-focus provide and creating more training levels, such as untrained, trained, accomplished, expert and masterful.

I think hardly anybody has a problem with combining the myriad 3.X E skills into fewer broader skills in 4E. That is just a plain good change.

 

[Khuxan]

Most skills go all but unused by most characters. Almost any mechanical benefit would be preferable to a 1/2 level bonus to a certain skill. Instead, if your character is inept for some reason, you're free to impose a penalty of your own volition without anything in return. True, it reduces the power of your character by a small amount, but it's the only solution I can come up with (short of reintroducing skill ranks).

Otherwise we'd have barbarians that are inept at every Charisma-based and Intelligence-based skill, and all non-spellcasters would be inept at Concentration and Spellcraft.

 

[Roman]

Most skills go all but unused by most characters. Almost any mechanical benefit would be preferable to a 1/2 level bonus to a certain skill. Instead, if your character is inept for some reason, you're free to impose a penalty of your own volition without anything in return. True, it reduces the power of your character by a small amount, but it's the only solution I can come up with (short of reintroducing skill ranks).

Otherwise we'd have barbarians that are inept at every Charisma-based and Intelligence-based skill, and all non-spellcasters would be inept at Concentration and Spellcraft.

You are forgetting that skills will be much broader now, so each skill will have many more uses than in 4E. As such, a small mechanical benefit would probably be a fair trade-off, particularly if my suggestion was followed and the number of flaws would be capped and/or they would provide diminishing returns.

Also, the mechanical benefit would not have to be large (which would surely balance, especially if making multiple skills 'inept' would be required to gain such a benefit if you wanted more than one - see my suggestion on preventing abuse). I can envision something like: add another skill to your list of class skills.

It would of course be more interesting and flavorful if the benefit was tied to the specific flaw, such as "inept swimmer" giving you a slightly better resistance to dehydration, but it could prove difficult to come up with an appropriate benefit for every inept skill. Hence, sticking with a general benefit would probably be easier.

Although I may be willing to give my character a penalty without any benefit for roleplaying purposes, I would rather avoid the rules forcing this kind of situation when they don't have to do so.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Although I may be willing to give my character a penalty without any benefit for roleplaying purposes, I would rather avoid the rules forcing this kind of situation when they don't have to do so.

This is my preferred approach as well. I had a character in one game who I had determined was extremely gullible. The obvious route to take would be to have a low wisdom so that I had a penalty to Sense Motive, etc. However, this didn't necessarily work - he didn't also have poor hearing and bad eyesight, for example. My solution was just simply to forgo a saving throw or sense motive roll in certain situations where it seemed appropriate. Problem solved without need for mechanical intervention.

 

[JoelF]

Another problem with the new skill system if you use the Inept concept is that there's lots of skills that you only need 1 party member to be good at. Everyone else could be inept at it and the party isn't affected at all. (Things like handle animal, knowledge skills, survival, etc.)

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Flaws always have one problem: Some character concepts do simply not require certain abilities and can take flaws for uninteresting abilities to gain interesting advantages.

There are two fixes:
1) Don't allow flaws
2) Balance the game in a way that such flaws are expected or at least somewhat accounted for.

My suggestions:
Inept sounds fine, and the possible rule implementations (no level derived skill bonus or a general skill penalty) are easy to do.
A character can be inept at only one skill. Doing so grants you a single bonus feat (maybe from a predetermined list of feats that preferably are not used as prerequisites for other feats or prestige classes or so, but that might seem too harsh)
You could even go so far and require that each character takes one Ineptitude, and have a feat that negates the penalty.

I think there is little reason to have a character that is inept at more than one skill. If a player really wants it and has a character concept that absolutely requires it and is also worth having in the game, the DM can make a special exception for him.

 

[Roman]

Flaws always have one problem: Some character concepts do simply not require certain abilities and can take flaws for uninteresting abilities to gain interesting advantages.

There are two fixes:
1) Don't allow flaws
2) Balance the game in a way that such flaws are expected or at least somewhat accounted for.

My suggestions:
Inept sounds fine, and the possible rule implementations (no level derived skill bonus or a general skill penalty) are easy to do.
A character can be inept at only one skill. Doing so grants you a single bonus feat (maybe from a predetermined list of feats that preferably are not used as prerequisites for other feats or prestige classes or so, but that might seem too harsh)
You could even go so far and require that each character takes one Ineptitude, and have a feat that negates the penalty.

I think there is little reason to have a character that is inept at more than one skill. If a player really wants it and has a character concept that absolutely requires it and is also worth having in the game, the DM can make a special exception for him.

Yes, limiting (even at 1) the number of inept skills a character can take would prevent abuse. As I mentioned, I think if the benefit of gained to compensate for having an inept skill would be to gain another class skill, rather than chosing any feat, this would also mitigate abuse, as having a skill as a class skill is not useful at all without a further investment of resources (training feat), since class skills and normal skills both have the same level-based progression (at least they do in SW Saga, in 4E this may be different).

 

[Stalker0]

Simple fix: Rule 0.

Player: Mr Dm, my character is from a desert planet, so I don't think its right that he has all of these bonuses in swim. Can I just assume he doesn't have them?

Dm: Sure.

Player: I know its not in the rules and all but I...oh really? You sure?

DM: If you want to make your character weaker for rp purposes, knock yourself out.


Its that simple. DMs don't usually have a problem with a player weakening their character for rp purposes, its the bonuses that are the worry. This is assuming of course you don't go overboard, like creating a blind guy with no abilities to compensate for the crazy penalties your going to rack up and forcing the whole party to account for your disabilities.

 

[Stalker0]

As for the skill granulaty issue, here's an easy fix.

Skill Focus

You receive a +2 to a skill.

Special: If you ever become trained in the skill, this bonus increases to +5.



Done and done.

 

[jimgoings]

Could someone give me a quick overview of how the Saga edition skills work or point me in the right direction so I can understand this thread better? I don't own the SW RPG, but I am interested to know how the skills work in the system.