Using 3.X skill system in SWSE?

[John Q. Mayhem]

I'm seriously liking Star Wars Saga Edition, but I really miss the ability to pop a couple skill points into little things your character should have a smattering of. More of an issue at low level, obviously, but I'm interested in finding a way to get the level of customizability that you have in 3.X into SWSE. Would it work to simply use the 3.X system? Your skills would be a point lower, but you could just drop all DCs by one.

Any thoughts?

 

[Desert Hare]

Any thoughts?

Change Knowledge (Arcana) to Knowledge (The Force).
Change Spellcraft to Use The Force.

Other than that, I don't know.

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

I'm assuming your just talking about bringing back skill points and not the whole bloated 3.X skill list.

As for number of skill points, just use each class' default number of starting skills as their skill points per level. Jedi do get a bit short-changed, but since their main schtick relies on a single skill and there's plenty of UtF skill substitution talents out there, they shouldn't be hammered too badly. Cross-class skills would presumably have the "2 points equal 1 rank" function if going the 3.X way, so be sure to note that characters with a high Intelligence are going to much more broadly trained in skills than normal.

Just bear in mind that in dropping the level bonus to skill checks, you're going to run into the same issue 3.X had where you've got one or two characters that are hyper-specialized in certain skills that it becomes nigh impossible to challenge them without making it impossible for less specialized characters to stand a chance. Case in point from a 3.X game I heard about, the GM kept setting Spot and Listen checks at astronomical DCs (high 20's to low 30s) for a group of 8th level characters because one PC had managed to get a bonus on both skills that was in the high teens while the rest of the party had yet to break into the teens for those skills. Bad DM'ing I know, but it is a possibility to be considered in regards to designing encounters for your PCs.

Another thing to bear in mind is you may want to make some of the old "+2/+2 competence bonus to skill check" feats available, either the broad selection from the RCR, or the Monte Cook alternative of a single feat that provides the +2/+2 competence bonus, but the player selects two skills of their choice. Bear in mind that it's a competence bonus, and thus wouldn't stack with the +5 competence bonus that Skill Focus provides.

 

[Noir le Lotus]

I'm seriously liking Star Wars Saga Edition, but I really miss the ability to pop a couple skill points into little things your character should have a smattering of. More of an issue at low level, obviously, but I'm interested in finding a way to get the level of customizability that you have in 3.X into SWSE. Would it work to simply use the 3.X system? Your skills would be a point lower, but you could just drop all DCs by one.

Any thoughts?

Maybe you should look more at Pathfinder skill system : it penalize less players who want to put some points in cross-class skills and it is easier to use for multiclassed characters.

 

[drothgery]

I'm seriously liking Star Wars Saga Edition, but I really miss the ability to pop a couple skill points into little things your character should have a smattering of. More of an issue at low level, obviously, but I'm interested in finding a way to get the level of customizability that you have in 3.X into SWSE. Would it work to simply use the 3.X system? Your skills would be a point lower, but you could just drop all DCs by one.

Any thoughts?

It's probably a bad idea.

In SWSE, a trained skill is going to be 1/2 level + ability mod + 5. Skill Focus gets a +5, and there are few other ways to raise skill modifiers.

In 3.x/classic d20, a maxed-out skill is going to be level + ability mod + 3. Skill Focus grants a +3, there are lots of fiddly +2/+2 feats, and lots of fiddly ways of getting skill modifier bonuses. And that one or two ranks of a skill here and there has always been pretty much mechanically useless (sometimes flavorfull and good roleplaying, but mechanically useless).

So the progressions look very different. Low level characters will be able to hit higher DCs (much higher if they're focused) under SWSE rules, while high-level characters will be able to hit higher DCs under 3.x rules.

 

[small pumpkin man]

Thing is I really like the SAGA skill system, I think it's much better, especially the whole "high level characters are competent at most things". I think it's what level based skill systems always should have been (The fact that C&C uses a similar system is part of the reason I think it's worth salvaging, even if it has other clunky parts).

Because of this, if my players asked for more granularity (a decent thing to ask for), what I'd say is everyone keeps the 1/2 level to all skills, and everyone gets an amount of skill points equal to their amount of trained skills in the base system multiplied by five to spread around as they wish (and possibly move around a bit when they levelled up). I'd probably say using for trained only skill uses and for applying for feat/class prerequisites you need three ranks in the skill.

However I have never actually tried this out, so it might be a bit fiddly, or have other glaring issues.

EDIT - actually, you could tie skill focus into the system as well, but that would require a little bit more thinking about it than I feel like right now.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

I think I'm probably just going to let my players chop one or two skills in half, putting +3 in one and +2 in another.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Because of this, if my players asked for more granularity (a decent thing to ask for), what I'd say is everyone keeps the 1/2 level to all skills, and everyone gets an amount of skill points equal to their amount of trained skills in the base system multiplied by five to spread around as they wish (and possibly move around a bit when they levelled up). I'd probably say using for trained only skill uses and for applying for feat/class prerequisites you need three ranks in the skill.

That could work. And Skill Training could grant another 5 skill points per feat. Just make sure to cap the number of ranks that can be added to a single skill.

What changes would you need to make to skill focus? Must have at least 3 ranks in the skill?

 

[Rolflyn]

You get 5 skill points for each skill you would have in normal SWSE (10+5*int bonus for Jedi, +5 for being human, etc.).
Arrange those points among class skills, no more than five in each.
Your bonus in each skill is (skill points) + Level/2.

Skill Training: You get another 5 skill points. You can spend these on new or existing class skills. You can take this multiple times, each time you get 5 more skill points.

Skill Focus: Choose a skill, you can put up to 10 skill points into it. You get 5 skill points that you have to spend on existing skills. You can take this multiple times, each time you get to choose another skill and gain and addition 5 skill points.

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

Maybe you should look more at Pathfinder skill system : it penalizes less players who want to put some points in cross-class skills and it is easier to use for multiclassed characters.

Having had a chance to look over a friend's copy of Pathfinder Beta, I can agree on this suggestion. It does make going outside your class skill list a lot less painful (instead of having to pay for 1/2 ranks, you instead get a bonus to your check result if it's class skill), but it could lead to some exceptionally skilled characters very quickly, especially those that start would start out with a lot of skill points.

In fact, it sounds like it might be the best solution for the OP's question. Has the "fiddlyness" of the 3.X skill system and would require less mucking around with how SECR has skills set-up to work.