Plane Sailing said:
Rerolls rather than a bonus are great, because it gives a much better chance of getting a good result without lifting the cap on the result you can achieve.
Works really nicely in SWSE. One of the great things is that it means everyone in the party can participate in stuff at higher levels. In SW the whole party can jump onto the speeder bikes or swim under the river (and the guys who have trained are better). Compare this with 3e where the guys that haven't put skill points into it basically can't really succeed at all. One of the side effects of this is that the DM can put in more interesting situations, knowing that everyone can participate in balancing across the ledge or whatever. Another of the side effects is that people can focus on a little used skill and their focus won't be wasted (someone who maxes out swimming in 3e might never get to use the skill because unless other people can swim, there just won't be the swimming adventures around unless his DM runs him a solo adventure at some point!). Also note in the Pit Fiend that the knowledge religion DCs are higher than you would have seen in 3e (DCs 25-35)
I've heard talk about more granular results of skill checks, but not seen any details on that yet that I recall.
Cheers
Let me use your post to start a little rant/discussion about 3.x, 4e and SAGA skill.
the problem with 3.x system is, from what I've read and my experience, that the only thing character did with skills was, with some really specific exception, to put max ranks in them, it almost never happened that a character put than character level+3 rank in one of his class skills (exceptions were for things like 1 single rank for skills that needed training to be used, 5 ranks to get sinergy for another skill or to satisfy some feat/PRC prereq) To fix this WotC come out with the SAGA system, skills ar level/2 + stat bonus +5 for training + 5 for focus.
The problem (and here we enter in IMHO country) is the one they mention is not a problem but a symptom of the true problem, The real problem is ( Did I mentioned this is IMHO?) that in D&D to maximize skills is just too darn easy.
In any other RPG that I can think of pump the skills to the higher levels is either a) more expensive (going from 10 to 11 is less expensive than going from 16 to 17), b) less useful, over a certain value every point give you a lesser benefit and c) both of the above.
But in D&D going from 4 to 5 cost exactly as going from 24 to 25 and with the way skills are structured almost as useful, what this mean exactly? It means that, for example, a 10th level character will easily have one or more skills at 13 ranks, add stats bonus, synergy, feats and whatsnot and it easily reach 17 total ranks (and this for an average, or even subpar character) And it have no reason to not do so, to use 1 skill point to maximize one of your skills is much more convenient that use it in any other way (with the summentionated exceptions).But this means that in an adventure designed for this character is pointless to put a dc 15, or even DC 20 skill check, because this character (or any normal character that put ranks in that skill) would pass it without breaking a sweat, heck he could easily pass a DC 27 check (if he can take 10) or if he can work at it (take 20) pass a 37 DC check, something that is considered above heroic and almost impossible) and here is the core of the problem (anothe IMHO, just to be sure), maximize your skills is so easy that the only way to challenge the players is too put in the adventures DCs so high that become impossible to pass for those that don't maximize their skill, and we are back at first square, the SAGA system don't really fix this, what it does is just to turn a bug (the need to max your skills to be effective) into a feature (skills are automatically maximized) and all incongruences are handwaved away with some hackneyed (you can nver have too many IMHOs) explanation ("why, it is perfectly natural that my wizard became a better swimmer after all those years throwing fireballs at goblins,exactly as for my fellow barbarian to be a better flute player/classic dancer now than when it start at 1st level" (please, don't try to counterer this, it is just a little sarcasm, ok? thkx
).
Now, for the less intersting part (and it is saying alot) how would I have fixed it (or tried to)? As I said, the idea is to make it harder to maximize the skills, something like make going from 1 to 5 ranks cost 1 skill points, from 6 to 10, 2 points for ranks, from 11 to 15, 3 points, etc, etc, other necessary changes would be the increase of skills points for some classes (a minimum of 4 point/level at the least), and to standardize the DC of checks so they really are what is said in the rules (a dc10 is a average check, a DC 15 is tough, a DC 20 is challenging, etc) and the DC of a check depend on how actually hard the task is and not what level is the guy who is attempting it.
I admit I didn't really crunched the numbers or completely thought it thorught with all the (too many) variable, I'm still unsure how to deal with cros class skills, for example (probably drop the double cost, but keep the ranks limit) or +2/+2 feats, or magic items/spells that give skill bonuses, but on the top of my head this system should work, and do what I want it to do, with it 5-10 ranks into a skill would be actually useful even at 20 level and not be just a waste of skill points, now to have 20+ ranks into a skill mean something, that you are one of the greatest pratictioner of the world in that skill, but to reach that level you had to renounce to something, a PC had to choose if to be the best climber/diplomat/musician/whatever in the world or to be just really exceptional to some skills or simply really good in a lot of them, or any mix of them, we could even actually see a fighter with 5 ranks in sense motive or spot or a wizard with 5 ranks in swim or intimidate because they finally could use them for something useful, and so on.
To finally conclude I'd want to comment on a part of Plane sailing post where is say that the SAGA system allow for more interesting situations because everyone will have all the skills to overcome them, let me disagree with an example, during an adventure the GM put in front of the pc a cliff as an obstacle, with the saga system, with every pc having automatically ranks in the climb skill, what will happen will be just that every pc roll to climb the cliff, if they fail they take damage or not, rol again but eventually they will have passed the ostacle.
Booo-ring.
Let's see with standard D&D, now. Someone have ranks in climb, someone not, in this situation the players have the occasion to do what is (IMHO) one of the funniest thing you can do in a RPG, and that is, use their brain and imagination to find a solution to a problem, Things like:
- someone with ranks in climb go up, tie a rope and drop it down, for a bonus to the climb check
- the strong barbarian climb the cliff bringing another PC hung on his back.
- with hammer and chisel(sp someone dig hand- and foothold on the cliff
- the wizard use a spell to climb, fly or teleport up the clif (or down, Raistlin in the first dragonlance book, anyone?)
- etc.
Now certainly someone will come out with a dozen examples where 3.x system suck and saga rules, just remember that is not an absolute truth, and some of us like even for our high level character to still sucks at something.
The SAGA system is a perfectly good system... for star wars, and I love to see it in D&D... as an optional system, but star wars is a pulp setting and having everyone be good at everything is one of the tropes of pulp, but while D&D can be played as pulp, one should not be forced to play it that way
Thanks for the attention and sorry if I bored you.
Now you can wake up and read the rest of the thread.
