I have been thinking hard on this system and it's use of skill ranks.

As a "back in the day" player of WoD I have an affinity for the ranks meaning more than just upgrades.

FFG has hinted at upcoming Force powers requiring a certain number of Force rating before you can spend the experience to acquire them. I'm assuming that means a noob won't be slinging Sith Lightning. I'm not out to penalize a player, but I like the idea that skill would mean more than simply another yellow or green (which I am aware means a lot).

Example: Point Blank 1 would require one skill rank in Ranged (whatever) but before you could use Point Blank 2 you would need a second skill rank.

As the system as is doesn't use this idea already, altering it now could just complicate things. Can anyone think of another crunchy way to reward skill ranks?

I was thinking of designing Lightsaber form trees for the (as of now) custom designed lightsaber skill. If you have 1 rank in the lightsaber skill then you can take the first of 5 levels of a lightsaber form. (For example if you have lightsaber 2 you would be allowed to purchase Juyo 1 and Juyo 2 but not Juyo 3, and adding another lightsaber form past the first would cost extra)

Any thoughts? Thanks all!

I'm not sure how this is a problem. I mean if a player has access to Point Blank they are in a Joe Gun career and is there anyone who gets into Joe Gun and doesn't try to get 2 skill ranks from go in their favorite firearm? More skill also represents more chance of criticals for Joe Gun, a higher chance of auto fire and duel wielding being viable. In most of those trees there are skills like Deadly Accuracy or Walk the Walk where more skill ranks equals more damage, which is a pretty good motivator to advance your skills. I'm not really convinced the system isn't already motivating players to advance skills.

In regards to light sabers I would always encourage people to house rule and make their game their own, but we are likely to have F&D in less than 6 months.

I don't know that it's a problem for anything but Force powers, because with the Force there does seem to be some sort of hierarchical knowledge tree or web. This doesn't really apply for the other skills, and as 2P51 pointed out, what little there might be is self-regulating.

On top of what the others said, there's the idea that you're expending your hard-earned xp on those talents to come alongside your skills. And while purchasing talents may mean that you have less xp to spend on skill ranks, consider this: talents like Point Blank and Deadly Accuracy, or even the nice re-roll Natural "X" talents, don't help much if you don't have the dice to land successes. I think the system is pretty balanced that way.

Perhaps this is one of those things where you have to unlearn your expectations from other systems, as FFG is handingly the skill/talent mix differently than you're used to, at a conceptual level.

Also someone a while back ran the numbers and found that in terms of successes, 2 Dice are always better then one. (even 2 Green will be more likely to bear success then one Yellow)

Proficiency dice are about landing Triumphs, which are technically a different end effect then success, and essentially they are their own reward.

If you want your players to take ranks in stuff, communicate the value of a Triumph, and make sure they understand things like that Triumphs cannot be canceled, and do more then just "crit."

By comparison a Talent is just a series of simple tricks and nonsense. It can give a character a leg up, from time to time, but it won't change the game.

Also, resist the urge to compare unrelated game systems, just trust me, it'll work better in the long run if you enter each system with no prior assumptions.

One way I was thinking of to reward skill ranks is letting the character turn green dice into yellow dice when making a skill check.

I have been thinking hard on this system and it's use of skill ranks.

As a "back in the day" player of WoD I have an affinity for the ranks meaning more than just upgrades.

FFG has hinted at upcoming Force powers requiring a certain number of Force rating before you can spend the experience to acquire them. I'm assuming that means a noob won't be slinging Sith Lightning. I'm not out to penalize a player, but I like the idea that skill would mean more than simply another yellow or green (which I am aware means a lot).

Example: Point Blank 1 would require one skill rank in Ranged (whatever) but before you could use Point Blank 2 you would need a second skill rank.

As the system as is doesn't use this idea already, altering it now could just complicate things. Can anyone think of another crunchy way to reward skill ranks?

I was thinking of designing Lightsaber form trees for the (as of now) custom designed lightsaber skill. If you have 1 rank in the lightsaber skill then you can take the first of 5 levels of a lightsaber form. (For example if you have lightsaber 2 you would be allowed to purchase Juyo 1 and Juyo 2 but not Juyo 3, and adding another lightsaber form past the first would cost extra)

Any thoughts? Thanks all!

As far as what you suggest, I'm not a fan. I don't think you need to add roadblocks to stuff that already exists. Now, if you were to put in that requirement on new trees you were building, then I don't see anything wrong with that.

As far as using skill ranks for something more than just how many dice you roll, my group does that. The more ranks we have in a skill the more flexibility my GM gives us before asking for a dice roll. Have 1 rank of a knowledge skill, you'll have to roll to see if you know anything about any planet. Have 5 ranks, and my GM just tells us stuff that the character would probably know. Same can be done with Charm and other social skills. Have 1 rank, you have to roll to bluff past the doorman to get into a club. Have 5 ranks and my GM assumes we'll pass those less consequencial rolls and not ask for the dice roll. It's a way to speed up play and not keep pausing for dice rolls for situations that aren't so key to the plot.

As far as using skill ranks for something more than just how many dice you roll, my group does that. The more ranks we have in a skill the more flexibility my GM gives us before asking for a dice roll. Have 1 rank of a knowledge skill, you'll have to roll to see if you know anything about any planet. Have 5 ranks, and my GM just tells us stuff that the character would probably know. Same can be done with Charm and other social skills. Have 1 rank, you have to roll to bluff past the doorman to get into a club. Have 5 ranks and my GM assumes we'll pass those less consequencial rolls and not ask for the dice roll. It's a way to speed up play and not keep pausing for dice rolls for situations that aren't so key to the plot.

This is actually something in the GM section of the corebook for simplifying checks and speeding up the game. A check which has a difficulty well below a player's ranks can be assumed to pass.

I don't think it would be necessary to require a player to have to purchase a rank in a skill prior to gaining a talent. The reasoning behind this, is that a player can still use a skill, if they are untrained. Depending on their natural characteristic, they can be effective, if not superior in certain circumstance (4 Agility, no training compared to 2 Agility, 2 Training for instance) in succeeding at the skill check. The only difference being that the player can't 'triumph'.

Just because a player doesn't have training doesn't mean that he shouldn't have access to talents that are based on a certain skill, and would effectively destroy certain classes. I don't want to get into a debate about how good or bad a career is from the opinion of the community, but let's looks at the Explorer from the CRB (not Enter the Unknown). You'd effectively be telling your player, many of their talents can't be purchased unless the PC purchases non-career skills first. This wouldn't be the case, as a whole, with any other Careers as much as it would hurt the Explorer from the CRB, however, you'd be funneling your players into making decisions beyond what they'd like to RP and more into how mechanically they need to think out the character growth.

Just a couple of tidbits.

Just seems like a penalty to me. The player is already spending exp to buy talents which means they have less exp for skills so for me all that equals is less diverse characters. If you require skill ranks to unlock talents then players become much more focused and can't branch out and be more well rounded.

I agree that forcing players to buy ranks first isn't in the spirit of the system. Turning greens into yellows or gaining more green is a reward and narrative tool in its own right. I simply like the idea of a crunchy reason to get that 5th rank, beyond the core mechanics of the game as written. After reading the above responses (thanks all) I'm firmly against the idea of a requirement. I'll think harder on what a house-rule might be for the ranks as a reward. Any suggestions (beyond the "turn green dice into yellow dice) would be welcome.

I don't want to beat a dead horse, but what precisely are you looking for on top of the obvious increased effectiveness of auto fire and dual wielding, in addition to talents like Deadly Accuracy, Pressure Point, Walk the Walk or Heroic Resilience? Damage is covered by Deadly Accuracy. Pressure Point gives a Dr. the Vulcan Nerve Pinch. Walk the Walk makes a brawl machine. Heroic Resilience makes a tank out of a character. Beyond those what would you be interested in? FFG definitely seems to be trying to increase use of DPs with the new talents in DCs.