I was wondering if anyone has made any house rules about not allowing certain skill checks for characters who are not trained in a skill.

I think it would be odd to have a character who is a savage from a pre-hyperdrive planet jump into a spaceship and be a fairly good pilot because they have a high agility.

In the movies I know that Han Solo was pretty sure that Luke could not fly off planet without him, and that his experience dusting crops would not help him plot a hyperdrive course.

Would it be reasonable to say certain checks could only be done with training?

I was thinking of making the following be attempted only by someone with at least one point in training:

Piloting

Astrogation

Some computer checks (like slicing)

Some medical checks (like surgeries or critical injury healing)

Skulduggery

If you had a character who was a stone age tribesman I might agree with the piloting or other technical skills, but medical care is something that transcends technology. Many primitive cultures developed means of caring for injuries. I also don't agree with Skulduggery, that's the physical act of stealing and it's pretty basic to 'human nature'.

You know I've been wondering about this scenario myself. I think you could just now allow the checks to be made, but I've heard many people say this is a "Yes, and" system, so I think there could be an alternative.

The GM sets the difficulty of every check. A trained Pilot, rank 1 or someone with it in their Career or Specialization, can get a ship off planet with trivial ease. Unless someone is shooting at them or chasing them, there's no reason for a real pilot to make skill check for something as mundane as flying a freighter into low orbit.

What about the savage?

The savage is incredibly agile, but she's never even seen the inside of a cockpit. Can she try to fly it off planet?

Sure.

I think it fits the definition of an Impossible check, so I would require the player to spend a Destiny to make the opportunity available. Now, they're looking at a Formidable (5 difficulty) check

Right off the bat, I'd make it worse with a Challenge die by spending a Dark Destiny point.

Then, I'd add start piling on Setback dice. +1 Setback for not knowing what any of the controls do, +1 Setback for barely understanding how all this is supposed to work, +1 Setback for not being able to read the gauges when they give information, and +1 Setback for being freaked out by the weird (i.e. - normal) noises the ship makes when certain systems come online.

Finally, their dice pool is probably 3 Agility + 4 Setback + 4 Difficulty + 1 Challenge dice and they had to spend a Destiny point to even get that.

Is it possible they succeed?

Yes, but it's much more likely something goes horribly wrong and that's where the fun begins.

In other words, I wouldn't say, "No." I would say, "Yes, and here's the difficulty."

In the spirit of "yes, but..." I wouldn't normally deny the player the opportunity, but this is one of the places I start upgrading difficulties without turning to the Destiny Pool to do it. If you're untrained in Medicine and want to treat someone (doing more than administering a stimpack), you might do more harm than good. The chance of Despair reflects that. If someone untrained wanted to treat, say, a Critical Injury, I'd upgrade every die in the pool.

Edit: beaten by a minute

I'm not sure I'd *increase* the difficulty, because I like to treat that as a pretty fixed quantity, but setbacks for cultural unfamiliarity or other reasons, in addition to upgrades, would definitely work.

Personally I find allowing untrained rolls breaks immersion and the Star Wars feel less than coming up with restrictive lists. All the lists will do is force players to purchase those skills if they want to be well-rounded and essentially levy a tax on careers/specializations that don't include them. Trained personnel with appropriate skills and talents are far enough ahead of untrained characters already.

Plus, there's certainly precedent. I'm thinking of a particular scene with an Ewok and a speeder bike from RotJ. Maybe not the best example, but it's in primary canon. Also, Han's dismissing of Luke in the cantina is based more on that he's dealing with a local yokel and has no real idea that Luke is actually a very competent pilot.

As for untrained medical personnel treating critical injuries - people do that all the time already IRL. Look at the critical table again - the low part of the table, not the missing limbs end of it. People treat a lot of those things - nicks, cuts, some of them basically amount to getting the wind knocked out of you - all the time without incurring fatalities. Liberal use of dark side points to upgrade difficulties and setback dice for lack of equipment when the injuries become severe enough, combined with the threat of additional criticals incurring increased severity on future crits (say, on a Despair result) should keep players seeking professional help for moderate to major injuries while still allowing them to treat what could fairly realistically be treated at home. Sure, every once in a while someone's going to take a long shot, but those desperate situations occur IRL as well, and in any case Star Wars is meant to be less a simulation and more about the story and adventure.

I wouldn't prevent them from rolling: that is a cornerstone of the system that anyone can TRY anything, even if they're unlikely to actually SUCCEED when they try, or at least are unlikely to succeed without some corollary bad consequences.

I'd say most non-primitive spacers know the basics of how to plug the big entries into a navicomp (and let's face it - your characters start with a ship, they are presumed to have spent some time on it, they qualify as at least amateur spacers). Everyone can make a rough guess at how to perform first aid: aid compress, add pressure, push til blood stops flowing. Etc.

If anything, truly "specialized" tests, like actively slicing, surgery, complicated astrogation across a long distance of space, piloting in combat in an asteroid belt might be best served with an upgrade and/or increased Setbacks, but I am very much against saying to a player "you can't try to do this, full stop" because the RAW doesn't support that idea, there's precedent in-setting for it happening, and additionally, it takes away a lot of player agency and creativity.

For example, say all the PCs are badly hurt, have run back to their ship and are trying to escape a job gone bad. The only people with piloting and trained Astrogation are either passed out or dead or too injured to fly or even work the navicomp. What's a cooler scene - the burly, low-Int Marauder desperately doing all he can to pilot the ship away and make a clunky hyper jump to somewhere else which could both save their bacon and open up a new plot OR the GM saying "well, the smart people are KO'd so nope not happening, you're captured." The former is allowing players to have agency to influence the plot even if it's not going to be easy (and will probably generate a number of Threat and/or Despair - AKA mechanized narrative plot hooks); the latter is just railroading.

For example, say all the PCs are badly hurt, have run back to their ship and are trying to escape a job gone bad. The only people with piloting and trained Astrogation are either passed out or dead or too injured to fly or even work the navicomp. What's a cooler scene - the burly, low-Int Marauder desperately doing all he can to pilot the ship away and make a clunky hyper jump to somewhere else which could both save their bacon and open up a new plot OR the GM saying "well, the smart people are KO'd so nope not happening, you're captured." The former is allowing players to have agency to influence the plot even if it's not going to be easy (and will probably generate a number of Threat and/or Despair - AKA mechanized narrative plot hooks); the latter is just railroading.

I think this is the next best thing to seeing a scene unfold with the astrogator trying to talk the marauder through the process. "THIS ONE GOES HERE, THAT ONE GOES THERE!"

Another way to frame it would be that the specialists (doctors, pilots, slicers, mechanics, what-have-you) get enough bonuses on their rolls and effects that adding things like "all difficulty dice become challenges untrained" seem excessive and unwarranted to me. No one in their right mind is going to let someone use Medicine on them if they can get to a Doctor, even if their caregiver has ranks in Medicine, unless they have a darn good reason to take the inferior treatment. The same applies to all these specialty areas (and even things like social interaction and combat, to be honest).

I'm not opposed to Setback dice being added (wrong tools, even unfamiliar tools, or a Setback for "You've never seen so much blood before!") but I think flat out upgrades outside the existing mechanics or starting things off at Formidable or Impossible when they wouldn't otherwise be at those levels for proficient characters is simply unnecessary.

As for untrained medical personnel treating critical injuries - people do that all the time already IRL. Look at the critical table again - the low part of the table, not the missing limbs end of it. People treat a lot of those things - nicks, cuts, some of them basically amount to getting the wind knocked out of you - all the time without incurring fatalities.

First, who said anything about causing fatalities? Second, no they don't heal critical injuries. Critical injuries can have a healing attempt once a week. You're mistaking healing the wounds (minor cuts and nicks) associated with the crit, vs the longer term impact of the crit, say, deep muscle damage, or a strained tendon that needs to be wrapped "just so".

Healing a critical injury is a big deal, and you don't want to leave it to any old guy with a medpack. I don't think upgrades in these situations are outside the existing mechanics at all. But it doesn't mean I'm going to rule their leg falls off or they accidentally get stabbed in the heart on a Despair. I'm not sure how you make that kind of assumption.

As for untrained medical personnel treating critical injuries - people do that all the time already IRL. Look at the critical table again - the low part of the table, not the missing limbs end of it. People treat a lot of those things - nicks, cuts, some of them basically amount to getting the wind knocked out of you - all the time without incurring fatalities.

First, who said anything about causing fatalities? Second, no they don't heal critical injuries. Critical injuries can have a healing attempt once a week. You're mistaking healing the wounds (minor cuts and nicks) associated with the crit, vs the longer term impact of the crit, say, deep muscle damage, or a strained tendon that needs to be wrapped "just so".

Healing a critical injury is a big deal, and you don't want to leave it to any old guy with a medpack. I don't think upgrades in these situations are outside the existing mechanics at all. But it doesn't mean I'm going to rule their leg falls off or they accidentally get stabbed in the heart on a Despair. I'm not sure how you make that kind of assumption.

01-05 on the Critical Injury Result chart on page 217 is in fact, a "Minor Nick." So I'm going to have to disagree there. ;-)

Honestly you have to get into the Average (2P) range before you start getting anything that looks like a strained tendon or muscle damage, and even then a few of those are getting the wind knocked out of you or taking a bad hit that other systems wouldn't bother with calling Critical. Results like:

41-45 Bowled Over

46-50 Head Ringer

61-65 Slightly Dazed

66-70 Scattered Senses

81-85 Winded

All of these read like temporary mishaps... but they leave you more vulnerable to worse injury and are still subject to the "Heal one a week" limitation. Heck, 76-80 Overpowered isn't even a wound per se, but the PC will still carry a 2P Critical with them for it (and probably worse if the followup attack is as effective as the opener).

These are all injuries that would be dicey for the average person to treat without at least a first aid kit - especially if they are treating themselves and incur the +1 difficulty modifier. I think a case can be made that critical hits in FFG's Star Wars system aren't meant to all (or even mostly) be what most people would think of as a pressing medical emergency. They're more in line with a milder, more gradual version of the old adage that "A sucking chest wound is just nature's way of telling you to slow down." They're meant to increase player vulnerability and make them consider discretion instead of valor well before anyone gets rendered inoperative, and to encourage players to take downtime to fully recover instead of charging from one life-threatening injury to the next as in many games.

I think at best you could make a case that a failed Medicine roll could incur an additional Wound per excess Failure, additional Strain damage to the patient per Threat (and possibly to the caregiver as well) and an additional Critical Hit inflicted on a Despair if you wanted to discourage non-professional treatment or reflect that there is risk in any procedure no matter how well trained and equipped the surgeon and facility are. Making treatment more difficult than baseline, whether by adding arbitrary additional Difficulty or Upgrades, again seems unwarranted to me.

You know I've been wondering about this scenario myself. I think you could just now allow the checks to be made, but I've heard many people say this is a "Yes, and" system, so I think there could be an alternative.

The GM sets the difficulty of every check. A trained Pilot, rank 1 or someone with it in their Career or Specialization, can get a ship off planet with trivial ease. Unless someone is shooting at them or chasing them, there's no reason for a real pilot to make skill check for something as mundane as flying a freighter into low orbit.

What about the savage?

The savage is incredibly agile, but she's never even seen the inside of a cockpit. Can she try to fly it off planet?

Sure.

I think it fits the definition of an Impossible check, so I would require the player to spend a Destiny to make the opportunity available. Now, they're looking at a Formidable (5 difficulty) check

Right off the bat, I'd make it worse with a Challenge die by spending a Dark Destiny point.

Then, I'd add start piling on Setback dice. +1 Setback for not knowing what any of the controls do, +1 Setback for barely understanding how all this is supposed to work, +1 Setback for not being able to read the gauges when they give information, and +1 Setback for being freaked out by the weird (i.e. - normal) noises the ship makes when certain systems come online.

Finally, their dice pool is probably 3 Agility + 4 Setback + 4 Difficulty + 1 Challenge dice and they had to spend a Destiny point to even get that.

Is it possible they succeed?

Yes, but it's much more likely something goes horribly wrong and that's where the fun begins.

In other words, I wouldn't say, "No." I would say, "Yes, and here's the difficulty."

Adding Setback dice for a lack of exposure is certainly appropriate, however you're doing Difficulty wrong. Difficulty is fixed to the task regardless of who is doing it (barring certain talents). If healing that critical hit is Difficulty 4, then that's the Difficulty regardless of who is doing the task. The guy with no familiarity at all with the task would take Setback to reflect that unfamiliarity, but the task remains the same.

I also feel like the chances of someone starting the game as a savage are going to be pretty slim, unless the existing PCs land on a feral-ish planet and a new person joins the game at that time and it's an easy way to bring them into the group. Otherwise, Edge somewhat presumes that your group has worked together before as they have a ship, and thus even a character who grew up on a very feral planet has had some acclimation to the galaxy as part of the backstory and getting Obligation.

Of course this presumption could be subverted, though that subversion should probably be something brought up before the game ever starts when people are building characters.

To me, giving a character a difficulty roll of PPPRSSSS when their active pool is GGG (at worst, maybe better with some allied Bs) is basically saying "I don't want you to succeed, and here's how I make that the outcome." There are certainly some terrible IC conditions where that difficulty could be appropriate, I just don't think it is for the baseline hypothetical. Like, there's a time when the situation clearly merits incredible difficulty, and there are times when it just looks like heavy-handed GMing.

Han and Chewie both let Leia drive while being chased before they got to the asteroid field (and the Piloting checks became important).

… so I would say no.

I don't see the issue either. It's not like untrained characters are going to carry the story in those fields.

If you insist that someone in the party absolutely has to have Astrogation, then just throw difficult checks at the party. It will sort itself out without hamstringing them while they build up XP.

Han and Chewie both let Leia drive while being chased before they got to the asteroid field (and the Piloting checks became important).

… so I would say no.

I don't see the issue either. It's not like untrained characters are going to carry the story in those fields.

If you insist that someone in the party absolutely has to have Astrogation, then just throw difficult checks at the party. It will sort itself out without hamstringing them while they build up XP.

Is there any reason to believe that Leia had never flown a starship before? I ask because the idea that the thread is following is characters acting in skill roles totally unfamiliar to them.

01-05 on the Critical Injury Result chart on page 217 is in fact, a "Minor Nick." So I'm going to have to disagree there. ;-)

Er...I think you missed the point. It's about the critical injury itself, not the byproduct. A "minor nick" doesn't sit around for a week, or more if not treated. It's the underlying stress the Medicine check is concerned with, and that can't be dealt with lightly.

I think at best you could make a case that a failed Medicine roll could incur an additional Wound per excess Failure, additional Strain damage to the patient per Threat (and possibly to the caregiver as well) and an additional Critical Hit inflicted on a Despair if you wanted to discourage non-professional treatment or reflect that there is risk in any procedure no matter how well trained and equipped the surgeon and facility are. Making treatment more difficult than baseline, whether by adding arbitrary additional Difficulty or Upgrades, again seems unwarranted to me.

Again, you're making a ton of assumptions, I never said specifically how I would handle it. It would be very contextual, so I'm not sure I have a specific answer at this point. Probably I'd default to Despair giving the critical an upgraded difficulty to heal "next week"...which is certainly a possibility if somebody untrained, especially if they aren't particularly brilliant, is trying to do the healing. I doubt I'd apply wounds, maybe strain depending on the situation, but the red dice make it difficult enough. In any case, I don't see how upgrades, without necessarily spending DP, aren't warranted.

Anyway, I did mostly focus on Medicine because it seems the most sensitive to me. Many games don't even let you try. WEG made Medicine an Advanced skill, as does Warhammer 3rd edition (EotE precursor). For the rest I *might* upgrade without spending DP, depending on what the player wants to do, but I might also just use the DP normally.

01-05 on the Critical Injury Result chart on page 217 is in fact, a "Minor Nick." So I'm going to have to disagree there. ;-)

Er...I think you missed the point. It's about the critical injury itself, not the byproduct. A "minor nick" doesn't sit around for a week, or more if not treated. It's the underlying stress the Medicine check is concerned with, and that can't be dealt with lightly.

I think at best you could make a case that a failed Medicine roll could incur an additional Wound per excess Failure, additional Strain damage to the patient per Threat (and possibly to the caregiver as well) and an additional Critical Hit inflicted on a Despair if you wanted to discourage non-professional treatment or reflect that there is risk in any procedure no matter how well trained and equipped the surgeon and facility are. Making treatment more difficult than baseline, whether by adding arbitrary additional Difficulty or Upgrades, again seems unwarranted to me.

Again, you're making a ton of assumptions, I never said specifically how I would handle it. It would be very contextual, so I'm not sure I have a specific answer at this point. Probably I'd default to Despair giving the critical an upgraded difficulty to heal "next week"...which is certainly a possibility if somebody untrained, especially if they aren't particularly brilliant, is trying to do the healing. I doubt I'd apply wounds, maybe strain depending on the situation, but the red dice make it difficult enough. In any case, I don't see how upgrades, without necessarily spending DP, aren't warranted.

Anyway, I did mostly focus on Medicine because it seems the most sensitive to me. Many games don't even let you try. WEG made Medicine an Advanced skill, as does Warhammer 3rd edition (EotE precursor). For the rest I *might* upgrade without spending DP, depending on what the player wants to do, but I might also just use the DP normally.

Hrm. I need to play around with the formatting on this forum now, the way you broke it up was clearer.

For the first part, we may be in an agree to disagree situation. The intent of the Crit table and crits in general to me seem to be to encourage downtime and getting professional treatment after a fight. That's pretty standard procedure in a lot of settings, whether there are limbs dangling or not, and wounds that appear superficial can be serious. A number of the crits are very obviously mild effects - they wouldn't even be considered "critical" in a lot of other game systems. I don't think FFG's intent is that every Off-Balance or Slightly Dazed result is secretly a concussion - hence my conclusion that like most of the systems I've had to think about, they're there for pacing and story as I outlined earlier.

For your second point, I owe you an apology for not being more explicitly clear. The system I outlined is how *I* would handle penalties for failure from treatment, though I'd be inclined to inflict them on trained personnel as well. I did not mean to give the impression that I was making assumptions about your reasoning or putting words in your mouth (or on your keyboard, as the case may be).

I don't mind the focus on Medicine, it makes a good example case. However... WEG did make Medicine Advanced, but First Aid could default to the Technical stat, and allowed use of medical equipment up through medpacs, which in EotE are mostly toolkits to avoid Setback dice on full-fledged Medicine rolls. WH3E is a setting where putting mud on an open wound might be an improvement over what people *trained* in Medicine might do to you.

My point again though is that the average person, with access to a medpac (even if he doesn't know exactly what all the doodads are for) is best case rolling GGPP to self-treat a mere Minor Nick or Sudden Jolt. Given that's even odds of failure in a best case scenario, I don't see that additional penalties are warranted. Inexperience already penalizes the acting character's skill roll. It's double jeopardy if it also increases the difficulty of the task. I feel it's about as logical or fair as ruling that a character without Ranged - Light firing a blaster should automatically upgrade all their Difficulty dice. They're already at a disadvantage going untrained and presumably untalented into a gunfight.

Unfamiliarity with technology and stuff like that easily warrants setback dice and in some cases upgrades - whether it be medical, piloting or computing checks (including astrogation).

On the other hand, these skills should only become more difficult, this won't break immersion or the Star Warsy-heroes-can-and-make-do-with-anything. I'd basically add setback dice for any piloting related task performed by some Ewok or savages from the Tribe of Tilbakestående Nordmenn, as we see an ewok quite quickly and efficiently steal an imperial speeder (of course we can speculate in whether or not this particular ewok had done it before, had been spying on scout trooper to figure it out, but that would be pure speculation and pointless to base an argument on).

When it comes to computer related tasks and medical checks, I'm sort of with whafrog, I'm not entirely sure I'd upgrade all the difficulty dice in the pool, but easily 1 or 2, without spending destiny points for critical hits.

Although mainly I'd go for setback dice, numerous setback dice.

My question in relation to all this is knowledge skills - how do you treat these? can anyone perform a Knowledge (lore) or (xenology) or (education) check without any ranks?

Hrm. I need to play around with the formatting on this forum now, the way you broke it up was clearer.

Ah, that's easy, though tedious on an iPad. Click the Quote button, then edit out what you don't want. Then move your cursor to the bottom of your reply-so-far, scroll up and click the Quote button from the message again. This pastes the message below your cursor, already wrapped appropriately. You can also click Quote from other messages. Repeat as necessary.

For the first part, we may be in an agree to disagree situation.

Probably, though for all the words exchanged I don't think we're too far apart. It's just details.

Given that's even odds of failure in a best case scenario, I don't see that additional penalties are warranted. Inexperience already penalizes the acting character's skill roll. It's double jeopardy if it also increases the difficulty of the task. I feel it's about as logical or fair as ruling that a character without Ranged - Light firing a blaster should automatically upgrade all their Difficulty dice. They're already at a disadvantage going untrained and presumably untalented into a gunfight.

No, I probably wouldn't apply any penalties to picking up a blaster untrained (okay, maybe a "savage" gets some setback at first, or yes, even an upgrade if it's just some object he found but has never seen used...after all, he might look down the barrel... ).

The problem identified in the OP is that EotE treats all skills as equally available, advanceable, etc, which is fine most of the time but doesn't account for the fact that some things *are* simply harder to learn and do untrained. A game I used to play modelled this in far more detail, with 7 tiers of base skill difficulty and progression ... thank the force EotE doesn't do that, but in that spirit I think it's pretty clear that: assuming the character is from the "modern" SW setting, they'll be able to do most things untrained without penalty (social/knowledge skills, shoot a blaster, drive a speeder, even hold a ship on a steady course, etc); but some things are simply inherently more dangerous to fail at.

Is there any reason to believe that Leia had never flown a starship before? I ask because the idea that the thread is following is characters acting in skill roles totally unfamiliar to them.

Actually, the OP was about lacking specific training, not being completely unfamiliar with something.

A lot of good ideas here.

I think for my campaign I'm going to upgrade the difficulty once for tasks that I think the characters will need training in. That way the players can still attempt some things with their natural abilities, but there will be a chance of something going wrong.

I'm picturing something like:

Farmboy: C'mon, let me pilot the ship for a while.

Smuggler Pilot: No way, I'm not going to let you mess up my baby.

Farmboy: We're just floating in orbit. I can watch the cockpit while you get some sleep.

Smuggler Pilot: (thinks it over) Ahh, what the heck...just don't touch anything! (he goes to the crew quarters to get some sleep).

Farmboy: (sits in the pilot seat and starts touching all the controls)

<He makes and easy piloting check upgraded once to be one red challenge die. He rolls three green and one red dice. He gets three successes and a despair. An alarm goes off and a red light starts flashing on the controls.>

Smuggler Pilot: (runs back into the cockpit) What did you do!

Farmboy : Nothing, I just hit this red button on accident!

Smuggler Pilot: Nice work, farmboy, you just jettisoned our cargo!

I think one overlooked aspect is that Difficulty level isn't fixed. The description in the CRB p. 17 provides some examples and basic guidance. Something routine to a person from a technological society wouldn't be to a tribesman and vice versa. So for a tribesman to attempt anything on a ship for example would probably be a Formidable Difficulty and one that I would upgrade with a Challenge die or two for the Despair potential.

I think one overlooked aspect is that Difficulty level isn't fixed.

Sometimes I'd agree, but in the main I prefer to treat it as fixed. The reason is it's too easy then to start factoring in environmental and other issues and avoid using setback dice, which in turn takes the benefit out of many talents. So I'd fudge the difficulty with great hesitation.

I just read the description on p.17 about picking locks and the "Picking a lock with no comprehensible mechanism" example and it seems fairly appropriate to a stone age tribesman trying to comprehend a space ship.

I just read the description on p.17 about picking locks and the "Picking a lock with no comprehensible mechanism" example and it seems fairly appropriate to a stone age tribesman trying to comprehend a space ship.

I think it is important to recognize the difference between "untrained" and "stone-aged tribesman". Because the gap is significant. I really doubt that many people are playing the tribesman. If the player wants to play Encino Man in space, and the GM is willing to work out the details, that's all good. However, I think the vast majority of characters will be familiar with spaceships and other assorted technology. They may not be trained professionals, but they have probably seen people pilot before, played a piloting simulator, whatever.

For example: When I was first learning to drive a car, I was untrained, but I sure knew the core concept. You have a wheel, gas pedal, brake pedal, and you go. Nothing to it. At the time, I wasn't adept at driving. I couldn't parallel park (it's still a pain), I accelerated all jerky, I dinged a few bumpers. But I could get my truck across the open field behind the house.

To me, that is Piloting with just Agility and no upgrades from training. Not the guy you wanted driving in a blizzard, but capable (well, as capable as any 15 year old can be) enough to get you there without any major problems (usually). The task of driving is the same for me as it is for a racecar driver, but at 15, I had way more setbacks and lacked the training and talents to be good at it.

0.02

For example: When I was first learning to drive a car, I was untrained, but I sure knew the core concept. You have a wheel, gas pedal, brake pedal, and you go. Nothing to it. At the time, I wasn't adept at driving. I couldn't parallel park (it's still a pain), I accelerated all jerky, I dinged a few bumpers. But I could get my truck across the open field behind the house.

To me, that is Piloting with just Agility and no upgrades from training. Not the guy you wanted driving in a blizzard, but capable (well, as capable as any 15 year old can be) enough to get you there without any major problems (usually). The task of driving is the same for me as it is for a racecar driver, but at 15, I had way more setbacks and lacked the training and talents to be good at it.

The car example was the first place I was going to go with this thread. I'm trying to decide where I sit on the dice pool as a driver. When 16 and first learning, then no dice for sure. A couple months in a driver's ed class with a few hours behind the wheel can only teach so much. I'm now probably in the 1-2 ranks range after driving for 20 years. I haven't received any training other than what I've picked up on my own, so I'm sure I'd have trouble with the more extrem aspects of driving (high speed chases or driving in dangerous conditions) which our characters would be doing. I'd think 3 ranks of driving would be people who do racing semi-pro. 4 ranks would be the bottom ranks of the racing (NASCAR, F1, ect) circuts. 5 ranks would be the best of the best.

If you know the concepts behind something then you can generally do it, which warrents a dice roll. Back in high school I flew a plane a couple times. I'm sure as hell untrained (0 ranks) but if I needed to get a plane from point A to point B I'd be able to give it the good old college try. Now, throw me into a stressful situation (combat or racing) and I'm likely to crash. That's what the skill ranks are representing, how well you operate under stress.

Doesn't somewhere in the book say that two ranks in a skill is the same as college level training? That's really a lot of training. I think something to consider is what exactly the ranks mean. Our characters are dangerous people. They live on spaceships and they get into scrapes. They'll pick up what's going on around them. You can only sit next to a driver for so long before you start to realize what they are doing. Same with medicine, get hurt a few times and patched up by a doctor and you'll start to figure out how to do it. As individuals who live and fight on the edge of the Empire, they've been exposed to everything. That is why they should at least be able to roll on any skill check. Perhaps with a setback die the first time or two, or the GM is more willing to flip a destiny point to upgrade the difficulty, but they should be able to do it.

That's the thing about this game. The characters have a basic understanding of the skills because they are living lives where it all comes up. This isn't D&D, where zero ranks means you can't do something.

One thing that I'm a fan of is giving characters with more ranks more benefit of the doubt with simpler tasks. Have a couple ranks of Education? Then you might know basic math without rolling. Really smart with no skill ranks, then you have to roll. Same could be said for piloting. Have a rank or two? Then you don't need to roll to land the ship. No ranks? Then you better roll an easy piloting check to keep from hitting the hangerbay door.

Now, if someone wanted to play a savage who doesn't know technology, then sure. Talk it over with the GM and make their checks harder. But, how long until they start picking up on things? A session? Two? Five? Shouldn't be too long until they are in the same boat as everyone else and can do skills without training.

Yep, two ranks in a skill is like a college degree. Rank 3-4 is years of experience. I picture Rank 5 being as rare as an MVP level professional athlete.

Since the players are 'hero' types, I don't see any issue saying that they'd have some familiarity with first aid and ground piloting. That being said, if they jump into the driver seat of an AT-AT with no ground piloting training I'm going to give them a difficulty dice upgrade. I'm still thinking that surgery level medical and space flight will be on my 'one difficulty upgrade if untrained' list as well. I may be certified in battlefield first aid and CPR, but I'm not about to try to give a buddy an artificial heart transplant.

Of course, individual situations may vary. If an ewok (like in Ep VI) wanted to pilot a speeder bike I'd still want to give him one red dice to roll.

Now that I think about it, it may make sense to have a negative skill rank. An ewok in my game could start with a -1 (one difficulty upgrade) in piloting skills. If a player would want to do that I could give him +5 xps to start, but make it 10 xps to train a -1 to zero. That would hopefully stop a player from having all -1s besides the skills he wants. I'll have to think about this some more to see if I'm needlessly complicating my game.

I'll have to decide before this weekend, because I'm starting a new game where the wookie was captured as a child and the trandoshan hunter who captured her is training her in combat so he can release her into the wild for a safari. We decided that she would not take gunnery or ground piloting (even though they are career skills) because she would have had no way to train them in captivity. I may want to see if she would be interested in a negative rank in a couple skills.