What custom skills have you introduced and for what reasons? I'm thinking about adding a Proffesion/Trade (as in job) (...) skill to measure how good someone is at, for example, cooking or singing etc. And before you say that it all can be done narratively (I love how broad this term is) - no, sometimes it can't. Sometimes there is a contest of skills, sometimes a PC actually wants to measure their mastery of something other than shooting or piloting.

Thanks in advance for suggestions and ideas!

I'm not so imagginative XD I considered Perform and Handle Animal. But Charm and Survival can be enough till the moment.

Until the moment I have no other needs (or requests from players) beyond maybe more (or more precise) knowledges.

Also, I know that isn't a skill but, I separated Force Rating from Spiritual Rating. Emulating that "darkmagiks" come from another essence, maybe "the cosmic Force" (Jedi/Sith probably use the Living Force).

Based on that, someone in another post added a skill to perform "magik rituals" instead use Discipline for that.

I would suggest staying away from custom skills as much as possible. They end up being XP sinks for abilities that are usually very, very niche. I would instead make a 5 XP talent, that unlocks the use of that particular thing as attached to other skills as necessary.

For instance, cooking. If you want to be a chef and prepare a massive huge meal and make that a big part of your campaign, cool. Pay the 5 XP to get the Chef talent, and away we go. You might want to use a variety of skills depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the food:

Survival : You might be trying to cook food out in the wild, or you might be preparing dried foods to take with into the field.

Deception : You might be trying to get a child to eat their veggies, and want to hide/disguise the taste in something they'll like. Or maybe you are trying to disguise a poison or allergen in some food.
Charm : You might be looking to cook for a date, and impress her with the food, and maybe add some aphrodisiac besides. You might also be making food where the presentation is the primary important thing about the food.
Xenology : You might be cooking for an alien species, and need to know what is good for their palate.
Resillience : You might be cooking a huge meal for tons of guests that requires spending all day in a hot kitchen.
Coordination : You might be preparing a food that requires delicate knife work, like blowfish or something, where cutting it wrong could ruin it or even make it deadly.
Negotiate : You might be running a resturant, and you are trying to upsell the customers so they'll buy more food.
Leadership : You might be managing a kitchen full of chefs.
Medicine : You might be trying to provide medical assistance through dietary intake, or avoid allergens for someone.
Education : Just cooking your basic, average meal from a recipe book or whatever.

So as you can see, you can use a variety of skills with cooking, depending on what it is the goal is with that specific meal. Having this variety of skills means that the person with the chef background can still have a variety of skills they pump XP into that can still be used in other situations, so they aren't feeling as though they are being robbed of XP by pumping it into a separate cook skill, which is only going to come up once or twice a session at best. It also makes cooking type challenges unique and tailored to the specific situation. Buying the talent unlocks all these additional uses for standard skills, which makes it feel worth the 5 XP.

I'd handle most any special skill need this way. Particularly things in the arts. If you have a skill you don't think can work this way, I'd be curious to hear about it.

I agree with KRK. This game already has enough skills, and maybe even to many (I'm looking at you astrogation). Since it was first introduced the idea of a talent to open up nich abilities seems to be the best way to go.

KRKappel, I love that idea I will apply it for sure in that field and for some more fields like Sing or Play instruments.

Thanks mate!

Yep, KRKappel you've offered an excellent solution! Thanks

I just love these forums - been hanging around for over a year, people offer excellent suggestions, solutions and insightful discussions.

Our GM created a custom "Bothan SpyNet" skill for our Politico/Thief. It covers Bothan encryption, tradecraft and, when the GM says it's appropriate, an alternate information source.

Which is odd because the GM and the Player with the skill insist that the Bothan SpyNet does not exist.

It does . not . exist .

I tended to avoid anymore skills as there's fairly much enough there to do what's needed so far.

As a former long suffering DH GM, I got sent slightly crazy with skill bloat before and trying to remember what all of it did.

Spying- most of this would be done under Skulduggery

Entertaining people- Charm or Coordination

Making friends with Nexu's- Survival

Riding your new Nexu friend- Pilot Planetary

Cooking your more useless alien shipmates- Xenology

Most of it sort of fits well enough. I was thinking about introducing 'Cybernetics' from the Beyond the Rim adventure, but most of the group has skills and interests that are more applicable to a cognate of psychopaths and not really 'thinky' Dr Lecter ones either.

Wouldn't "Cooking" be an offshoot of Knowledge? I've been making a ton of Knowledge specializations:

Knowledge (Business)

Knowledge (Cuisine)

Knowledge (Female Rancor Biology)

Okay... maybe not that last one.

I don't know about anyone else, but it seems like Knowledge: Education is under used in my group. It really is the "Bardic Knowledge" skill of EotE. Is it something you could've learned in school? If yes, then roll a Knowledge: Education check.

I believe in the core book it states that two ranks in a skill is like having college education on the topic. Which would mean that two ranks of Knowledge: Education represents college educated gen-ed studies. (I'd think the other knowledge skills would be if you effectively majored/minored in the subject.) Think of all the things you learned in school. Art history, math, finance, science, sports, ect. Ever take a shop class? You know some mechanics. Take home ec? You know cooking. Take basic computers classes? You know the basics about slicing. The possibilities are endless.

For some of the more basic things you could re-fluff it to say the character studied at a school for the topic. For example, want your character to be a musician? Knowledge: Education represents going to music school. The ranks represent education in music theory, technique, ect and has the advantage for doubling for gen-ed knowledge as well.

As a player, my characters wern't the smartest, so I didn't think about Knowledge: Education. However, as a GM, I'm often telling players they can use the specific skill or Knowledge: Education with setback and/or harder difficulty. For game balance, you want to be sure to not let Knowledge: Education become an uber skill, but it's a darn useful skill for knowing a smattering about everything. I'd recommend in only giving so much flexibility if they actually have ranks in Knowledge: Education, to represent the actual book learning. That way your Int 5 doctor, mechanic, or slicer doesn't know everything just because they are smart. It gives a reason to actually spend some XP on the skill.

We made up the explosives skill. Kind of like a rocket from the guardians of the galaxy type thing. Where you can take random items together and make bombs from it.

We made up the explosives skill. Kind of like a rocket from the guardians of the galaxy type thing. Where you can take random items together and make bombs from it.

Like the Improvised Detonation talent?

(Demolitionist (Dangerous Covenants))

We made up the explosives skill. Kind of like a rocket from the guardians of the galaxy type thing. Where you can take random items together and make bombs from it.

Like the Improvised Detonation talent?

(Demolitionist (Dangerous Covenants))

Our demolitionist has that talent, but I don't think we've ever actually used it as written. Instead of using it to do the damage as written, we just do a narritive effect. He rolls a mechanics and then we narriate the explosion based upon the results. We've blown up more than one outpost that way.

As the above post points out, it's generally a good idea to see if what you're thinking about fits within a skill/talent that already available. FFG spends a ton of time playtesting these things, so I'd be reluctant to change things unless absolutely necessary.

If you must do something extra, I like Kappel's solution of a talent. If you really wanted to do something specialized that you're planning to be a major part of your game, you could even make up a mini-tree in the same vein as the Signature Ability or Force Power trees, where you pay some for the original ability, then have some upgrades to it.

But I would only suggest such a thing if the XP sunk into the additional talent/skill is going to be broad enough or prevalent enough to make it worthwhile, and if it can't reasonably fit into an existing talent/skill.

YMMV.

I think introducing custom skills should either be broad, sweeping skills (how many ways can you use charm? Knowledge skills?) or should be incredibly niche "flavor" skills that the GM gives for free (Profession: Blacksmith). The cybernetics skill in Beyond the Rim is a good example of a fairly solid custom skill. It's a weird blend of Mechanics, Computers, and Medicine, and while a little niche, allows a PC to design and install those pricey mods. Also allows for a cool character concept, the crazy scientist trying to "better" life with robotics, the psychotic droid trying to "perfect" humans, the caring doctor simply trying to help people feel complete, etc.