The pcs in one if my games will have the opportunity to teach a tribal medicine man how to make a medicine for his village. This will help them gain further favor before asking the chieftain for help. This is in addition to the good will gained by curing some of the villagers.

I'm debating which skill to have them roll to teach the medicine man. Knowledge education seems to cover the knowledge the character has. I've known plenty of smart people who can't teach. I've also considered leadership as leaders need to teach frequently. What do you think?

Knowledge (Education) to make sure the PC knows the right information (unless there's something specific he's teaching that might fall into another Skill), Leadership to help the person understand the concepts and make sure the PC is properly conveying the information.

If you want to boil it to a single check, maybe Intellect/Leadership.

They have already had to make several checks to make the medicine and consult a medical data pad. This is merely a bonus option. Thank you for the advice. I'm glad I'm not off basis with the leadership check.

Do they need to roll?

Seems to me like "teaching" is more of a roleplayed thing, with the simple offer of teaching being enough to secure goodwill, and the actual imparting of knowledge just something that the character should be capable of doing without a roll to determine success.

I would likely keep it pretty loose, but to overall convey the results I'd take the applicable Characteristic and match it with the appropriate Skiill depending upon how the player describes it. For example, trying to teach fighter maneuvers to a rookie pilot? I might use an Intelligence-based check with Piloting(Space) to see how well the Ace conveys the technical details to the rookie. Teaching a wookiee to dance? Agility + Athletics. Teaching a tribal shaman to manufacture a certain medicine? Well that lines up nicely as Intelligence + Medicine in my mind. I might even consider making it opposed if the student is reluctant or particularly inept.

Do they need to roll?

Seems to me like "teaching" is more of a roleplayed thing, with the simple offer of teaching being enough to secure goodwill, and the actual imparting of knowledge just something that the character should be capable of doing without a roll to determine success.

So the short answer is yes they need to roll if they choose to take this option.

Seems like if you're going to teach someone Medicine, the skill should be Medicine, or maybe I'm too simple...

Teaching a skill (and not just using it yourself) is primarily a social act. It's about clarity of communication, making the student feel engaged and unintimidated, and so forth.

If a roll is required, I would suggest Presence + The Skill To Be Taught. e.g. Presence + Medicine, Presence + Brawl, Presence + Knowledge (Outer Rim), et cetera.

You could also make cases for Intelligence, Cunning, or even Willpower; but I think Presence is the most appropriate option overall.

I agree with OverMatt. It's one thing to know how to do something really well, and another thing entirely to teach someone to do what you do . I know; I've tried and it turns out I'm naturally a terrible teacher, and this is something I'm working to overcome.

Presence + Medicine makes a lot of sense, as does Willpower. A medic with a high Intellect but low Presence would be not so good on the social graces, might talk really fast or in unfinished sentences as they try to explain what they're doing.

"This patch goes here first, and then you've gotta hold the arm at an angle of umm...oh and don't forget to take the blood pressure first, very important, so that's before the angle holding but after the umm, thing that you just...did. So once you take the blood pressure, make sure you write it down, you could use a datapad, I really like the stylus and flimsiplast feel, but oh I guess you could also use a voice recorder, that's good too, just make sure you note it somewhere. Okay, now where were we?"

A high Presence might mean you can speak with a little more authority. Or, perhaps, a high Willpower might mean that your thoughts themselves are more collected, thus allowing you to present things in a more cogent manner.

I think there's a distinct difference in the amount of bubbly effervescent charm needed to teach when the recipient is a tribal medicine man about to receive information that will simultaneously elevate his level in the community, as well as, help his people, as opposed to a room full of narcissistic self absorbed kids.

The whole keeping people engaged aspect of teaching is when the audience couldn't care less, as opposed to Gandalf has just shown up to instruct you in how to conjure gold out of thin air.

Well there is no official rule, so this is entirely subjective call. But like I said, when teaching a skill, your personal mastery of it is very much secondary to your ability to engage with the student and communicate things in terms he (someone who is newly learning this material - that's the point) can understand and keep up with. It's less about knowing the facts (although obviously it's required that you do) and more about reading the audience.

I've experienced this myself when working as a TA in graduate school. On more than one occasion I was paired with professors who had decades of mastery in the field and were now trying to instruct first-year undergraduates. Suffice it to say that most of the students only passed these courses because of the tutorials in which the professor was absent and I lead the class.

The life-long professionals had apparently forgotten what it was like to be a beginning student in this material and constantly spoke over the heads of the novices. Yet I was able to gauge the needs of the students better and put things in terms beginners could follow and, in effect, ended up being the real teacher for most of them. The professors knew the material much better than I did and were probably much more intelligent people than me in general; but I was the better teacher due to my better reading of and connection with the students.

thank you all for the suggestions. I never considered changing the characteristic that went along with a skill. I like the idea of using Presence + Medicine.

Have any of you tried crossing characteristics and skills in your games? How did your players react? This particular game is a Play by Post any many of the players are GMs themselves so there may be some backlash if I were to try this (Though they usually just voice their opinion once and then concede to what ever I decide)

Make a leadership roll. Use the successes to give a bonus to the student. The student then makes a medicine roll. That's how I would do it.

Have any of you tried crossing characteristics and skills in your games? How did your players react? This particular game is a Play by Post any many of the players are GMs themselves so there may be some backlash if I were to try this (Though they usually just voice their opinion once and then concede to what ever I decide)

Yeah, lots of times. When it makes sense, of course. I started doing it back in the Beta days...can't even remember where I got the idea from, but I just remember thinking it made sense...and then I listened to a podcast where Jay Little talked about doing it, so I was like "yeah cool!" It's definitely a house rule as far as the RAW are concerned, and I wouldn't do it all the time, but in specific circumstances, judiciously applied, it makes sense.

For example, Intellect + Ranged (Heavy) to see what you, a riflemaster, know about that Clone Wars-era bayonet.

My players have never balked at the idea, perhaps because I try to couch it in terms that explain my reasoning, instead of simply calling for it.

An Intelliect leadership check, that requires that PC already have at least 3 ranks of training in the appropriate skill to be taught, seems appropriate.

I'd set the difficulty at 3 purples, but reduce the difficulty one step for every point of INT over 3, and add a purple for int 1.

If the conditions are noisy, or if the person being taught has some cultural taboo that goes against what is being taught, I'd add setback dice.

I would suggest using Leadership with the addition of a setback die or two to represent the difficulty of teaching a technical subject.

All too often GM's will get distracted by the rules of one small event and as a result everything grinds to a halt. In my experience I have found that the good old K.I.S.S. acronym is perfect. Just keep things as simple and fluid as possible.

If your group is mechanic focused:
Why not just make it a roll for the Medicine man instead?
Use the rules for assisted check rolls.

• Example:
  • Ju-jii, the medicine man, is being taught how to make a new medicine by Vikrol, the party's doctor.
  • Ju-jii makes a roll using his intellect of 2 combined with Vikrol's medicine of 3 versus a difficulty of 2(just guessing here). Because of Ju-jii's lack of modern techniques and terminology, he will suffer a set-back die as sometime he gets confused by Vikrol's terms.
  • Excess successes may speed up the process, advantages could be used to gain more favor with the medicine man as he understands things better, and triumphs could be used make the medicine even more effective.

If your group is narrative focused:

Don't roll at all. Explain that teaching the medicine man is going to get the party in good graces with the village, but that it will take time. The party will have to weigh their options and come to a decision of which is more valuable to them. Do they risk going to the chieftain directly and maybe getting turned down, or do they increase their chances of getting help but do so by cutting it close to the deadline (if it exists).

Thanks again everyone for your suggestions. The group had to provide an Offering before beign allowed to visit the cheiftan. Healing his ill warroirs was one of the offerings they could provide. They were given the option of making the medicine which required an easy survival check and then a hard medicine check and would have the added advantage of teaching the medicine to gain extra advantage. They were also given the option of using stim packs to heal the warriors (they have a few but are stranded on a planet and did not wish to take this option.)

Unfortunately the players failed their medicine check and then were unable to harvest enough herbs to make a second attempt and as such were unable to make the medicine let alone teach it.

Planning ahead they had also taken up two other offerings. Deciphering the Chieftains ancestral tomb and regaling him with stories of his ancestors (Translation complete, all that is left is the story and charm check) and personal combat. The Parties brawl/ melee focused character is facing the chief's son in personal combat for the chiefs pleasure.

They require the chiefs help getting to the ship they are trying to salvage (and their only way off planet) Charming him is extremely difficult and this segment of the campaign is focused on it. If they succeed they will have help getting to the ship. Prior knowledge of the God of Death That lives there, and potentially personnel to help man the ship. If they fail they will be taken there and offered up as sacrifices to the god of death. (Which will make the battle that much more difficult).

Again I apprecaite all of your help. it appers it will that the game has taken another route, but you have given me a lot of good suggestions which can be applied to other situations as well.

While I agree with the "Do you really need to roll" camp, lets assume that you want to roll for some reason. So, lets look at what teaching involves: imparting information clearly and in a way that the students can easily absorb. Me, I might argue for something like charm or have the students roll Discipline ( to stay awake ).

Having a roll can be good as it can influence the other outcomes (other than success or failure). I would argue that this is a roll for the length of time though. Imparting knowledge is not necessarily a quick process. The better the teacher, the faster the student learns it. Working at a University, I have come to believe that the more degrees a person has achieved, the more common sense they have lost to compensate. Intellect is not all there is to teaching someone. It just means you learn it faster, process information better and can recall it. Regardless of how you interpret this though, I would state a case for making the dice roll equal to the amount of time it would take to sufficiently teach the student. Probably need a baseline for time and adjust based on success / failure, etc.

If it is a single recipe, there really isn't a need for much teaching and he either gets it or he doesn't (roll per day). If you are teaching him how to look for native plants that will duplicate results based on the pharmacological knowledge available on the Holonet, this might take a year... but in a year, he will be a very impressive Medicine Man! If your player or medicine man rolls really really well, this could be reduced very significantly (take off a month per success and make it that the learner has translated a significant lexicon into his native tongue on a triumph?)... but if s/he rolls really poorly, the whole party will be impacted (or stranded) for longer than a year... (with hopefully no despair!).