Have you made any custom skills or used any from published books?

In the published adventure, Beyond the Rim, the custom s kill Cybernetics is featured on the last page of the book. It doesn`t say who it is a career skill for, only that characters with prior experience in mechanics or medicine may study it. How would you interpret that? If a character has a rank in one of the skills, it will be unlocked as a career skill or what? The philosophy of EotE skills is that everyone can use all of them(some situations might be trained only), but if you are trained and have ranks, you are just better. Are custom skills an exception? Should custom skills always be a non-career skill? What do you think?

Please tell us about your own homemade custom skills!

I haven`t used any custom skills in my game yet, but having Brawl and Melee like skills that use Agility instead of Brawn is a thought I have had for a while.

- Martial Arts(brawl, but with Agility) - non-career skill for all, trained only.

- Finesse Fencing(Melee, but with Agility) - non-career for all, trained only and only works with certain weapons.

.. Or maybe a custom skill that combbines these two instead, but has some drawbacks..

I haven`t introduced or even defined these skills more than what you see above, because they really aren`t needed and I`m not even sure they would fit in a Star Wars (Rebel Era) story.

As far as who would get a custom skill, I would allow a player to swap out a career or spec skill for a custom skill that fit the flavor (e.g. Doctors could swap out a spec skill for cybernetics, Hired Guns could swap out a career skill for martial arts, etc-

As far as who would get a custom skill, I would allow a player to swap out a career or spec skill for a custom skill that fit the flavor (e.g. Doctors could swap out a spec skill for cybernetics, Hired Guns could swap out a career skill for martial arts, etc-

Good idea!

Edit: but the martial arts Skill should maybe be taxed or at least cost you something, since having both ranged and engaged Combat Skills work off the same Characteristic might be a little too good.

I'd let anyone swap out similar skills in applicable specs. I wouldn't allow Agility based physical combat though, too min/max and unbalancing imo, also not realistic. That's why they have weigh ins in cage fighting and not dance offs for fighting classes.

So far, thanks to the broad and general nature of the skill selection in this system, I have come close to feeling the need for a custom skill, but that was because I came to the party late, started with Force and Destiny, and oh look the "tactics" custom skill I was going to make is called "Warfare" and it lives in AoR. Done and dusted. I have also considered some sort of "beast riding" skill, but again thanks to the comfortably broad definitions of skills in this system, compared to say WEG D6 (where things like guns mounted on vehicles, turrets, star fighters/freighter class vehicles, and capital ships were a total 4 separate skills unrelated to hand held blasters, and slug throwers added yet another pewpew skill to the mix), I would say outdoorsy types that want to ride an animal would probably benefit from fitting it under the umbrella of "Survival" or if you were some city kid who happened to ride horses... ehh... maybe stick it under Piloting (Planetary)... but if someone really wanted a separate beast riding skill that wasn't folded under Survival, I'd be amenable to the creation of Beast Riding and could see it attached to Agility, or maybe Cunning, or even Presence, but that would be a very special case.

I agree with LethalDose, on swapping out career or spec skills, though I have a slight preference to monkey with the spec skills over the base career skills because if I am going to make changes, I would prefer the changes to be as small as possible to get the job done using the criteria taught to me by my college physics professor. Necessary and Sufficient.

Now, before I start talking about agility based physical combat, I am going to preface this with my martial background includes a couple of years of olympic style fencing (I wasn't ever -in- the olympics, but we played by the same rules mostly... having broke one of my knees in my youth the bog standard fencing pants not covering my knees made me leery, so if my opponent was fine with it, I would add knee pads to my gear, or wear heavy denim jeans if they felt knee pads might give me some intangible advantage.) and about a year of SCA fencing (Best lesson learned: "It doesn't matter how [good] you are, it only matters how [good] the other guy thinks your are." - Robert the Blade minus the "colorful adjectives.").

First, based on real life experience, while speed, agility, and hand eye coordination certainly help in both of those settings (and bear in mind I never once held a sword in my hand with truly lethal intent. We played for points decided on before the bout) it was very rarely the sole deciding physical factor. In short matches (playing to between 5 and 10 touches) it -almost- trumped all. After about 7 points though, fencing feels a lot less like a sprint and much more like a marathon. The plastron and jacket start to get hot and weigh you down, and HOLY COW chain mail is HEAVY. A good friend of mine in college and I would fence on a pretty regular basis, and I almost always beat him to 5 touches, but he was way outside my weight class and that translated into a huge advantage after 7 to 10 points. I went from ~90% wins against him at 5 points, to a single digit percentage at 15 points, and all my wins at 15 points basically came down to luck and binding parry disarms. (Disarming and stabbing only counted if the stabbing happened before their weapon hit the ground.)

That being said, a role playing game is a very different animal than real life, and there is even precedent for tying a melee-ish skill to your choice of characteristic via talent. Yes, they are all Force Talents, but narrow precedence is still a form of precedence. Instead of creating a separate skill for agility based fencing or brawling, if I had a very compelling reason to do this, I would rather make a talent that changes the attribute attached to the basic skill under certain conditions than make a whole new skill again reverting to my preferred principle of making the smallest change possible. For example, I really want a swashbuckler melee spec, and I don't care where it comes from. I keep playing with basically tossing Gunslinger and Marauder in a blender and making an Errol Flynn smoothie. A little quick draw/improved quick draw, take strain to ignore the TWC difficulty bump, make room for it by losing all the Feral Strength, Knockdown, Frenzied Attack stuff, ditch enduring for defensive training, and MAYBE add some thing in there that ties the melee skill to something other than Brawn if and only if you are using the right kind of weapon, and base damage is still based on Brawn+weapon+successes generated, and maybe it only works for like... the first three or so consecutive rounds of combat. After that, we've stopped sprinting and are now in marathon territory. This also reflects the fact that while I never had even one second of staff training, the concepts of parrying, protecting the core target zones and how to strike at openings in defenses meant that I very clearly looked like I was trying to use the BIGGEST FENCING WEAPON EVER, but at a renfaire in the "beat on your friends with padded sticks" game, I did pretty well, especially against my friends who had no martial training at all. The guys who took martial arts *cough* Pulsedrive *cough* would occasionally do this thing with their feet where all of a sudden they weren't on the ground but were instead moving at great speed for my abdomen which is just not cricket in fencing. It's still very confusing to me.

The RPG corollary to this would be a swashbuckling vibrorapier fencer wouldn't benefit from all that training and practice if forced to pick up a vibroaxe or a force pike, but enough of the fundamentals of don't get hit/hit the other guy would transfer that he may look silly trying to balestra (stompy-hoppy charge) into a passata sotto (twist the body while planting the leading foot, kick out the back foot and get really low while stabbing up) with a six foot long stick or a giant axe as opposed to a 3 foot long blade, but if you're lucky it may work.

I like the idea of an agility-based close combat skill in theory, but my concern would be that it overvalues agility as an all-around combat characteristic and devalues the worth of strength in close quarters. I suppose you could add some natural modifiers to make martial arts/finesse not effective as brawl/melee, but that might needlessly complicate things. Strength-oriented characters might be able to intimidate better and work as more effective pack mules, but agility focused characters would have equivalent close quarters effectiveness and make for more qualified ranged combatants.

The thought of finesse-based combat does make me want to see a swashbuckler or martial artist spec though. Make it a specialization that emphasizes both strength and agility. Strength remains the determining factor in combat rolls, but the spec also implement talents tied into agility that allow you to better dodge and close the gap between opponents. Perhaps add some specialized actions/maneuvers that use agility and then, way down the skill tree, have a talent that lets you substitute strength for agility on close combat actions.

Edit: I just realized gms has already pretty soundly outlined what I'd like to see. Oops!

I like the idea of an agility-based close combat skill in theory, but my concern would be that it overvalues agility as an all-around combat characteristic and devalues the worth of strength in close quarters. I suppose you could add some natural modifiers to make martial arts/finesse not effective as brawl/melee, but that might needlessly complicate things. Strength-oriented characters might be able to intimidate better and work as more effective pack mules, but agility focused characters would have equivalent close quarters effectiveness and make for more qualified ranged combatants.

The thought of finesse-based combat does make me want to see a swashbuckler or martial artist spec though. Make it a specialization that emphasizes both strength and agility. Strength remains the determining factor in combat rolls, but the spec also implement talents tied into agility that allow you to better dodge and close the gap between opponents. Perhaps add some specialized actions/maneuvers that use agility and then, way down the skill tree, have a talent that lets you substitute strength for agility on close combat actions.

I would agree with you that if you make Martial arts the same skill as Brawl only using Agility instead, You Dilute the use of Brawl, and Make Agility even more the One Combat stat.

Some things to consider, Brawl is the All out Brute force Combat stat. How can you Make A Martial Arts Different So that it doesn't take away from Brawn & Brawl?

Well the Spy Talent tree Infiltrator has some Great Talents that equate to what I would Expect a Martial artist to be able to do. Oddly though, I think this class is Poorly named, as I would expect some of called an Infiltrator and a spy would have talents more geared to words Stealth, Deception and Evasion. Not Combat.

But anyway, if you want some one that is More Martial Artist than jsut Big brawny smacker.. go with a Spy Infiltrator talents tree.

I'd let anyone swap out similar skills in applicable specs. I wouldn't allow Agility based physical combat though, too min/max and unbalancing imo, also not realistic. That's why they have weigh ins in cage fighting and not dance offs for fighting classes.

Realistic? This is Space Opera!.... Capturing the genre and feel of Star Wars matters a lot more than simulating reality.

And the system doesn`t even take your fighting skill into account when you defend against attacks, so realism doesn`t really count at all here ...

Buuut I think agility, speed and flexibility might be some of the most important of the many, many factors for a good MMA fighter. Ever heard of Brazillian Jiu Jitsu? Then you could interpret that as Skill ranks, but that is the point, interpretations.

No, those fighting skills might not be a good idea for this game, but not because of realism,

The thing about reality and all the factors playing into it, is that it isn`t so easily defined in game rules and simple, manageable numbers.

I'm not getting into a back and forth over hand to hand combat. There is a reason when two people step into a ring with the intent to hurt one another they are weighed as opposed to being asked to tap dance in regards to what is realistic. All the flippy gee whiz non sense from lots of martial arts is wow factor only and a waste of glycogen and O2.

If you just consider the base skills in a vacuum and choose to not involve the talents added through xp or racials where the defense capability of a brawl/melee focused class are found, then no the base skill is a not a factor, of course that is an incomplete determination made by excluding everything in context.

The RPG corollary to this would be a swashbuckling vibrorapier fencer wouldn't benefit from all that training and practice if forced to pick up a vibroaxe or a force pike, but enough of the fundamentals of don't get hit/hit the other guy would transfer that he may look silly trying to balestra (stompy-hoppy charge) into a passata sotto (twist the body while planting the leading foot, kick out the back foot and get really low while stabbing up) with a six foot long stick or a giant axe as opposed to a 3 foot long blade, but if you're lucky it may work.

Wow. So there IS someone else around here who knows of the term “Balestra”. Cool!

Now, Passata Sotto, that’s something I’m going to have to look up. But I do know that Sir Strykar and his loyal Squires did adapt a number of techniques from a variety of fighting styles, including Escrima and olympic-style fencing — and that’s what they taught at the Fair Lakes School of the Sword.

Buuut I think agility, speed and flexibility might be some of the most important of the many, many factors for a good MMA fighter. Ever heard of Brazillian Jiu Jitsu? Then you could interpret that as Skill ranks, but that is the point, interpretations.

I’ve played Judo. Even though I was just a white belt, I always ended up playing against the Black Belts because there was no one else in my weight class, and no one else could do much with me.

I **** near beat a brown belt in my weight class at a tournament, but he had more training in some of the defenses than I did, and he had more practice in mat work. So, our fights ended up being one or the other doing something to drag both bodies to the ground, and then his superior defenses and mat work would ultimately win out.

In my personal experience, Agility, speed, flexibility, all play a role, but weight and strength play a much greater role.

The Black Belt instructor who had earned the nickname “Choke Monster” over the years? Yeah, he could always take me out in just a few seconds. But I was at least a slight challenge for him, whereas most of the rest of the students in the class weren’t.

Buuut I think agility, speed and flexibility might be some of the most important of the many, many factors for a good MMA fighter. Ever heard of Brazillian Jiu Jitsu? Then you could interpret that as Skill ranks, but that is the point, interpretations.

I’ve played Judo. Even though I was just a white belt, I always ended up playing against the Black Belts because there was no one else in my weight class, and no one else could do much with me.

I **** near beat a brown belt in my weight class at a tournament, but he had more training in some of the defenses than I did, and he had more practice in mat work. So, our fights ended up being one or the other doing something to drag both bodies to the ground, and then his superior defenses and mat work would ultimately win out.

In my personal experience, Agility, speed, flexibility, all play a role, but weight and strength play a much greater role.

Yes, you are right, I don`t disagree at all! But some martial arts, techniques and philosophies rely more on muscle and weight, or brawn if you will, while other rely more on speed and flexibility. Most, if not all, rely on all of these factors.

So what I`m saying is that it`s just as "realistic" to base close combat skills on agility as on brawn. One could argue that reflexes or pure grit and ferocity matter most and Willpower could be used for a custom skill too.

There isn`t one true answer here.

But really, this doesn`t matter within the context of the game and the fiction, the genre and the star wars feeling we are emulating.

Since people bring up their relevant experiences, I have background in Karate, boxing and military close combat training from the army, my dad was a boxer and one of my best friends do brazillian jiujitsu.

But honestly, I`m faaar from an expert on the topic... Speaking of, let`s get back on topic:)

Instead of new skills I would follow the lead of the lightsaber trees and instead come up with a martial arts tree that has a talent that swaps brawn for agility for the skill roll. but follow the lead of the ancient sword and the damage is still based on brawn+successes and weapon bonus.

Just real quick, then I'll get back on topic, but I think in this system, Agility doesn't mean what it means elsewhere. It covers things that require precision, some degree of balance and hand-eye coordination and maybe flexibility, but none of the skills that use Agility translate to things that are truely examples of astounding speed so much as, again, coordination. Just me, though.

I did think of branching off from Mechanics to create a skill specific to crafting and weapons and armor building and maintenance. Another was something along the lines of Chemistry, covering bits of Education, Medicine and Xenology to make or blend chemicals. I also like the Performance skill that Skill Monkey covered in the one episode I think I listened too. I think the swapping one for another is fine if it works for the character, but only at character creation or if they acquire a new spec that introduces career skills they don't have.

Just real quick, then I'll get back on topic, but I think in this system, Agility doesn't mean what it means elsewhere. It covers things that require precision, some degree of balance and hand-eye coordination and maybe flexibility, but none of the skills that use Agility translate to things that are truely examples of astounding speed so much as, again, coordination. Just me, though.

Very good point! So again, it comes down to our own(and the game rule`s) interpretation of broad, overlapping terms. And I actually love that!

Piloting Planetary can mean beast riding to? Great! A Wookie, a hutt and a Ewok can have the same Brawn, because it`s about how effectively you can use your physical strength and body? Awesome!

I have rules for when I am looking to make a change or addition to a game.

Rule #1 for me is the Most important.

Rule #1 Does this change Unbalance the game in a Way that Everyone is going to want to follow the New path, or more simply put, Does it become a MUST Have!.

In this case... If you make this "Martial Arts" Skill that switches the ability score used from Brawn to Agility, you upset the balance of the Stats...

Agility is already the stat for Most of the Combat Skills,

Light ranged,

Heavy Ranged,

Gunnery

Not to mention all the other Skills that are AG based that many Players want.

Piloting (Both Planetary and Space )

Coordination

Stealth.

IF you make this Change, People will be Less Likely to make a High Brawn Character for melee, as Why would when you can Have a High Agility which is Much more desirable because you can Be Much better at Both Brawling and Ranged at the same time as well as good at these other skills.

I personally would Highly recommend Not doing this.

and as I noted before.. The Spy Infiltrator Makes a really Good Hand to hand martial artist.

Let`s not all hung up on the agility custom skills, those were just examples and floating thoughts. I don`t think I`ll do it for many reasons, some of which I mentioned and some that others have pointed out in this thread..

oh I hear ya RodianClone...

Eve though, as others have pointed our, Survival Include not just finding food and finding/making shelter and so forth but also includes Handling, Taming, training and Riding of Beast... I and still considering breaking that off into a seperate skill myself.

A lot of the "precision and agility" melee combat flair that people want seems more like the realm of talents (Crippling Blow, Dodge, Parry, etc.) and would capture the fantasy of a technique focused fighter better than just a stat swap, since the pop culture image of such a fighter is being tough to pin down and being able to disarm, trip, and disable the opponent rather than just "i stab with my rapier really hard"

On-topic, the custom skills I'd like to see most are "crafting skills" not directly related to Mechanics. Tailoring or cooking for example.

While it could theoretically be covered under either Charm or Education (depending on whether you're trying to play off-the-cuff or remember a famous opera), some kind of Performance skill would be welcome as well.

I like the idea of an agility-based close combat skill in theory, but my concern would be that it overvalues agility as an all-around combat characteristic and devalues the worth of strength in close quarters. I suppose you could add some natural modifiers to make martial arts/finesse not effective as brawl/melee, but that might needlessly complicate things. Strength-oriented characters might be able to intimidate better and work as more effective pack mules, but agility focused characters would have equivalent close quarters effectiveness and make for more qualified ranged combatants.

The thought of finesse-based combat does make me want to see a swashbuckler or martial artist spec though. Make it a specialization that emphasizes both strength and agility. Strength remains the determining factor in combat rolls, but the spec also implement talents tied into agility that allow you to better dodge and close the gap between opponents. Perhaps add some specialized actions/maneuvers that use agility and then, way down the skill tree, have a talent that lets you substitute strength for agility on close combat actions.

I would agree with you that if you make Martial arts the same skill as Brawl only using Agility instead, You Dilute the use of Brawl, and Make Agility even more the One Combat stat.

Some things to consider, Brawl is the All out Brute force Combat stat. How can you Make A Martial Arts Different So that it doesn't take away from Brawn & Brawl?

Well the Spy Talent tree Infiltrator has some Great Talents that equate to what I would Expect a Martial artist to be able to do. Oddly though, I think this class is Poorly named, as I would expect some of called an Infiltrator and a spy would have talents more geared to words Stealth, Deception and Evasion. Not Combat.

But anyway, if you want some one that is More Martial Artist than jsut Big brawny smacker.. go with a Spy Infiltrator talents tree.

Interesting. It's not something I'm actively interested in, since I already have a full player base with the game GMing and I'm not actively playing in a game, but I might check it out in the future.

I'm guessing that's a career/spec from the AoR core?

I like the idea of an agility-based close combat skill in theory, but my concern would be that it overvalues agility as an all-around combat characteristic and devalues the worth of strength in close quarters. I suppose you could add some natural modifiers to make martial arts/finesse not effective as brawl/melee, but that might needlessly complicate things. Strength-oriented characters might be able to intimidate better and work as more effective pack mules, but agility focused characters would have equivalent close quarters effectiveness and make for more qualified ranged combatants.

The thought of finesse-based combat does make me want to see a swashbuckler or martial artist spec though. Make it a specialization that emphasizes both strength and agility. Strength remains the determining factor in combat rolls, but the spec also implement talents tied into agility that allow you to better dodge and close the gap between opponents. Perhaps add some specialized actions/maneuvers that use agility and then, way down the skill tree, have a talent that lets you substitute strength for agility on close combat actions.

I would agree with you that if you make Martial arts the same skill as Brawl only using Agility instead, You Dilute the use of Brawl, and Make Agility even more the One Combat stat.

Some things to consider, Brawl is the All out Brute force Combat stat. How can you Make A Martial Arts Different So that it doesn't take away from Brawn & Brawl?

Well the Spy Talent tree Infiltrator has some Great Talents that equate to what I would Expect a Martial artist to be able to do. Oddly though, I think this class is Poorly named, as I would expect some of called an Infiltrator and a spy would have talents more geared to words Stealth, Deception and Evasion. Not Combat.

But anyway, if you want some one that is More Martial Artist than jsut Big brawny smacker.. go with a Spy Infiltrator talents tree.

Interesting. It's not something I'm actively interested in, since I already have a full player base with the game GMing and I'm not actively playing in a game, but I might check it out in the future.

I'm guessing that's a career/spec from the AoR core?

I can only see the Spec trees that are shown on this page I was lined to... So I am not sure if it is AOR or one of the supplement Career books

I made a custom skill for my game. This is the game I play with my brother, so it's one PC (with a droid sidekick/PC). He plays a Force-Sensitive/Jedi type that is not really very strict on following the Jedi Code. Our recent sessions have involved him gathering Training in the Force from different sources: Light (Malfunctioning Droid that thinks its a Jedi Master, with extensive memory banks full of Jedi Knowledge), Dark (Sith Holocron), and Neutral (A mentor who holds that the Force is all-encompassing, Light/Dark don't really matter, it's all just your perception).

Since Power is not really an issue, and we have a limited Destiny Points pool, I created the 'Gray Jedi' skill. This is meant to reflect the Training he got from his mentor. Each rank in the skill means you can use the skill that many times per session. To use the skill, you may suffer 4 strain to activate it and use the Dark Pips on the Force die (instead of a Destiny Point), each additional point for that check after the first just takes 1 more strain to use. In addition, you gain Conflict = the number of Dark Points you used with this skill.

I agree with LethalDose, on swapping out career or spec skills, though I have a slight preference to monkey with the spec skills over the base career skills because if I am going to make changes, I would prefer the changes to be as small as possible to get the job done using the criteria taught to me by my college physics professor. Necessary and Sufficient.

I like the end of this passage, since it is very concise and fully agree with it's sentiment.

I included both career and specialization skills lists for flexibility, e.g. Cybernetics could be a reasonable skill to swap out for A Technician career skill given the careers 'overall' techie flavor, but I don't think a Mechanic or even a Slicer would necessarily be qualified to swap out a skill. Also, there are typically 8 skills/career and 4/spec, so swapping out one career skill seems like less of a big deal.

Again, that's opinion, and only provided as an example; Not really looking to discuss or otherwise derail the thread because someone else has a difference of opinion.

Alternatively, you could simply let players buy custom skills at "career skill prices" from qualified trainers (e.g. Cybernetics from Cratala in Beyond the Rim) for credits, or Obligation. This is similar to how Holocrons work (Two skills become career skills while the holocron remains in the user's possession. F&D Core, p 191).

I agree with LethalDose, on swapping out career or spec skills, though I have a slight preference to monkey with the spec skills over the base career skills because if I am going to make changes, I would prefer the changes to be as small as possible to get the job done using the criteria taught to me by my college physics professor. Necessary and Sufficient.

I like the end of this passage, since it is very concise and fully agree with it's sentiment.

I included both career and specialization skills lists for flexibility, e.g. Cybernetics could be a reasonable skill to swap out for A Technician career skill given the careers 'overall' techie flavor, but I don't think a Mechanic or even a Slicer would necessarily be qualified to swap out a skill. Also, there are typically 8 skills/career and 4/spec, so swapping out one career skill seems like less of a big deal.

Again, that's opinion, and only provided as an example; Not really looking to discuss or otherwise derail the thread because someone else has a difference of opinion.

Which is also why I described it as a "slight preference" because cybernetics does make since in Technician and I am sure there are other combinations I haven't thought of. Mr. Murray (my physics professor) would be pleased.

Back on track!

Another possible source for custom skills at career skill prices can be found using the Homestead/Rebel Base rules. If the focus of the homestead is something akin to a "Dude Ranch" that could make the theoretical "Forget finding food and shelter, I just want to be able to ride a tauntaun!" beast riding skill a career skill, or you could re-skin the rebel base training facility to provide something that isn't one of the many, many combat related skills it offers, perhaps even at a reduced price, as I am pretty sure that 15K price tag is there because only one of the skills listed isn't new and exciting ways to kill people directly. Using the same theoretical beast riding skill, I'd call it something like a "Stable," put the cost at between 6,000 and 10,000 credits depending on the native species (or more if someone says "we should have a stable full of RANCORS!") and it would have a staff of people to feed and care for the animals, a vet, and enough animals that every PC can take one out at once or two PCs would have to share a mount in the case of something really big and/or crazy combat effective.