Hey all,

I'm seeking opinions on a question that is coming up at our table fairly regularly.

How do talents get applied on assisted skill checks?

Normal assisted skill checks use the highest attribute and skill of the involved parties. But how are their talents applied?

For example, if they are combining on a Mechanics check to mod a weapon and one of them has 2 ranks in Inventor and the other has two ranks in Gearhead do they add two boost dice from Inventor and subtract two setback dice for Gearhead, and half the cost of the mod for Gearhead?

What if one of them is an npc droid and the PC has two ranks of Speaks Binary? Can they add two boost for inventor, two boost die for Speaks Binary, subtract 2 setback for Gearhead, and half the cost of the mod (as well as using the higher of their Int and higher of their skill ranks in Mechanics)?

This seemed like the most egregious example I could come up with, but I'm curious about this in general, not just this specific instance. Similar things can happen with other skills as well.

Also what about selectively activated skills like Touch of Fate (add two Boost dice to any check once per session)? Can one of the two contribute this to an assisted check?

Is one of the participants considered the primary check maker and do only their talents apply? Or do all possible advantages of both participants apply?

Would you allow this if one of the participants is not adding anything to the dice pool? For example, participant one had Int 3 and Mechanics 3, participant two has Int 2 and Mechanics 2, but has two ranks of Gearhead and Touch of Fate. He wants to aid participant one to remove two setback dice and half the cost. Can he?

Thanks everyone for your thoughts!

Finarin

Only the PC who is the active player rolling the dice pool's Talents apply. The only thing the 'assister' can add is what is spelled out in the assist rules. They can add Skill ranks, or a superior stat, or if neither, a Boost die, that is all. If an exception isn't listed, there isn't one.

I finally found the actual rules for this at the very beginning of the book after checking the chapters on skills, conflict and combat, and game mastering and they quite clearly match your response.

So thanks for that.

It does leave me with a question regarding Speaks Binary though. So a Wookiee Mechanic with 2 ranks of Speaks Binary is being assisted by an npc droid. In addition to the attribute/ranks for skilled assistance or the boost die for unskilled can the wookiee instruct the npc droid in how to best assist him and gain the 2 boost die from Speaks Binary to the check?

It seems reasonable from the perspective of the wookiee's ability to work with the droid being abnormally high, but also seems to have a strong potential for abuse (any unskilled assist from an npc droid could yield 3 boost die to the wookiee).

I don't know if they addressed this in a podcast. I would say no, it is when directing a droid to perform a task, so the droid would be the one making the check/rolling the dice. My opinion is it is too ripe for abuse as a way to stack the deck during crafting and I wouldn't allow it, regardless of what the devs may say.

Unless the talent calls out that it canbe used while assisting then you can't benefit from an assisters talents. Firstly an assist is only a maneuver and often the talent only helps when YOU are making the check IE on the assisters action. In fact Speaks Binary may be arguably a non assistance action , if two characters with speaks binary direct the same group of droids either I would say this confuses the droids or, more likely the droids only benefit from the greater of the two. It's the same sort of thing that happens when you have two characters with the suppressing iire talent (1 advantage from a failed combat check made by an ally close to the player can be used to cause 1 strain damage per rank),if 2 people have this talent and are standing side by side with a third, if that third person misses then they don't benefit from suppressing fire twice because they already have this benefit and it's not additive.if the talent instead said that it did one extra strain damage per rank of suppressing fire, then you could perhaps add them together.

I'd say for personal sized things sil 0 or 1 you get one crafter and one assistant (and only the crafter can use talents)

For larger things like sil 2 droids and small vehicles I go with 2 crafters and 4 assistants (both crafters can combine their talents)

For really big things like sil 3 ships I would say 3 crafters 9 assistants

My formula would be sil size = number of crafters and number of crafters squared equals assistants.

Eventually there will be a book on ship construction but until then this is how I am filling the gap

One or two people building building the millenium falcon just doesnt make sense, a team of 4 scientists and 16 assistants working for 6 months to a year with proper ship building tools sounds much more realistic.

One or two people building building the millenium falcon just doesnt make sense, a team of 4 scientists and 16 assistants working for 6 months to a year with proper ship building tools sounds much more realistic.

Its star wars, YT-1300 most likely take 5 minutes to build with proper fabrication equipment. See the clone wars and the output of tanks and battle droids by separatist fabrics. Now done by hand … it most likely still too long at least if the resources and tools are avaible to build the ship in a handcrafted way. Still for a prototype which gets develop along the way it sounds about right. Team of 20 engineers building and designing the ship makes sense.

Though the B-Wing prototype was done for example by one single moncal even when the project seems still to get finished as project shantipole in the roche asteroid field.

Its star wars, YT-1300 most likely take 5 minutes to build with proper fabrication equipment.

I could see a new one rolling off the assembly line every 5 minutes or less, but I suspect that it takes at least a day to go from nothing at one end to final fabrication at the other end of the assembly lines for each YT-1300, especially since they have so many different internal configurations possible.

For perspective, a new Ford F150 takes 20 hours to get through the full assembly and that's with various parts being put together in parallel (dash controls wired up in one place while the engine is assembled in another). But they have so many lines running that they have new vehicles rolling out every few minutes.

Yes I should have been more clear I am talking about a "hand" made customized starship not a factory model.

Or I guess in game terms a prototype (custom) template and designing and building a unique variant.

Maybe eventually the design would be popular and someone would rip it off and build a robot ship making factory to deal with it quickly.