So in preparation for starting a new campaign, I've been going over the rules and discovered a lot of things we've always done wrong But the one thing I didn't expect was that we've been building dicepools wrong for the past three years. In our defense, the way we did it makes a lot more sense.

So the way it's supposed to work is grab your two stats, characteristics and skill number, see which is the biggest and use that as a base and use the lower score for upgrades.

What we did was take characteristics as a base and upgrade using the skill number. Practically what this means is a smaller dice pool and more triumphs. But narratively it just makes a whole lot more sense. The green dice represent unskilled labour, how good you are in something without actively training in it, while the proficiency dice represent training and skills. In other words, your characteristic forms a base, for example how strong you are while your training in running (Athletics) determines how well you transfer that strength into, say, winning a race.

If you're more skilled then you have a base characteristic, narratively this would mean that suddenly your training in the subject is forming the base while how strong you are now causes greater success or triumphs. I'm wondering what everyone else thinks about this, I'm debating with my party whether or not we should continue doing it our way or start doing it the way it's supposed to.

Look at it this way:

• If characteristics are greater = natural ability enhanced by skilled training.
• If skills are greater = skilled training enhanced by natural ability.

I can't comment on what makes sense or what you'd enjoy, that's purely subjective imo. The way you're doing it decreases the chance of success and spikes the number of Triumphs mechanically. The game is balanced around the dice probabilities the way they're set up. I guess try it and see what you like. Spiking Triumphs though imo throws a lot of stuff off in balance, depending on item or Talent involved.

I get the idea of skills just being an upgrade, so that the more skilled you are, the more Triumph you'll roll; but if you're naturally gifted at something then the training is even more beneficial. So someone with a 1 in Intellect and a 5 in Astrogation would be rolling 3 Proficiency dice (representing a lot of training in a specific task), whereas a PC with 5 Intellect and 5 Astrogation would have a 5-Proficiency dice pool (so someone that is a lot smarter will have an even greater chance of Triumph). There's no difference between this accidental house rule and the RAW anytime there's only a 1-point disparity between the skill & characteristic.

That said, there are at least 3 problems I see with it, in general:

• It makes characteristics slightly less important, since it downgrades their stake in Triumph generation
• It drastically reduces your chances of success
• The upgrading mechanics are kind of apocryphal...this has the potential to turn new players off if they have to start thinking in terms of "upgrade, add ability die, upgrade..."

If I were to do this, I would probably create an optional 10 XP ranked talent which allows you to do what you're suggesting—trade higher probability of Success with much higher probability of Triumph, but for a single skill (per rank). It'd be like the poor man's "Intense Focus" And it would really only be applicable on a skill & characteristic where the disparity is 2 or higher. As I noted above, a skill ranked 3 and a characteristic of 2, for example, would yield the same dice pool as RAW. But if you've got a super low characteristic and a really high skill rank, and you're rolling against a low Difficulty, it could be an interesting trick...kind of like taking a -5 to your d20 roll to get higher possible damage.

I don't think it makes characteristics less important, since an extra green die gives you a bigger chance of success then an upgrade. In other words, want to have a bigger chance at succeeding, go for dedication, want to have a bigger chance at doing something cool (advantages/triumphs), train in the skill. As for decreasing chances of success, that is absolutely true, but I think it makes for a better gaming experience, I'll explain more in a bit. As for the upgrading mechanics being harder to grasp, I'd say that's on a player to player basis, but it's actually better for newer players since you never have to think about what you're adding to what, it's always the same calculation.

Now on to what I mean about a better gaming experience. It does decrease chance of success because of the smaller pool. But a big part of this game is the Star Wars feel, and our heroes always have terrible odds:P Also it makes rolls more exciting since it's harder to succeed, really ensuring the player will grit their teeth at every setback die the GM adds and the way they come up with justifications for that extra boost die. Secondly, it decreases the size of the dice pool, which I think helps with the flow. Since these are custom dice, and there's an expense associated with them, there'll usually be a big dice pool for everyone, rather then everyone having their own complete set of dice. The bigger size pool you toss, the more you have to grab dice from everywhere on the table. Sure you can fix that with a smaller table, or tossing in a bucket or whatever, but in bigger group sizes, building a bigger dice pool slows everything down. Building a pool isn't the fun bit, the fun bit is looking at the toss and seeing the result. Next point, smaller dice pool means a quicker result calculation, again, keeps the game flowing. I remember playing 3.5 and having to toss over 35 dice for a single fireball as a Sorcerer. Ridiculous and adds nothing. I like a quicker pace, keeps the attention on the roleplaying. The dice are a tool to advance the story, they shouldn't be the focus.

But this isn't the real reason why I think it works better. It works better because it's more of a Star Wars feel. In the GM section there's a big sidebar about keeping the Star Wars feel in there. Think back on the movies. When stuff happens it either succeeds spectacularly, or it fails abysmally. It's big spectacle moments. By ensuring the pool always has the least amount of yellow and red dice you're making most rolls boring. You succeed or fail, with either 1 or two threat or 1 or two advantages, making triumphs, the big wins, the really cool moments, even more of a rarity. Personally, I think that if you want the Star Wars feel, you need the majority of rolls to feel exciting. Yes it makes the Triumphs cheaper. But this isn't DnD where you only do something cool on a 20. DnD is a mechanical system, EotE is a narrative system. More then anything, Star Wars is Rule of Cool made flesh. By making Triumphs Despairs scarce you're taking away from that. You want the table to be constantly in fear of that Despair or hoping for that Triumph. That's not a symbol that should come up once per night. Or at least, not in a Star Wars setting. Star Wars doesn't do million to one shots, every scene is tense with excitement.

They're both the same thing.

Let's say your Brawn is 3 and your Melee is 4.

Option One: Melee is bigger, so you'll start with that score in Ability Dice ( ). Now you use Brawn to upgrade them. You now have three upgrades to do - Ability Dice to Proficiency Dice - which leave the final pool on your side three Proficiency Dice, one Ability Die ( ).

Option Two: Start with three Ability Dice ( ), since your Brawn is 3. Now upgrade them four times using your Melee. So... three upgrades will turn those three Ability Dice into Proficiency Dice ( ) and your last upgrade, since it has no Ability Die to affect, will add an additional Ability Die. Final count? Just like the first time. ( ).

Unless I'm misunderstanding your meaning, of course.

One of the problems with generating this way is that it leads to smaller dice pools making failure much more likely. Example Brawn 1 Brawl 3 should be GGYPP where as it ends up YYPP

Chance of success just dropped from 65% to 56%, to give an idea in DnD terms this is like a -2 on the roll, the chance of advantage also dropped 15%(-3) , but your chance of rolling a triumph increased 8% (chance of double triumph is less than 1%)

These are not small numbers and you get similar results from Brawn 2 Brawl 4 and Brawn 3 Brawl 5. Larger dice pools are pretty much always better from a success/advantage point of view. It also messes with upgrades as it makes them more likely to just add a green instead of upgrading the green you already have to a yellow. meaning upgrades , instead of making you more likely to have triumph , they make you more likely to succeed (in effect reversing the chance of success you lose from working this way).

It also significantly harms those players that go against the core book advise of putting starting xp into stats, and raise skills or talents instead, causing them to have a lower chance of success than they would have had, making working against this advise an even more bad idea. Droids get a very hard nerf here since this is how they are built (more skills vs more charactersitics), pretty much making them unviable.

16 minutes ago, Simon Retold said:

They're both the same thing.

Not quite. It's the same if the skill and attribute are one apart. Otherwise:

Brawn 2 and Melee 4:

By RAW that's , but by the OP's system that's . You take Brawn 2, and upgrade 4 times. Upgrading twice gives you , thrice gives you , and the fourth gives you .

Brawn 4 and Melee 2:

By RAW and the OP's system that's

Just now, whafrog said:

Brawn 2 Brawn 4 and Melee 2:

By RAW and the OP's system that's

Fixed it for you

1 minute ago, whafrog said:

Not quite. It's the same if the skill and attribute are one apart. Otherwise:

Brawn 2 and Melee 4:

By RAW that's , but by the OP's system that's . You take Brawn 2, and upgrade 4 times. Upgrading twice gives you , thrice gives you , and the fourth gives you .

Brawn 2 and Melee 2:

By RAW and the OP's system that's

Ah, schooled and corrected. Thank you, @whafrog .

1 hour ago, Iamdude said:

Building a pool isn't the fun bit, the fun bit is looking at the toss and seeing the result.

I don't really have an opinion on your system, if it works for you, great. But I find your rationales a bit over the top. Seriously, you're worried about cutting down on dice? This is hardly going to affect anything. But the above bit stuck out, because if building the dice pool isn't fun, then you're missing out. Building the dice pool helps set the scene and gives lots of narrative space. The players grab their default (I just keep one bowl in the middle of the table that contains 4 or 5 sets of dice, I've never needed more). Then I build up the pool with commentary ("you're new here" *push a setback*..."but they seem friendly" *push a boost*). Building the pool can be as dramatic as the actual roll.

Also, reduced chance of success means that Triumphs are actually diminished and Despairs are increased. Many situations require a successful Skill check to activate an option via a Triumph, so more on an unsuccessful roll does no good. Whereas a Despair is a Despair regardless of success and building an opposed check via the system proposed means more Challenge dice will be in each opposed pool as well.

The pool ultimately reflects where innate ability and specialized training/knowledge meet. The RAW method demonstrates that having more of one than the other keeps the character from being the best they can be because their potential exceeds their ability to wield it to maximum effect or their limited basic competence hinders them putting their skills into best use. The way you've been doing skews that in favor of extreme results, and impacts the basic functions of the game. Not my cup of tea, but if it works for you guys, then it has that going for it.

It could definitely work but you would build characters differently and difficulties would have to be reducee to make it fair, it will result in , perhaps, a lot more triumphs.

On 14/07/2017 at 10:42 AM, whafrog said:

Then I build up the pool with commentary ("you're new here" *push a setback*..."but they seem friendly" *push a boost*). Building the pool can be as dramatic as the actual roll.

This is a big key to GMing this system, when you do this your players will really engage with the scene a lot more.

Taking it to the next level is reading the results of every die and using it to build the narrative:

"Triumph, so your experience comes through, that Boost is blank so Chris was a hopeless assistant. The Failure all came from the Setback so it was circumstances that stopped you this time."

You can't do it every roll, but on the important ones it's gold.

On 7/14/2017 at 2:34 AM, whafrog said:

Not quite. It's the same if the skill and attribute are one apart. Otherwise:

Brawn 2 and Melee 4:

By RAW that's , but by the OP's system that's . You take Brawn 2, and upgrade 4 times. Upgrading twice gives you , thrice gives you , and the fourth gives you .

Brawn 4 and Melee 2:

By RAW and the OP's system that's

Aah...

Well, I've been using it the way the OP uses it, but I've always considered a "skill die" (ie, any green die based on skill and not attribute) to be unupgradeable. So Brawn 4 and Melee 2 would still become because the 2 base dice gained from the attribute are upgraded, but the remaining die are added because of the skill and thus cannot be upgraded.

I think the main problem is that having a high skill should be much more effective in securing success. OP's suggestion skews success too far to the base attribute, and away from training. If you want to navigate across the Galaxy, it's handy to be naturally intelligent. But you know what's a hell of a lot better? Actually learning how to Astrogate! The same goes for every skill in the game. Training and practice are vital to securing consistency.

4 hours ago, The Grand Falloon said:

I think the main problem is that having a high skill should be much more effective in securing success. OP's suggestion skews success too far to the base attribute, and away from training. If you want to navigate across the Galaxy, it's handy to be naturally intelligent. But you know what's a hell of a lot better? Actually learning how to Astrogate! The same goes for every skill in the game. Training and practice are vital to securing consistency.

If you use the OP's system, but flip it so that it favours the skill rank instead of the attribute, your success rate goes up. However, your triumphs come down, which I don't think is a valuable side effect.

Just MHO, but this argument vs RAW is trying to pack too much nuance into a range of 1-5. You can do this nuance when your range is in percentages. I recall (semi-fondly) playing Chivalry and Sorcery 3rd edition, which was not only percentile-based, but each skill had one of 7 or so progressions. So easy skills would go up by, say, 10% per rank, while hard skills would only go up by 1%. Five ranks of basketweaving and you could weave some pretty good baskets; five ranks of magic and you couldn't do squat. But when the attribute and skill ranks only have a range of 5 or 6, there's not much wiggle room.