Can the Negotiation skill reduce the price of starting gear? There's no real NPCs involved and would require rolling in character creation, but at the same time it seems odd a master negotiator has to pay full price for gear at character creation and not afterwards.
Negotiation and starting gear price?
I don't think negotiation should apply. Character's starting gear is not something they bought the day before the adventure begins. It is equipment gathered over the course of their career. Which could included before they trained negotiations. Or it could include items issued by an employer, and not subject to negotiation.
From a mechanics standpoint, it would be a problem, because it penalizes starting characters with no negotiation ability. Plus, negotiation is an opposed check. Who would you have opposing their role? If a player's backstory indicates that he bought from a Hutt arms dealer, I surely don't want to be opposed by his 3R2P roll. But if I said I bought from a Toydarian Merchant I roll 2R1P.
I bought all my starting gear from an ewok and got a really super deal on it!
31 minutes ago, RLogue177 said:I bought all my starting gear from an ewok and got a really super deal on it!
Was it the Ewoks from Darths and Droids? You must have missed the fine print.
I'd say no. Negotiation is just for gear gained in-game.
Also, be careful that there is a common misconception that Negotiation is always an opposed check. It is not. Negotiation is an opposed check when the thing you're trying to buy is critical to the plot and the negotiation over it is a key scene. Bartering with Watto for parts in TPM was an opposed Negotiation check.
For normal shopping, you just roll versus the difficulty determined by the item's Rarity. That's it. There is no opposed check. Doing it otherwise penalizes face characters by making them essentially face down Nemesis-level adversaries when all they want to do is buy some stimpaks. We never see the movie characters going through boring shopping scenes, so don't make your players (or GM) do that either.
By RAW, no. At character creation, you pay the listed cost for the gear and that's that.
And I wouldn't suggest house-ruling to allow this, as it could lead to some worrisome situations with a PC that hyper-focused on Negotiation being able to start out with a lot more gear and/or more credits in their pockets than other PCs. Especially given that one of the themes of EotE is that the PCs are never going to be well and truly wealthy due to their status as part of what amounts to galactic criminal underclass.
If the GM really wants to let a PC with ranks in Negotiation get some sort of benefit, the most I'd suggest is increasing the amount of "pocket money" credits that each character gets by 5% per skill rank, maybe 10% per skill rank at most. This gives the PC a little extra scratch to start with, but not so much as to be potentially worrisome.
To Donovan's point, also note that certain species begin with more pocket money to represent their cultural aptitude for finance. The Muuns get +1000 credits, for instance. By offering this to all PCs as a house rule, you kind of remove the allure of playing a Muun.
Equipment can make a real difference in the early game so in my opinion just play the RAW on how much you get to start. The choices given are what they are because all PCs are supposed to start basically equal so choose what's important for your character: Cash, EXP, or a bit of both.
When you start playing then you will gain from Skills, Talents and such. Don't worry within a few sessions you'll start seeing the benefits of your choices.
On 2/25/2019 at 11:05 PM, NanashiAnon said:Can the Negotiation skill reduce the price of starting gear? There's no real NPCs involved and would require rolling in character creation, but at the same time it seems odd a master negotiator has to pay full price for gear at character creation and not afterwards.
Well, if you want to go that route, some who has created a character that's skilled at combat might argued that they should reasonably have been able to kill and loot a stormtrooper and therefore start with a free blaster rifle and laminate armor.
Nah. The current system is designed to encourage taking greater or more obligations. Which is good for having stronger, initial plot hooks.
Contrary to everyone else's opinion on this here, I personally wouldnt mind giving this player a better bargain for his starting gear. I dont think this would "penalize" characters who didnt invest in negotiation. Or you could argue just as well that this player would be "penalized" for not performing as good in combat as someone who has invested in combat skills. That is kind of the point.
No one in my group has invested even a single XP into negotiation 4 sessions in now, so I personally would try to encourage my players by allowing this.
15 hours ago, Shizuya said:Contrary to everyone else's opinion on this here, I personally wouldnt mind giving this player a better bargain for his starting gear. I dont think this would "penalize" characters who didnt invest in negotiation. Or you could argue just as well that this player would be "penalized" for not performing as good in combat as someone who has invested in combat skills. That is kind of the point.
No one in my group has invested even a single XP into negotiation 4 sessions in now, so I personally would try to encourage my players by allowing this.
You can encourage them, by making Negotiation checks for aquiring gear as per RAW. Anything over 5 will be nearly impossible for them to find without Negotiation, especially in the Outer Rim
I might allow it. If the character was an Entrepeneur, Smuggler, Thief etc or something similar (in concept even if not in Specialization) and they took on extra obligation to get credits I might let them use those credits to barter/negotiate with.
Sounds kinda fun. It can also be balanced with requiring rolls to actually find the items (Negotiation or Streetwise) but this could also let them try to find higher rarity items (and restricted items).
But it would depend on the player - in my own game group I'd allow it because I wouldn't worry about someone abusing it.
I would allow the roll. I normally do something similar with new characters anyways, I have them roll 1 Yellow dice. 2 Advantages give them a 25% discount and a triumph will give them 50%.
I figure that most characters have a background and have had access to equipment and deals so it helps get them equipped. I should note that I do limit the rarity of the items that I allow these rolls for
On 2/27/2019 at 4:21 AM, penpenpen said:Well, if you want to go that route, some who has created a character that's skilled at combat might argued that they should reasonably have been able to kill and loot a stormtrooper and therefore start with a free blaster rifle and laminate armor.
I had someone try to pull that argument on me in a D&D game. 1st level paladin, wanted to start with plate, sword, bow and horse. I ran a brief 1 hour intro session with him, and he got some of the starting gear, but lost paladinhood in the process.
I was thinking on this topic and I guess the important thing to consider is that it's not just the GM's game or any single player's so whatever you are going to allow to benefit one player you should give a similar benefit to all the players. The Character Generation system has been built to be as balanced as possible so that all the PC's begin equal and it's bad idea to mess with that unless you find a way to keep that balance. If you don't it's just not fair to the other players. So go ahead and give Player one extra cash but make sure all the rest of the players get the equivalent added value in some way. Or better just follow the RAW which already has a system in place that allows a Player to choose what that extra bonus is (Ie. EXP, Cash, a bit of both).
Edited by FuriousGregOn 2/28/2019 at 5:26 AM, Rimsen said:You can encourage them, by making Negotiation checks for aquiring gear as per RAW. Anything over 5 will be nearly impossible for them to find without Negotiation, especially in the Outer Rim
well my adventures led the group to nar shaddaa, the smuggler moon a.k.a. little coruscant because I love the planet thematically. stuff isn't hard to find there. Finding any item is also quite luck based. I've had a player with 1 green die roll a success on a hard negotiation check to find an item lol it was rather expensive due to disadvantages but still
I would expand this past negotiation and allow any character to pick a skill they have ranks in and get free equipment/credits that matches the skill.
Melee players get a vibrosword, ranged-heavy get a blaster rifle, mechanics gets you a tool kit, medicine gets you a med pack...
Players still get their 500 credits but now they have an item to match their starting gear.
Starting gear bypasses Negotiation/Streetwise and therefore allows for some rare gear to get through immediately to the character. If you are using the character generator then chances are the "named' gear from the splatbooks is also an option they are going to exploit and so you will lose some of the progressive loot feel that you can get with rare gear acquired during play being a stickler for making them roll for availability of items.
If you are wanting players to have great gear at start of play and you feel it makes sense for their background then you can do what I call Common Sense starting gear and just hand waive it, but it may mean that loot is not going to be perceived as something they work for so much as something they will expect to materialize when they want it.
9 hours ago, MrTInce said:I would expand this past negotiation and allow any character to pick a skill they have ranks in and get free equipment/credits that matches the skill.
Melee players get a vibrosword, ranged-heavy get a blaster rifle, mechanics gets you a tool kit, medicine gets you a med pack...
Players still get their 500 credits but now they have an item to match their starting gear.
Personally, I'd just streamline it and say everyone gets an extra 500 credits right off the bat. One thing I've never liked about any of the games is that PCs have very little in the way of funds for their starting gear, and found just saying "here everyone, have some extra credits!" to not cause any balance issues.