Chapter III - Skills

By ynnen, in Proofreading Changes

A sticky thread for editing and proofreading comments on Chapter III - Skills.

Here are some suggested revisions for Chapter III. Obviously, these are only suggestions, and I could be completely wrong. Also, corrections to page numbers are probably unnecessary given those are likely to change with the addition of flavor and art.

What are Skills?

Custom Skills

p. 70 - Custom Skills side bar - “The six included Knowledge skills represent . . .” Added “Knowledge skills” after included for clarity.

p. 70 - Custom Skills side bar - “If the PCs regularly visit . . .” Changed Player Characters to PCs to align with style.

p. 70 - Custom Skills side bar - “Before adding such skills, GMs . . .” Changed Game Masters to GMs to align with style.

p. Custom Skills side bar - “When adding a new skill, the GM . . .” Changed Game Master to GM to align with style.

Skill Descriptions

p. 70, col, 1, para 4 - “Each entry presents ways that these additional [success symbol] may be used.” Changed “beneficial rolls” to a success symbol.

Choosing Skills

p. 70, col 2, para 3 - “Often, it is in . . . and the GM have a shared expectation . . .” Changed Game Master to GM to align with style.

p. 70, col 2, para 3 - “. . . so these early decisions can have major ramifications for a PC.” Changed Player Character to PC to align with style.

General Skills

p. 70, col 2, bottom para - “While General skills do not . . .” Changed capitalization of “General” to make style per p. 69 and use of terms “Combat skills” and “Knowledge skills.”

Astrogation

p. 71 , col 1, para 7 - “While a single net [success symbol] reaches . . .” Changed the advantage symbol to the success symbol since this paragraph is talking about success symbols, but advantage symbol may be the true intent.

Athletics

p. 7 1, col 2, para 1 - “PCs lead dramatic . . .” Changed Player Characters to PCs to align with style.

Charm

p. 72, col 1, para 8 - “See Table 3-1 Social Skill Interactions on page 72 . . .” Text incorrectly states page 73. Inserted “Table 3-1” and bolded text to match style.

Coerce

p. 72, co l 2, para 9 - “See Table 3-1 Social Skill Interactions on page 72 . . .” Text incorrectly states page 73. Inserted “Table 3-1” and bolded text to match style.

Computers

p. 74, col 1, pare 5 - “In general, the more vital the the materials protected by the system, the more difficult it should be to overcome.” Changed “they” to “it” to reflect singular system.

Coordination

p. 75, col 1, para 8 - “ (However, during an encounter a character can only use two maneuvers per turn.) ” Moved period inside parenthesis since entire sentence is in parenthesis.

Deceit

p. 75, col 2, para 2 - “See Table 3-1 Social Skill Interactions on page 72 . . .” Text incorrectly states page 73. Inserted “Table 3-1” and bolded text to match style.

p. 75, col 2, para 4 - “. . . –he makes use of Deceit.” Changed make to makes.

Discipline

p. 75, col 1, para 2 - See Table 3-1 Social Skill Interactions on page 72 . . .” Text incorrectly states page 73. Inserted “Table 3-1” and bolded text to match style.

Leadership

p. 76, col 2, para 1 - See Table 3-1 Social Skill Interactions on page 72 . . .” Text incorrectly states page 73. Inserted “Table 3-1” and bolded text to match style.

p. 76, col 2, para 9 - “Should a character accrue more than one [Despair symbol] . . .” Reworded to avoid awkwardness of [Despair symbol]s

Mechanics

p. 77, col 1, para 6 - “At the GM’s discretion . . . . Alternatively, the GM may . . .” Changed Game Master’s and Game Master to GM’s and GM, respectively.

p. 77, col 1, para 7 - “The nature and precise details . . . to the GM’s discretion.” Changed Game Master’s to GM’s.

Medicine

p. 77, col 2, para 5 - “Characters attempting to treat their own injuries increase the difficulty of the Medicine check by [difficulty die symbol][difficulty die symbol]” Replaced +2 with [difficulty die symbol][difficulty die symbol]

p. 77, col 2, para 6 - “If the acting character scores additional [success symbol] . . .” Replaced “Successes” with [success symbol].

Negotiate

p. 78, col 1, para 2 - See Table 3-1 Social Skill Interactions on page 72 . . .” Text incorrectly states page 73. Inserted “Table 3-1” and bolded text to match style.

p. 78, col 1, para 8 - “The NPC might thereafter . . . the PC . . .” Changed Player Character to PC.

Perception

p. 78, col 1, para 5 - “ . . . or a drug introduced to his beverage.”

Resilience

p. 80, col 1, para 6 - “Extra [success symbol] on a Resilience check may be used to extend the effects of the check, . . .” Replaced “Success” with “check.”

Skulduggery

p. 80, col 1, para 10 - “At the GM’s discretion . . .” Changed Game Master’s to GM’s.

Surveillance

p. 82, col 1, para 4 - “Extra [success symbol] on a Surveilance check . . . by 10% with each [success symbol].” Changed “Success” to [success symbol] at the end of the sentence.

p. 82, col 1, para 5 - “This might be an unexpected connection between two NPCs, . . .” Changed non-player characters to NPCs.

Vigilance

p. 83, col 1, para 2 - Text refers to [success symbol] and vigilance when using a Force ability. Force chapter seems to talk about the Force die when using a Force ability, which has no success symbols.

Combat Skills

p. 83, col 1, para 4 - Consider rewriting to “ Chapter 6: Conflict and Combat contains full details on using Combat skills during conflicts and information concerning how a players may spend [success symbol], [advantage symbol], [triumph symbol], [disadvantage symbol], and [despair symbol] generated during a Combat skill check.”

This is the only instance I have seen of the format chapter name and number without the title of the chapter. In this instance “ Chapter 6 ” instead of “ Chapter 6: Conflict and Combat .” Probably due to the fact that the term “ Chapter 6: Conflict and Comba t” immediately precedes this instance, but perhaps rewriting this would resolve this issue.

Ranged - Heavy

p. 84, col 2, para 5 - “ . . . as described in Chapter 6: Conflict and Combat .” Change period after “ Chapter 6: Conflict and Combat ” so that it is no longer bold.

The design intent of being able to default to raw characteristic tests for any skill check is not nearly as clear in this chapter as it is in Chapter 1. For anyone that skims chapter 1 and then dives into chapter 3 to see how skills work, there may be some confusion. I know there was already one thread where people were concerned that the non-combat focused careers wouldn't be able to fight effectively or defend themselves.

Page 70; "Skill Ranks" sub-heading; Paragraph 2

"It is generally reasonable to assume that other characters in the game world rely heavily upon their characteristics for actions outside their field of expertise. For example, almost everyone can pilot a speeder in routine traffic, but most people do not have a rank of Pilot (Planetary). Instead they default to using their Agility characteristic for the routine tasks."

The above text is the only mention of defaulting to characteristics in the Skills chapter. And the wording makes it seem more like a GM's call on whether or not a character can make a test (which is fair), but I could see people blowing right past that text and arriving at the conclusion that NPCs default to characteristics and that player characters have to have training in a skill (this is primarily going to be holdover conditioning from d20 Star Wars). Again, the explanation and information in Chapter 1 is clear. Perhaps link back to Chapter 1 and its examples here to save word-count?

p. 77 Table 3-2: Medical Check Difficulty

Average Medicine check description "Current wounds equal more than half of wound threshold" delete "or equal" to remove contradiction with Easy Medicine check.

This table is identical to Table 6-12, and both contain the same error.

The write-ups for Discipline (p.76) and Vigilance (p.82) both reference interaction with the Force rules, but so far as I can tell these skills are not used in the Force chapter.

SKULDUGGERY p.80

Third paragraph: remove reference to the Surveillance skill.

This is a general comment about the alphabetical listing of skills in this chapter. Presently the skills are prsented in three different alphabetical lists according to type: General, Combat, Knowledge. The skills are also listed in a table that indicates their type on pg. 71.

My experience with using rulebooks as a reference has been that chapters organized with mutliple alphabetical lists are frustrating to use. Is the grouping by type important enough to create this frustration for users? Or would it be better to present the skills in a single alphabetical list, perhaps with an entry under each name indicating which type the skill belongs to, and page number citations on the table of skills that's presently on pg. 71.

What Are Skills?

p. 69, para 1, sentences 3 and 4

“. . . that are most likely to come up . . .” is used in both of these sentences, describing the same thing. Perhaps this should be trimmed or rewritten.

Athletics

p. 72, fourth bullet point

“longer speed” doesn’t really make sense. Perhaps it should be “faster speed” or “greater speed”

Social Skills sidebar

p. 73, para 2, sent 1

Influence doesn’t exist as a skill

Computers

p. 73

“elevator” should be “turbolift”

Leadership

p. 76, last para

The second Despair symbol should not be pluralized

Perception

p. 78, para 1

“perception” should be capitalized