DailyRich said:

I think the distinction is between helping outside combat, or helping in combat.

Want to help someone with a check outside combat? Use the rules on p22 which allow you to either share Characteristics and Skill ratings, or give a single Boost die.

Wnat to help someone within combat? Use the assist maneuver to give them a boost die.

There doesn't appear to be anything stopping combat assistance being towards a skill check, which works fine for me:

<ZAP>

"Try using this wrench"

<ZAP> <ZAP>

"Or maybe just try kicking it. I can't hold these guys off for much longer!"

<ZAP>

Sturn said:

Hence my request for clarification. Perhaps a line just to say that neither character needs to have ranks in the skill to work together on the task?

Along a similar line of thought a forger would require a different skill than a pickpocket. At some point you need to group skills. This splitting of skills can get to be quite troublesome (Rolemaster anyone?).

Here is a real life personal example. I am rather good at trading collectables. I make money from going to GenCon by selling things and trading things from/at Gencon as a mini-game (I think it is fun and that is what GenCon is about). I would wager that I have a level in “merchant.” I am not a “salesman” and I don’t think I should have a skill called “market reading.” I think my character sheet would say “merchant 1.”

*Shrug* we have to draw the line someplace and group the skills. Also FFG shoul put a note in there that some skills overlap in some situations (if it is not in the book already).

I do not like having two initiative skills, or rather how they are not either/or.

dougnugget said:

That's exactly how we talked it out when we were discussing it, so I guess we were on the right track.

Sturn said:

I don’t know if I like skullduggery and stealth being combined, though. They are substantially different, but both have situations where agility OR cunning could be appropriate associated attributes.

-WJL

On languages. It may require slightly more paper work to track, but If a characer rolls a Triumph or spend a destiny point, during an interaction with a new species, they may use it to gain some fluency in that language. I'm trying it this Tue, when my group meets again.

Are there any obvious problems with this idea?

Vigilance is a weird skill.

Seriously.

It represents a kind of mental preparedness and discipline, but it also covers a kind of passive "alertness" quality as well, since it used for initiative in unexpected combat.

It seems to bizarrely meld aspects of Discipline and Perception . Which makes it seem even more redundant.

It's when I was taking some time to really read and absorb the skill description to develop support for another thread, that I think I figured out why its so weird, and why it's appropriate to list as a separate skill.

The whole damned thing works backwards, temporally.

Think about how you make the rolls. For the prep roll, this is clear, the check is testing:

"Did I prepare for this contingency IN THE PAST?" or "Was I able to foresee the situation BEFORE I GOT INTO IT?"

See, BACKWARDS! You're checking now to modify the implicit narrative that came prior to the check!!

Now, the initiative check portion of the skill could be viewed as being able to stay calm under a sudden change in circumstance , a la "Oh ****, combat". But this is very Discipline-y in nature.

BUT! What if we looked at it given the temporally inverted POV demonstrated above, and the check is actually:

"Did I notice the subtle cues given by opponent prior to the start of the combat ".

I find this interpretation to be vastly more appropriate for the vigilance skill as described in RAW. In fact, if the character making a vigilance check was interacting with the character who was planning on combat starting, his Cool check could easily be seen to represent his ability to stay calm and suppress any cues that would give away he surprise attack. This is also in line with how Cool is described in RAW as well: The targets ability to maintain composure.

Maybe this is old news to everyone, but it was a flash of insight for me about how the skill should be used in the game. I don't think this was very intuitive. It has some interesting applications for how it could be used with Force Powers, and a number of other applications (a skill for opposed Ranged difficulty: Did you notice that guy lining up a shot at your cranium?)

This also ties in with another subject (I think in this thread) about using multiple attributes for different applications of a skill. This could be folded in with P erception because of the similarities between the skills, and the "Retroactive" applications of this skill utilize Willpower (a la Vigilance now), and the "immediate" or "contemporary" utilization uses Cunning (a la the current Perception skill)

I could also be completely out of my mind on all of this, reading way to much into the system…

But what if I'm not…

-WJL

Sturn said:

IMO in order to allign Luke's great ability to fly speeders and xwings … I would prefer a differentiation of pilot abilities based on size ei. Luke has piloting (light craft- ei. siluette 1-3) while Han has piloting (Heavy vehicles - siluette 4+) …as well as probably some ranks in the other too

An idea we talked about after our playtest was how to treat skill challanges ei. we had a situation where our Trader was negotiating over the price of soem components ….where we were pussled by how come it wasnt Negotiation vs. Negotiation ?? We therefor came up with the following idea:

When being targeted by any social skill (Negotiation, Coerce, etc.)

* If you have the same skill - you can enter into a challange where the result can go both ways, ei. the pretty girl thinking she can seduce James Bond only to be seduced herself …

* Otherwise you can always try to simply resist using your Cool (if its presense based such as Negotiation etc.) or with Discipline (if someone is trying to Coerce you).

Variable Stat use for Skills …. and redundant skills

I feel that there are some skills which overlap too much and which are pointless to split up, ei we dont have a ranged (light pistol) , (heavy pistol) , (machine gun) etc …we simply have ranged (light) - skill candidates for deletion IMO:

* Cool , drop this and simply use Vigilance or Discipline associated with Presense when needed

* Surveillance , drop this and simply use Perception or Stealth ted with Intelligence when needed

* Knowledge (underworld), drop this and simply use streetwise or the appropriate 'local' knowledge (outerrim or core worlds) skill

Additionally speaking of alternative stat usage …

I would prefer to use Ranged (light) combined with Brawn …for throwing granades etc.

I'd like a bit more info on the Athletics vs maneuvers divide. The skill lists jumping, climbing, swimming, and running when things are challenging. However, it doesn't actually let you move. Are you supposed to make the athletics roll first, see if you succeed in your jump/climb/etc before you spend the maneuver to move? What is the difference between rolling to swim in rough waters and spending multiple maneuvers to move due to difficult terrain (pg138)?

I guess I'm flummoxed as to why the skill that defines your movement capabilities doesn't mention the move maneuver and vice versa.

-EF

EDIT: I think I found my answer on page 139, WATER AND SWIMMING. It says you spend one action as well as the number of maneuvers to traverse.

LethalDose said:

Beyond that “I am batman” stuff the skill is counterintuitive. I do not see how being prepared only helps sometimes. Training, practicing, and reading about an instance is MOST often good enough to get the job done (as in troops who never seen combat can still be quite competent). Sure there is that stuff about combat vets being skilled and more able to keep ones cool under fire. However can we not just say that more levels of the skill is more experience (effectively the limit on character creation skills caped at two levels)?

I don’t get it. At the very least make it a Vigilance or Cool roll for initiative and let the player pick. There is often more than one way to get things done.

Carousel reversal spray . . . never leave home without it . . . pack one in your utility belt.

Our GM is coming over in a few hours, so that's about how much longer I'll have the book. I decided to take a closer look at the skills my character has and read the entire entry for Pilot - Space for the first time.

"Extra [successes] on a Pilot (Space) check allow the acting character to gain insights into the situation."

Okay, that's a bit odd. I would expect things like moving more swiftly, maneuvering more deftly, positioning your ship in a certain way that's advantageous, perhaps even using it more efficiently in terms of fuel consumption or hull strain so it's easier or cheaper to maintain in the long run. How about benefits for the rest of the crew's skill checks during your flying because it's a smoother ride?

But instead, good piloting gives you insight. I guess it's kind of zen.

It gets better, though, because:

"Alternatively, he might deduce a way that his vehicle could be modified so that it could be more effective in the future."

Yes, often when flying in combat or through a difficult set of conditions where reflexes and skill are important enough to require die rolls in an RPG, the pilot would be thinking, "You know, if the gyro stabilizers on the maneuvering thrusters were made out of a composite alloy, this would make it easier to change direction in zero g by about 15%!"

Good piloting not only gives you insight, it helps you provide pointers to mechanics and engineers.

This is about the time that I realized that for every one thing that I like about this game, there is something very odd or awkward or just plain logic defying, leaving me to feel like there's not nearly enough beta time to polish this thing. Sorry to be negative, but there are some very strange choices here.

They certainly need to fine tune and give more details on the use of extra successes, advantages, threats, triumphs and despairs for non-combat skills, particular social skills, but also others. Examples, examples and examples, they're needed to give indications on how to spend these things in various and odd and "non-standard" situations.

I have also reacted to the odd "bonuses" you get from doing amazing pilot rolls, although I guess since the system is so abstract, successes can't really let you move there "faster" since a manoeuvre is a manoeuvre… the use of triumph is odd, I thought that 2 advantages was enough to gain a free manoeuvre, unless this pilot related triumph lets you go beyond the 2 max manoeuvres per round… thinking about it, there might be something about that in the starship chapter.. hohum!

LethalDose said:

Agreed. I think there is an overlap between vigilance and perception, cool and discipline, and vigilance and discipline that needs to be ironed out / cleared up. I think the cleanest way to handle this is:

> eliminate vigilance as a skill; use discipline, cool, or perception for initiative depending on the situation (ie kick in the door, Han shooting first, or being ambushed).

> the "preparedness" aspect of vigilance can be baked into discipline, or just handled with destiny points.

STEATH & SKULDUGGERY

I definitely see these as two separate and distinct skills. Someone a few posts up made a great point about hunters versus thieves. Hunters are stealthy, but don't necessarily know how to pick locks. Keep these as is.

Jegergryte said:

I agree here, though the other thing I'd like done with the skills is that I would like to see more specific examples of how you should determine difficulty, or add setback and boost dice. Especially setback dice since there are several talents that let you take off setback dice but no real explanation on what setback dice would be there in the first place; we are given how the environment can add setbacks, but not how setbacks might be added in other ways for specific skills and circumstances. Other questions are how common should setback dice be? What would a setback die be for Astrogation? Survival? Vigilance?

We have very broad examples on what can generate negative dice, but I would like more detailed examples to show the differences between difficulty, challenge and setback dice, and what each skill can be setback by or boosted. While an experienced, creative GM can probably figure out these things given time, not everyone is going to be like that, more examples will help new GMs learn the principles behind the system. More experienced GMs would probably benefit from this as well, to help them make dice pools faster and have better comparison points for unique situations.

I have had an idea about how skills can be separated from specializations and make it more worth buying into skills. The proposal will effectively get rid of the notion of non-career skills, replacing the two skill types with starting skills and learned skills

What I mean is this, at character creation we are given 8 career skills and then up to 4 more career skills with the first specialization. And then in character advancement we can buy ranks in career skills and non-career skills (at an inflated xp cost) or we can buy a new specialization that gives us access to up to 4 new career skills.

My proposal is that at character creation we are given 8 starting skills and then up to 4 more starting skills with the first specialization. And then in character advancement we can buy access to new learned skills , increase current skills , or buy a new specialization (but only to gain access to the relevant talent tree, no more extra career skills).

So to buy access to a new learned skill costs a flat rate of 5 XP and then you can buy ranks in this skill as per the current guidelines for increasing career skills. I think that this is a good compromise between the current inflated price of non-career skills and the need to have a distinction between skills that you start with and skills that you buy later.

It would also mean that any character that starts off with ranks in a non-career skill, because of racial bonuses, keeps that skill as an extra starting skill.

This would also solve some of the issue brought up in the classless system discussion.

A follow-on proposal is to introduce a requirement for gaining a new specialization, along the lines of 'you must have at least one rank in two of the specialization's starting skills to be able to gain access to the specs talent tree' .

This would encourage characters to move into new specs logically from a spec that already has crossover skills and stagger advancement for a character wanting to add an unconnected spec by forcing the character to first buy access to and then a rank in a learned skill (costing 10xp for access and one rank for each skill).

What do you think?

Exalted5 said:

I actually LIKE vigilance, I think perception/allertness/investigation/spot-checks definately DO need to be split in two skills and I think the split on vigilance & perception is pretty good … whereas I do think Cool is really very weird, cool in my book is simply vigilance or discipline using Presence as stat ….

Having posted 2 really negative posts I just wanted to balance it out by saying that the dice system and using them with the skills is a blast.

One simple skillcheck can result in so many diffrent result and a failure does not always mean you instantly fail. Let me elaborate.

Talking the skills and how they worked in junction with the dice me and one of my players found that his Smuggler wanted to charm his way into a nightclub.

This takes some smooth RPing from the player in combination of a roll of the dice. The RP is up to my player, but the roll can end up with a series of interesting results. To give you a some reference he used the phrase "If you let me in for free I'd let you pod race my undies" and then rolled the dice.

Now, this can result in six diffrent results.

1) At least one Success and at least one Advantage.
2) At least one Success but with no Advantage or Threat.
3) At least one Success but with atleast one Threat.
4) At least one Failure but with atleast one Advantage.
5) At least one Failure and with no Threat or Advantage.
6) At least one Failure and with at least one Threat.

Using the same phrase for each result this is what can happend as we interpret the skill and dice system.

1) The guard agrees to let the smuggler in thinking there will be underwear pod racing later on.

2) The guard agree to let the smuggler in, but will try to make sure there will some underwear pod racing later on by asking each time she sees him again.

3) The guard agree to let the smuggler in, but want the underwear pod racing in advance, that alley over there seems good enough or keep en eye on him for as long as he is in the nightclub.

4) The guard decline the smuggler to enter unless some underwear pod rcing is conducted.

5) The guard decline to let the smuggler inside and thats that! Unless he come up with something else, entry fee is 5 credits by the way.

6) The guard does not only decline the smuggler to enter the nightclub, the guard will make sure that the management knows they got a moonlighting hussey at their doorstep.

Okay, this is just a veraity of options that can happend of course, but I just wanted to post this as either some inspiration on what to do/use the dice in combination with skills and further say:

You made made skill-rolls interesting, narrative-friendly and fun!

Ski said:

Please note that 'Martial Arts' is actually a *broader* category than Brawl. It includes all of Melee as well.

Kung-Fu is a Martial Art. Boxing is a Martial Art. Wrestling is a Martial Art. Fencing is a Martial Art. (Ok, *modern* fencing is a martial *sport*, but that's not what I was discussing.) Medieval great sword styles are Martial Arts.

Brawl is unarmed hand-to-hand combat. Melee is armed hand-to-hand combat. They are *both* the domain of 'Martial Arts'

KnightFysher said:

Being myself a black belt in karate I completely agree with the above. Specialization talents trees for combat in later supplements would be a great addition to the game line.

If I'm not mistaken, and I most certainly may be, the update refers to page 137 - which, I believe, states that the attacker can choose to cause strain OR lethal damage - which most certainly makes sense to me, a trained martial arts master can maim, kill and neutralise/disable without killing a target. Of course I might be wrong, but this is how I've been using it - the doctor in my group has just recently acquired the pressure point talent, strain damage galore!

Concern: The skill list is long in my opinion. I count 32 skills. So if a character puts points in a skill I have a 1/32 chance if it helping me next time. It seems a bit odd that I can have a computers skill of 0, astrogation 5.

Idea: I have been playing WFRP for a long time. I like how they made some skills specializations of other skills. That way you can have a more manageable skill list but still have a lot of options. It might be late for a retool like that but I think it worked well.

Astrogation specialization of computers
Charm could be a specialization of negotiate
Cool could be a specialization of leadership
All knowledge skills could be a specialization of a general knowledge skill
Deceit could be a specialization of skullduggery
Brawl could be a specialization of melee
Planetary and space could be a specialization of pilot
Heavy, gunnery and light could be a specialization of ranged

Bones1968 said:

There's already been a fair amount of discussion about skill list consolidation on these forums, and with the removal of surveillance we've seen some indication

However, I don't know that introducing a new mechanic (specialization) would be appropriate for the game given how it works in WFRPG and the dice mechanic we have in EotE.

-WJL