Skill level cap?

[Naaman]

[CRMcNeill]

I’m mostly with Whill here, but seriously, why does the game need an arbitrary dice cap, when earning enough CP to get to that level takes years of gaming anyway? There’s already a rule in place to cap Attribute improvement, and skill improvement cost slopes up pretty far at higher levels, so if a player wants to push as far as he can in a specific area, what’s the problem. If this is something you’re having problems with in your gaming group, are you perhaps giving away too many CP, which allows characters to advance too quickly?
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Naaman]

I figured it was more of an issue of adding value to attributes so that choosing where to allocate your attributes at character creation remains more of a consequential decision over time.

For what it's worth, our group used to play an entire campaign in one summer (hitting the 10D-12D range in our primary skills at the culmination of the campaign... I think my highest skill ever achieved was 13D+2 which was actually a combination of brawling and (A) martial arts). And yes, we spent almost every day, most of the day from morning to night gaming. 10 or more hours 5 or more days a week, basically... as I recall, anyway.

The point being that, depending on what the group considers "fun" and "worthwhile" in terms of role playing, there may be no limit to what an appropriate amount of CPs is for an adventure.

For example, in my opinion, a single session should yield at least enough character points to raise one primary skill and have at least one CP left over "in reserve" to add to dice rolls or whatever. Of course, the player may choose to raise two or three other skills or none at all, banking his CP. If the skills my character relies on get to the point where I have to play two or three sessions to raise one of them, it's not as "worthwhile" a gaming session (especially in grown up life where "worthwhile" sessions happen once a month or less).

[Mamatried]

I think Naaman is onto something here.

Now if we look at a normal adventure form a module, it is generally rewarding 3-5CP pr "episode" and most have 2 or more, so an average of 12 Cp pr module.

Now if we look to "non important"named characters, meaning characters that if killed by a palyer will not change anything significant in canon or the timeline used, be this canon, legends or custom.

First: 9/10 named NPCs that are force users have 18D to attributes + force skills, not like the characters where they spend attribute Dice to buy force skills.

Secondly, seeing their ages and their levels of skills and number of dice we see something strange.

there is no way a character can ever be anything other than a "elite trooper" in the game as pr the rules.
No character would be able to be at par with even a mere "padawan" without having spent about year or two playing.

Lets look at some of the characters, we can take mara jade, 2 years younger than Luke. She has 100s of Dice to skills, and 18D +force.

Luke, though he is a important one has the same thing.

Now if characters could get x10 cp each "episode" then they would over a year be able to "be the heroes" in level.

I see the general write up of a NPC bad guy, imperial officer on less galactic importance, even a group of 4 Players have combined less skills dice.
and this not at all a boss.

Now stormies and the like are mere mooks and should imo maybe be more challenging, but this is about the "detailed NPCS"

I for the life of me can not see how there can be that many on that level if they all (for the jedi and sith) had ot spend additional CP at a x10 cost to raise upto 3 of their attributes. and then withing the span of a year, or mabye onely 2 earn 100x the amount of XP a player group will earn in a year of play.

Now raising the CP rewards, allowing skills to be advanced to +1D over +1pip, would make a huge differnece.

I did an experiamnet, I had a player use BOBA FETT as a character, though the name was changed for the experiment and then comaperd him to a character, and while he was better in just about everthing, the characther in question could out pilot boba with ease.

However no other boutnty hunter could eve come near, no matter how muh they played and not in the same "in game time"


So maybe simply give more cp is answer I don't know

[Bren]

[Naaman]

In 2 R&E instead of being held in reserve, the character loses 1/2 the character points and immediately gets the balance back.

IMO, it's a lame rule.

Mostly because in the text of the rule itself, it says nothing about a risk of losing CPs for no gain, then, mentions something about going beyond species maximum, and then, the one and only example given is one where the character tries to go beyond species maximum and loses 1/2 his CPs because his roll on 4D+1 (17) was higher than the GM's roll on 4D (15).

It makes it seem like there is only a risk if you attempt to go beyond species maximum.

[Whill]

[CRMcNeill]

I can see both sides on Attribute improvement, but I’m inclined to allow it, as I can see circumstances where a broad enough spectrum of training could plausibly result in an overall increase. Boot camp, for instance, would merit a +1 to Strength skills across the board. A well-rounded college degree might do the same for Knowledge, and so on and so forth.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Mamatried]

[Naaman]

There are some systems that work kinda like this. If we look at WotC's SWRPG (2002 time period) we see a few examples.

Piloting is a skill that a character can raise.

It covers all vehicles and jet packs and the like. A character with no training in piloting can still pilot any vehicle, but they automatically fail all piloting checks. In d20, you don't actually roll for doing regular stuff like driving to the store for some groceries.

If, however, you had to make an emergency maneuver, your dex of 18 (+4 on piloting checks) does you no good, while the guy with dex 10 and 1 rank in piloting (total of +1 on pilot checks) actually gets to roll to try to avoid a crash.

Then, if piloting a starship, the character can, again, pilot a simple commute. However, there are three feats that cover starship piloting (figuters, transports, and capital). A person must have 2 ranks in piloting to take one of these feats. If flying a ship for which you do not have the feat, you take a -4 penalty on the roll.

So, what we see is that zero training gets most people by in life on a normal day.

Minimal training opens up possibilities for contests (opposed rolls) and stunts (tricky or risky maneuvers that range from very easy to super heroic). Starships are harder to fly than other vehicles (-4 penaty).

With specialized training (the right starship feat) you negate the penalty for the classes of ships you train on.

In D6, it may be easier to simulate what you want by imposing a penalty on the roll of an untrained character than to "raise the difficulty."

One thing to be weary of, however, is characters taking 1 pip in every skill (or a whole bunch of skills that make little sense) to make life "easier."

One way to mitigate this would be to retain the penalty until the character has 1D over the attribute, if you wanted to go this route.

[garhkal]

True, but then some folks could argue "certain skills should be able to get done even untrained"//
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Naaman]

Yeah.

Lifting, stamina, dodge, search...

The list goes on.

The skill system is really a mixed bag in this case.

[Naaman]

[garhkal]

Why do you think intimidation should be in that list?
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Bren]