Skill suggestion

[Shevek]

First off, I do not have the beta but I have been seeing many twitch streams and the like. I have a suggestion concerning skills.

 

Looking at the skill system, it seems a bit too antiquated. Every level, players just dump points on their "focus skills". If they metagame, they look at a guide and find out how much is "enough" to min max their characters. Why have the player dump points every level rather than pick their focus from the get-go?

 

I think this game could learn a bit from DnD Next. In that system, players can simply choose what skills they are proficient with at creation (limited by class) and then get more proficiencies based on the background they choose (allowing them access to skills outside their class). This makes stat bonuses more impactful and makes the system, I think, more intuitive. 

 

Other systems have had systems like the one I mentioned. In particular, I recall playing Star Wars Saga edition some time ago and skills functioned similar to this (there were even variant rules that allowed players to pick backgrounds to expand skill proficiencies). Its been a while since I played Saga, but I remember it working pretty well.

 

Just a thought...

[Enoch]

I'm not a great fan of players having to lock-in decisions like that at character generation.  Flexibility is a plus-- if a player sees lots of opportunities to use Survival skills and would like to try them out, he or she should be able to sink some points there and see the desired result.  Won't get as much out of it as the player who invested heavily from the start, but hopefully should see some benefits.

 

That said, the actual interface for investing skillpoints was not very intuitive.  It took me a while to figure out that 1 skill point does not always get me 1 level of proficiency in a skill.  There are definitely opportunities to make this clearer to the player.  (Or to re-structure the system to make the diminishing returns manifest more in the skill-check thresholds than in the player's skillpoint investment.)

[Ragg]

I'm not a great fan of players having to lock-in decisions like that at character generation.  Flexibility is a plus-- if a player sees lots of opportunities to use Survival skills and would like to try them out, he or she should be able to sink some points there and see the desired result.  Won't get as much out of it as the player who invested heavily from the start, but hopefully should see some benefits.

I'm not sure this is going to happen in practice. I mean, if you're well into the game and suddenly decide you want to pick up a new skill, are you even going to be able to catch up to the skill levels required? Not to mention that the already invested points are somewhat wasted if you don't keep leveling the skill.

[Enoch]

 

I'm not a great fan of players having to lock-in decisions like that at character generation.  Flexibility is a plus-- if a player sees lots of opportunities to use Survival skills and would like to try them out, he or she should be able to sink some points there and see the desired result.  Won't get as much out of it as the player who invested heavily from the start, but hopefully should see some benefits.

I'm not sure this is going to happen in practice. I mean, if you're well into the game and suddenly decide you want to pick up a new skill, are you even going to be able to catch up to the skill levels required? Not to mention that the already invested points are somewhat wasted if you don't keep leveling the skill.

 

 

Depends on how linear the overall game is and on how the skillcheck thresholds are set.  If you need to be a bleeding-edge expert to accomplish anything, you may be right.  But it makes for a better game if the skillchecks thresholds are more varied and allow generalists to get some benefits for their more moderate investment. 

Edited August 19, 2014 by Enoch

[Shevek]

Chances are that if you decide to switch skills mid game, you have gimped your character. One thing Sawyer seems to be against is character development systems that lead to gimped characters (hence their approach to stats). It would be best to lock this down early to fit within the design of the rest of the system.

Edited August 19, 2014 by Shevek

[Enoch]

Chances are that if you decide to switch skills mid game, you have gimped your character.

 

Again, this is only true if you assume that the skill checks you encounter will all be at the top-end of what is achievable based on your approximate party level.

 

If all areas of the game have some low, some medium, and some high-threshold skill checks in a variety of skills, then a generalist who dabbles in 3 skills (and makes all the low-threshold checks for all 3 skills) is going to be just as advantaged as a specialist (who makes all the low, medium, and high-threshold checks in only 1 skill). 

[Shevek]

I somehow doubt that skill dabblers will be (or even SHOULD be) a viable option in a party based game with very few skills.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Shevek

[Ragg]

Supposedly the idea is to have a range of skill check thresholds for all areas so that a generalist can succeed at a lot of easier skill checks, or a specialist can succeed at all skill checks but only for 1 or 2 skills. I hope the balancing works out and all skills will be useful, and generalists and specialists will be useful as well. Based on the beta I'd pick up Lore and Survival for my PC and a bunch of points in Might, Intellect, Perception & Resolve for the conversation options. Hopefully the rest of the game is more balanced in this regard.