Recognizing the enemies skill??

[garhkal]

So say you have a group of 5 pcs..
PC 1 is a scoundrel template who has great con/forgery, and little in the way of combat skills.. but loves carrying lots of grenades to "make him look more than he is.
PC 2 is a starfighter jock skilled in the fine art of bar fighting, but other than that, sucks if he gets into combat not in a bar or in a fighter.
PC3 is a small of stature but excells in hand to hand or melee combat
PC4 is a ranged combat alfonsio
PC5 is the medic, but loves wearing heavy armor, just cause his dodge sucks.

Group of 5 baddies show up..
3 regular storm troopers, one veteran and one royal guard on ST rotation.

Say the pc's ask to 'scan the opponents' before hostilities begin to see which are the more threatening/baddest (OR you decide the npcs do it to the party).

What type of roll do you make to see if they figure that out? Do you even have a roll?
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[jmanski]

No, that's power gaming. Do you have any idea of the abilities of someone who just walked up to you? Nope. Make 'em guess.
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Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?

[Quetzacotl]

Make a Perception roll and another roll for the skill, as long as it is visible. You can probably see if a Person is a good fighter or shooter. But you won't really see it if he's a good talker (high persuation) or if he's exceptionally educated or the like.

And no, thats not power gaming -.- It would rather be meta gaming, if anything (I wouldn't even say it's meta gaming. It's kinda normal to estimate the abilities of others).

[Jedi Skyler]

Unless you're a Jedi, or some other Force-user who has Receptive Telepathy, you are NOT going to be able to know who's the 'baddest' in any given group. There are, however, certain physical cues you will have available in order to make some educated guesses:

1. Many, MANY professional military personnel walk with a certain swagger. I know this; I AM a vet, after all. It's not a foolproof thing, but it's a definite phenomenon.

2. You mentioned the con/forger wearing grenades to make himself look badder than he really is. Your NPC group might come to false conclusions about him; however, those conclusions might just make them concentrate fire on him, taking him out as though he were the tank of the group, and the secondary result might be wiping out the entire PC group when all those grenades go BOOOOOOM when one gets hit.

3. There is also certain awareness that proficient hand-to-hand combatants have, and that is something that is projected by how they look when they walk. These people walk with their heads held high; they're constantly looking around themselves, appraising their surroundings and those they find around themselves. When someone who has similar training is around, that's something they know to look for, and it's a possible catch for a perceptive character.

The converse of that, is PC3, who's small, but a kick-@$$ melee and hand-to-hand combatant. It's possible THIS character might be completely overlooked and dismissed, thus allowing him the opportunity for a great and highly effective sneak attack.

[lurker]

[garhkal]

What about say tactics> Say the ones trying to 'gauge' roll their tactics skill, versus a set diff (or opposed per roll)?
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Naaman]

I agree with Skyler. Even within the military, for someone who actually thinks about this kind of thing, it is fairly easy to pick out which people are pogues and which are special forces, etc, even when everyone is wearing civvies.

A person who is competent with grenades would likely wear them a certain way, and the scoundrel type character may not really "know" what way that is, which may give him away inadvertently (but only to someone who understands grenade tactics). For example, the grenades most likely would not just be hanging by the pin on his chest rig... they'd by covered up in a grenade pouch, with a flap over the grenade... so no-one would actually see them exposed.

The way that the kit is carried will also give someone away. "Cool guys" like Han Solo, who wear their stuff all sloppy are obviously not trained to military standards (yeah, yeah... I know where Han comes from... but the character pre-dates the use of technical advisors who would have corrected this sort of thing during production). So, even if Han is a great shot, if caught off guard, a trained, tactically competent shooter will always get the drop on him, since such a shooter lives in a constant state of preparedness. Every piece of gear is placed specifically about his person for a specific reason and for tactical optimization.

This kind of thing will be readily recognized by a peer, but the common thug on the street may not pick up on such "subtleties." For example, picking out the difference between a SWAT officer and a regular officer when both are given the same load out. Unless the regular officer has aspirations to join SWAT or has other background (such as military/combat experience), he's unlikely to be as meticulous about his personal set up.

As for how to recognize this: I'd say there are a couple of possibilities. First, it seems fairly obvious to me that a base perception roll is the "right" answer, but the character's own skill and experience should affect the roll in some way.

This could be something as simple needing the appropriate skill to even be allowed the roll, or providing a bonus on the roll based on the character's own understanding of what to look for. As for estimating the number of D in the skill would probably be a case-by-case basis, depending on how much on character has or could observe his quarry. Just my $0.02

[Nico_Davout]

[Lancil]

I would have them roll the skill that they are trying to evaluate. If someone is trying to determine the blaster skill proficiency of someone else I would have them roll their blaster skill and set a difficulty. And I would say that it would be easier to determine if some one had a really high or really low skill.

[Jedi Skyler]

[Naaman]

The point is that the blaster is not entirely secure. The holster isn't strapped to his leg, it just kinda flaps around loosely. A proper drop holster would be secured snug against the thigh, exactly at hand-height. He's got his blaster in the right spot, it's just not secured properly.

And I was only using his style as an example, not really to say that Han himself would be easily outdone. Does that make sense?

[Jedi Skyler]

I hear ya.

Han's blaster is, however, normally secured. If you watch EPI I, you'll in the cantina scene with Greedo, you'll see Han make a gesture with his left hand to distract the bounty hunter, and you'll also distinctly see him undo the safety with his right hand, so he can surreptitiously shoot Greedo when he's not expecting it.

Also, look closely at the holster. It actually IS strapped to his leg, as any good gunslinger would have it. There might be some scenes in the movies where it isn't, but there are those where it IS. A true gunslinger, such as Han Solo, would have the bottom of the holster tied securely to his leg to keep it in position as much as possible.

[Naaman]

Well... Touche, sir.

[Frandal]

In fact I think that the scenes where Han's hoslter isn't tight is due a preparation failure more than "Han is a slopy man with more pose than real training" I don't care if his skill comes from his military past or for his years on the smuggling bussines, it's obvious that this character is a well trained gungslinger and one you don't want to cross in a fight.
Details like if he has the hoslter stripped to his leg or not, from my point of view, shouldn't be important, remember that when we see him we are seeing a representation of a character, a film, made a long time ago but in a planet very very close, by people very similiar to us and this kind of "mistakes" shouldn't be taken into account to determine one or another character background or abilities.

On the other hand and returning to the question posed on the thread, I agree that people who knows where and what to look will be able to recognize some details that could give hints of the overall skill of someone.

Perception or Lore rolls could be appropiate.

I will not give the players the skill rank in numbers if they beat the difficulty. "You see that the man at the table had a pose that allows him to reach his blaster easily and that he has his cape over his left shoulder both to cover his right hand movements from anyone looking at him from the rest of the bar and not to ander him if he has to draw. He has his back against the wall, and the position of the table he has chosen allows him to control most of the bar and, obviusly the entrance where you are stading... "
( This will come with a very good roll of course )

One more point I would take in mind will be reputation and especifics details of the situation.

Probably if the man they are going to meet at the cantina has a skill of 11D (let's go crazy here ) in blasters a roll in streetwise for example could give the players some tales of the renowed skill of this mate with his blaster, giving the same information to the players by other means.

And finally, if the man is a newcomer to the system the streetwise roll should be harder, for his reputation here is not as spread as it should be.

In the example of the stormtroopers, the same armor, beign in a regular platoon.... I will say that detecting the Royal Guard between the rest of the platoon just seeing them would be really difficult for the players.

[Hyfigh]

I'd say a fairly high difficulty Perception roll would be required. You actually can determine many peoples clout simply by studying them a little. Watching how they move, carry themselves, what their eyes are doing, how they hold their weapons, etc... If they're wandering around clumsy-like, it's fairly safe to assume, normally, that they're uncoordinated. If they're walking slouched, and eyeing the ground, they usually aren't very confident. If they're holding their weapon wrong (something I love to pick out in movies) they likely aren't very skilled with it. This isn't to say that sometimes individuals won't fake incompetence to lull their foes into security...