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masque
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Joined: 16 Mar 2006
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Location: Houston, TX
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 Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 10:24 am Post subject: |
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| Gry Sarth wrote: | | It does kinda makes sense to limit how far a specialization can get from its base skill. I mean, how can you be the best d*mn gunslinger in the galaxy with a DL-44, but absolutely suck if you're wielding any other kind of blaster? |
If you're going from one blaster PISTOL type to another, you have a point. I never have a player specialize that specifically, however, blaster pistol itself would be the specialization.
Going from pistols to rifles, however, is a big difference. I myself have fired .22 rifles and 12 guage shotguns, and am a mediocre shot, but I can handle those weapons. I've fired a pistol once, and I was horrible at it. If I practiced, I'd get better, but nothing with my 2D shotgun skill or 3D .22 rifle skill helped me to fire that pistol. There is a considerable difference between those types of weapons in the real world, so I see no problem with the game rules reflecting that.
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RedFox
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Joined: 26 Jul 2004
Posts: 196
Location: El Centro, CA
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 10:31 am Post subject: |
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Oh, you're arguing from a realism in Star Wars mindset. Nevermind then. This rule obviously isn't for you.
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masque
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Joined: 16 Mar 2006
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Location: Houston, TX
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 10:39 am Post subject: |
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| RedFox wrote: |
| Quote: | | A specialization is a subset of a skill, but is also a skill unto itself. If the specialization increased automatically, you are increasing 2 separate skills for the price of one. That's too easy, no one would ever use anything BUT specializations. It also fails to reflect the extra time the character would have to put into the skill to make that specialization better than the base skill. Specialized skills require effort, and the standard rules reflect that. |
The effort are the pips you pay into it. Re-examine the R&E take on specializations as skills themselves. Instead, evaluate them as bonus dice to the base skill in specific circumstances. |
As you will see in my response to Gry, real world experience with guns has taught me that specializations work better as separate skills, rather than as bonuses. I understand your point, I simply disagree with it, and think it is an unrealistic view.
| Quote: | | The thing preventing munchkinism is the hard cap on specialization dice. |
That hard cap is unrealistic, as it is quite possible in real life terms to be an expert shot with something like a sniper rifle, and horrible with a pistol. This is why I wouldn't use the hard cap, as the "separate skill" way of looking at things simply makes more sense to me.
| Quote: | | If a player want to push any of their skills into the stratosphere, that's their right, but they have to pay the point cost to do it, be it a regular skill or a specialization. Freebies like you propose, without limits, encourages abuse, and with limits is pointless. I see no reason to change the rule. |
And yet people were complaining about the way specializations currently work. That's why I proposed a house rule for it.[/quote]
I understand that. In my opinion, those complaints about specialization are based on a misunderstanding, and I'm explaining why it works the way it does.
| Quote: | | And again, you're throwing out unqualified hyperbolic statements. I'm still unsure how a maximum of 3D of linked specialization is "abuse" or "worthless." Which is it, by the way? |
I'm not using any hyperbole. I'm expressing my opinion. Freebie advancement of specializations based on increasing the base skill without a 3D cap is abuse, with the cap is worthless because it prevents specializations from going higher than the base skill and is a bad representation of how specialized skills work in the real world.
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masque
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 10:46 am Post subject: |
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| RedFox wrote: | | Oh, you're arguing from a realism in Star Wars mindset. Nevermind then. This rule obviously isn't for you. |
I'm no "realism" nazi or anything. I would be playing GURPS Star Wars if I was. I'm simply of the opinion that the Star Wars rules are abstracted away from the realistic enough as is. This rule is fine as written, as far as I'm concerned. I was simply elaborating WHY the rule as written works the way it does, for those who seemed to have a problem with it.
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RedFox
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Joined: 26 Jul 2004
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Location: El Centro, CA
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 11:00 am Post subject: |
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| masque wrote: |
I'm no "realism" nazi or anything. I would be playing GURPS Star Wars if I was. I'm simply of the opinion that the Star Wars rules are abstracted away from the realistic enough as is. This rule is fine as written, as far as I'm concerned. I was simply elaborating WHY the rule as written works the way it does, for those who seemed to have a problem with it. |
Umm, yet your whole definition of why the rule is "worthless" is based around the hard cap being unrealistic. That's the basis of your argument.
I'm not saying you're a nazi. If that's your thing, then more power to you. But if playability is more of a concern than realism, this rule may work for folks. Dismissing it as "worthless" is hyperbole when what you really mean is "it is not realistic," or the less useful, (because it is unqualified and thus harder to evaluate it) "it is worthless to me."
And FWIW I also have fired guns. Yet I feel confident in implementing this house rule in my own games, as I feel that it still presents a working, viable model for play, that solves those issues people brought up previously in the thread, so long as they do not share your evaluation of its "realism."
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masque
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 11:03 am Post subject: |
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| RedFox wrote: | | And FWIW I also have fired guns. Yet I feel confident in implementing this house rule in my own games, as I feel that it still presents a working, viable model for play, that solves those issues people brought up previously in the thread, so long as they do not share your evaluation of its "realism." |
It belongs over in the House Rules section, then.
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RedFox
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 11:10 am Post subject: |
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| masque wrote: | | It belongs over in the House Rules section, then. |
The entire thread? What? Am I not allowed to propose a house rule to fix perceived problems with an official rule, brought up in the thread about it in the official rule forum?
If it's causing too much thread drift, I can certainly post a new thread in the other forum and provide a link here to it.
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 1:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Endwyn wrote: | I have to agree that limiting specializations would discourage people from taking them, and for many characters specializations are needed.
At game start specializations help you to have a more skillful character than you might otherwise, even if only in narrow fields. It helps relieve some of the pain of having to make up for lack of dice from things like attribute loss for force powers. It also helps when building characters who need lots of skills in more limited fashion. Why learn to fly all ships if all you are ever going to fly is a YT-1300? Especially if as the only person flying a ship you need at least 4-5 other skills minimum to solo man the ship's controls?
Don't cripple specializations unless you want them gone....but realize that when specializations are gone so are some of the character concepts your players may have wanted to try. |
One of the better limiting suggestions i have seen for specialties, is that they cannot be 'more than double' the base skill.. That might be a good compromise..
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Endwyn
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Joined: 22 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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I don't think that limiting specializations is entirely bad, but if that's the only rule that changes there is a problem. Only because if there is a limit, say the 3D. You have Starfighter Piloting: 3D (X-wing: 6D). Now you have to increase base Starfighter piloting, then you could increase X-Wing...but when you increase the base you don't get anything to your X-wing. (Which is all you use.)
If for the house rule games you change more to the system (like current discussions have) to make it so that you don't run into problems where you are spending CP's just to be able to buy into skills you can use (as the increase in the base doesn't help the spec in official rules).
I hope everyone can see why that was my concern.
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