Ruminations on a true 3rd edition

[aegisflashfire]

DougRed4: Possibly, but someone who DOES have the tactics skill above standard perception ranges SHOULD give their team an advantage.

Its basically saying someone who's trained in small unit tactics is better at organizing their team in a firefight than some guy who just is really observant.

I'll take a trained SWAT team member on my team or the guy who was sweeping buildings in Afghanistan over my eagled-eyed buddy any day of the week.

Besides, its further diversifies the skills that a team needs to be successful. Once upon a time, High Dex, High Str, and High Mec meant your character was dominating in almost any fight.


Making Perception, Knowledge and Technical valuable in fight scenarios too should cut down on some of the min-maxing that I find distasteful.
_________________
http://swfallingstar.podbean.com
GM of Falling Star: D6 Star Wars Campaign Podcast

[Random_Axe]

I'd like to offer up for argument, a NEW take on skills and rolling for skills, to borrow from the World of Darkness mechanic of pairing a Stat Plus Skill roll. This would account for the different methods in which a character might use one of his skills.

KNO + Starship Piloting for instance, as opposed to the standard MEC + Piloting, to determine some general knowledge-based subject and not the actual doing of the piloting.

PER + Astrogation to notice some detail which is related to navigation, as opposed to the standard KNO + Astrogation to do the actual nav calculation.

Granted, we would want to keep the standard d6 mechanic of rolling a dice pool and reaching a total score (not looking for "successes" like WoD or Shadowrun), but I'd like to see a method that would have a type of skill be used differently depending on the situations available.

The first problem that I see is that we can't just simply lump a starting character's possible 6d blaster skill along with his possible 3d KNO stat, for a total possible pool of 9d to make a Knowledge check about some kind of blaster question.

One possible solution to that is we might radically re-scale the difficulty ranges to account for the high scores.

The other solution is that we have the player roll the Stat (2d to 4d) plus the amount of dice or pips that the skill has been improved by, not the actual current skill value (which already incorporates its parent stat).

Let's remember first the purpose of having a skill code that is larger than its parent stat code, is that it determines the current CP cost to improve that skill. We can't just have the character sheet read only a number of plus-pips or +1d or +2d for an improved skill, because that will make difficult figuring out how much it would cost to improve that skill again later.

But is this a viable idea for the d6 system?

[aegisflashfire]

Shadowrun 5th also uses such a system. I see a bunch of problems (none of which are insurmountable, but I'm not sure the benefits outweigh the cost)

a) attributes are already part of the ability score.
b) the net effect of that system would further push the high-low range already in the system and require more complicated balancing. (rolls in the 4-5 range are still possible with such a system, but also rolls in the 45+ range) - That will further complicate any attempts to make conversions simple
c) The mechanic is a far cry from the existing D6 mechanic, necessitating an across the board change to nearly every aspect of the game. I'm not sure I want to take on THAT project

d) such a change would pretty much ensure that no one adopted a 3rd edition
_________________
http://swfallingstar.podbean.com
GM of Falling Star: D6 Star Wars Campaign Podcast

[DougRed4]

[aegisflashfire]

I maybe didn't convey well, but I think I'd allow EITHER to be used. But since tactics is improvable....



Next thought:
Will probably rename Hide skill to Conceal skill.

The Hide skill is supposed to be about hiding another object (be it a weapon on your person or covering an X-Wing in camouflage to prevent it from being spotted from the air.) but the name sort of implies that its used to hide yourself. (its not, that's what Sneak is for) Conceal to me implies more something you do to something else.
_________________
http://swfallingstar.podbean.com
GM of Falling Star: D6 Star Wars Campaign Podcast

[DougRed4]

Good call; Conceal is a much better description of that skill.
_________________
Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[atgxtg]

I think maybe an interrupt rule might help with some things. Basically what could see is someone being able to interrupt another character is mid action in order to act.

This would make sense in situations such as someone shooting a couple of blasts at a charging creature before it can get to him, or getting a snap shot off on a TIE fighter than flights right across your fire arc and out of range.

I could see that haste rules working well with this. Every time someone interrupts they up the haste level.

[atgxtg]

[DougRed4]

I've been really getting into (and enjoying) a game called The One Ring (the new Tolkien Middle-earth setting).

That game has a cool way of - at the start of any of the three main parts (an Encounter, Travel, or Combat) - having everyone roll the requisite skill. Depending on how well each character rolls, they'll have between 0-3 extra dice (the game mostly uses six-siders), that either they can use, or that they can give to other players to use (right before they roll) in those segments. So for the combat one (for example, and for this game you'd roll Tactics), it represents how the character sees the battlefield, recognizes features of the terrain that could be used to his sides' advantage, and the like.

It's an outstanding mechanic that reminds me of your idea here.
_________________
Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[atgxtg]

Yeah TOR is pretty neat. Horribly organized, but neat.

[DougRed4]

Very true on the horrible organization. One of the toughest rulebooks to figure out where anything is. Fortunately they've made a revised edition with stuff better organized, as I understand it.
_________________
Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[atgxtg]

[Zarm R'keeg]

[Whill]

[Mojomoe]

In regards to haste ideas, I know my guys are always running high on character points (why, in 18 years do they never upgrade??), so I could see the use of implementing a system like this:

To interrupt an action costs 1 CP, at which point you may make a single action at either 1/2 your skill level, or perhaps a -2D.

This would make it rare to use, but you COULD perform that snap shot on a TIE if it were important. Then if the CP use was warranted, they get it back at the end of the session.

This is as opposed to a reaction skill, which puts you at a penalty the next round; haste would have no follow up penalty.