So which of the d20 games do their skill system the best? or which is your favorite

Thank you for reminding me exactly why I think 5E's skill system is pure shit.

Okay, but is that level of "realism" desirable in a game? And how do you balance around that when it's likely (due to the proliferation of feats in Saga Edition) that everyone will have at least one skill autistically maxed out? Particularly certain skills that are likely to repeatedly come up and are likely to be made by only one person at a time, such as Computers or Persuasion.

A given check is generally considered to be "challenging" in game terms if there is about a 65% chance of success. For our +15 autist, that means a check with a DC of 23.

Generously someone untrained might have a +2, a DC 23 challenge is literally impossible for them to pass, which sounds great on paper until you have to figure out what happens if no one in the group is trained in Computers but the published adventure or equipment or whatever presumes that at least one person will be. There's a lot of skills in Star Wars Saga (about 20, if I recall correctly), but most groups won't have access to all 20 and certainly won't have all of the ones they do have autistically maxed out. So what are they supposed to do?

More to the point, Saga is set up in such a way that the gap never closes, so a 20th level dabbler and a 20th level autist still have the exact same difference in skill modifiers.

Every single time it comes up, realism needs to take a back seat to proper game design. A similar 5e character to our autist above would be a Rogue with Expertise in a skill, so his 1st-level modifier might be as high as +9. A "challenge (65%) for him is DC 17. The dabbler (+2) from before only has a 30% chance of hitting that, so the check is no longer outright impossible, just very unlikely (and even someone with a penalty of -1 still has a 15% chance) . The game no longer grinds to a complete halt just because no one took a given skill.

Because it's designed so that the game won't grind to a halt just because no one took History?

Why the fuck are you intentionally jacking up the DCs against the guy who laser focused his build on something with limited character resources and then bitching that it excludes people who have spent nothing at all on it?

That's your fault as a GM.

>A "challenge (65%) for him is DC 17. The dabbler (+2) from before only has a 30% chance of hitting that
Translation: There is a 13% chance of a dabbler beating the best possible character at his level on a check that challenges him, and for actual realistic characters(+5/+7) the issue is more pronounced. That is a worse gameplay issue than what you're talking about by a fucking mile and I don't and won't accept that as good game design.

Because looking at the problem from the other angle, a dabbler (+2) has a "challenge" (65%) at DC 10, which is so easy for the autist that he literally can't fail it. Which, again, sounds great on paper until you as a game designer find yourself asking "wait, but if this is a common skill like Computers, so it's likely that at least one person in the group will have maxed it out, why should I even bother with a skill check here? The person who maxed it out will be able to pass the check without even needing to roll."

For the sake of practical example, consider the Credit Chip item from the SAGA core rulebook. Accessing a Credit Chip and drawing on the credits in its account requires a DC 15 Use Computers check - in other words, right from 1st level a slicer can access it with literally no chance of failure, presuming an ability modifier of +5, which isn't hard to get even at 1st level (and even a +14 would still give a 100% success rate even on a d20 result of 1). So in other words right from 1st level if you can get your hands on a credit chip - any credit chip - you can slice one open with no problems and no risk of failure.

Which then raises the question that if credit chips are so easy to slice in the Star Wars universe, why the fuck would anyone ever use them?

Mutants & Masterminds, skills are simply purchased to what ever level you wish.

How do we fix D&D 5e's skill system to be less swingy and slavishly devoted to "bounded accuracy"? Try to keep to the d20.

>CR 0 commoner's Intelligence (Arcana) modifier: +0
>level 3 wizard's (please no Lore Master) Intelligence (Arcana) modifier: +5

>"medium" DC: 15

>Intelligence (Arcana), "medium" DC 15
>CR 0 commoner has a 30% chance of succeeding and a 70% chance of failing
>level 3 wizard has a 55% chance of succeeding and a 45% chance of failing

>when answering "medium" questions about "spells, magic items, eldritch symbols, magical traditions, the planes of existence, and the inhabitants of those planes," there is a 13.5% chance that the level 3 wizard fails to know the answer while the CR 0 commoner DOES know

>he uses realism as an example of "good game design"
I'm sneering at you irl.

A commoner can’t answer questions about spells you dingus.

Yes he can, even with Arcana +0.

Except we're still talking strictly a 1st level character, user, a fresh-faced adventurer. By 10th level, the dabbler still only has +2, but the same autistic Rogue will now have a +13 modifier to the skill in question. So a challenge (65%) for the Rogue is now DC 21, which the dabbler only has a 10% chance of hitting. More to the point, the Rogue is actually capable of hitting DCs 25 and 30, while the dabbler isn't.

So the Rogue is reasonably challenged by things that are nearly impossible for the dabbler, and the Rogue can do things that the dabbler just outright can't.

But the Rogue can't walk up to the King and make a Bluff check saying "I am the real King and you're a pretender" so good that the King abdicates on the spot, so, fuck 5e, right?

That's the other reason why I hate large numbers on skill checks; it leads to the presumption that you should be capable of doing frankly ridiculous or impossible things.

No, because he’s a commoner and isn’t even proficient in the skill. It makes no sense whatsoever for him to answer a question about a spell.

Simple - don't change the math, just make it so that you can't even attempt certain skill checks unless you're trained. Any commoner can make an untrained Arcana check to recognize a dragon or get a feeling that someone is under some kind of charm since that's relatively common in D&D; but someone untrained in Arcana can't even attempt checks to identify specific spells or magical symbols.

>why should I even bother with a skill check here
Speaking separately from Saga Edition: because degree of success mechanics exist and knowing exactly how much they succeed by can be relevant, because it's possible to have a system where multiple checks add together in some form, and because it may be important to know whether the untrained character failed.

Literally already the case, it’s just up to the DM.

>Someone with no training at all should be able to pass a skill check challenging for someone with expert training
No.

>He ignore immersion in favor of gamey design
I'm sneering harder.

>So the Rogue is reasonably challenged by things that are nearly impossible for the dabbler, and the Rogue can do things that the dabbler just outright can't.
Yes. Someone specialized in something can do things that someone who never trained in it can't.

Oh, I forgot one final detail about the 10th level autistic Rogue verses the 10th-level dabbler: the dabbler is still challenged himself by the same DC 10 challenges that he was at 1st level. But at 1st level the Rogue could pass those automatically right off the bat - the same thing that was challenging for the dabbler was child's play for the Rogue.

You don't need proficiency in a skill to attempt a skill check in 5e. This is largely because there's still a number of reasons you might know a specific thing even if not proficient. For example, someone with the Sailor background can probably name a number of stars even without proficiency in Survival; someone with the Acolyte background could reasonably know details about history as it relates to their church even if not trained in History. A commoner who's a drinking buddy with the local hedge mage might know a few random fact about simple spells.

As a good real-life example of this, I'm not a historian, but I can name every American President and their party affiliation (if any) as well as a bunch of random facts about most of them, like the fact that Polk oversaw the largest land expansion of the US.

Having said that, you're on the right track, but it should probably be that certain attempts at skill should be impossible - wizard drinking buddy or no, a common shouldn't be able to identify a casting of Wish on sight, for example.

...are you agreeing with me, or...? Because that's how it works in 5e. Only someone with incredible natural talent (ability score 20) can ever even hope to hit DC 25 checks, and only someone with actual training can hit DC 30 checks.

Right, 5e leaves NPC knowledge up to the DM where it belongs.

Your players might happen to know something the wizard might not know, but the wizard isn’t supposed to be all knowing - especially at 3rd level. So what you are complaining about isn’t a commoner knowing something a wizard doesn’t, it’s that a fighter or other 10 INT non-proficient class knows a thing.

It's a gameplay issue and a realism issue. Investing in something only to have it turn up nothing while a character who invested the most minimal amount beats you is one of the shittiest feelings you can get out of a game and its existence is inherent to 5E's skill system.

Well, I am agreeing with you if you think that's perfectly fine if someone trained can do thins that someone untrained just can't even attempt (because he doesn't even know how)
I'm disagreeing with you if you say it's a problem.

I'm not complaining about it at all, dude, I find it completely reasonable, both from an in-universe standpoint (everyone on the planet knows random factoids that have nothing to do with their jobs; there's literally games based around that fact), and from a game design standpoint (just because the wizard didn't know the answer to something doesn't mean the game should grind to a complete halt).

Personally, I follow the “one check one roll” approach where if the party is trying to cough up a fact and miss the roll no one on the party knows, but maybe they choose between 1d20+0 with advantage or the wizard’s 1d20+5 without advantage as the wizard and fighter discuss what it could be.

But I also use failed checks as an opportunity to do something to make their lives more difficult, so having multiple shots on goal doesn’t work well for my style.

>More to the point, when developing SW Saga one of the things the developers said they wanted to do was cut down on situations where people avoid making certain skill checks because of their high chance of failure - the problem of, say, "we have to cross a desert, the only way across is on Dewback, but only one member of the group is trained in Ride. So we're gonna need to look for another solution because if we get ambushed while Riding or otherwise run into a situation where we need to make Ride skill checks, most of us are going to be boned if the DC is any higher than 10."

Where did you read this?

You're talking about it like it's a hugely recurring problem or something.

Mathematically, an 8th level character (+5 ability, +3 proficiency) can be expected to pass a DC 20 skill check 70% of the time if he's proficient and it's tied into his primary ability; whereas someone who's untrained and it's not tied into their primary ability has only anywhere from a 30% (+0) to 55% (+5) chance, and the last presumes incredible natural talent equal to that of the trained person.

>is one of the shittiest feelings you can get out of a game

Maybe for you, but not all our egos are so delicate. I once watched someone playing Ocarina of Time for the first time beat the Water Temple trivially, easily figuring out the puzzles, and WITHOUT THE BLUE TUNIC, because he didn't even have it and didn't know he needed it. I didn't feel like shit, I was just amazed.

During the development of the game, it was posted on the Wizards of the Coast website by the designers. The article is gone now as far as I know, and I don't know how to track it down.

>DC 20

*meant DC 15, mea culpa.

>I once watched
You watched someone being skillful, not just lucky.
Besides, your ego seems much more delicate if you can't take that your untrained character outright can't try something that a trained one can.

If I objected to the idea that there are some things that untrained characters can't do, then why would I have brought up DCs 25 and 30, and why would I have posted this, ?

Figure out who you're arguing with, dude.

You're talking about it like it's not. 9% is not so low that you'll never see it and for most of a campaign, skill bonuses are going to be well under +8.

>9% is not so low that you'll never see it

You're right, but statistically speaking it means you'll only see it slightly less than 1 out of every 10 rolls, with it decreasing in likelihood as your skill bonus goes up and the untrained person's doesn't. You're still doing the overwhelming amount of work in carrying the team where the skill is considered.

You have a delicate, delicate ego if you feel that if you fail at a thing, EVERYONE must also fail at that thing.

Grow up.

>with it decreasing in likelihood as your skill bonus goes up
Yeah, by a whole +3 without Expertise at max level, leaving you with a 6% chance of failing a DC 15 check while +0 guy succeeds at it. At level 20.

This is something that either doesn't happen at all or has a

Make medium DC 10

>leaving you with a 6% chance of failing a DC 15 check while +0 guy succeeds at it

You prefer the game should grind to a halt just because you were unlucky? Alternatively, you prefer your character to trivialize things that should be difficult to the point where there's no reason for you to even bother making skill checks?

This math also fails to take into account things like the spell Guidance or Bardic Inspiration.

> in a lot of systems

Those systems, I find, run face-first into the problems outlined above; that is, that as a consequence of granting phenomenal cosmic power to people trained in a skill, people UNTRAINED are so bad at it that they might as well not make any of the checks; or conversely the person is so GOOD at it that it's impossible to reliable challenge him on things that should be challenging (consider the credit chip example from above)

>offensive

Seriously? Offensive? I can understand not liking it and preferring the version where you can walk up to the King on his throne and unseat him with wordplay - we all like the occasional power trip - but I can't comprehend being actually offended by a system that, even if I didn't like it, is at least mathematically sound and consistent in what it's trying to do.

I like the one in DCC and the one in ad&d2e
DCC:
if your character background can apply you roll 1d20 ie if it doesnt apply you roll 1d10 instead
DC are 5,10,15 and 20
Attribute modifieres apply

and the one in 2e is roll under your attribute modified by your skill(nwp)

>You prefer the game should grind to a halt just because you were unlucky?
Yes, because then as opposed to it being a systemic issue that will happen regardless of what the GM does within the system just as a natural consequence of the game's mechanics, it's the GM's fault for shitting up the game with a DC that he inflated for the sole reason of trying to challenge a single PC against all reason. One of those can be fixed by not being dropped on your head as a baby, the other can only be fixed by houseruling the mechanics.
>run face-first into the problems outlined above
Those are benefits, not problems. As far as I'm concerned, if Rain Man the computer hacker is rolling for something someone untrained is capable of succeeding at, it should not be to see whether he succeeds or fails, it should be to see how much they succeed by, and the untrained character shouldn't be able to touch Rain Man without 18 on 3d6-tier luck.
>Offensive?
What else should I call something that shits up the game like that?

shadowrun

>What else should I call something that shits up the game like that?

Just "bad". You shouldn't be so invested in a system that it actually offends you. That's unhealthy, and leads to me imagining you failing at a skill check and storming away from the table like a petulant child. Which is what you're otherwise coming across as anyway, so that might also be part of the mental image.

>Rain Man

Rain Man is still low-level for part of the game, he should not be able to auto-succeed on anything other than easy tasks that someone without Rain Man-like powers still has a pretty good shot at passing. Or have you just forgotten the level aspect of the game? Likewise, you seem to have completely forgotten, or actually seem to find "offensive", the whole teamwork aspect of the game, the fact that D&D isn't about You, it's about your group. Do you know how selfish it sounds for you to take the stance that if YOU can't pass a skill check, then NO ONE should be able to and the game should stop or the party should be forced to find a different, harder solution?

Seriously, what's the harm in the Fighter passing the Sphinx's riddle instead of the Wizard? Isn't the goal to get past the Sphinx? Shouldn't you be happy about progress and know that this time was a statistical fluke, that the majority of the time you're still doing the legwork with that particular skill?

>Seriously, what's the harm in the Fighter passing the Sphinx's riddle instead of the Wizard?
Because as it is in 5E, it devalues stat and skill investment for the majority of the game, or more than likely all of it because most people don't play at high levels. There is nothing cool or interesting about a Barbarian failing a STR check while noodle arms the Wizard passes it and at the level it happens in 5E, it's not a statistical fluke, it's the kind of thing that happens multiple times per session. It's not fun to deal with, it hurts immersion, and it exists to solve 'problems' that don't exist or are the result of bad DCs while introducing problems of its own and to cater to Mearls' low number fetish.

Yeah, like I said: you're a petulant child that would rather his entire party have to stop and find another, probably harder way to solve a problem, then have the Fighter have a shot at solving the Sphinx's riddle and step on your Wizard's toes.

As the group is tunneling underneath the Sphinx through solid stone at a rate of a few feet per hour you're telling them how this is better, how Fighter couldn't have known the answer no matter where he grew up or what friends he had.

>There is nothing cool or interesting about a Barbarian failing a STR check while noodle arms the Wizard passes it and at the level it happens in 5E
>it hurts immersion

That depends entirely on how your DM fluffs it, how the players fluff it, and your willingness to accept that shit happens and not bitch about a solid piece of game design because you'd rather be able to talk the king off his throne.

For the record, I'm not even saying that the Fighter SHOULD be able to do it every time you fail, just that he should have a statistical chance, unless the riddle was insanely difficulty (i.e., DC 25 or 30).

Of course this ignores that if any skill check is really that important, then you should be probably receiving the Aid action from a fellow player, granting advantage increasing your own chances even more. An 8th-level specialist (+8) with advantage actually passes DC 15 checks 91% of the time, not 90%.

Of course, even the highest-level experts can still get stumped by something that a low-level character might solve through pure fluke:

SPEAK FRIEND AND ENTER.

>not 90%

*70%. Mea culpa.

>So in other words right from 1st level if you can get your hands on a credit chip - any credit chip - you can slice one open with no problems and no risk of failure.

Yes, and?

>Which then raises the question that if credit chips are so easy to slice in the Star Wars universe, why the fuck would anyone ever use them?

You have a character with a maxed out attribute, training AND focus. That's not easy. That's an exceptionally talented individual, probably one in millions (if not more).

Nice strawman scenario. It's still not the logical result of having numbers and DCs larger than the die, it's the result of a shitty GM who doesn't understand the game they're running. Can't say that about the mathematical repercussions of a game's mechanics.

>Yes, and?

Essentially limitless money?

Put another way, in Saga picking a pocket is a Stealth check against the target's Perception +5. As per the Core Rulebook writup, this makes Boba Fett's pick pocket DC 21 thanks to his +16.

A 1st level character (who, again, can realistically and fairly easily have a +15) can hit that DC just slightly less than 80% of the time.

Should it really be so easy to pick pocket Boba Fett?

I never understood 2e way of NWP (was a kid back then). Do you add the NWP skill to the score for the roll under?

>Essentially limitless money?
And being able to hack credit chips effortlessly implies infinite access to them how?
>Should it really be so easy to pick pocket Boba Fett?
Should a character with the maximum Dexterity possible for that level and extensive experience and training in pickpocketing well above the typical pickpocket be able to pick Boba Fett's pocket in perfect conditions 80% of the time? Yes.

It's what your argument boils down to: "I don't like that if my Expert fails, some Schmuck might be able to succeed, even though it is unlikely that he does. I would prefer that my character failing means that an alternate, logically harder (else why wouldn't we have tried it first) solution must be found."

>a Barbarian failing a STR check while noodle arms the Wizard passes it

>WIZARD: hey, I did it!
>BARBARIAN (annoyed): I have weakened the door for you, you petulant spellcaster.
>BARD: new idea for a song!

I loved it.

That is the one popular title I don’t know a lot about. Doesn’t it use dice pools and you just invest to increase the pool?

No, that's still a strawman. Have you even played other games than 5E?

Add the check modifier for the specific NWP you're using+ranks in it to the tied stat score, yes.

The whole crybaby about his skill investment not being an instawin could be diminished if D&D used degrees of success.

But in the end it shouldn't matter if you invested to max out one skill: It shouldn't be an insta-win else the game aspect is lost. And it shouldn't cockblock someone who doesn't delve deeper into an insta-lose scenario, because it is not FUN.

Have you?

The DM bottleneck is one of the most common pitfalls players experience. Since you are just saying “that’s the fault of the shit DM” and refuse to acknowledge that if the players fail a skill check they have to get around it somehow, what are you trying to say?

Isn't this just stat modifier + skill modifier, with DC adjusted accordingly? Because of course bad situation would give penalties to the roll much like bad situations increase the DC.

> and extensive experience and training in pickpocketing well above the typical pickpocket

But it's not. Anyone who makes a living picking pockets can be presumed to be trained in Stealth (+5) and be reasonably expected to also take Skill Focus +5), so at that point it comes down merely to natural ability, and rolling at least one 18 in a suite of 4d6 drop lowest (the default method of generation in Saga) isn't terribly unlikely (Saga also allows for a Point Buy system that makes getting an 18 even easier)

The Emperor, by the way, has a Pick Pocket DC of 29, and that only because he can use Use the Force in the place of Perception checks. So our same, let's say Bothan, Scoundrel 1 out on his first adventure and happening to bump into Sheev for any number of wacky reasons has a 35% chance of picking the pocket of a Noble 6/Jedi 1/Sith Apprentice 8/Sith Lord 5.

Now for the record I actually don't mind this a whole ton in principle, I just think the numbers are too ridiculously huge. However it does strain credulity if you're okay with this but NOT okay with the idea of a Fighter being able to occasionally answer the Sphinx's Riddle when the Wizard can't.

No, 2E uses the stat score for NWPs, not a modifier. Each point in a stat matters.

>SW Saga got the math right.
Absolutely this. Too bad the skill list itself was pretty lousy.

>FUN

Fun is just a buzzword, you know.

I know, but if the player had a 15 score and got +3 from skill, he would need to roll under 18. Isn't that "the same" as having +13 (stat + skill) modifier against a DC 15, both before any situational modifiers?
(Both with 90% of success)

Plenty of times. For all its faults, Shadowrun does not have this problem. Specialists have an almost zero chance at failing at anything a dabbler can succeed at, and if a specialist has a good shot at failing, dabblers have no shot at ever succeeding there. And yet specialists don't make dabblers pointless just by existing.

This is the truth, but the degrees of success matters a lot less than the ability of the DM to respond. For instance, failures in DW are important because the GM gets to make a move. If you just had that same direction in D&D it stops the bottleneck problem and the problem of multiple fails in a row by making things worse and worse.

But yeah, the investment argument sucks because it means each character can only do a few things really well and might as well not exist for the rest. I’m honestly not sure how anyone can enjoy it.

I hate the “they trained their whole lives to do X” logic because it means that someone who didn’t do that can achieve the same or similar results by training for a couple months.

5e says all adventurers know some stuff, some have more expertise than others but A fighter might have seen something before that lets them know something a wizard had never seen.

>I just think the numbers are too ridiculously huge.
I don't, I think they're just about right. If you're going to cut them down, use a die roll with a lower standard deviation.

>Which then raises the question that if credit chips are so easy to slice in the Star Wars universe, why the fuck would anyone ever use them?

nigger, have you never heard of credit card fraud? it's safe, easy, and people use it to steal billions every year.

But 5e is the same way. A straight d20 roll is a 5% chance to do something below hard difficulty, but difficulties go above 20 - up to 30. But someone proficient with an off ability score still can hit hard or very hard DCs and true experts or those with the best ability scores can achieve otherwise impossible results.

>5e says all adventurers know some stuff

Agreed; and when physical things go wrong for the Fighter but the Wizard pulls it off, you have stuff like what posted.

But then my D&D games are not Serious Business. Like, they can have serious moments and intense scenes and so on, there can be tragedy and drama, but the game as a whole is still not Serious Business because, well, it's a game.

Plus my primary touchstone for D&D isn't The Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones, it's Pirates of the Caribbean or The Mummy (1999)

What the fuck, no it's not. Do you have any idea what Shadowrun's probabilities look like?

No, but as I went to the trouble of showing what 5e's probabilities looked like here, , perhaps you might do likewise for Shadowrun.

The thing is that as it stands and as it has been described, it sounds the same as 5e, so unless you show us the math, that's what we're going to think.

...

>So which of the d20
13th Age, unironically, dead serious.

Fine, fair point, but I feel we're running into an issue of real life verses the game here again. That is to say, do you really WANT it to be so easy for 1st level characters to trivially get access to money?

I'll tell you what, it'll at least solve a problem I've had in every version of Star Wars that I've played, wherein it seems difficult if not impossible to actually buy a starship that's worth a damn.

If the GM's game is a series of linear, mandatory challenges, the game will be shit whether or not the skill math supports that style of play. You can and should cast the blame on the GM in this scenario.

>Anyone who makes a living picking pockets can be presumed to be trained in Stealth (+5) and be reasonably expected to also take Skill Focus +5

If it's a PC? yes.

If it's an NPC? Why the fuck would I use the same rules for a random pickpocket when the PC characters are supposed to be on par with goddamn jedi?

>Fine, fair point, but I feel we're running into an issue of real life verses the game here again. That is to say, do you really WANT it to be so easy for 1st level characters to trivially get access to money?

yes, because then you get to introduce the party to the Imperial Revenue Service, who will either hunt them down mercilessly (forcing them to blow their stolen money on criminal services and escape vehicles) or blackmail the party into doing dirty work for the empire.

...okay, I guess I need to clarify. My fault, and this is sort of moving goalposts here so you can feel free to call me out on that fact, but her we go.

In the post I linked, I showed a PDF that tracks the predicted ability spread of characters across 20 levels, their predicted ability score modifiers, and their chances of passing skill checks at each of the "official" DCs of 5 ("Very Easy") thru 30 ("Impossible").

Now it took OVER 9000 SECONDS for me to make (2.5 hours...actually yeah, that sounds about right), so I don't expect that level of detail from you per se. I also do not play Shadowrun and so don't know how a character in it is made But could you, perhaps:

1) Tell me how many dice a character can be expected to have in a skill they are:
a) Autistically devoted to ("main skill"), included predicted modifiers
b) Average devotion to ("secondary skill"), including predicted modifiers
c) Picked up on a lark ("tertiary skill"), including predicted modifers
d) Completely untrained in ("other skill"), including predicted modifiers

2) Map this out across a few tiers of play - say, "fresh from character creation", "halfway to maximum level", and "maximum level", or whatever the equivalent would be in Shadowrun terms.

Thanks. I ask for this because at the moment the chart you've posted does not tell me how good my, say, newly-created street fighter character is as cooking when he has a few dots or ranks or levels or whatever in the cooking skill to represent his time growing up in his grandpa's noodle shop (a "tertiary skill")

>If it's an NPC?

If it's an NPC the modifier can be whatever you want. The point is that at character creation my 1st-level Bothan Scoundrel has around an 80% chance of picking Boba Fett's pocket of his credit chip and thereby the presumably millions of credits he has, and a 35% of stealing Sheev Palpatine's lightsaber without him noticing it.

>because then you get to introduce the party to the Imperial Revenue Service

The point of the Use Computer check to slice a credit chip is specifically so that the IRS does NOT know who accessed the credit chip, or rather so that the IRS thinks it was the rightful owner of the chip. By the time they realize the problem and track down the theft, the slicer has already absconded with the money while leaving behind no digital fingerprint, or at least not one that can be easily discerned. And it's a big Galaxy, especially if you convert the digital money to cash and buy that starship I mentioned from some cartel looking to offload it.

That's you as a DM throwing a tantrum about what the game allows the PCs to do and so contriving a way to screw them over, NOT something that the actual mechanics of the game say happens.

IIRC credit chips are like miniature, mobile bank accounts. So for instance, you could have a chip that stores anywhere between 0 and 10k credits that is only usable by the owner (unless hacked).

If you do hack it, you can empty the chip and that's it. Slicing a credit chip is like picking a lock on someone's wallet. It's not like cracking into their main bank account, and it's definitely not like hacking the bank's software systems.

>The point is that at character creation my 1st-level Bothan Scoundrel has around an 80% chance of picking Boba Fett's pocket of his credit chip and thereby the presumably millions of credits he has, and a 35% of stealing Sheev Palpatine's lightsaber without him noticing it.

The characters are supposed to succeed at what they are good at. That Bothan scoundrel is a goddamn pickpocketing genius. If he wants to attempt making a lifelong enemy of one of the deadliest headhunters in the galaxy (and has a friend he can fence the chip off for hacking, and assuming Boba is careless enough to carry all his money in one chip, on his person, etc.), let him. If he can somehow mask his intentions to the point that Sheev's clairvoyance doesn't spot him, let him.

If they establish that Luke Skywalker is actually a pretty good shot, has the force with him and a mentor guiding him, then he is entitle d to more than being 25% better at piloting an X-Wing shooting that photon torpedo into an exhaust port than your average nobody FFS.

I haven't played SR4 in a very long time, but I can try to put numbers where they should be.
>a) Autistically devoted to ("main skill"), included predicted modifiers
Should be somewhere between 16-20.
>b) Average devotion to ("secondary skill"), including predicted modifiers
For a Shadowrunner that's 8-12. 12 should be the unmodified human maximum at creation - 6 from stat, 6 from skill.
>c) Picked up on a lark ("tertiary skill"), including predicted modifers
4-7. This is where a lot of NPCs have their skills.
>d) Completely untrained in ("other skill"), including predicted modifiers
Attribute score minus one die from the pool.

This is straight out of character creation. Shadowrun PCs don't start off at the bottom of the food chain, they're professionals to begin with.

>That's you as a DM throwing a tantrum about what the game allows the PCs to do and so contriving a way to screw them over,

that's not a tantrum, it's a plot hook, and an opportunity for good role playing - fighting cops is part of the criminal image, and it's something the players will expect. Players who commit fraud and robbery need Al Pacinos of their own if they want to explore that dynamic.

Even (functionally) legitimate usage of a bank account leaves a trail of evidence which will eventually lead back to the party, especially since the party themselves are spending conspicuously huge sums of money. You sound like the one throwing a tantrum, if you're upset that your party members are good at the things they build their characters for.

>if you're upset that your party members are good at the things

I don't mind the players being good at things, I mind a fresh-out-the-gates, just-started adventuring character having as much as a 4:5 chance in favor of succeeding on picking a pocket of a middle-level character.

I still don't see the problem beyond the pickpocket DC being player-weighted rather than even.

Is the pickpocketeer focused on pickpocketing?

Is the middle level character focused on not having his pockets picked?

If two characters of the same level and same investment in the skill(s) used make a contest, it should ideally be around 50-50.

If one of them is superfocused, and the other is not, then the superfocused one should have the advantage, even if there's a few levels of difference. Being focused in something should count for more than levels. Levels are building on a base, being level 10 vs level 1 should not mean you are 10 times better at everything.

Yeah, I don't remember writing that.

>implying you worked on SWSE

I don't disagree, but Boba Fett is not precisely some easy-target schmuck who is untrained in Perception and paying the price for it. He has a total modifier of +16, from +2 Wisdom, +7 level, +5 trained, and +2 Equipment.

What's instead happening is that despite the fact that he has invested in Perception, he can't reliably prevent himself from getting pick-pocketed by schmucks out the gate. Keep in mind that a pick-pocket with a more reasonable 15 starting Dexterity (+12) still has a 60% chance of picking Boba Fett's pocket, and will get that 80% that the prodigy at 1st level enjoyed as early as level 6.

Shit like this leads to an arms race scenario, where the only way to decently challenge someone who's invested in a skill is to pit them against someone else who has invested equally heavily into that skill's counter. An Imperial I Star Destroyer's computer has a Will Defense of 20. Even if it's Hostile (-10 to the check), our 1st level slicing wizard can slice into it 30% of the time, improving its attitude to Unfriendly explicitly without tripping any alarms in the process; from there the slicer has a 55% of improving it to Indifferent, again without any chance of tripping alarms, then up again to Friendly (70%). In eighteen seconds a 1st level slicer can have nearly full run of a Star Destroyer's computer systems with the rules explicitly making it clear that no one is the wiser.

So I'd like to reiterate my original point: are we SURE that the math is "right" for SWSE? That it's better than 5e, which after all allows for the same thing in theory but makes it harder for the expert while also making it theoretically possible for the dabbler?

Should it really be possible for my character, fresh out of ITT Technical Institute, to be able to hack the equivalent of the US Aircraft Carrier?