Feats vs Skills

[krb243]

When a PC has the Driving skill, must they also have a Vehicle Feat? Within the Driving skill description on page 73, it states that a Vehicle feat must be choosen to obtain the Driving skill. But within the Rogue PC generation example from pages 141 thru 143, the PC always has a Driving Grav Vehicle skill, but never chooses the feat for any vehicle.

I guess the crux of my question is, must a feat be choosen to drive or pilot anything, when the PC already has the skills to do so? If so, what would the penalty be and why?

To me, feats afford a broad generalization of skills for vehicles. If a PC has the skill of Pilot (starship), then why must they also burn a feat slot for it?

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by oz_chandler:
To me, feats afford a broad generalization of skills for vehicles. If a PC has the skill of Pilot (starship), then why must they also burn a feat slot for it?

Otherway round. The PC has the Skill Pilot with the Feat Vessel / Starship. The Feat(s) determine what types of vehicles / ships the character is qualified for. (i.e. the Feat is the certification or license)

Drive and Pilot are not cascade skills. You need the Feat(s) to specify what the PC is able to drive/pilot. See the special section under the drive and pilot skills. "only gained by selecting an appropriate Vehicle feat".

Also note: p. 111 Vessel Feat under the special section; if they do not have any ranks in either the Driving or Pilot they gain Rank 0 in the skill that corresponds to the vessel (sub)group. i.e. Feat Vessel / Wheeled Vehicles -> Driving skill ; Feat Vessel / Starships -> Pilot skill.

HTH,
Casey

 

[far-trader]

The way its meant to work is described in the text for the Feat Vessel (p 111, 1st ed.).

Basically if you have the Skill (Driving or Pilot) but not the appropriate Feat (for the type of vessel you are operating) you make your checks with a -4. If you have a closely realted Feat (like you have the Wheeled Vehicles Feat and are trying to drive a Tracked Vehicle) then you only have a check penalty of -2.

The Feat in this case at least is the specific familiarity and the Skill is the general ability.

 

[Morte]

Feats are binary capabilities. You've either got them or you haven't. Skills are graduated capabilities, there are varying degrees of mastery.

In T20, driving skill is the analogue business of aiming a vehicle through a gap or judging speed and distance to avoid a collision. It would apply to any vehicle. The feats show whether you know how to apply that to a certain type of vehicle.

You could be a very good car driver, expert with wheeled vehicles, but not know how to operate the steering on a tank. Once you've learned about braking one track to corner (i.e. spent the feat), the basic judgement and co-ordiantion tranfer across to the new vehicle pretty well (i.e. your driving skill now works with tanks too). Well, that seems to be the theory. I've seen worse.

The rogue in the THB example gets Vessel/Grav in the homeworld section on p141.

Though I can't for the life of me see why. :\

Need Hunter here...

 

[krb243]

Thanks to all for the replies

The way we read the rules were of two viewpoints. The first was that without the feat, the skill could not be obtained, as Casey stated. The second was that without the feat, but with ranks in the skills, the DC checks would be at a -4; as Far Trader pointed out. The rules seem contradictory to us. So, until further clarification from Hunter or MJD, we'll go along with Far Trader. It also seems limiting to burn precious feat slots just to buy skills as common as driving and piloting, but we'll go with whatever the QLI folks recommend.

 

[far-trader]

You're welcome but Casey is correct. Both Skills do specifically state you only gain them by selecting the appropriate Feat. Its just my opinion that it seems a strange way to do it and in my games I'll do it differently.

There is a similar thing going on with the Gunnery Skill and Weapon Proficiency Feats. It seems every other Weapon Proficiency Feat is designed to cancel the -4 non-proficiency penalty and you apply your BAB. At least in this case I think I can see the reasoning, they want to make Gunnery a rare skill, as it probably should be. I just don't see a similar reason holding much water for Driving and Piloting.

It all adds to complicating the game unnecessarily in my opinion.

 

[krb243]

Far Trader

I agree with you that Casey is correct in that the skill Special sections state the feats are required. The problem comes in that feat slots are hard to come by after PC creation, and difficult to have a party with the necessary abilities to be self-sufficient with their vessels from the start of a campaign.

I hope it doesn't sound like I'm complaining, I was looking for options within the rules to circumvent the need for feats to obtain specific skills. Seems a bit confining to me, but I'll run the game for a while and see how it works out at higher levels. Maybe the restrictions are there to keep the game from breaking down at higher levels. We'll see. It may get "home ruled" for the -4 option, which seems more workable at this point.

 

[myrmidon]

Its not too much of a stretch to go with the fact that you can't get the skill until you have at least one feat in one area of driving or piloting

Thats the only point that someone is going to have no ability to drive or pilot- no vehicle/ship feats whatsoever...as soon as you pull one feat or another out you get a zero skill rating. Unless you are from a low tech world you WILL have one vessel feat that gives you either drive OR pilot. Mid tech gives you drive skill, high and very high gives you pilot.

Yes it is a departure from the general ruleset though. Gunnery works the same way but is even less available.

Note just lolking at me book, driving is specified as Untrained useable in my chart on p.65, piloting and gunnery are not useable untrained. So you can drive even without any feats (ie its like weapons and the more complex pilot and gunnery require a feat)

TIm