Let's Talk Skill Systems

[Icon of Sin]

I'll probably mirror Othin's statement here. While I like TRS' formula better, namely with some skill houses, most of them were fairly bland or copypasted from FE. Berwick had a rather interesting list of skills, such as using your axe as a shield, automatically changing an equipped weapon to counterattack or swapping horses.

[dondon151]

terrain skills alone make TRS skills better than FE skills though

the others i couldn't care less about, except for life and death, which is basically a better version of wrath.

[Othin]

Terrain skills are fucking awesome and belong in every game, no matter the other aspects of the skill system. Even if the game doesn't have a legit skill system at all and it's just innate class abilities like in FE7.

But looking at games designed for more complex skills, you can also get things like my favorite skill ever, Pulverize. It's activated by command when you're willing to give up movement for the turn, and doubles your first attack's Mt in exchange for reducing your Def to 0 for the battle. And there are so many other great options. Berwick Saga's version of Astra works by command, but needs to charge passively for seven turns between uses. Then there's Aim, which lets bows get an enormous accuracy boost if the user doesn't move before attacking.

And these are all locked to a small number of specific characters, making them distinct from one another. Ceddy, a Thief, has the unique skill Evasion, requiring five turns to charge, but when used, it gives him +50 Avo as long as he remains still. Not moving is also the requirement for using Provoke, another one of his skills, which lets him pick an enemy within range and force them to obsessively follow and try to attack him until it wears off, as long as there's some viable path towards him. It's a fantastic combo for distracting particularly troublesome enemies, of which there are many, and he's the only character who can pull it off. With a lot of character-locked, tactically valuable skills, it's easy to create worthwhile niches for each character, and Berwick Saga does it for almost its entire cast.

Edited July 26, 2013 by Othin

[The Void]

Going by what you posted, Berwick Saga's approach to skills doesn't seem to be too bad.