Fiction First: Skills

[LostSoul]

Goals:

1. To make it impossible for a player to take an action without describing it.

2. To add in some background colour to a character.

3. To reinforce the setting.

4. To explicitly define the skill check process.

Character Creation
Whenever you are allowed to select a trained skill for your character (when you pick your class, Eladrin Education, Skill Training, and so on), you select one of the skills from the following lists. You may select any skill from the general and background lists, or any from your racial or class list. Multi-classed and hybrid characters may select from multiple class lists.

Each skill that you pick has a modifier of +5.

Skill bonuses: If you have a bonus to a certain skill (racial modifiers or a feat), pick an appropriate skill to apply the bonus to.

Skills in Play
General resolution of skills works like this:

• 1. Identify the conflict.
  1a. Don't make a skill check if there is no conflict. Conflict can be with the environment.
• 2. The player(s) and DM describe the actions of their characters in the conflict.
  2a. If your action is passive, you still need to describe it. This includes describing the dangers or the
  difficulty of the environment. "The wall is slick with moss and you struggle to get a good handhold."
• 3. Based on the description of the action, an appropriate stat is chosen. If a skill is appropriate, add the skill's modifier
  (usually +5) to the stat mod + 1/2 level roll.
  3a. Only characters taking active actions need to roll.
• 4. Based on the description of the action, the DM determines the DCs. The DCs fall into one of these categories:
  i. Defenses.
  Use one of these as the DC when the character is being directly affected by the action. This includes things like
  physical attacks (AC, Fort, Ref) or argument (Will).
  ii. Passive skill.
  A passive skill DC (10 + 1/2 level + applicable skill modifier) is used when the character is not being directly
  affected. Trying to sneak past someone, for example, or trying to outrun someone in a race.
  iii. Level- or Tier-based DC from page 42.
  Use one of these when defenses and skills are not available, such as for environmental features.
  4a. Note that the DCs are based on the level of the character/environment, not just the PC's level. If the PC's action was
  to navigate a sea during a storm the DC would be based on the storm's level, not the PC's level.
• 5. Once everyone's happy with their actions, roll.
  5a. Only characters making active actions need to roll.
• 6. Determine the outcome based on the description of the action(s) and the roll(s).
  6a. Note that both characters may succeed and both characters may fail.
  6b. If a character takes damage as a result of the action, use one of the damage expressions based on level.

Aid Another: Aid Another is an active action. The DC is 10 + the tier modifier (+0 for Heroic, +5 for Paragon, +10 for Epic). Note that the tier modifier is based on the level of the opposition, not the level of the PC.

Multiple Characters Working Towards the Same Goal: If a number of characters are attempting to achieve the same goal with their action, only one may roll while others may use Aid Another. Which character makes the roll depends on the action in question - the one who is most active in the action (the character who is making the main thrust of the argument in a debate), the one with the highest skill modifier (when trying to listen for something), or the one with the lowest skill modifier (when trying to move stealthily past a group of orcs).

What Do I Know About That?: This is a classic vs. environment check. Use Level- or Tier-based DCs.

Levelling Up
Your stat modifiers increase at the normal rate (stat mod + 1/2 level).

Instead of swapping out a "trained skill" for another, you may re-write your skill based on your character's experiences. The DM is the final judge on the new skill.

If you are able to gain access to a new "trained skill" (a feat, perhaps), you may select a new skill from the list below (or one based on your experiences if the DM agrees).

Skill Lists
[sblock=General]
I need more of these.
Scary - Something in your eyes says, "Don't with me."
Unmatched Confidence - You know that you are something special. Other people pick up on this belief as well - some are attracted to it, others think you arrogant.[/sblock]

[sblock=Background]
Student - You studied in an organized institution. Define the institution and the focus of its teachings.
Apprentice - You apprenticed to someone. Name your mentor and the job you had. This includes such things as a wizard's apprentice, though it doesn't necessarily mean you are a wizard yourself.
Manual Labourer - You've worked hard all your life. You know well the environment you worked in and all the skills and rituals necessary to perform your job - lumberjacks know the woods, miners know the caves, farmers know the weather, etc. Name the job, the environment you worked in, and the village you come from.
Guild Trained - You grew up in the arms of a guild. You know their laws, customs, and secret signs. Define the guild - thieves' guild, wizard's guild, merchant's guild, etc., as well as what you are expected to contribute in return for membership.
Savage Raised - Either by barbarians or something more exotic - such as wolves or other monsters. Define the savages and your relationship with them. This is generally a positive relationship.
Raised in X - You were raised in a community other than a typical human village or town. Name the community. Some possiblities are:

• Raised in Hammerfast - You were raised in the ale halls and clanging smithies of Hammerfast. You know the ins and outs of dungeons, the dangers of the Underdark, the perfidy of Gods and the melancholy of the Primordials, not to mention every drinking song (and drink!) ever sung!
• Raised in the Spiral Tower - You studied in the Spiral Tower of Corellon, where you learned of the many ages of the World and the secrets of the arcane.
• Raised by the Woodsong - You were raised in the wild among the Woodsinger elves. You know the secret language of trees and creature of the forest, of hunting and being hunted, and the hatred of orcs.

Child of Two Worlds - Never truly at home anywhere. Being different has made you keenly aware of the differences in others. Define your conflicting ancestry.
Born in Chains - You were born a slave, indentured servant, or just in a very bad situation. Define who had complete control over you, the role you had to fill, your relationship with them now, and how you escaped.
Born on the Street - You were born in the gutter. Just surviving every day was a trial in itself. Name the city you came from and define how you survived.[/sblock]

[sblock=Classes]
Cleric/Paladin
Divine Strength - Your prayers and devotions to your god grant you divine strength. Define the god and the oaths, ceremonies, and rituals that give you strength. Don't break them lest you lose your gifts!
The Order in All Things - Your prayers and devotions give you the ability to see its divine handiwork in the world. Define the god and its sphere of influence. Once again, these prayers and rites must be undertaken as appropriate or your insight will fail you.
Devotion - You are driven by a devotion to your god and to see its will be done. Other people can sense your strength of purpose, confidence, and will. Define the god and the tenets that you follow. If you suffer a crisis of faith you may lose your devotion!

Fighter/Warlord/Rogue/Ranger
Trained Warrior - Your years of martial training have hardened you. Define your training - gladiator, mercenary, soldier, etc.
Martial Trance - Your years of martial training have developed your situational awareness - knowing who is going to be where - and has made you keenly aware of body language and non-verbal communication, especially the threat of violence. Not just in men but beasts as well.

Fighter/Ranger/Rogue
Martial Finesse - Your years of martial training have honed your reflexes, agility, and balance.

Fighter/Ranger/Warlord
Battlefield Tactics - You are able to instantly size up a tactical or strategic position and think three moves ahead, predicting your opponent's moves flawlessly. Most of the time.

Warlord
Leader of Men - People are drawn to you and instinctively follow your commands.

Warlock/Wizard
Arcane Studies - You have studied the mysteries of the arcane and unlocked their secrets. Your classical bookworm Wizard.
Arcane Insight - You have an almost mystical vision into the primordial power that created the world.

Warlock
Unnatural Means - You perform some sort of rite that grants you unnatural endurance - you drink blood, bathe in fire, dance naked before the full moon. Define it.
Blasphemous Whispers - Your mind is not your own. Sometimes you can hear the words of your patron whispering to you. This can be hard to live with. Define what you must do to contact your patron - in sleep, watching the stars, etc.
Damned Soul - You are so driven to achieve your goals that you have traded your spirit/soul for power. Define what you want and who will collect your spirit/soul upon your death.
Tongue of the Devil - You are able to tell twisted lies and decieve all those who hear you.[/sblock]

[sblock=Races]
Dragonborn
Dragon Blooded - You have the strength of a dragon flowing through your veins. Based on the type of dragon, your very blood may cause fires, freeze water, shock like lightning, or burn like acid.
Imperial Son - You are descended from the Emperor of Arkhosia, and you carry yourself with all the pride that position demands. Honour, truth, and justice are expected from you, however, and if you don't live up to people's expectations they'll be bound for disappointment.
Dragon's Awe - All races respect (and should bow down before!) the awesome might of the dragon.

Dwarf
Primordial Blood - You are made of stone, and the stone talks to you. The more stone around you, the more aware you are. You can do things like determine depth underground, density of surrounding stonework, and can even talk to stone!
Made of Stone - You are one of the "true" dwarves - carved fully-formed from the stone itself. Describe the stone. Even though you are made of flesh, the burdens of the mortal shell (like eating, breathing, drinking) are of little concern to you.

Eladrin
Grace of the Fey - Every move you make exhibits your race's stunning beauty.
Immortal - You are immortal. You have forgotten more than most men learn in a lifetime.

Elf
Elven Precision - Every move you make is precise and focused.
Keen Elven Eyesight - You have the keen eyesight of the elves. On a clear day you can see forever. (Yes, literally.)

Half-Elf
Spirit and Soul - With both a spirit and a soul you have as much passion for life as any two men. People are drawn to you and you are accepted in any community.
Strength of Two - With both a spirit and a soul you can keep going when others would quit and give up.

Halfling
Small and Quick - You're small but you make up for it with your speed and natural agility.
Infectious Optimism - You are able to coax a smile from a dwarf.

Human
Social Class - You were born into a specific social class, anywhere from in the alley behind the whorehouse to the plush beds of nobility. Define it.

Tiefling
Infernal Knowledge - The blood of devils runs through your veins... and sometimes you can hear those devils whispering in your mind.
Hellish Fury - You are driven by a passion as great as the fires of hell itself. Something inside you refuses to submit.[/sblock]

 

[Alex319]

A few comments:

1. If I'm understanding this correctly, the skill lists you have REPLACE the normal skill lists, right? So that means you don't (directly) have access to the normal skills like insight, bluff, diplomacy, thievery, etc. If this is true, it seems to significantly limit the options available. For example, suppose I want m character to be good at lockpicking, pickpocketing, disarming traps etc. - the things that are currently covered by the Thievery skill. The only skills in your skill lists that might cover that are "Born on the Street" background (having to steal in order to survive), the "Elven Precision" elf racial choice (precise movements are useful in the tasks above) or maybe a "thief" Social Class (human). So are you saying that if my character isn't a human or an elf, and he wasn't born on the street, then he can't learn any useful thieving abilities?

It seems like this kind of restriction would actually inhibit character concepts. For example, suppose I have a character concept of a halfling raised in a noble household who rebelled and became a rogue as a way of getting back at what he perceived as a corrupt society - but oops, when I take that background, there are no more choices that actually let my character be good at thievery, which he'll need as a rogue.

2. I don't understand the difference between "passive" and "active" skill use in your system. Is the difference just that when you do a "passive" skill you are taking 10, while on an "active" skill you roll the die?

3. There are lots of mechanics in the game that reference specific skills. For example, utility powers or feats that require you to be trained in a specific skill, utility powers and items that give bonuses to specific skill checks, traps that have Perception and Thievery DCs to detect or disarm them, making Heal checks to grant someone a second wind, making Athletics checks to reduce falling damage, etc. If you are junking the existing skill system, you'll have to rewrite all of those.

==============

So here would be my suggestion:

Keep the existing skill system. However, in addition to their ordinary trained skill choices, each character can choose up to four of the items from your list: one general, one background, one class choice, and one race choice. (You could change this as you like.) Call these choices "auxiliary skills." Then calculate the skill modifiers as in the existing skill system and apply skill as in the existing skill system, with the following exceptions:

1. Players don't say "I am using skill X", except in situations where there is a specific game rule action that requires a specific skill check (e.g., making a Heal check to give someone a second wind.) Instead, players describe what they are doing, then the DM tells them what roll to make. (This addresses item (1) on your list.)

2. When players describe their actions, if one of their auxiliary skills applies to the situation, they get a +2 bonus to their skill check. For example, if the character's background was "raised as a blacksmith," and the character wante dto forge a beautiful weapon for the King as a gift in order to win him over, then the character could get a +2 bonus to his Diplomacy roll. (The bonus amount could be adjusted according to the needs of the system.) This addresses your items (2) and (3) because it gives the characters background information and makes the characters' background information matter.

3. The method you describe in your post for setting skill DCs looks fine, so you can use that. And the rest of the skill check sequence you've described makes sense - players describe actions, DM tells players what to roll, then DM tells players what the consequences are. So that works fine, and addresses your item number (4).

 

[LostSoul]

Thanks for the reply, Alex, you bring up some good points.

1. If I'm understanding this correctly, the skill lists you have REPLACE the normal skill lists, right? So that means you don't (directly) have access to the normal skills like insight, bluff, diplomacy, thievery, etc. If this is true, it seems to significantly limit the options available.

That is true. It's a feature. I want to limit the options available to those that fit into the setting I have in mind.

For example, suppose I want m character to be good at lockpicking, pickpocketing, disarming traps etc. - the things that are currently covered by the Thievery skill. The only skills in your skill lists that might cover that are "Born on the Street" background (having to steal in order to survive), the "Elven Precision" elf racial choice (precise movements are useful in the tasks above) or maybe a "thief" Social Class (human). So are you saying that if my character isn't a human or an elf, and he wasn't born on the street, then he can't learn any useful thieving abilities?

You'd probably take Guild Trained (Thieves Guild) or Apprentice (to a thief).

But yeah, if no one taught you thief skills and you didn't grow up in an environment where you were surrounded by them, you can't learn them.

It seems like this kind of restriction would actually inhibit character concepts. For example, suppose I have a character concept of a halfling raised in a noble household who rebelled and became a rogue as a way of getting back at what he perceived as a corrupt society - but oops, when I take that background, there are no more choices that actually let my character be good at thievery, which he'll need as a rogue.

It's meant to inhibit character concepts. It's also meant to tie characters to the setting. Your halfling rogue would probably take Apprentice (and specify a rogue-like guy who taught him things) or Guild (and specify a Thieves Guild).

Which has the handy side-effect of creating NPCs and organizations with a tie to the PC.

2. I don't understand the difference between "passive" and "active" skill use in your system. Is the difference just that when you do a "passive" skill you are taking 10, while on an "active" skill you roll the die?

It's for things that you would normally use Passive Perception or Insight for. You may not actually be doing anything but your skill comes into play.

I agree, it's confusing, I'm still rolling that bit around in my head.

3. There are lots of mechanics in the game that reference specific skills. For example, utility powers or feats that require you to be trained in a specific skill, utility powers and items that give bonuses to specific skill checks, traps that have Perception and Thievery DCs to detect or disarm them, making Heal checks to grant someone a second wind, making Athletics checks to reduce falling damage, etc. If you are junking the existing skill system, you'll have to rewrite all of those.

You would just tie it to a skill that makes sense. Looking at the skill powers article, let's say you wanted to get Dodge Step. Normally you'd have to be trained in Acrobatics, but you've got stuff like "Martial Finesse" on your sheet. The DM rules, yep, it applies, you can take Dodge Step.

"Born on the Streets" would let you take the Bluff skill power Confusing Blather, but not Improvisational Arcana. Because it doesn't apply.


You see how this system forces you to define who you are, who you know, where you come from and all that? You can't help but create a PC with a background and character.

 

[Starfox]

You see how this system forces you to define who you are, who you know, where you come from and all that? You can't help but create a PC with a background and character.

You have to define how broad a skill can be. The Thievery skill in 4E does a bunch of things that are not really related except by occupation. If someone does an engineer (think the movie Flesh & Blood), he'd have a subset of the Thievery skill, but lack pick pockets. He might also be better than a thief at some engineering tasks, such as building siege engines. Its going to be tricky top define your own skills every time like this, and expect some players to come up with catch-all categories.

 

[LostSoul]

I figure that the scope of a skill should be obvious; at any rate, I (as DM) will figure out when it applies and when it doesn't. It does demand some detail in character creation; you wouldn't just write down "Apprentice" or even "Apprenticed to an engineer", you'd have to describe the mentor, give him a name, all that jazz.

So we come up with a little background - nothing too much, something like "Yeah, I apprenticed to an old dwarf named Curstbeard Hammertongs who used to build castles and bridges and mechanisms for Nerath, before it fell." That sort of skill would apply to architecture, building/spotting/disarming mechanical (only) traps, spotting/opening secret doors, and some lore about Nerath.