d20 Modern: What Would you change part II

[Vigilance]

I don't prefer skills to advance automatically, except as a way to advance NPCs quickly, which is what I'll be doing here.

Here's an example of what I'm doing with skills:

Influence (Cha)
This skill covers the ability to win friends and influence people. It covers everything from the ability to tell a convincing lie to the ability to treat mental illnesses through applied psychology.
Bluff: This use of the Influence skill allows you to convince a target that a lie is true. In combat, this skill use can be used to perform a feint, which (if successful) grants a bonus on your next attack roll equal to your Charisma modifier.
The DC of a Bluff check is either the target’s Perception +10 or the target’s Will save +10, whichever is higher.
Diplomacy: This use of the Influence skill allows you to improve a target’s attitude toward you by one category, making the target more helpful to you. The attitude categories for this skill are: Hostile, Fearful, Neutral, Friendly and Allied. Each use of this skill can improve a target’s attitude by one category, though the skill can be tried multiple times. Allow a recheck at most once a week, meaning to improve a target’s attitude from Hostile to Allied would take a minimum of one month.
The DC of a Diplomacy skill check is either the target’s Perception +10 or the target’s Will save +10, whichever is higher.
Intimidate: This use of the Influence skill allows you to reduce a target’s attitude toward to either Fearful (if the skill check is successful) or Hostile (if the skill check is unsuccessful). A fearful target will do what you say in your presence and generally try to avoid you if at all possible. A Hostile target however, will try to do you harm at every opportunity (often not through combat, though this is an option).
The DC of a Diplomacy skill check is either the target’s Perception +10 or the target’s Will save +10, whichever is higher.
Psychology: This use of the Influence skill allows you to predict a target’s future behavior. At the beginning of an encounter you may make a Psychology check to gain a +2 bonus on Initiative rolls as a free action. If this check fails, you cannot use Psychology on the same target for the next 24 hours, since the target is too hard for you to currently read.
This use of the Influence skill can also allow you to diagnose mental trauma and illnesses and help a target change his behavior and/or recover from mental trauma and illnesses.
The DC of a Psychology skill check is either the target’s Perception +10 or the target’s Will save +10, whichever is higher.
Networking: This skill use allows you to use your ability to win friends to gain additional contacts and allies. This skill adds to your Reputation and level for gaining contacts (see Reputation for more information on contacts and allies).

Something else that's relevant to the above skill, since it's obviously a broad skill, is this:

Specialists and Generalists

Most of the skills below are quite broad in their applications. For example the Acrobatics skill contains four separate uses and many skills have even more applications that they cover. If a character wishes, he can specialize in a single skill application. While he will not have the range of knowledge, he will be more skilled in his one specialty. A character that specializes gains +3 bonus ranks on the one aspect of the skill he specializes in, and–3 ranks in all other applications of the skill.

If a skill application requires a perk, a character can only specialize in that skill use if he has the appropriate perk.

You'll also note from the skill quoted above that opposed skill checks have gone the way of the dodo. In their place I'm using what I call "targeted checks", where the DC of a skill is set by another character's skill (so Bluff DC is Perception +10).

 

[Gundark]

Hey. I read your blog there and I agree with a lot of what your saying. I thin that there should be a lot less rolling. For example for you breaking into the safe example all the nexcessary bit of info that the PCs need to accomplish the task shouldn't be rolled for. All optional stuff that isn't necessary to the completion of the task...well fine roll for that.

 

[Vigilance]

Hey. I read your blog there and I agree with a lot of what your saying. I thin that there should be a lot less rolling. For example for you breaking into the safe example all the nexcessary bit of info that the PCs need to accomplish the task shouldn't be rolled for. All optional stuff that isn't necessary to the completion of the task...well fine roll for that.

Yes, my basic goal is to try and remove every single dice roll that doesn't involve interaction with someone else, whether combat or non-combat.

Even then, I'm combining skills, and getting rid of opposed skill checks, with the goal of getting interactions down to a single die roll.

For example, in d20 (modern and D&D), to sneak past a guard requires four skill checks (Move Silently and Hide in Shadows for the sneaker, vs. Spot and Listen for the guard).

Now if you pull back and look at what effect this has on the adventure, it's basically a binary decision, a fork in the road: does the guard notice me or not.

We don't need four dice hitting the table for that, imo.

The way I'm going to handle it is one Stealth check, with the DC being the guard's Perception +10. If the guard is on high alert for some reason (like an alarm has been sounded), then the DC would be Perception +20.

You have the same range of options, the DC of the Stealth check is still determined by how perceptive the guard is, but only one die roll is called for.

 

[Psion]

Yes, my basic goal is to try and remove every single dice roll that doesn't involve interaction with someone else, whether combat or non-combat.

Even then, I'm combining skills, and getting rid of opposed skill checks, with the goal of getting interactions down to a single die roll.

Getting rid of opposed skills check.

That's been a feature of more modern skill systems, not a bug.

Unless you are talking like having one participant automatically take 10 or somesuch.

For example, in d20 (modern and D&D), to sneak past a guard requires four skill checks (Move Silently and Hide in Shadows for the sneaker, vs. Spot and Listen for the guard).


Now if you pull back and look at what effect this has on the adventure, it's basically a binary decision, a fork in the road: does the guard notice me or not.

We don't need four dice hitting the table for that, imo.

The real culprit here is the multiple skills more than the opposed check itself.

I'm good with 2 dice, myself. Or just assuming one party takes 10.

The way I'm going to handle it is one Stealth check, with the DC being the guard's Perception +10. If the guard is on high alert for some reason (like an alarm has been sounded), then the DC would be Perception +20.

Ah, okay. That (+20) may be generous, but the approach is sound, I think.

 

[Vigilance]

Getting rid of opposed skills check.

That's been a feature of more modern skill systems, not a bug.

Unless you are talking like having one participant automatically take 10 or somesuch.

You have it exactly.

There's still opposition going on. The DC is just the targeted skill +10.

The real culprit here is the multiple skills more than the opposed check itself.

Two symptoms of the same problem. At first I loved opposed checks, and I still love them, in theory.

However, they make things like Conan sneaking into the Tower of the Elephant far, far too random, rather than being based on the skill of the participants.

Adding a random +1-20 bonus to skill checks, and needing to succeed at TWO of them everytime you wish to bypass a guard, makes stealth missions much more about how good of a dice roller you are than anything else.

You might as well just flip a coin every time you pass a guard.

Ah, okay. That (+20) may be generous, but the approach is sound, I think.

Well, I don't think it should be common or anything. And everything is subject to change. I'm almost done with the skills, but we're still in the theoretical stage of the operation here (though I don't anticipate any radical changes in playtesting- I've run plenty o' d20 Modern in my day).

 

[Twowolves]

That's one thing I really dig about Spycraft 2.0 (True20 does something similar). Lots of people can swim, but how many players find it worthwhile to actually put points into it? Unless your game is explicitly like the exploits of a Navy SEAL team or the Clive Cussler novels, it normally comes up rarely enough that nobody is going to specialize in it.

But a generalized athletics skill that covers swim and climb, and extensible to handle other physical activities, players are more likely to put points into, and you don't feel like you are screwing the players if you face them with a swimming challenge. It does make the skill system less precise, but for actual play purposes, it seems to work pretty well.

See, this is one direction that SAGA is going that I don't like. I don't like the idea that the guys that swim the English Channel are using the same ones rock climbing. Sure, athletics tend to draw on the same personality type, and lots of guys that swim also climb rock walls, but I don't agree that being good at one has anything to do with the other. One's ability to climb K2 has very little to do with one's ability to swim the ocean blue, at least IMHO.

Now, pairing up skills like Spot and Listen, or Hide and Move Silently, I could see. I always just assumed that these skills were so important they were split into two in order to effectively make them cost twice as much. Roll those skills into one, well ok, but make all the other skills proportionately useful to keep pace.

But in any skill system, I feel there needs to be some granularity. I would like to play a character who was nearsighted but had uncanny hearing to compensate, or a champion climber who can't swim a stroke, just as much as I'd like to play the sharp eyed/keen eared scout or the All-American athelete.

 

[Vigilance]

See, this is one direction that SAGA is going that I don't like. I don't like the idea that the guys that swim the English Channel are using the same ones rock climbing. Sure, athletics tend to draw on the same personality type, and lots of guys that swim also climb rock walls, but I don't agree that being good at one has anything to do with the other. One's ability to climb K2 has very little to do with one's ability to swim the ocean blue, at least IMHO.

Not in the real world. But characters in fiction who are good at one, tend to be good at all three. Take Tarzan for example. Or Indiana Jones.

That said, some folks raised this objection to me, and if you note above the tidbit I quoted about skill specialization, you can be that guy who's a great mountain climber and a lousy swimmer, by taking a +3 bonus on climbing and a -3 penalty on all other aspects of the Athletics skill.

 

[Psion]

Not in the real world. But characters in fiction who are good at one, tend to be good at all three. Take Tarzan for example. Or Indiana Jones.

Yep.

If you really want to emphasize a particular aspect, I'd say that's fair game for feats. But I really think that allowing a broader level of general competence is a good idea.

That said, I don't like the SAGA approach to this. I understand why they did it, but it's a bit too coarse for my taste for PCs.

 

[Vigilance]

You mean giving everyone all skills at 1/2 level, with class skills getting a +5 bonus?

 

[Psion]

You mean giving everyone all skills at 1/2 level, with class skills getting a +5 bonus?

Yeah, that. The designers stated that they did it that way because most of their players max out scores anyways. That's fine for D&D I think, but in more skill based play, I don't think it's suitable.


Anyways, I've been thinking more about the guard/notice thing.

I'm still not too concerned about opposed rolls. It's still just a random chance, and a center weighted one at that. (i.e. a D20 vs. D20 roll has the same probability distribution as 2d20 + modifiers.)

What makes that situation sticky is that it only takes the sneaker 1 failure, and the gig is typically up.

Typically.

Y'see, you have the stereotypical situation where the guard hears something, comes over to investigate, and the protagonist either comes up with a sneaky solution to throw the guard off, or they take out the guard before they can get the alarm off.

But a worst case would be if they sounded the alarm immediately. That, I though, might be the telling difference of a "high alert" situation.

Of course, this pulls away from your theory because it's courting more rolls, but not less. But for me, roll-offs like these are gold. When running a game, I put a big premium on building tension in the game. Fear of failure is a great way to do that. Letting that hang over their heads when they think the fecal matter is about to hit the rotary impeller is a great opportunity for that.