Do you allow Acrobatics and Athletics to be used interchangeably?

[doctorbadwolf]

Freerunning is mostly jumping and climbing − by current D&D rules, straightforward Strength (Athletic) checks.



That said, a careful consideration of freerunning is what finally convinced me to terminate the discongruent acrobatics skill, and just use athletics for all physical stunts.

Athletic Strength necessarily includes agile ‘grace’. Just like wielding a sword includes the ability to aim the sword. Strength is global body coordination and speed versus small, slow, sensitive, fine motor skills.

Nah, they’re better separate.

If I were going to combine them I’d make it all a Dex skill, not a strength skill. Just like I’d make all weapons use Dex for attack before I’d go back to strength for all weapons.

But it’s better to have the two, and keep the mechanical distinction between the physically powerful and the physically coordinated, regardless of the two going hand in hand.

We know that IRL different physical pursuits have opportunity costs in terms of how good a power lifter can become at gymnastics, or vise versa, without losing some of what they’re already good at.

DND is abstract, but has just enough detail to broadly distinguish between arghetypal expressions. The dexterous character and the strong character are always better st different things than one another, and that’s as it should be.

 

[Yaarel]

The separation between Strength athletics and Dexterity acrobatics implies that people who learn how to jump well never learn how to land well. Or people who climb well never learn how to balance well or fall well.

The disconnect is one of the deep failures of the six-ability tradition that I hope some future option or edition eventually fixes.

 

[Yaarel]

Physical power versus physical agility − is more like Size versus Athletics.

Then it is easy to be big and clumsy. Or small and agile. Or big and agile.

 

[77IM]

Yes, I allow Acrobatics and Athletics to be used interchangeably in many situations (but not all).

In fact I generally prefer a certain amount of overlap between skills because,

• Success moves the game forward more easily than failure
• It lets players stick to their character's "idiom" without sacrificing capability
• It's more likely that the player who comes up with an idea gets to have their character be the one to try it
• I guess when it comes right down to it, IDGAF about niche protection, as long as all the PCs are roughly balanced against each other

For Acrobatics vs. Athletics specifically:
- Acrobatics can be used to balance, tumble, and land safely. Athletics can be used to land safely but ONLY IF you jumped intentionally, not if you just fell by accident. Athletics can't be used to tumble, but it can be used to barrel past people and hazardous situations, and achieve similar results -- possibly with a greater downside for failure, such as damage.
- Athletics can be used to jump, climb, and swim. Acrobatics can be used to jump or climb but ONLY IF you get a running start. (Thus if you climb multiple rounds in a row, you can usually only use Acrobatics on that first round.)

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Out of curiosity, how often are you guys asking for Strength (Athletics) checks to climb anyway? That's pretty rare in my games. Only occasionally do I establish that there is a complication that calls for an ability check to climb (slippery, no handholds, etc.). Normally it's just half your speed, no roll.

Most adventure paths require one. At least for climbing vertical walls (not climbing as in climbing a hill). DC is usually 10, unless the surface is slippery.

Lost Mine of Phandelver even goes into more details on how to handle climbing vertical walls in the first dungeon. There it's explained so that a character rolls athletics and if he rolls 10 or higher, he can move his turn up or down as he wishes. If he fails by "more than 5" he falls down and if he rolls 5-9, he sticks to the wall but can't move.

 

[iserith]

Most adventure paths require one. At least for climbing vertical walls (not climbing as in climbing a hill). DC is usually 10, unless the surface is slippery.

Lost Mine of Phandelver even goes into more details on how to handle climbing vertical walls in the first dungeon. There it's explained so that a character rolls athletics and if he rolls 10 or higher, he can move his turn up or down as he wishes. If he fails by "more than 5" he falls down and if he rolls 5-9, he sticks to the wall but can't move.

I wouldn't consider an adventure path definitive. The Basic Rules say: "While climbing or swimming, each foot of movement costs 1 extra foot (2 extra feet in difficult terrain), unless a creature has a climbing or swimming speed. At the DM’s option, climbing a slippery vertical surface or one with few handholds requires a successful Strength (Athletics) check."

I believe you are referring to the "natural chimney" in Area 3 of the Cragmaw Hideout. This would be the case of being the DM's option (the DM here being the writer of that module communicating to others his or her intent), but it says nothing in the module about why a check is necessary here, omitting any mention of being slippery, having few handholds, or the like. I guess we're just left wondering why that is. It's also possible this was written before the rules for climbing were finalized.

What I'm curious about is how many people are treating it like, say, D&D 3.Xe or 4e where the DM is hearing "I want to climb this..." and going straight to asking for a Strength (Athletics) check instead of considering whether one is necessary and using the rules I quoted above. What I'm reading in a lot of the responses above seems to be "Climb = Athletics check" when I think it's really "Climb = 1/2 Speed and maybe sometimes an Athletics check if there's a complication."

 

[5ekyu]

Nah, they’re better separate.

If I were going to combine them I’d make it all a Dex skill, not a strength skill. Just like I’d make all weapons use Dex for attack before I’d go back to strength for all weapons.

But it’s better to have the two, and keep the mechanical distinction between the physically powerful and the physically coordinated, regardless of the two going hand in hand.

We know that IRL different physical pursuits have opportunity costs in terms of how good a power lifter can become at gymnastics, or vise versa, without losing some of what they’re already good at.

DND is abstract, but has just enough detail to broadly distinguish between arghetypal expressions. The dexterous character and the strong character are always better st different things than one another, and that’s as it should be.

One of my favorite attribute breakdowns schemes i first saw in WoD and it followed some of your reasoning...

Each sphere had three attributes - one for power, one for finesse and one for resistance.

Split that out a bit

So for physical strength dex con sell them selves and you may have a case where dex is your to hit and strength is your damage (assuming armor used vs damage not vs to hit)

But for mental you could have like Knowledge, Reasoning and Focus

Social could be Presence, Manipulation and Discipline

But then extend it for say magic...
Potency, Casting and Wards

Then allow you to apply the appropriate attribute and the appropriate skill/talent/spell and viola... You have a fluid system with pretty clear distinctions.

 

[5ekyu]

Other systems have at times had the concept of complimentary (sp) skill rolls where when appropriate a different skill that applied to a task could help with a primary.

It involved two checks.

So an acrobatic tree jump with climb...

Make acrobatic check...
If successful take advantage on climb. If unsuccessful take disadvantage on climb.

Drawback two rolls, Advantage same.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

One of my favorite attribute breakdowns schemes i first saw in WoD and it followed some of your reasoning...

Each sphere had three attributes - one for power, one for finesse and one for resistance.

Split that out a bit

So for physical strength dex con sell them selves and you may have a case where dex is your to hit and strength is your damage (assuming armor used vs damage not vs to hit)

But for mental you could have like Knowledge, Reasoning and Focus

Social could be Presence, Manipulation and Discipline

But then extend it for say magic...
Potency, Casting and Wards

Then allow you to apply the appropriate attribute and the appropriate skill/talent/spell and viola... You have a fluid system with pretty clear distinctions.

Very interesting! In my own WIP game, I have the six classic attributes, except I put wisdom and int together, and subbed in Will.

But they don’t add to skills in the same way DnD does. Instead, they are resource pools. Your score is a number of points you have to spend. Your skills have specialties (3 each), and you add them together to make a dice pool when rolling for them. If you flub a roll, you can spend an Attribute Point to reroll (we're experimenting with rolling extra dice equal to your Attribute score to add to the check, but for now it’s a reroll), or you can simply upgrade a success to the next tier of success.

You can use any Attribute that makes sense, as long as no one at the table objects. If there is an objection, the GM decides. You can also spend those points to activate special abilities, magic item properties, or use more powerful, advanced, uses of your skills.

 

[5ekyu]

Very interesting! In my own WIP game, I have the six classic attributes, except I put wisdom and int together, and subbed in Will.

But they don’t add to skills in the same way DnD does. Instead, they are resource pools. Your score is a number of points you have to spend. Your skills have specialties (3 each), and you add them together to make a dice pool when rolling for them. If you flub a roll, you can spend an Attribute Point to reroll (we're experimenting with rolling extra dice equal to your Attribute score to add to the check, but for now it’s a reroll), or you can simply upgrade a success to the next tier of success.

You can use any Attribute that makes sense, as long as no one at the table objects. If there is an objection, the GM decides. You can also spend those points to activate special abilities, magic item properties, or use more powerful, advanced, uses of your skills.

Yeah there are so many ways resolutions can be done once you have the broad chunk and detail chunk setup.

WoD simply makes them pools of dice, many games add together with roll vs roll over DC, one i saw was diceless and you did spend them to boost results with different scales etc, some add together to get a roll under DC, etc.

The key point to me as far as elegance is getting to where they are clear enough to make "which fits this moment" intuitive as hell **plus** easily expanding to whatever style of game you want.

Want political intrigue and status? Add Clout, Operatives and Markers

You could literally pick any major theme subject for your campaign and setup a triad in minutes.