How do skills work? Or...?

[SkidAce]

Skills are handled a lot like Castles & Crusades (at least in this document.)

I am not familiar with this concept....?

 

[tuxgeo]

The skills given to the characters are weird. Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Perception are easy enough. We know them from 3rd Edition.
But then you have Natural Lore, Survival, and Wilderness Lore. What is Wilderness Lore, when you already have Knowledge (Nature) and Survival? < snip >

Natural Lore might be the physical sciences, such as chemistry, physics, and geology, whereas Wilderness Lore might be much more about botany, meteorology, and the habits of the denizens of the wild regardless of how natural they might be. Wilderness Lore might even tell you about Owlbears, which are anything but natural.

Overall, my guess is that the "Lore" ones are mostly book-learning, and "Survival" is much more of an out-in-the-field Practicum: how to find dry wood quickly; a pile of fir needles how many inches deep; when to lurk in the woodland apple tree for the deer to come by in search of windfalls; how to tell whether that rabbit you snared carries a disease you could get; etc.

 

[Plane Sailing]

. Forbidden Lore also isn't that helpful.

I'd tell you about forbidden lore, but I'm not allowed to...

 

[Sanglorian]

Natural Lore might be the physical sciences, such as chemistry, physics, and geology, whereas Wilderness Lore might be much more about botany, meteorology, and the habits of the denizens of the wild regardless of how natural they might be. Wilderness Lore might even tell you about Owlbears, which are anything but natural.

That's a good point! It would be fun to play a student of natural history in a clearly magical world. 'Natural Lore' is confusing, though—maybe they could call it Natural History and ditch the expectation that all the knowledge skills end with 'Lore'.

 

[Yora]

Currently my monney is on "Someone slipped up" and the three skills are actually only Natural Lore and Survival and on one sheet, one of the two was mislabled as Wilderness Lore.

 

[fistoftyr]

I read as 'there are no skills, there is only Zuul'. I mean, there is no list of skills, you have modifiers that are completely independent an random. They are not part of a list, they are free-form.

This allows maximum flexibility. Your Knight has, say, Horse Training. Not Animal Husbandry, you have no idea about pigs, but horses, oh boy you know everything 'bout horses.

Then, when a DM ask for a check (or you start an action the DM wants a check for, that is) you say 'I have Horse Trainning, does it apply?' and if the answer is yes, you use the mod. If it is not, you don't. Simple.

Horse Trainning examples:

- INT + Horse Trainning = tell what ails the horsey, or why it is suddenly nervous
- CHA + Horse Trainning = calm horses, befriend horse
- WIS + Horse Trainning = appraise horse value, treat horse ailment
- STR + Horse Trainning = ride
- CON + Horse Trainning = break a horse (maybe, I cannot think of anything else!)
- DEX + Horse Trainning = jump off horse at full gallop


I might be reading too much into it, but that is how I make sense of it.

 

[Starbuck_II]

The How To/DM book says skills:
Jump, Climb, Swim, open door is covered by Str check
Stralth covered by Dex
Perception Wis check (finding hidden stuff like traps)
Balance, escape artist, Pick lock, is Dex
Disarming traps (Wis/Dex, unclear)
Recall lore (Int) (covers all the Lore skills, each seperate one gets the bonus)
Track (wis)
Bluff, diplomacy, Gather Info, Intimidate (Wis or Cha)
Only on Character sheet:
Animal Handling (Cha?)
Commerce (Cha?)
Insight (Wis)

 

[Gilladian]

My apologies, the actual mechanic for checks is in the player's document, where it discusses adding the skill bonus to a check. The DM's document discusses checks from the other side of the table. The word skill is something that I think you'll see less of as we move forward. Now there is only one mechanic, the check. Skills are a bonus that is a applied to a check.

Being as these are playtest documents and not finished products, they do seem to assume at least a basic understanding of D&D mechanics, particularly from 3.X, and so they don't explain it quite as well as they might, but it's not exactly guesswork, either.

Yeah, I have no problem incorporating what they did and didn't say into a playable test; I just didn't want other people searching for what didn't exist. I'm used to playing games where the whole character sheet consists of a few words and a vague rating to judge all outcomes against... this is simple to compare to previous versions and guesstimate what a skill will do. And if we're wrong, who cares!

 

[Yora]

I read as 'there are no skills, there is only Zuul'. I mean, there is no list of skills, you have modifiers that are completely independent an random. They are not part of a list, they are free-form.

Which is the right idea, but it lacks guidelines how specific or generic a trained skill needs to be. +3 to "Physical Excercise", "Science", or "Education" is a completely different thing than "Jump", "Geology", and "cave paintings".

I think it's better to have a list of 20 or so skills and then leave it to DMs if the bonus can be applied to an Ability check in a specific situation that occurs in the game.

 

[slobster]

Which is the right idea, but it lacks guidelines how specific or generic a trained skill needs to be. +3 to "Physical Excercise", "Science", or "Education" is a completely different thing than "Jump", "Geology", and "cave paintings".

Since skills are hard-coded into themes for now, it's not a worry. When the game is eventually released, assuming the skill/theme system remains, the themes given will give you a pretty good example of the scope that a single skill will cover.

Beyond that, it comes down to table preference. Some tables will allow you to take "Athletics" as a skill, some will really prefer that you write down "Trapeze Artist". I think I'm fine with that.