I want my actions to matter

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

I don't understand what you mean.

See below...

Every class had a base 4 skill points, not 2 and cross class skills didn't exist. You could pick any skill 1 for 1. It worked out great.

There's the how I was looking for!

 

[tetrasodium]

Didn't they both say they would get rid of the concept of cross class skills? I assume that means no penalty in buying up any skill.

I think that they had value but don't feel they were a deciding factor in why it was a better skill system.ill try to expand on what I said about them.

* I rarely saw anyone take cross class skills beyond a couple cases... Those cases were A: meeting prerequisites for some feat or PrC and B: a dabbling touch of investment just to reach some minimum threshold that gave enough to provide minimum competence to do something poorly enough to not be certain of making it worse. With B it was usually a player feeling like they have some spare points after meeting some prereqs they wanted to meet dropping a couple points in balance climb or whatever because they feel like the edge cases where it might help them enough are worth maybe not needing an escort holding their hand across the slippery log

* They are not a thing I feel like was worth fighting over despite thinking they were a net positive allowing things like a wizard feeling positive about simply climbing a tree or something to avoid trash or a fighter having enough points in religion to tell the difference between ghoul zombie and lich. In fact a point or two in religion was often a good way of demonstrating their character was actively religious for roleplay reasons without needing to take levels in divine classes

* If cross class skills were a thing that wotc considered a problem while writing a variant rule I think it would be much better to just say "no it's not on your list, you simply can not take it" than maintaining the 2014&UA "if it's on your list twice due to race class and background contributions replace it with literally anything". They were a nice addition not the reason it was a better skill system

*Also I said that having points that could be invested gradually as the party finds it's feet and grows was better than the farce of skill=pb bonus+attribute mod we have now.

* Having gaps in the party's skillet is a good thing as it pushes them to interact with experts, find creative work arounds, and use niche class abilities/consumable magic items as gapfill that might otherwise be left unusable.

 

[Maxperson]

I think that they had value but don't feel they were a deciding factor in why it was a better skill system.ill try to expand on what I said about them.

* I rarely saw anyone take cross class skills beyond a couple cases... Those cases were A: meeting prerequisites for some feat or PrC and B: a dabbling touch of investment just to reach some minimum threshold that gave enough to provide minimum competence to do something poorly enough to not be certain of making it worse. With B it was usually a player feeling like they have some spare points after meeting some prereqs they wanted to meet dropping a couple points in balance climb or whatever because they feel like the edge cases where it might help them enough are worth maybe not needing an escort holding their hand across the slippery log

* They are not a thing I feel like was worth fighting over despite thinking they were a net positive allowing things like a wizard feeling positive about simply climbing a tree or something to avoid trash or a fighter having enough points in religion to tell the difference between ghoul zombie and lich. In fact a point or two in religion was often a good way of demonstrating their character was actively religious for roleplay reasons without needing to take levels in divine classes

* If cross class skills were a thing that wotc considered a problem while writing a variant rule I think it would be much better to just say "no it's not on your list, you simply can not take it" than maintaining the 2014&UA "if it's on your list twice due to race class and background contributions replace it with literally anything". They were a nice addition not the reason it was a better skill system

*Also I said that having points that could be invested gradually as the party finds it's feet and grows was better than the farce of skill=pb bonus+attribute mod we have now.

* Having gaps in the party's skillet is a good thing as it pushes them to interact with experts, find creative work arounds, and use niche class abilities/consumable magic items as gapfill that might otherwise be left unusable.

I agree with everything here but the value of cross class skills. I think they didn't have any. There was no reason that a fighter from Halruaa, a country where everyone learned a bit about magic and about 1/3 of the population could at least cast cantrips, shouldn't be able to get arcana, history, spellcraft, etc. without penalty.

Rather than make case by case by case by case exceptions for PCs based on location and/or background, I just dumped the idea of cross class skills and let the players decide which skills were appropriate for their PCs roleplay and background.

 

[bloodtide]

I think a bigger problem is DMs who think reality is their own personal understanding (always flawed to some degree) of physics, biology, social interaction, etc. and who then override game rules based on this understanding (the level of overriding proportional to the level of the Dunning-Kruger effect at play in that particular circumstance), much to the confusion of the rest of the table and to the detriment of the game they are running.

This is all part of the same problem.

 

[pointofyou]

This is all part of the same problem.

The problem of people acting as though they're smarter and wiser than everyone else? I agree.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

This is all part of the same problem.

They're two quite separate problems really.

 

[pointofyou]

They're two quite separate problems really.

Lumper-splitter arguments are the worst.

 

[bloodtide]

The problem of people acting as though they're smarter and wiser than everyone else? I agree.

This is close to the heart of the problem: players that played in two casual goof around games and watched some Critical Roll thinking they are D&D experts.

They're two quite separate problems really.

Well, as a Forever DM I mostly only see the problem players.

 

[pointofyou]

This is close to the heart of the problem: players that played in two casual goof around games and watched some Critical Roll thinking they are D&D experts.


Well, as a Forever DM I mostly only see the problem players.

I've run D&D 5e for people who came to the game because of Critical Role and they were and are some of the best players I've encountered. I think "Forever GMs" are also close to the heart of the problem.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I've run D&D 5e for people who came to the game because of Critical Role and they were and are some of the best players I've encountered. I think "Forever GMs" are also close to the heart of the problem.

I think a lack of experience with playing is often a significant problem. When you only GM you start to build up strange biases.