D&D 5E The skill system is one dimensional.

[nevin]

your versimilitude my bloated whale carcass.

 

[nevin]

I think I could view it as versimilitude if they didn't keep trying to balance it all with arbitrary changes. too many illogical rules to try and keep different kinds of balance. Like a Wizard can make a wall of iron but not a wall of lead or gold? The whole spell system is just 60 years of that kind of bloat.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I mean to be fair to @EzekielRaiden , there are certainly a rather vocal group that carries on about how terrible 4e was. And, on top of that, they have the sales figures to prove it. So, while there may be positive affirmations out there, there are also negative affirmations as well. And it is easy to fall into being surrounded by one category.

Do they really? I'd like to see those. Because the sales figures as reported by former WotC people are that every WotC edition's PHB has outsold the previous. Every single one.

How many reddit posts do I have to link to disprove you? 10? 30? Cuz there is a lot lmfao

I don't talk about D&D on Reddit. The place is a cesspool unless you heavily, heavily curate where you choose to look.

My argument is that online opinion on social media has changed to be favorable toward 4e in the last few years. I dont care about the minority or sales figures.

And 100 reddit posts are not good evidence for that. The fact that I still to this day have to explain to people that things they love about 5e are actually 4e-isms, or that things they claim are explicit instructions from 4e books but which the books explicitly reject, in no uncertain terms, tells me that that is simply not true.

Maybe we are just now seeing the barest hint of the first light of a new dawn, but we're still years away from a general reappraisal of 4e.

Please explain how this is yet another thing 4e does better.

The thing you say you want? Where it starts at +5 and you get certain options available, and then grows to a bigger number (it was +8 total, IIRC, not +10)?

That's exactly how 4e's system works. Training is +5. If you are Trained in a skill, there are certain things you can do with that skill that Untrained folks can't, though certainly not everything related to that skill. There are even some ways to attempt skill checks even if you aren't trained in the associated skill, and the game was generally pretty good about not over-using the "you must be trained to do that" angle.

The only real difference is that the next higher tier, Skill Focus, IIRC doesn't add any new "Focus Only" features. I suspect that is because Focus was not expected to be a thing most characters would do, and thus adding a bunch of defined rules just for the few who do that was not seen as a worthwhile design time expenditure. Instead, Skill Powers take up that mantle, being utility things you can only take if you are already Trained in that skill.

And, to address an important point, someone upthread (can't find the post now) spoke of how rules like this inherently result in forbidding people from doing certain things. This requires a careful response.

On the one hand, it does not inherently curtail creativity. A well-designed system of this nature only limits a few things to Trained only (or Focused only etc.), while keeping the base skills extremely broad. IOW, anyone can attempt to use Religion to communicate with the dead (though it may be difficult to do so!), but only someone actually trained in Religion can correctly perform the sealing rituals for a religious ceremony, unless they find a way around that limitation (e.g., by getting detailed instructions on how to perform it.)

On the other... sometimes, yes, it DOES tell players they can't do a thing they would very much like to do, and that's a good thing. As long as this is an uncommon event, one that pushes the players into more challenging or perilous methods because they didn't have the training to attempt the easy way, this is actually good for the game. Because this sort of thing shows how skill training actually matters, instead of being literally just "numbers go brr." It means that players who invested in something feel rewarded, while those who did not now must work around their "weaknesses."

Critically, lacking a skill should not be a game over scenario. Instead, it should make the difference between an easy, obvious, or relatively "safe" approach and other harder, more obscure, or less "safe" approaches. Improvisation is still present ant still useful, it provides the essential fallback when the specific tool for that purpose is not available.

Also, per @Pedantic, Page 42 and the like are tools for improvising. It's literally impossible to have a fixed DC for genuinely anything anyone could ever attempt. That's where generic difficulty stuff is relevant. But you can and should have real, fixed DCs for things that can be reasonably predicted to show up at some point. Doors are the common example here, and (to the best of my knowledge) every WotC edition has had tables of DCs for them, and most other common things like that.

Still don't understand why Skill Challenges are the worst mechanic of all time, but spells that do the exact same thing (fire and forget encounter-deleters) are the wonderful. The former actually permits dynamic changing situations. I have never understood how the latter is anything but "turn off your brain, because you have the 'I Win' button for every scenario."

I don't think I've said it specifically yet, but all of my examples should be taken with the grain of salt that is every situation is not a 100% always thing. In other words... the DM who continually put up gates and portculli that blocked passage was not being a purposeful jerk all the time by doing so (and in fact might not have even realized how often they were doing it and just thought it was good adventure design.) But if they did do it often enough that a player felt as though they wanted or needed to design their next character such that they could easily get past those blockades, that should be an indicator that they perhaps have gone to the well too often and should start thinking of new things.

This is one of the perennial problems with the alleged application of "tactical infinity." Well-meaning but flawed execution on the part of GMs who simply don't realize just how obstructive and/or punitive they're being.

So rather than a player knowing all the things they can do mechanically and making informed decisions that way (which I think is what you are talking about if I've understood you correctly?)... they instead know that they can come up with ideas narratively and that it will have impact if/when the mechanics eventually come into play. And the adjudication comes from the DM having to translate narrative ideas into mechanical results.

Alternatively, we could make the mechanics sufficiently transparent and direct such that it doesn't matter whether you think about them in narrative terms or in mechanical terms, because both methods produce the same results. A difficult design challenge, to be sure, but far from an impossible one.

 

[Micah Sweet]

your versimilitude my bloated whale carcass.

Feel free to cut out as many spells as you like when playing at your own table.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think I could view it as versimilitude if they didn't keep trying to balance it all with arbitrary changes. too many illogical rules to try and keep different kinds of balance. Like a Wizard can make a wall of iron but not a wall of lead or gold? The whole spell system is just 60 years of that kind of bloat.

That sounds like wanting to add more spells. I'm all for that.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So when I hear people sing the praises for skill challenges I’m kinda left confused.

But I am with you 100%. I am confused.

My assertion for the past...oh, almost a decade now I guess, is that this was born almost purely from DM unfamiliarity. It had literally nothing to do with the quality of the system.

When a DM is really familiar with a system, they feel free. They can tweak things because they know how things should work, and have the experience to more or less predict how "breaking" the rules will pan out. They can flex, showing off sufficient mastery to do "wrong" things in such a way that it is actually good and right, just as very talented authors can break the "rules of writing" to produce better writing. That doesn't reflect badly on the rules, which almost always DO produce better writing. Instead it reflects just how skillful these authors are.

Conversely, when a DM is unfamiliar with a system, what do they do? In my experience, they shut down, in more ways than one. Only and exclusively what is explicitly mentioned is permitted. Creativity is curtailed because the DM does not know what consequences might arise. Rules are utterly unbreakable bindings. Etc., etc., etc.

Hence why so many describe 4e as being confining and anti-creative. DMs ran it that way.

I have had a brand-new 4e DM (literally; old-school guy bought the books on the cheap and felt like running it after doing a Let's Read thread) do absolutely amazing, brilliant things with it because he approached it on its own terms and truly worked to understand what it was doing and why, so that then he could spindle, fold, ans mutilate it with confidence. Despite ending early because he had IRL problems needing his full attention, that campaign remains one of the best I've ever played. And Skill Challenges were an essential part of how cool that game was.

 

[Pedantic]

Also, per @Pedantic, Page 42 and the like are tools for improvising. It's literally impossible to have a fixed DC for genuinely anything anyone could ever attempt. That's where generic difficulty stuff is relevant. But you can and should have real, fixed DCs for things that can be reasonably predicted to show up at some point. Doors are the common example here, and (to the best of my knowledge) every WotC edition has had tables of DCs for them, and most other common things like that.

Still don't understand why Skill Challenges are the worst mechanic of all time, but spells that do the exact same thing (fire and forget encounter-deleters) are the wonderful. The former actually permits dynamic changing situations. I have never understood how the latter is anything but "turn off your brain, because you have the 'I Win' button for every scenario."

I'm not entirely sure I'm being addressed directly here, but I think I've been quite clear over our acquaintance about precisely how and why I dislike skill challenges, and why I think they're baleful influence on the general design zeitgeist. In the briefest statement, if the rules for all tasks that can be reasonably predicted to come up at some point are actually printed, then I think skill challenges are largely a solution in search of a problem. Without invoking the other thread on the topic, I believe that scaling and/or generic difficulties in nearly all forms are one of the primary threats to player agency, and the more common their use becomes the worse the problem.

Alternatively, we could make the mechanics sufficiently transparent and direct such that it doesn't matter whether you think about them in narrative terms or in mechanical terms, because both methods produce the same results. A difficult design challenge, to be sure, but far from an impossible one.

I'm not sure I understand what you're proposing here. I do generally support relative transparency between the fiction and mechanics in a broad sense, i.e. a Thief-Acrobat should be good at climbing and jumping and tumbling, and when trying to do those things should expect to be able to call on effective mechanics to achieve them.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm not entirely sure I'm being addressed directly here, but I think I've been quite clear over our acquaintance about precisely how and why I dislike skill challenges, and why I think they're baleful influence on the general design zeitgeist. In the briefest statement, if the rules for all tasks that can be reasonably predicted to come up at some point are actually printed, then I think skill challenges are largely a solution in search of a problem.

Then I would say, in equal brevity, that such a thing cannot be. You will not be able to print enough text to achieve that end. Even if you spent a whole book doing that and nothing else.

Without invoking the other thread on the topic, I believe that scaling and/or generic difficulties in nearly all forms are one of the primary threats to player agency, and the more common their use becomes the worse the problem.

Just to be clear, which thread? I've been mostly checked out of the forum lately for IRL issues.

I'm not sure I understand what you're proposing here. I do generally support relative transparency between the fiction and mechanics in a broad sense, i.e. a Thief-Acrobat should be good at climbing and jumping and tumbling, and when trying to do those things should expect to be able to call on effective mechanics to achieve them.

Consider the following.

Player A plays a Jongleur, which has various narrative implications via its description and artwork. The player knows the basics of the mechanics and is well-versed in the fundamental gameplay of the system, but only really understands things in narrative terms. So he reasons almost exclusively in those terms. "What makes sense for this character to do in this situation?" is, to him, a question about what kind of person this Jongleur is, what kind of people Jongleurs in general are, what would be reasonable or prudent, the relevant emotions and perhaps even drama, etc. From these things, Player A concludes that a cunning leap from the shadows, throwing knives at the enemy, is the best response to the current situation: and lo and behold, there are clean, well-defined mechanical solutions which meet that desire, and the player knows they will meet that desire. Had they not been there, however, he knows he can just ask the DM about how to improvise doing so, and that the rules work to make sure such improvising will be worthwhile.

Meanwhile, Player 1 also plays a Jongleur (at a different table). But for her, the thematics and mechanics are reversed: her true understanding is in the mechanics. Story is something she works out separately and often more slowly. So she accounts for the various dangers before her, the positioning of her allies and enemies, the current advantages and disadvantages affecting her character, etc. From these, she concludes that the bonuses from attacking from a hidden position and of jumping down from a high place are mechanically sound strategy; she checks to see if she has any pre-defined moves which fit the bill. Awesome, she does! But even if she didn't, she could call on the improvised attack rules, which she knows are reasonably good (albeit not quite as good as a true tailor-made feature).

But the DM, who happens to DM both of these games, looks at the short list of options both Player A and Player 1 picked...and realizes they are the same things. The exact same result, whether the player thought about it in narrative terms or mechanical terms.

Because the narrative is the mechanics, and the mechanics are the narrative. The two brought into such harmony that it does not matter which you use to decide, both lead to the same place.

Obviously that's the highest ideal and in practice it will be more complicated and less perfect, but it is a worthwhile goal.

 

[Pedantic]

Then I would say, in equal brevity, that such a thing cannot be. You will not be able to print enough text to achieve that end. Even if you spent a whole book doing that and nothing else.

Yes, we're probably at stalemate on this point. I simply don't agree, and I'd really like to see some more attempts at it before I'm persuaded otherwise.

Just to be clear, which thread? I've been mostly checked out of the forum lately for IRL issues.

This very long monstrosity about the nature of player agency, which has gone in a very different direction than I'm trying to indicate with the term here.

Consider the following.

Player A plays a Jongleur, which has various narrative implications via its description and artwork. The player knows the basics of the mechanics and is well-versed in the fundamental gameplay of the system, but only really understands things in narrative terms. So he reasons almost exclusively in those terms. "What makes sense for this character to do in this situation?" is, to him, a question about what kind of person this Jongleur is, what kind of people Jongleurs in general are, what would be reasonable or prudent, the relevant emotions and perhaps even drama, etc. From these things, Player A concludes that a cunning leap from the shadows, throwing knives at the enemy, is the best response to the current situation: and lo and behold, there are clean, well-defined mechanical solutions which meet that desire, and the player knows they will meet that desire. Had they not been there, however, he knows he can just ask the DM about how to improvise doing so, and that the rules work to make sure such improvising will be worthwhile.

Meanwhile, Player 1 also plays a Jongleur (at a different table). But for her, the thematics and mechanics are reversed: her true understanding is in the mechanics. Story is something she works out separately and often more slowly. So she accounts for the various dangers before her, the positioning of her allies and enemies, the current advantages and disadvantages affecting her character, etc. From these, she concludes that the bonuses from attacking from a hidden position and of jumping down from a high place are mechanically sound strategy; she checks to see if she has any pre-defined moves which fit the bill. Awesome, she does! But even if she didn't, she could call on the improvised attack rules, which she knows are reasonably good (albeit not quite as good as a true tailor-made feature).

But the DM, who happens to DM both of these games, looks at the short list of options both Player A and Player 1 picked...and realizes they are the same things. The exact same result, whether the player thought about it in narrative terms or mechanical terms.

Because the narrative is the mechanics, and the mechanics are the narrative. The two brought into such harmony that it does not matter which you use to decide, both lead to the same place.

Obviously that's the highest ideal and in practice it will be more complicated and less perfect, but it is a worthwhile goal.

Not to be terse after you wrote all that, but I think we more or less agree here, though we might quibble about the appropriate scale for player action effectiveness and the ultimate expectations of a player using the game. I have little to no patience for someone uninterested in understanding the mechanics of a game they're playing, though I certainly think the mechanics and theme should work harmoniously to facilitate that understanding.

 

[Scott Christian]

Do they really? I'd like to see those. Because the sales figures as reported by former WotC people are that every WotC edition's PHB has outsold the previous. Every single one.

4e PHB did outsell 3e PHB. You are correct. But not nearly as much as their growth margin predicted. On top of that, extended sales declined much faster and to a larger extent than 3e. I mean, at one point in time, Pathfinder was outselling D&D. An unheard of case with 3e or 5e. But you are correct in that the PHB for 4e did sell more than the PHB sold for 3e. But that number alone doesn't tell the tale.

When a DM is really familiar with a system, they feel free. They can tweak things because they know how things should work, and have the experience to more or less predict how "breaking" the rules will pan out. They can flex, showing off sufficient mastery to do "wrong" things in such a way that it is actually good and right, just as very talented authors can break the "rules of writing" to produce better writing. That doesn't reflect badly on the rules, which almost always DO produce better writing. Instead it reflects just how skillful these authors are.

This is an interesting analogy. I am still digesting it, but I think I like it - a lot.

Hence why so many describe 4e as being confining and anti-creative. DMs ran it that way.

Can I ask a clarifying question. Are you saying the DMs ran it according to the rules?

I have had a brand-new 4e DM (literally; old-school guy bought the books on the cheap and felt like running it after doing a Let's Read thread) do absolutely amazing, brilliant things with it because he approached it on its own terms and truly worked to understand what it was doing and why, so that then he could spindle, fold, ans mutilate it with confidence. Despite ending early because he had IRL problems needing his full attention, that campaign remains one of the best I've ever played. And Skill Challenges were an essential part of how cool that game was.

Excellent experience. And I know everyone is sick of me saying it, but my friends and I had a blast with 4e. It was great in my opinion. I just think 5e is better. Our only problem with 4e is that combat was too bogged down with modifiers, extraneous details one had to track, and bloat. But I am glad your experience was as fun as mine.