Untrained/trained Skills....Noooo!

[drothgery]

Share your 2p...

There have been several threads here about the SWSE skill system that have discussed its merits in detail. Most recently here, less than three weeks ago.

 

[Felon]

Hi All,
I was reading through the 'star wars' stuff that 'might' be relevent to 4E. And I was appalled to see that skills are either trained or untrained. I hope that this will not apply to 4E, please someone put my worries to rest 'cos I am excited about another edition. If not, your roll would be:
"1/2 character level + relevant ability modifier + 5 (if trained) + 5 (if Skill Focus)"
I have two MAJOR problems with this:
1. It stops any characters having any flavour through their skill choices, you can do anything you want (fine if your a Jedi, not so if you are a Ftr/Pal etc).
2. A 20th level (or so) adventurer -often with very high abilities- who has never picked up a sculpters tools in his life will be able to make things like an old master, who, lets face it, is unlikely to advance beyond 5th level cos he won't get any XP doing sculpture!
Adventurer: 10+4[ish] vs 2+2[ish]+5+5
Hopefully it is not happening......
Share your 2p...
M1.9P

As others will point out, in SWSE you don't outsculpt or otherwise outperform anyone if what you're attempting is a trained-only use of a skill and you happen to be untrained at it.

What the SWSE skill system does well is allow for the notion that as adventurers gain experience, they accrue self-confidence and resourcefulness. This allows these larger-than-life characters to attempt things that lesser men wouldn't dare without the benefit of a two-to-six-week course beforehand. If you have learned to accept level-based increases in BAB and saving throws, I'm not sure why this would be a problem. And if it's OK for a Star Wars character to get this benefit, I'm not sure why it should be begrudged to a hero in a fantasy setting.

Again, this bonus isn't going to help you at a trained-only skill use if you aren't trained in the skill. The upshot is that this can allow everyone to participate in a skill-based challenge, as opposed to the current familiar scenario where some people getting bored of sitting on the bench and push the party into resorting to brute force because that's the one and only area of the game that all characters are decent at.

Where SWSE screws up is that doesn't allow for the fact that low-level characters can rack up large bonuses very quickly. They kept 15 as the basic DC for skil uses, and a 20 will still net the majority of uses of any skill, and you can still take 10. This all leads to characters that peak early, and mediocre amounts of skill being not much less useful than an amazing amount of skill (for checks that use static DC's anyway). They really needed to incorporate some of the concepts behind skill challenges from Iron Heroes.

 

[Li Shenron]

The way you limit this is with trained/untrained uses. An adventurer can't perform brain surgery, no matter what kind of bonus he'd theoretically get to the heal roll, if he isn't trained. Similar with craft. You can cobble together an awesome raft out of barrels and detritus, in order to escape a desert island, using your big-ass bonus. However, you cannot carve David out of marble, because you're not trained.

Simple.

True until the 30th level character takes the feat (or whatever, but 99% there's going to be something like this) which turns an untrained skill into trained, and suddenly he goes from not being able to use it to being just as good as the guy who's being doing that for 30 levels.

Something similar could happen also in 3.x (you can spend all your new skill points in one new skill), but not at this degree.

 

[mach1.9pants]

There have been several threads here about the SWSE skill system that have discussed its merits in detail. Most recently here, less than three weeks ago.

Sorry about that but I cannot find where the search forum bit is d'oh, I did look

 

[FadedC]

I disagree that being a blacksmith has zero effect on the game. I can see it come up every so often. Pick a more useful profession for an adventurer like sailor and it can come up a lot. Having "just put it in your background" can lead to min-maxers writing long backgrounds that touch on every profession needed (I was a blacksmith, then a tailor, then a sailor). Why not have the rules help out here a bit?

I don't think you need a detailed set of rules to cover something that will only come up once in a blue moon like that. If a player is blacksmith the DM can rule that he can do blacksmithing type stuff in the unlikely even that it comes up. If he's a sailor and an adventure takes place on the ship the DM can do the same. I don't see many players trying to minmax their history given how rarely most of these things will have a concrete advantage in the game, and how easily the DM can say that the player can't do anything well enough because he's so unfocused in his non adventuring career.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Hi All,
I was reading through the 'star wars' stuff that 'might' be relevent to 4E. And I was appalled to see that skills are either trained or untrained. I hope that this will not apply to 4E, please someone put my worries to rest 'cos I am excited about another edition. If not, your roll would be:
"1/2 character level + relevant ability modifier + 5 (if trained) + 5 (if Skill Focus)"
I have two MAJOR problems with this:
1. It stops any characters having any flavour through their skill choices, you can do anything you want (fine if your a Jedi, not so if you are a Ftr/Pal etc).
2. A 20th level (or so) adventurer -often with very high abilities- who has never picked up a sculpters tools in his life will be able to make things like an old master, who, lets face it, is unlikely to advance beyond 5th level cos he won't get any XP doing sculpture!
Adventurer: 10+4[ish] vs 2+2[ish]+5+5
Hopefully it is not happening......
Share your 2p...
M1.9P

1. How does it stop characters having flavour through their skill choices? One fighter might be a knight trained in Ride and Intimidate, another might be an outdoorsman trained in Climb and Swim. Very different flavour from their skill choices.

2. A 20th level adventurer might have the same raw skill check in an untrained skill as a low level master - but skills in SWSE typically have certain 'trained only' uses. To take your sculpting analogy, perhaps carving in wood can be done untrained, but carving a marble statue is trained only. The 20th level fighter can whittle a pretty good wooden deer, but give him a block of marble and he is stumped, while the old master just gets straight to it.

3. D&D 4th Edition skills are not exactly the same as Star Wars Saga Edition skills (source: 4e news page, which refers to: http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3774436&postcount=59)

 

[mach1.9pants]

To answer:
1. Yes they are different but not as different as the ftr with an interest in history [1 rank Knowledge(History)] and poetry [1 rank profession(poet)] and still the rest in ride etc etc. I didn't mean stop and should have said reduce.
2. I didn't realise this and agreed that reduces my worry in a previous post
3. Yep, I hope they are ALOT different
M1.9P
ps nice website!

 

[Aloïsius]

The solution : divide skills between adventuring skills, things heroes should become good at, whatever their class, and non-adventuring skills, things only some heroes may be interested with. The first one use SSE rules, the other have a basic status of "non competent".

Thus you have :

check = ability score +1/2 character level (if adventurer skill) + relevant ability modifier + 5 (if trained) + 5 (if Skill Focus)

Problem solved. Just give characters two non adventuring skills at first level, and another one every few level (5 or so, I don't know).

You can add restricted skills with the same principle : things like scry (why did they removed it in 3.5 ? THIS was a great skill !, autohypnosis etc...)

And this will reduce the insta-chirurgian expert effect : you need one feat/ or level to gainbasic competence in a restricted area, another one (a few levels later) to be trained, and still another one (more levels later) to be an expert.

They really needed to incorporate some of the concepts behind skill challenges from Iron Heroes

Remember who is working on 4e

 

[Tharen the Damned]

There are two big in the skill system. If they would get rid of these, most issues would be fixed.

1) No/ not enough base knowledge. Sure you can use skills untrained but the only bonus you get is your ability bonus. That is not enough. If you get a base knowledge (say 5 ranks or so) in your untrained skills you might actually use them and succeed. This does not include skills that have to be trained.

2) linear progression. In the real world if you lear a new skill, lets say a new language, at first you progress very fast but after a while the progress slows down. You have absorbed the basics and now tackle the more complicated things. You still get better but at a slower rate. If D&D would use a skill system with diminishing returns the DCs would not have to be so ridiculous high for some tasks. A 1st level rogue can barely disable a simple trap but a high level rogue disables a magical Deathtrap with his feet while his hands are bound. Some might find this heroic. I think it is absurd.

3) Specialisation. There is no real Specialisation in D&D. Sure you can max out and add Skill Focus. But that does not simulate the total dedication for one skill enough. I would say, get rid of the x skill ranks per level per skill. Let every Player decide if he wants to specialize or stay generalist. The changes from 2) will cap the linear progression. So a Specialist will be much better than a generalist but with diminishing returns.

Combine 1) , 2) and 3) into a skill system and all PCs can try basic things like hiding or swimming and have a chance to succeed.

 

[Aloïsius]

1) No/ not enough base knowledge. Sure you can use skills untrained but the only bonus you get is your ability bonus. That is not enough. If you get a base knowledge (say 5 ranks or so) in your untrained skills you might actually use them and succeed. This does not include skills that have to be trained.

I don't understand what you mean, there. Skills are usualy opposed roll. untrained VS untrained -> chances of success. Untrained VS trained -> very little chance of success. Just set the DC right for common, easy task (climbing a rope etc...) so that you don't need a trained skill to do it.

2) linear progression. In the real world if you lear a new skill, lets say a new language, at first you progress very fast but after a while the progress slows down. You have absorbed the basics and now tackle the more complicated things. You still get better but at a slower rate. If D&D would use a skill system with diminishing returns the DCs would not have to be so ridiculous high for some tasks. A 1st level rogue can barely disable a simple trap but a high level rogue disables a magical Deathtrap with his feet while his hands are bound. Some might find this heroic. I think it is absurd.

Unless you use skill points and XP à la Ars Magica, this is not possible without cumbersome tables. And I think D&D4 will be simpler than that.

3) Specialisation. There is no real Specialisation in D&D. Sure you can max out and add Skill Focus. But that does not simulate the total dedication for one skill enough. I would say, get rid of the x skill ranks per level per skill. Let every Player decide if he wants to specialize or stay generalist. The changes from 2) will cap the linear progression. So a Specialist will be much better than a generalist but with diminishing returns.

When do you choose to specialize ? D&D is not skill-centric, I doubt they will use that. Maybe you can have a special feat "total dedication" that gives you another +5 in a skill, but -3 in every other skills...