Unsatisfied with the D&D 5e skill system

5ekyu · May 30, 2019

Saeviomagy said:
So now the skill system requires me to know every skill number on every player's sheet or I'll be labelled a failure?

Then why are we even bothering with numbers? This is about dissatisfaction with the skill system, and this is pretty representative of a skill system that just doesn't work - you have to make up the numbers for each player on a case by case basis, and the only influence the actual system has is now I ALSO have to be wary that my arbitrary numbers don't fall into the automatic success or failure cases of each character.

Yes, I'm perfectly well aware of how a DM can decide the price of failure. Again - I can just do that. The skill system doesn't help me in the slightest.

Design features can be wrong, so stating that doesn't make any ground for your argument. Whether or not someone intended the skill system to be a step worse than just making things up based on how you feel about a character doesn't change whether or not that was the result.

Because what's expected from the DM is "everything that you would have to do if there was literally no skill system at all, but now you also have to know character's stats to avoid getting the numbers wrong, and the players have probably read the skill system and formed expectations from it, so expect an entirely new set of arguments based on how bad those numbers are".

That's why people are dissatisfied. They're not doing the wrong thing - the skill system as presented in 5e is literally worse than nothing.

"So now the skill system requires me to know every skill number on every player's sheet or I'll be labelled a failure?"

No. It also pretty explicitly contradicts the notion that setting a DC thst turns into auto-success is a failure either.

In the DMG they have rules on auto-success in the sections about ability checks- in play.

One of their options includes auto-success for DC 10 or less *for characters who are proficient* in non-disad situations. Obviously that sets up the "you set a dc" along with "it turns out to be no chsnce of failure" as a possible result - depending on the traits of the character doing the deed - not just the "approach".

Another one is to allow auto-success when the DC is (iirc) 5 lower than the raw ability score (?) - again resulting in DC being assigned but the character score making a roll unnecessary.

So, nah, the idea that setting a DC when a roll winds up not being necessary is somehow a sign within the system of a fsilure on the GM is not supported.

Fenris-77 · May 30, 2019

Setting a DC when a roll winds up being not necessary is a sign of bad GMing, not system weakness. This is really only an issue at lower levels with characters that have expertise, and maybe at higher levels generally but only for proficient characters facing easy tasks - you don't need to have each character memorized. Even then, setting DCs and rolling checks should only happen when there is some kind of consequence for failure anyway, regardless of the complexity of the task at hand.

Tony Vargas · May 30, 2019

Fenris-77 said:
When you add too much salt though, especially when mixed with store bought sarcasm, it can really bring the whole thing down.

I've played worse than nothing. 5E ain't it.

Tony beat me to the post. The above was not @Tony Vargas

Yeah, I use homemade sarcasm, grow m'own snark, too.

Fenris-77 said:
Setting a DC when a roll winds up being not necessary is a sign of bad GMing, not system weakness.

To be completely fair, it could well be both.

Fenris-77 · May 30, 2019

Tony Vargas said:
Yeah, I use homemade sarcasm, grow m'own snark, too.

The homemade stuff just has so much more flavour.

Tony Vargas said:
To be completely fair, it could well be both.

That is fair, although I think it is definitely a sign of the first and only possibly a sign of the latter.

Satyrn · May 30, 2019

My DMing has just been slandered!

I happily set a DC the character can't fail, and it works quite well for us.

lowkey13 · May 30, 2019

*Deleted by user*

Xaelvaen · May 30, 2019

twofalls said:
I will be starting a new game in a few months, and find that I am very dissatisfied with the D&D 5e skill system, and would like something more comprehensive, but not terribly more complex. I could just import the system from 3.0 into 5e, however I can well imagine that this is a topic that has been addressed here before, and thought that someone might be able to point me in the direction of some good ideas or information, at least I hope as much.

I did a bit of an experiment with one of our 5E games that had some pretty positive results, and I'll gladly share to see if it'd work for you.

Having been fond of the skill rank system of 3/3.5, I used 5E's proficiency system as maximum skill rank potential and went from there. In example, a 1st level rogue gets 4 skills, 2 more from background, and possibly one from race - with a proficiency bonus of +2. 6x2 = 12, so that's effectively 12 skill ranks. Add two more for a racial proficiency. Then, the players can put these ranks wherever they want. Someone could be 'great' at stealth, with +2, but only mediocre at persuasion with +1. It added a bit of diversity.

At level 5, the proficiency increases, so 6 more skill points, with a cap of 3 - the proficiency bonus. Adding more skills to the list was the next step - I believe I ended up adding 3? I can't quite recall in that regard, so I just gave everyone +1 skill rank to compensate.

It didn't drastically change how 5E functions, kept their same 'bounded accuracy' (which isn't really bound at all when it comes to skill, but at least we emulated it), and gave some dynamic change to the redundancy of the 7th set of 5e characters with the exact same skill sets.

As with all posts of this nature, I strictly adhere to the principle that this worked for my group and was fun, and may not be so for others' groups.

5ekyu · May 30, 2019

Satyrn said:
My DMing has just been slandered!

I happily set a DC the character can't fail, and it works quite well for us.

I believe that has been dubbed immature by those who dub thusly, but since I do it too, I could be wrong. So, that's prolly immature too.

Stalker0 · Jun 1, 2019

Satyrn said:
I happily set a DC the character can't fail, and it works quite well for us.

I will say that sometimes its good to let players roll those low DC rolls, because it reminds them that they don't have to have +10 in something to be competent. Its easy to fall in that trap, if the players only see DC 20s thrown around they begin to assume that if they aren't making 20's than there is no point to trying.