D&D 5E Why don't everything scale by proficiency bonus?

Fenris-77 · Jul 10, 2019

It does bother me that adding skills is no longer a part of character advancement outside of taking a feat. One of the things I enjoyed about 3.5 was adding skills to my character. I'm also not a big fan of mechanical reasons for chosing backgrounds, for example to make sure you get stealth or perception.

Why not just add a new skill alongside the standard four ASIs? Every class gets those so it's even across the board, and it has the merit of not needing to change anything else about the rules. Heck, why not just make every ASI stats plus a new a skill - the fighter could use the help anyway.

Tales and Chronicles · Jul 10, 2019

Maybe something like:

When you use a non-proficient skill, tool, language or weapon in a pertinent ways and succeed at a roll with a DC of 12 (or AC 12 in the case of weapon) or more, mark 1 TXP (training experience) for this specific thing. A character becomes proficient in a skill, tool, language or weapon when it collect 15 (?) TXp for a particular proficiency.

DND_Reborn · Jul 10, 2019

Garthanos said:
In the previous edition you were allowed you to retrain many character things .... swapping one for another as part of advancement. This allowed you to hone your build as your character went along could swap out one skill focus for another for instance but you still gained in general capacity along side that.

I never played 4E (or Pathfinder or whatever). I played a little 3 and 3.5, but stopped for several years before jumping back into 5E. I wouldn't mind the swap idea if they implemented one.

Fenris-77 said:
It does bother me that adding skills is no longer a part of character advancement outside of taking a feat. One of the things I enjoyed about 3.5 was adding skills to my character. I'm also not a big fan of mechanical reasons for chosing backgrounds, for example to make sure you get stealth or perception.

Why not just add a new skill alongside the standard four ASIs? Every class gets those so it's even across the board, and it has the merit of not needing to change anything else about the rules. Heck, why not just make every ASI stats plus a new a skill - the fighter could use the help anyway.

That's not a bad idea either. If your character starts with 4 skills (default for most classes) and you get 5 ASI's, you could finally finish with 9 skills. But if you opted for a feat instead of the ASI, would you lose the skill? I would think not.

Fenris-77 · Jul 10, 2019

dnd4vr said:
That's not a bad idea either. If your character starts with 4 skills (default for most classes) and you get 5 ASI's, you could finally finish with 9 skills. But if you opted for a feat instead of the ASI, would you lose the skill? I would think not.

My initial thought would be no, you don't. I don't see any earthly reason it would be unbalancing to give the classes additional skills as they progress, and in some ways it actually makes great sense because stuff that's not tied to a good stat only really feels like a 'proficient' skill when your level based bonus is higher. I'm also not upset with the idea of allowing a character some mini version of expertise instead of a new skill, although then you're potentially stepping on the toes of some class abilities. Maybe a +2 that doesn't stack with stat bonuses for characters that want to be extra good at something that doesn't match up with their stat build. I think we all know that tying each skill to one stat and one stat only is a little artificial, and this would help with that.

Garthanos · Jul 10, 2019

Fenris-77 said:
It does bother me that adding skills is no longer a part of character advancement outside of taking a feat.
One of the things I enjoyed about 3.5 was adding skills to my character. I'm also not a big fan of mechanical reasons for chosing backgrounds, for example to make sure you get stealth or perception.

Feats were a much smaller resource in 4e, probably also in 3.x in 4e you got a lot of them so it was a bit less of an issue where as in 5e they are huge some pretty cool too.

Still it would be better if Combat and other arena feats and ability gains were separated completely.

dnd4vr said:
Why not just add a new skill alongside the standard four ASIs? Every class gets those so it's even across the board, and it has the merit of not needing to change anything else about the rules. Heck, why not just make every ASI stats plus a new a skill - the fighter could use the help anyway.

ASI stats being instead of feats bothers me a bit I think Because feats differentiate characters more it makes me I feel like I am trading distinction for competence.

Fenris-77 · Jul 10, 2019

But you can take nothing but feats instead of ASIs. It's not like you're forced to take the stat increases, and you get some stat increase from a lot of feats anyway. I don't really see your problem, nor am sure how this dovetails into the conversations about adding additional skills alongside the ASI/feat. Maybe you could give an example of what you mean...

Blue · Jul 10, 2019

FrogReaver said:
Consider this. Your Character at level 1 and your character at level 20. Should your character not always be better at nearly everything he does as a level 20 character than when he was a level 1 character. However, this isn't manifested in non-proficient skills or saves. The level 1 fighter with 10 wisdom and no perception proficiency is typically as good as the level 20 fighter at that skill. Why? Does it really make sense for that to be the case? Can the same be said for other skills? What about saving throws? What about non-proficient weapons. Surely the level 20 wizard is a bit better with a longsword than the level 1 wizard, but such isn't actually the case.

If everything scales, nothing scales. If both you chance to succeed and your target both go up by the same number, there's no relative change. It's like as if there's no scaling.

So if everything scaled, you wouldn't get better at anything when you go up in level. Adding +6 to attack and +6 to AC would just wash. Adding +6 to your save DC and +6 to all saves would be a wash. Adding proficiency to targets has the practical effect of doing the opposite of the goal of getting better.

Giving two saves out of six gives some differentiation between classes and puts more tactics into spell selection.

As for things like non-proficient skills and non-proficient weapons, that's how they kept it meaningful to be proficient or not. You only add your Proficiency bonus to things you are Proficient in. Differentiation where people get to stay good at what they train in. There would effectively be no skill system if your non-proficient skill got your proficiency bonus because your choices would be meaningless. It would all be ability score plus proficiency.

DND_Reborn · Jul 10, 2019

Fenris-77 said:
My initial thought would be no, you don't. I don't see any earthly reason it would be unbalancing to give the classes additional skills as they progress, and in some ways it actually makes great sense because stuff that's not tied to a good stat only really feels like a 'proficient' skill when your level based bonus is higher. I'm also not upset with the idea of allowing a character some mini version of expertise instead of a new skill, although then you're potentially stepping on the toes of some class abilities. Maybe a +2 that doesn't stack with stat bonuses for characters that want to be extra good at something that doesn't match up with their stat build. I think we all know that tying each skill to one stat and one stat only is a little artificial, and this would help with that.

Maybe instead of full skill proficiency, with each ASI you could grant a character a +2 skill. They could apply this once (as the mini-expertise) to a skill they are already proficient in OR to a skill they are not proficient in. With enough +2 mini-boosts, they could also eventually become proficient.

Garthanos · Jul 10, 2019

Blue said:
If everything scales, nothing scales. If both you chance to succeed and your target both go up by the same number, there's no relative change. It's like as if there's no scaling.

Why ever would you imagine that? If I am up against the mayor's cellar door it is somehow scaled number? No that isn't how it works

The things you are overcoming need to be more awesome too not just bigger numbers ... so why arent my skills allowed to do the same thing after all in combat I am taking down a swarm of Orcs (a squadron) at high level Or in humongous Dragon with attacks.

DND_Reborn · Jul 10, 2019

Garthanos said:
ASI stats being instead of feats bothers me a bit I think Because feats differentiate characters more it makes me I feel like I am trading distinction for competence.

Your response above quoted me, but it wasn't me you should have quoted it was Fenris-77, unless you meant to quote me, in which case you had the wrong quote.