D&D 4E Revamped 4e Skill List... need input please!

[McTreble]

In an effort to try and expand some out of combat specialization, I am trying to enhance 4e skills with 3e subskills. I've managed to figure out where the 3e skills fit into the 4e framework, with duplicates as needed. The trick is to now decide what to do with it.

Couple of early thoughts. I want the 4e skill to always be the minimum number for the entire set. The subsets would always represent degrees of specialization within that skill. Your Barbarian's Balance should never be below the generic Acrobatics skill number. The reason is that the existing 4e products use these big generic skills, and I don't want to penalize people for not using this system, or for making terrible specialization choices.

I guess my biggest issues are how to impliment them at creation, and then how to advance them as the character advances. Any thoughts? Here is my complete list:

Acrobatics
Balance
Climb
Escape Artist
Tumble
Use Rope
Arcana
Spellcraft
Concentration
Athletics
Climb
Jump
Ride
Bluff
Disguise
Diplomacy
Appraise
Decipher Script
Dungeoneering
Endurance
Survival
Swim
Heal
Concentration
History
Appraise
Decipher Script
Forgery
Perform
Insight
Intimidate
Disguise
Perform
Nature
Handle Animal
Ride
Survival
Swim
Perception
Search
Spot
Listen
Religion
Spellcraft
Concentration
Stealth
Disguise
Hide
Move Silently
Streetwise
Appraise
Decipher Script
Forgery
Gather Information
Perform
Sleight of Hand
Thievery
Concentration
Disable Device
Disguise
Open Lock
Sleight of Hand
Use Rope

 

[Viashimo]

I'm curious as to why you haven't put swim under athletics (in addition to, or instead of nature/endurance).

That's all.

 

[On Puget Sound]

I would also put perform under Bluff, and gather info under Diplomacy.

 

[On Puget Sound]

Perhaps an easy way to do this would be simply to allow a character to choose one Specialty for each skill they are trained in; for actions involving that Specialty they would get a +2 bonus.

If I were going to do this... which I wouldn't; the longer skill list is not something I miss about 3E.

 

[McTreble]

I think the shuffling of the skills are a good idea. I missed a few of the obvious ones (Swimming under Athletics). I was thinking of the +2 as well, and maybe allowing for only one specialty per character? That eliminates any rule altering/ feat creation... something I wanted to avoid. Maybe allow a change in specialization when characters gain new attribute points, or as a retraining option?

The long skill list doesn't bother me; I think it's an easy way to differentiate characters at creation. I also hope the character sheet won't change much, just a line next to the skill to write in the specialization subskill. (I was even looking at 2e's non-weapon proficiencies... talk about a long list!)

Thanks so far for the help and ideas, guys.

 

[N0Man]

Maybe I'm in the wrong forum to suggest this, but I think the skill system is actually pretty much fine as is, however I think we should all broaden our horizons on how it's implemented.

One of my personal criticisms about breaking old 3E skills under 4E skill umbrellas is that it really takes away from some of the flexibility that the 4E skill system offers.

For example, many aspects of the old Survival can be covered by the environment skills of 4E (Dungeoneering, Streetwise, and Nature).

The beauty of having more broad skills is that it increases the chances of at least someone in your party having what is needed, and also allows for the creative use of skills. Sure, Stealth might be the obvious choice for sneaking around, but if your city slicker character asks if he can use his Steetwise skill in an urban setting in order to blend in to the setting, why not let him give it a try? Try not to think of the skills as so set in stone.

It looks like WotC is already taking to this idea to some degree with some of the PH3 previews showing special Utility Powers that lets you use skills in more creative ways.

Now if it's a matter of specialization that you are after, I suggest asking your players for more Backgrounds. Even if additional Backgrounds don't give more direct bonuses, it's completely reasonable to allow a player to get circumstance bonuses to certain skills or ability checks based on his background.

Just like skills, those bonuses don't have to be set in stone for a specific skill. Encourage your players to come up with interesting ways to apply their backgrounds. For example, his background in state affairs and high society could give him an edge in Thievery when he's trying to forge a document from a noble bureaucrat.

Maybe I'm in a minority, but I think the broadness of the skills allows a great amount of flexibility while at the same time not inadvertently punishing players for being too specific on a skill that a particular DM just doesn't hit that much.

 

[McTreble]

Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to make anyone inferior to anyone else in the 4e skillset. I just would like that extra boost for specific circumstances. Moments for individual characters to shine outside of combat is really what the meaning was behind this. I love the idea of the very deft pickpocket working his magic, whereas another thief, while a perfectly fine pickpocket, just wouldn't be able to get it done. To me, this works better than backgrounds (which are great, but they aren't really in the forefront, and I think the work I'm putting into the skill list would be comprible to the work I'd need to do to get my players to think about and work with their backgrounds.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to make anyone inferior to anyone else in the 4e skillset. I just would like that extra boost for specific circumstances. Moments for individual characters to shine outside of combat is really what the meaning was behind this. I love the idea of the very deft pickpocket working his magic, whereas another thief, while a perfectly fine pickpocket, just wouldn't be able to get it done. To me, this works better than backgrounds (which are great, but they aren't really in the forefront, and I think the work I'm putting into the skill list would be comprible to the work I'd need to do to get my players to think about and work with their backgrounds.

Yeah, I've never really quite understood the objection to using backgrounds for this. But that's a whole long-running 4e debate that need not get dragged back out here in its entirety. There are a number of issues that you're going to have to deal with though:

Skill Challenges as a whole mechanical system will simply not work with a bunch of narrow skills. The chance that PCs have the requisite skills to succeed is inversely proportional to the number of skills in the system.

The same issue exists with any sort of point where a DM desires to use a skill check. PCs are very unlikely to have the more obscure and infrequently used skills, so how can the DM actually integrate them into his adventure with any confidence?

Certain particular skills are just going to be gold and others are going to be neigh to useless. Everyone will just pick up the highly useful ones.

It becomes hard to build a party. The rogue really needs skills X, Y, and Z to function as a rogue. So what happens when Z is missing? The party lacks a basic element of functionality. With broad skills its unlikely anything major will be missing.

What is the difference between almost trivially different skills like "Disable Device" and "Open Lock". They seem like the same skill set. When a DM is deciding which skill is the closest fit to some mechanical manipulation task he's now got multiple overlapping skills that might apply. Whichever way he decides any player that has a character with the OTHER skill is going to argue that it doesn't make sense they can't apply their skill. A LOT of the subskills have this issue. If you simply say "OK, you can apply any of X, Y, and Z then why break them up in the first place?"

I assume you are going to propose some form of sub-skill system here. The above questions are the ones it is going to have to address in real play. So those are things to think about. You will also probably want to think carefully about how this is really an improvement on background based bonuses (which BTW are part of the rules). Those are less well spelled out but honestly I think that is a strength personally.

 

[McTreble]

Not sure if I'm making myself clear here:

My intention is to keep the skill numbers the same for the 4e skills. If your thievery skill is an 11 at 1st level, and you specialize in Pick Pockets from 3e (+2 or 3) EVERYTHING you do in using Thievery is done with your 11 skill number. The times when you Pick Pockets, you have a 13 or 14. That's all. No class will ever miss out on anything 4e asks of them.

I think this will work. From your feedback, I see that some skills need to be shuffled/ dropped, but all in all, I think it's a worthwhile idea. I'll report back once it's gotten some playtesting.

Until next time,

Thanks again

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Not sure if I'm making myself clear here:

My intention is to keep the skill numbers the same for the 4e skills. If your thievery skill is an 11 at 1st level, and you specialize in Pick Pockets from 3e (+2 or 3) EVERYTHING you do in using Thievery is done with your 11 skill number. The times when you Pick Pockets, you have a 13 or 14. That's all. No class will ever miss out on anything 4e asks of them.

I think this will work. From your feedback, I see that some skills need to be shuffled/ dropped, but all in all, I think it's a worthwhile idea. I'll report back once it's gotten some playtesting.

Until next time,

Thanks again

OK, right. So you don't run into a lot of the more intractable problems doing it this way and I agree it is probably the best approach. You still can run into the "why doesn't my sub-skill apply here" issue, but that one isn't a show stopper. The only really serious issue to now consider is what the costs are of these sub-skills. The Skill Focus feat currently gives a blanket +3 on a whole trained skill for the cost of a feat. You could remove this feat, but if you keep it then it rather sets the baseline for how good a sub-skill needs to be (or how cheap to acquire). If it costs a feat for a +2 then obviously people will just pick Skill Focus, though they might theoretically ALSO then take the sub-skill that would seem to be a LOT of resources to invest in a single fairly narrow bonus. I doubt too many players would bother with that, though maybe a player obsessed with being the ultimate pick pocket might stack all that up. So chances are these sub-skills have to be considerably cheaper than a feat.

While I've often thought about the possibility of this mechanic the cost issue has always pretty much stumped me. Feats are too granular to deal with it and there is no other mechanism in the core system you could use. What I've settled on is just allowing players to specify areas where they could get a +2 in their background. So the character that grew up surviving on the street picking pockets can invoke a +2 on thievery checks to pick pockets.

There is one final little bit of 4e ugliness though that you have to consider. Skill check bonus divergence. The skill system works reasonably well when all the characters have modest bonuses for their level (or they all have the same extremely high or low ones). It tends to get problematic the more the bonuses spread between party members. You'll see this issue a lot with combat uses of skills, like escaping a grab. Characters trained in Athletics/Acrobatics and with a high ability score can just laugh off grab attempts. Characters that aren't so trained and have little use for high STR/DEX find grabs impossible to escape from. Anything that adds more sources of skill check bonuses makes this problem worse.