The Profession skill?

[Aurumvorax]

"The rulebook must present the DCs for everything" is a WotC-D&D meme that should die. IMHO, at least.

The biggest gripe I had about Profession, in the 3.x sense (and when I thought I wanted to go in the direction 3.x led) is that there is no difference, either in terms of training cost or pay benefits, between Profession [Doctor] and Profession [Swineherd].


RC

But that's the point! The rulebook must present DCs for everything because 3E created the concept of a static difficulty! In prior editions, you always checked against your ability score. A proficiency check was made by rolling a d20 +/- modifiers; if you were equal to or less than your ability score, you succeeded. The more naturally talented you were, the better you were at doing your job. The more training you had (I.E. the more points you put in a proficiency) the better you were allowing you to circumvent having an average ability score.

3E shoehorned itself by attaching a static value to everything. A 10 is an average task. A 15 is a slightly difficult task to a trained person. A 20 is expert territory. By setting a static difficulty for the average person, 3E didn't take into account that PCs aren't average people. In 3E's terms, there is no difference between a doctor and a muckraker because the incremental skill point system and static DCs don't allow it.

Bingo!

In my high-ish level 3.5 game, my rogue/fighter/invisible blade/bard/evangelist of Pelor has used Profession (boating) a couple of times. The first was to oppose the Strength check made by a sea hag to upset the rowboat he and other party members were in. The second time was successfully navigate the gullet of a pseudoleviathan after a different craft and the same party were swallowed whole.

There's a reason why later supplements took profession and attached mechanics to it like Stormwrack did with sailing. As I said, 3E is very succinct in its rulings. A strength check would have done the same thing in your example. A wisdom check would have done the same thing in your second example.

4E made the right decision in removing mechanics from unnecessary aspects of the game. I shouldn't have to spend limited resources, especially ones that determine how well I do in the assumed world of adventuring and plunder, to determine how well I can cook, herd, or sew. If I roleplay my character as a brewer his whole life then the GM should consider my character a proficient brewer. If I compete against a master brewer, the GM should decide based on our ingredients who makes the better brew or even use the event to create an entire new adventure. When hard rules are used for such a narrative event, one side can cheat through magic or cheap enhancements and break the entire flow of play.

If anything, the profession skill is proof of moving away from role-playing to roll-playing.

 

[Raven Crowking]

But that's the point! The rulebook must present DCs for everything because 3E created the concept of a static difficulty!

If you say so.

 

[Aurumvorax]

If you say so.

Addendum: By "created the concept of a static difficulty" I mean within the game of Dungeons & Dragons. In AD&D, everything is tied into your ability scores. Want to swing across a chasm? Roll for dex. Swim the raging rapids? Roll for strength. 3E, within the D&D game, created the static difficulty based on the common man but I reiterate that PCs are far from common. It's very easy to hit the upper teens by level 5 at which point you're practically a master at your profession and can safely retire living a comfortable life. How boring is that?

 

[Raven Crowking]

I can tell you what the "common man" is in 1e; the DMG is explicit. What is the "common man" in 3e? A "commoner", but of what level? How many hit points? What level of skill?

If the requirement to leap a chasm is "roll under your Dex", that is a static difficulty, because an "average man" score of 9 to 10 is set. If you exceed that score, the difficult is more easy for you. If you are below that score, the difficult is harder. A bonus or penalty to your roll, for easier or harder tasks, keeps the actual level of difficulty static; the only variable is how good the character is.

Likewise, the base difficulty of picking a lock is static in 1e. A thief has a % chance based upon that static difficulty. A bonus or penalty indicates an easier, or harder, than average lock.

I could go on, but I think (I hope) the point is made.



RC

 

[billd91]

But that's the point! The rulebook must present DCs for everything because 3E created the concept of a static difficulty!

I'm increasingly convinced that people never read their rulebooks very thoroughly. The 3e DMG has a section on setting DCs for skill checks and provides plenty of examples.

 

[Aurumvorax]

I can tell you what the "common man" is in 1e; the DMG is explicit. What is the "common man" in 3e? A "commoner", but of what level? How many hit points? What level of skill?

If the requirement to leap a chasm is "roll under your Dex", that is a static difficulty, because an "average man" score of 9 to 10 is set. If you exceed that score, the difficult is more easy for you. If you are below that score, the difficult is harder. A bonus or penalty to your roll, for easier or harder tasks, keeps the actual level of difficulty static; the only variable is how good the character is.

Likewise, the base difficulty of picking a lock is static in 1e. A thief has a % chance based upon that static difficulty. A bonus or penalty indicates an easier, or harder, than average lock.

I could go on, but I think (I hope) the point is made.



RC

No, it's not a static difficulty because you have to rely on the d20 which generates a random result. A person with 10 is slightly above average while a person with an 18 is almost an expert. There is no take 10, therefor there's no automatic or instant success.

A level 1 wizard with 16 intelligence in AD&D has a small but recognizable chance to fail copying a level 1 scroll. After all, being a wizard is about replicating exacting documents and reciting arcane words of power perfectly. To expect him to be 100% perfect, something only demigods and paragons can achieve, is ridiculous. The level 1 3E wizard with 16 intelligence and 3 ranks in spellcraft can never fail in copying a 1st level scroll. He could copy 20 such scrolls perfectly in a calm environment, meanwhile the level 20 fighter has a 1-in-20 chance of missing a training dummy simply because that's how 3E changed the rules for rolling a d20.

That's a static difficulty. All characters of the same level, ability scores, and skills are always equal in capability. Mechanically there is no difference between a fighter with 10 ranks in profession: clergy and a priest with 10 ranks in profession: military.

I'm increasingly convinced that people never read their rulebooks very thoroughly. The 3e DMG has a section on setting DCs for skill checks and provides plenty of examples.

And the PHB has a section on what profession does and how to handle it. " earning about half your Profession check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work." One might call into question the "about" as a vague word, something the 3E PHB is filled with (especially the terrible section on alignment) but there it is set in stone. Doctors and pig farmers earn the same amount of coin in a week's worth of work.

I'm just not in the boat that role-playing elements should be tied to mechanics. I should be able to create a solid plan of how I want to run a business with the GM who decides behind the screen if its a good plan. The GM can determine the results in private but relegating such a thing to "Roll d20... okay, you make 10 gold coins that week" is terrible.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The best way that I can think to describe it is:
Profession is useful in the games where it is used.

In my pirates campaign Profession [Merchant] was how they won their bread - selling goods to other merchants, haggling and bartering. They made their moneys looting, pillaging, and, on more occasions than you might expect, honest trade. Also useful in my very first 3.0 campaign, where the PCs spent a few levels as Merchant Adventurers. (Finding new goods, new markets, and doing battle with the inevitable pirates. The PCs ended up taking the place of Marco Polo.)

My Iron Kingdoms game featured the PCs as private agents, with Profession [Agent] determining reputation and how lucrative the cases presented to them were. How well known they might be to potential clients. It as also used to handwave the minor cases that happened between adventures - not every case got played at the table, so a simple '15 GP for rescuing Madame Cottingham's cat' could be used.

The assumption being that not every bit of coin was gained by adventuring - so I twiddled the rules so that about 25% of their income was handled offscreen, but that 25% used up about 75% of their time. The remaining 25% of the time would be the adventures - higher risk, higher reward. The low risk 75% took a matter of minutes between adventures.

My Pathfinder game (average player age around 14) has not used Profession once. If I were running the Eberron game that I have been converting then [Agent] would likely come back into play.

The Auld Grump

 

[billd91]

And the PHB has a section on what profession does and how to handle it. " earning about half your Profession check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work." One might call into question the "about" as a vague word, something the 3E PHB is filled with (especially the terrible section on alignment) but there it is set in stone. Doctors and pig farmers earn the same amount of coin in a week's worth of work.

I'm just not in the boat that role-playing elements should be tied to mechanics. I should be able to create a solid plan of how I want to run a business with the GM who decides behind the screen if its a good plan. The GM can determine the results in private but relegating such a thing to "Roll d20... okay, you make 10 gold coins that week" is terrible.

Nothing wrong with having fairly vague words in an RPG. You know, rules as guidelines not laws and all that. This isn't exactly Advanced Squad Leader we're playing where "adjacent" and "ADJACENT" may be different.

But what exactly about having a profession skill and using it to determine a certain amount of income prevents the DM from requiring the player to present a basic business plan? How is rolling a profession check any more arbitrary than the DM deciding privately how well the PC did, particularly since the profession check includes the assets the player decided to invest in the character's business acumen and can include any modifiers the DM sees fit to add for a decent (or poor) business plan?

 

[Aurumvorax]

Nothing wrong with having fairly vague words in an RPG. You know, rules as guidelines not laws and all that. This isn't exactly Advanced Squad Leader we're playing where "adjacent" and "ADJACENT" may be different.

But what exactly about having a profession skill and using it to determine a certain amount of income prevents the DM from requiring the player to present a basic business plan? How is rolling a profession check any more arbitrary than the DM deciding privately how well the PC did, particularly since the profession check includes the assets the player decided to invest in the character's business acumen and can include any modifiers the DM sees fit to add for a decent (or poor) business plan?

It's wrong because 3E shifted away from the "leave it up to DM!" play style to "everything works like X." Talk to anyone who hates diplomacy and intimidate and they'll tell you something along the lines of "You shouldn't blur role-play with roll-play." If in real life I'm an introvert but my character is Sir Princely the Handsomest Man in the World, I'm going to be mad when I fumble over basic sentences but my rolls come up 30+. Likewise, if Mr. Bumbleton has no ranks in profession but gets a massive bonus because he created a bullet proof business plan, I'm going to be mad that I pumped 10 ranks in this useless skill.

At least Pathfinder attached a quality to profession by allowing it to act as a catch-all knowledge skill for your work.

It's something that GMs shouldn't have to adjudicate and I can't think of many RPGs that tie mechanics to professions. In every other RPG you have skills that help you in your profession (which is what craft should be doing) but not an actual skill that says "Hey, this is how good you actually are at your job." Games that do include it (BattleTech RPG comes to mind) will have a mechanical attribute attached to it or specifically say what it does. "Administration: How well you can run a business. Multiply your success by 1,000 to find out your income."

Profession or role-playing elements are not something I want handled by dice and if they are I shouldn't know what modifiers I have and the GM should make the roll. It ruins the suspense of the game when players point out on their sheet how they're world class businessmen and the result of their next die roll will make them richer than average nobility within a week's time.

 

[Votan]

Profession or role-playing elements are not something I want handled by dice and if they are I shouldn't know what modifiers I have and the GM should make the roll. It ruins the suspense of the game when players point out on their sheet how they're world class businessmen and the result of their next die roll will make them richer than average nobility within a week's time.

I think that this is a worse problem for Diplomacy than for Profession.

I am generally sympathetic to issues of skills like profession. I tend to buy into the paradigm that it makes sense to segregate these skills; in this sense the secondary skills approach of AD&D worked fine to add these elements to characters without needing to divert resources from dungeoneering abilities.

I also like the idea of decoupling level and professional skill. Otherwise many professionals need to be of a surprisingly high level to compete with mid-campaign player characters (who do not necessarily spend their days in a smithy refinign their ability to smith swords).