Non-Weapon Proficiencies

[DonTadow]

Apologies if this has been hashed out already.

I'm taking a fresh look at AD&D (and trying to convince my gaming group to run a campaign with it), and one of the things that immediately stands out to me is how pleasantly non-weapon proficiencies differ from 3E and 4E.

In 3E, you can take non-combat role-play skills, but do so by using skill points you could have placed in spot, listen, etc. There was little to no incentive to do any such thing.

4E makes the egregious error of omitting most such skills altogether.

I want to see a 5E that reserves "slots" for optional non-weapon proficiencies. I would like these to not require dice rolls. If I'm a shipwright, I know how to build boats that float, not boats with a 25% chance of sinking.

I was always under the understanding that there was an understanding that a certain amount of ranks gave you basic understanding in certain things, thus the "take 10 rule".

I like the idea of a lot of things being considered as skill checks under various ability rolls and a lot of understanding as to what your basic abiilities are with such a score.

Still the example refers to a crafting type ability and im hoping that crafting is left to more advanced books.

A well written background can easily explain that your str 14 score makes you good at wielding a hammer

 

[MarkChevallier]

In 3E, you can take non-combat role-play skills, but do so by using skill points you could have placed in spot, listen, etc. There was little to no incentive to do any such thing.

I have to say, I disagree. The incentive to take them is that you're then good at those skillls. The cost in taking them is that you're less good at what you're calling "combat" skills. It's a choice, and I appreciate that it may be a tough choice, but I enjoy the fact that it's one you should make.

I don't think all aspects of a character should be skills - if you want to be a coffee snob, go right ahead! But things like professions, crafting, knowledges, these all have a place. They help define your character, and you may find uses for them that you didn't expect. I had a dwarf once who was a wagoneer (he ran merchant caravans) and found it useful on occasion to pick out ambush sites for enemy supply trains, select the best place for a large body of men to camp, and so forth. Things our GM gave us definite benefits for.

I know my tastes aren't universal! But there they are.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Another way to do it is to use the same structure for all "skills" but silo them differently by campaign. If you want to just mix them altogether and let people pick, you can do that. Or you can assign them to different silos and preset the picks. Or you can have different silos and have a conversion rate (for "that guy" that absolutely has to get three background skills instead of one).

Of course, if you do that, you can't go completely bonkers in how complicated you make the skills advance or work--but probably should not anyway.

Barring something that wide open, I could live with maybe a three-tiered skill model:

1. The really good adventuring stuff (like Perception). You get a set amount of these by level, and class choices don't change much (maybe a few key +2 mods, similar to what races do now).

2. That in-between stuff that has some real application at times in adventuring but doesn't come up as much and/or got rolled into another skill in 3.5/4E (like swimming or languages). You get a wider assortment of these, some from classes, some from race, and some from a few general picks.

3. The mostly flavor stuff, that only matters in the adventuring context if you set up your game to make it matter--i.e. engrave the silver service set for the baron as a gift. You can have as much or as little of this as you want to detail, by campaign.

Then let people trade down if they want, perhaps even 3:1 each jump (i.e. a tier 1 pick can trade for three tier 2 picks).

Then a few things that are set for the default may not work for you. For example, crafting magic items might default to tier 2. But your game could be anything from "you'll never have much time to do this," to "heck no, you have to pay serious tier 1 costs to get that."

If we have a longer list, let's just not pretend that for the average game, each one is even close to the same value from a utility perspective.

 

[Kannik]

Barring something that wide open, I could live with maybe a three-tiered skill model: (thusly listed)

I second this idea; it is a similar tact I took in writing my 4e supplement for Trade Skills.

Certain skills are developed as more specific in their use, function and "game or encounter importance" (say climbing, survival, reading arcane energy, spot) while other skills or abilities or traits are more broad in their scope and breadth (artistry, sage knowledge, crafting, operating a ship, influence from having a certain title). I don't think there's a need to have every skill work quite exactly like the other (thus allowing this breadth of skill/trait/ability types), and having two/multiple pools in which to acquire these skills will prevent one from being 'devalued' by the other (ie, why take basket weaving when I need perception) or abused (ie, why take perception when Military Training is much broader and I can have an army at my beck and call).

Note: I don't think a trait should let you have an army at your beck and call.

Note 2: Even "specific" skills don't have to be uber-specific. Grouping a few similar abilities into one single skill is actually probably better than making every single possible ability a separate skill to be chosen.

Multiple pools of differing skill/trait types will allow PCs to have greater breadth of abilities, backgrounds and characters (and everyperson skills) and allow for greater RP, amusement and adventure types.

peace,

Kannik

 

[WheresMyD20]

The 1e DMG has a simple secondary skill system. There is a list of professions. You choose one or roll randomly. It's up to the DM what affect the profession has on play, but you can expect that shipwrights can build ships, leatherworkers can skin animals, etc.

 

[Hassassin]

I don't like the idea of having to roll on these character skills, though. There was a simplicity in the hand-waviness of NWP's that has been lost in a lot of clutter in 3E, hence its total exclusion in 4E. To me, they represent equal, opposite ends of the spectrum, and I'd like something in the middle. Let me just say my character can do it.

No need to roll usually, since taking 10 will take care of most occasions. When the task is something quite heroic, like reforging an ancient sword of the legends, I want rolls.

 

[Zireael]

Maybe it would be good if we combined some of the NWP's that got culled with 3e/4e (latter feats notwithstanding) into more skills and used a tiered skill system...

 

[FinalSonicX]

I'm all for Non-Weapon Proficiencies coming back! That comes with a few caveats though.

NWP's were my favorite rule from 2e because it felt like they established further flavor and depth to a character aside from their class/race combo which mostly dictated combat and things like that. That said, it has similar issues to feats and skills in later editions because there really were better/worse NWP's. For instance, most mages needed to get spellcraft and most thieves got tumbling. Now obviously this problem still exists in later editions but it's something that exists in 2e as well, though it's a bit more obscured perhaps.

Second, there's power creep from the handbooks published after the core in 2e. For example, thieves in 2e might get other NWP's that aren't immediately relevant to combat but after getting the thieves handbook they end up sinking all their NWP's into the new thief proficiencies because frankly they're better or more useful than the others. So in a lot of ways, NWP's experience power creep like feats do.

Finally, NWPs were a little annoying due to their reliance on ability scores. This means that an exceptionally talented individual can use NWP's with incredible skill at level 1 while a level 20 thief with poor scores has a worse proficiency in their NWP. Basically, NWPs are cool but have a problem with representing an individual's ability to learn and develop skills, which skills represent well mechanically.

The ironic part of all of this is that skills kind of replaced NWP's but IMO NWP's more closely resemble feats. Feats usually just specify something you can do rather than a numerical proficiency level that increased over time. So at some level I think Feats are the best way of replicating NWP's, but the problem is that they can't be placed on the same level as combat feats or that's all people will choose.

So I think that we can bring NWP's or their effects back if they are replicated as feats, but feats are split into combat and non-combat feats, and players gain both (so players have to get the more flavorful but less immediately useful non-combat feats (NCF's!).

 

[MoonSong]

I'm all for Non-Weapon Proficiencies coming back! That comes with a few caveats though.

NWP's were my favorite rule from 2e because it felt like they established further flavor and depth to a character aside from their class/race combo which mostly dictated combat and things like that. That said, it has similar issues to feats and skills in later editions because there really were better/worse NWP's. For instance, most mages needed to get spellcraft and most thieves got tumbling. Now obviously this problem still exists in later editions but it's something that exists in 2e as well, though it's a bit more obscured perhaps.

Second, there's power creep from the handbooks published after the core in 2e. For example, thieves in 2e might get other NWP's that aren't immediately relevant to combat but after getting the thieves handbook they end up sinking all their NWP's into the new thief proficiencies because frankly they're better or more useful than the others. So in a lot of ways, NWP's experience power creep like feats do.

Finally, NWPs were a little annoying due to their reliance on ability scores. This means that an exceptionally talented individual can use NWP's with incredible skill at level 1 while a level 20 thief with poor scores has a worse proficiency in their NWP. Basically, NWPs are cool but have a problem with representing an individual's ability to learn and develop skills, which skills represent well mechanically.

The ironic part of all of this is that skills kind of replaced NWP's but IMO NWP's more closely resemble feats. Feats usually just specify something you can do rather than a numerical proficiency level that increased over time. So at some level I think Feats are the best way of replicating NWP's, but the problem is that they can't be placed on the same level as combat feats or that's all people will choose.

So I think that we can bring NWP's or their effects back if they are replicated as feats, but feats are split into combat and non-combat feats, and players gain both (so players have to get the more flavorful but less immediately useful non-combat feats (NCF's!).

Like I've said many times I'm all against the system wanting to protect players from themselves. Taking your options to be All Combat or All-non combat should be possible, and that is not a possibility if they are siloed because that enforces a certain combat/non-combat ratio instead of trusting each player to decide what he/she wants.

 

[Guest 85555]

The 2e PHB has three optional approaches to skills. Of these my favorite was non-weapon proficiencies. There was enough there to make an interesting character but they didn't intrude into stuff like theif skills. Mechanically I also liked the roll under you attribute method better than d20 against a target number. They were basically pretty reliable out of the gate and didn't have some of the d20 scaling issues. I can't see them going back to this system completely. However I would encourage everyone to give the system a month and see how it plays out. Just port it into your regular game for one month. We'll call it the 2E challenge.