Fifth Element
Legend
Well, yes, basket-weaving is a poor example. It can arguably only be done by someone who's been trained in it.
Noticing something does not fall into that category.
[Skills] Solutions to the oblivious rogue problem
Noticing something does not fall into that category.
nightwalker450
First Post
I'm fine with +5 (maybe even +6) for trained with no stat.
If there's an actual contest going on, you can use stats to break ties, or they can be used to determine who was quicker at achieving the task. (For every 5 points you beat the DC by increase your attribute by 1 for determining speed)
--As to Basket Weaving, I'm neither highly dexterous nor had any professional training, but it took me less than a day to weave a functional basket (that's as a 12 year old boy scout). So for the sake of this, Basket Weaving represents generic skill. I'd rather leave out the "you must be trained to do this" skills, since it just results in players having fewer ideas they are able to try.
If there's an actual contest going on, you can use stats to break ties, or they can be used to determine who was quicker at achieving the task. (For every 5 points you beat the DC by increase your attribute by 1 for determining speed)
--As to Basket Weaving, I'm neither highly dexterous nor had any professional training, but it took me less than a day to weave a functional basket (that's as a 12 year old boy scout). So for the sake of this, Basket Weaving represents generic skill. I'd rather leave out the "you must be trained to do this" skills, since it just results in players having fewer ideas they are able to try.
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But is there any point in making that argument? That's the question!
Adventure stories are chock-full of characters who improbably, if not impossibly, succeed at things in which they have no training. This isn't realistic, but it's certainly genre-appropriate (in several of D&D's source genres).
The season finale of The Legend of Korra has a great example of this, where a character learns to fly a fixed-wing aircraft very quickly. As in: while doing it for the first time.
My (current) feeling is: with a good enough roll, why not? I mean, how much verisimilitude will be lost by letting a PC weave a nice basket via beginners luck?
maybe if you're trained you get to roll twice and use the better (much like the advantage mechanic) - thus keeping away from modifiers?
(maybe in addition to the minor modifier that was in the playtest, or not, would have to fiddle with numbers to see how much of a change all that really brings)
And if you want to take it a step further specifically for rogues: "When detecting traps, rogues can use their Intelligence modifier for perception instead of their Wisdom modifier"
though to be honest for this specific issue of rogues having poor perception, i don't really get bothered by it as some other people simply because i see it as a choice made at character creation if you put a higher score in wisdom for your rogue or not if that's what you want to be good at. But I'm willing to accept the premise that it does bother other people.
(maybe in addition to the minor modifier that was in the playtest, or not, would have to fiddle with numbers to see how much of a change all that really brings)
And if you want to take it a step further specifically for rogues: "When detecting traps, rogues can use their Intelligence modifier for perception instead of their Wisdom modifier"
though to be honest for this specific issue of rogues having poor perception, i don't really get bothered by it as some other people simply because i see it as a choice made at character creation if you put a higher score in wisdom for your rogue or not if that's what you want to be good at. But I'm willing to accept the premise that it does bother other people.
I almost posted this in its own thread, but this seems like a more appropriate place at the moment.
Is Perception the oddball skill that shouldn't be based on an ability score? You look at stories, literature, movies, and you see heroes of all sorts that are perceptive in various ways. A gambler rogue may not be wise with his coin, but can spot a cheater from a mile away because he knows what he's looking for. A guardian warrior may not have the priestly wisdom, but could still have naturally keen hearing, such that he can identify the unsheathing of an assassin's dagger in a crowded room. A wizard need not be wise to notice the magical trap the rogue is about to trigger, and shout out a warning to him.
Perhaps wisdom and perception could be divorced. Some systems approach Perception as an ability score of its own, though I'm not too fond of that approach either, as I think a dwarf spelunker, a halfling swindler, and a high elf wizard might be perceptive in different areas relating to their expertise, while an urban human cloistered priest might be the least observant member in his party despite a high wisdom (though he might be the only one to spot an inaccurate spelling of Yeenoghu in a wall writing that points to a double entendre).
Perhaps one approach is removing the skill altogether. A wizard uses Arcana to perceive magical wards, a rogue detects mechanical traps with his Thievery, a fighter perceives threats in a crowd with his Streetwise, a dwarf notices hazards with his dungeoneering, etc. In 3e and 4e, Spot/Listen/Perception have been the most used and most valued skills, because it works on everything, and is used every adventure. Why not just let everyone be good at it, except, they are only good at it when it relates to their area of expertise? This way we can hopefully avoid the situation where the cleric is better at detecting traps, than the rogue, and the ranger is better at detecting magical wards than the wizard.
If someone wants to really go the extra mile in Perception, perhaps "Perceptive" could be a trait/feat/what have you, and whenever the individual is making a check to perceive using a trained skill, he could roll with advantage (whatever the final mechanic for that turns out to be, double rolls, or +2).
I think other than Perception, the 5e approach to skills seems quite good. Let's say I am trained in streetwise. I want to tail a suspect in the crowds without being seen, I make a dexterity check and add my streetwise. This would reflect my ability to keep the target in sight, and use passing wagons and carts to my advantage to not be noticed. I want to use my knowledge of the streets to come up with a shortcut, I make an intelligence check and add my streetwise. I want to gather information about a local vigilante, I make a charisma check and add my streetwise. This allows skills to reflect what a character is truly good at. So my fighter trained in streetwise doesn't need to be trained in "stealth" to tail someone in a city, and doesn't need to be trained in "knowledge local" to know a few short cuts around town. I think being trained should be a +5 rather than a +3, so training has a greater impact than natural talent, but that's just a numbers game.
Is Perception the oddball skill that shouldn't be based on an ability score? You look at stories, literature, movies, and you see heroes of all sorts that are perceptive in various ways. A gambler rogue may not be wise with his coin, but can spot a cheater from a mile away because he knows what he's looking for. A guardian warrior may not have the priestly wisdom, but could still have naturally keen hearing, such that he can identify the unsheathing of an assassin's dagger in a crowded room. A wizard need not be wise to notice the magical trap the rogue is about to trigger, and shout out a warning to him.
Perhaps wisdom and perception could be divorced. Some systems approach Perception as an ability score of its own, though I'm not too fond of that approach either, as I think a dwarf spelunker, a halfling swindler, and a high elf wizard might be perceptive in different areas relating to their expertise, while an urban human cloistered priest might be the least observant member in his party despite a high wisdom (though he might be the only one to spot an inaccurate spelling of Yeenoghu in a wall writing that points to a double entendre).
Perhaps one approach is removing the skill altogether. A wizard uses Arcana to perceive magical wards, a rogue detects mechanical traps with his Thievery, a fighter perceives threats in a crowd with his Streetwise, a dwarf notices hazards with his dungeoneering, etc. In 3e and 4e, Spot/Listen/Perception have been the most used and most valued skills, because it works on everything, and is used every adventure. Why not just let everyone be good at it, except, they are only good at it when it relates to their area of expertise? This way we can hopefully avoid the situation where the cleric is better at detecting traps, than the rogue, and the ranger is better at detecting magical wards than the wizard.
If someone wants to really go the extra mile in Perception, perhaps "Perceptive" could be a trait/feat/what have you, and whenever the individual is making a check to perceive using a trained skill, he could roll with advantage (whatever the final mechanic for that turns out to be, double rolls, or +2).
I think other than Perception, the 5e approach to skills seems quite good. Let's say I am trained in streetwise. I want to tail a suspect in the crowds without being seen, I make a dexterity check and add my streetwise. This would reflect my ability to keep the target in sight, and use passing wagons and carts to my advantage to not be noticed. I want to use my knowledge of the streets to come up with a shortcut, I make an intelligence check and add my streetwise. I want to gather information about a local vigilante, I make a charisma check and add my streetwise. This allows skills to reflect what a character is truly good at. So my fighter trained in streetwise doesn't need to be trained in "stealth" to tail someone in a city, and doesn't need to be trained in "knowledge local" to know a few short cuts around town. I think being trained should be a +5 rather than a +3, so training has a greater impact than natural talent, but that's just a numbers game.
This is only a "problem" for people who don't want to deal with MAD. My view is that every character should have an incentive to put points in every stat -- if you want to ignore WIS on your rogue, feel free, but know that there are consequences to this choice.
Fifth Element
Legend
No, it's not the question. Or at least it wasn't. And one reason it was a poor example is because it brings up the topic of "trained only" skills, which isn't really relevant to the OP's issue.
The OP's issue is basically: rogues don't have the best Spot check. Clerics end up being good at it, too (which seems counter-intuitive).
I don't really see this as a problem. A rogue with a high WIS will still be better than a cleric, and it's fine for there to be more than one way to skin a cat/arrive at a high check bonus. It's okay to have cleric/druid capable of spotting a trap, a mage (or a fighter not wearing armor) being pretty good at sneaking around, or, conversely, a mage or a thief capable of hitting and doing meaningful damage with a weapon (at least against certain enemy types).
Besides, there are plenty of good reasons not to have your priest out in front on trap-finding duty... doesn't seem like a big deal in practice. I'd probably declare Spot dependent either on WIS or INT and leave it at that.
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Crazy Jerome
First Post
Why not make it separate? It is not as if everything in D&D is treated like a skill. If certain weapon abilities and spell casting are somewhat separate from the heart of the skill system, why not have a few other things that are as well?
In fact, it would make a certain amount of sense within the D&D context to have:
- Really important, central stuff that you get through class, theme, etc. that is at least partially separate from ability/skill checks. (Like weapons, they may interact with the checks, but are not fully tied to them.) Niche protection is important here.
- Things that many adventurers can at least try and/or are likely to have some reason to develop "skill" with (e.g. rogue lockpicking) that work almost entirely in the normal ability/skill system.
- Minor and/or different things that function more as pure ability checks and/or traits, background, etc.
ZombieRoboNinja
First Post
I agree. This whole change to the skill system seems like trying to patch a screen door with a jackhammer: it not only causes a great deal of peripheral damage, it doesn't even address the original problem.
Issue: This new system would encourage min/maxers to train skills in their worst stats, since if my fighter has 8 int and 18 dex, training in Acrobatics is only a +1 but training in Knowledge (Arcana) gives me +6.
Issue: It's highly counterintuitive that the most effective, say, Diplomat in the game can have Cha as a dump score (as long as he took a diplomatic background).
Issue: This system would make for some weird DC effects. Like, every rogue thief in the known universe can always spot and disarm a DC 15 trap and open a DC 15 lock, but up the DC to 16 and their success rate goes from 100% to 50%. This is an artifact of the rogue's skill mastery ability, but if skill bonuses are affected by stats, at least there's some variation in these hard-and-fast DCs based on bonuses to ability scores.
Issue: The playtest rogue would STILL HAVE A -1 PERCEPTION SCORE, since he's not friggin' trained in it! And if he WAS trained in it, there wouldn't be a problem under the existing rules to begin with; he would have a minimum result of 12, way better than the cleric's minimum result of 5. His average roll would be 14.75, while the cleric's average is 14.5. If both the rogue and the cleric had the Soldier background for trained perception, then the cleric would have a range of 8-27, and the rogue would have a range of 12-22; in that case, the cleric would have a higher average result and a higher maximum result, but that's okay because he's a friggin' zen warrior. And he'd STILL get beat out by the rogue 20% of the time.
I think the easiest way to fix this would be to change the "thief" scheme to have perception as a trained skill - that is, if it really needs fixing. Personally, I'd just swap the commoner background for soldier, if I was playing the rogue. The biggest lesson I take from this whole thing is that Perception (and Stealth) are way more important in combat than any other skill available in the playtest, and it behooves a min/maxed rogue to be trained in both (since skill mastery makes training so important); I would argue that both these skills should be trained for most or all of the rogue schemes.
TLDR: The overall system is fine as it is; just make sure you choose your trained skills carefully, especially as a rogue. The devs might want to take steps to ensure that Perception and Stealth are readily available (or even automatic) as trained skills for rogues, since any rogue without them is at a big disadvantage (whereas almost every other skill in the playtest, like Folklore or Animal Handling, is much more tied to roleplaying than combat).
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