D&D 5E Great news on Skills

[GameDoc]

From the new Legends & Lore, it looks like they are once again separating skills from abilities. If I'm reading it correctly, all checks will be an ability check and if you have an applicable skill, you get the added bonus. So the same skill might get applied to using different abilities in different circumstances. Just like in the first play test packet.

This makes me very happy.

Also, 4 skills per background rather than 3.

 

[Roger]

Hmmm. I think I like this in theory, but I'm not sure how often it'll come up in practice. Let's see...

Find and Remove Traps to assist in a Dex check to dodge a triggered trap, maybe, I can see coming up.

Spot with Intelligence sort of gives us Search back.

Survival with Constitution I can see coming up a lot, perhaps even more often than on Wisdom.

Alright, I guess there's more applications than I first suspected.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[VinylTap]

I hope they give us some good guidelines for using these skills in meaningful way. As a fledgling PF GM I'm still having a lot of problems with this.

Good to see things opening up though. Keep things creative and adaptable.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Now the next step is to get them to assist with their own desire for "bounded accuracy" by making them realize that their skill system would be better served by not having "trained skills" grant a +3 to the roll... but rather grant Advantage. That way, you aren't having the bonuses get too large for those who have a +4 to the ability modifier as well as the +3 for the skill. Advantage allows a PC to be better with their skills they are good at, without potentially screwing up the DCs the DM has to create and assign to checks because some character's bonuses are so much greater than others.

WotC already has this set up via the Elf and his Keen Senses (which is basically having Advantage on Perception checks). They should now adapt that to ALL uses of the skill system. The Dwarf's Stonecunning should be that they roll with Advantage on any ability checks having to do with understanding stonework, knowledge of dungeoneering things, and the tracking and location of their path. And Backgrounds grant four "areas of expertise" that allow the PC to roll Advantage on when making an ability check.

The advantage (pun intended) of this system, is that it means all characters who are trained and great at their particular areas of expertise... can still be accomplished at them even when having to do it in disadvantageous situations. Because Advantage and Disadvantage cancel each other out... no character will ever be "stressed" when doing something they are specifically trained to be fantastic at. At worst... they will make their ability check normally. Seeing as how they were always creating feats and abilities in previous editions that would "allow the PC to Take 10 or make a check normally even when stressed or in a time-sensitive situation"... Advantage as a mechanic has that already built in.

So an acrobat trying to Balance on choppy waters (ordinarily a Disadvantage situation) will make their DEX check normal. The thief trying to disarm the trap while suffering the effects of some sort of poison (that might ordinarily grant Disadvantage) can still disarm it normally because he's that good. And any other example you might give.

Let's keep Bounded Accuracy DCs standardized by using the Advantage mechanic to ts fullest advantage.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I think that simplifying skills to just having or not having advantage is a bit much, both in being too crude and too powerful. Would you want to be in the party where nobody has training in spot?

Having said that, I do think that +3 is too large a bonus, I would certainly trim it down to +2. If you want your accuracy with even tighter binding, consider that skill training might give +X *or* your ability bonus. The disadvantage with that is that you train things you are bad at, of course.

I'll recount a suggestion I had in another thread, which is that training should act a bit like Rogue Skill Mastery. For each level of skill training (apprentice, journeyman, etc) you are entitled to a minimum dice roll, so that certain tasks are always achievable for you - training gives you the ability to 'take 10', or higher as you get better, even though it might not allow you to achieve anything greater than your ability. I like a +1 bonus to the skill per training level and a minimum dice roll, so you get better *and* more reliable.

 

[B.T.]

When are we getting this rules update, at the end of the month? Or are they shooting for a Thanksgiving / Christmas update?

I'll recount a suggestion I had in another thread, which is that training should act a bit like Rogue Skill Mastery. For each level of skill training (apprentice, journeyman, etc) you are entitled to a minimum dice roll, so that certain tasks are always achievable for you - training gives you the ability to 'take 10', or higher as you get better, even though it might not allow you to achieve anything greater than your ability. I like a +1 bonus to the skill per training level and a minimum dice roll, so you get better *and* more reliable.

This isn't a bad idea. I would say that you get a bonus to your skill and, as you increase your mastery, you have minimum dice rolls.

 

[Li Shenron]

I haven't checked the L&L article yet, but I like the sound...

Find and Remove Traps to assist in a Dex check to dodge a triggered trap, maybe, I can see coming up.

Good point to bring this up... I think they could just rename it "Traps", because "find and remove" already suggests that there is more than one application to this, and the two don't necessarily use the same ability. Find may be Wis or Int, but remove may be Int or Dex, or sometimes even Str. "Traps" may include at least also trapmaking, and possibly even apply to saving throws.

 

[EvilDwarf]

Now the next step is to get them to assist with their own desire for "bounded accuracy" by making them realize that their skill system would be better served by not having "trained skills" grant a +3 to the roll... but rather grant Advantage. That way, you aren't having the bonuses get too large for those who have a +4 to the ability modifier as well as the +3 for the skill. Advantage allows a PC to be better with their skills they are good at, without potentially screwing up the DCs the DM has to create and assign to checks because some character's bonuses are so much greater than others.

WotC already has this set up via the Elf and his Keen Senses (which is basically having Advantage on Perception checks). They should now adapt that to ALL uses of the skill system. The Dwarf's Stonecunning should be that they roll with Advantage on any ability checks having to do with understanding stonework, knowledge of dungeoneering things, and the tracking and location of their path. And Backgrounds grant four "areas of expertise" that allow the PC to roll Advantage on when making an ability check.

The advantage (pun intended) of this system, is that it means all characters who are trained and great at their particular areas of expertise... can still be accomplished at them even when having to do it in disadvantageous situations. Because Advantage and Disadvantage cancel each other out... no character will ever be "stressed" when doing something they are specifically trained to be fantastic at. At worst... they will make their ability check normally. Seeing as how they were always creating feats and abilities in previous editions that would "allow the PC to Take 10 or make a check normally even when stressed or in a time-sensitive situation"... Advantage as a mechanic has that already built in.

So an acrobat trying to Balance on choppy waters (ordinarily a Disadvantage situation) will make their DEX check normal. The thief trying to disarm the trap while suffering the effects of some sort of poison (that might ordinarily grant Disadvantage) can still disarm it normally because he's that good. And any other example you might give.

Let's keep Bounded Accuracy DCs standardized by using the Advantage mechanic to ts fullest advantage.

This. Exactly. If system elegance is a goal, then the Advantage mechanic is the way to go. If bounded accuracy is a goal, then IMHO Advantage answers that problem, at least for handling skills.

I think that when the shift was made to D20 and DCs, the skill mechanic was too much conflated with the combat mechanic. And they don't need to be. At the inception, the d20 vs. DC for skills was very elegant, but I think that carrying over the combat mechanic--d20 vs AC--was done without even thinking about it. There's no reason at all why skills have to "level up with bonuses" the same way combat does, if you think about it. I think separating the d20 vs DC and d20 vs AC mechanic would be a really smart, insightful, and elegant move.

Plus, you DO have skill improvement, even if you move skills to the Advantage mechanic: you get to improve ability stats as you level, so you are in effect improving skills that way too. (So, if you give a bonus for skill training, AND you increase your stat mods every few levels, skills REALLY start to push against bounded accuracy.)

So, give me a simple, no math Advantage system and let me improve my stats every few levels, and I'll be quite happy.

 

[EvilDwarf]

Oh, yeah. And, at least to me, it makes more "sense" (whatever that means in a fantasy setting) that a monster's AC could go up much faster and be much higher than the DC for, say, opening a door or leaping a chasm or finding a secret passage.

So separating the concept of increasing DCs from increasing ACs makes even more sense to me.

 

[VinylTap]

Some great ideas in this thread.