D&D 5E Skills in 5e

[Frostmarrow]

We need to get rid of the skill check. Rolling 1d20 to determine if a skill attempt is successful is the wrong way to go. In combat making a to hit roll is a great idea. For skills it does not do us any good. But, please bear with me, there is something else that really does work that we are not using today... In combat we first roll to hit and then we roll damage.
-The damage roll would be great for skill checks.

Imagine that all skill checks automatically succeed but the extent of success is determined by a success roll (comparable to a damage roll). If we do this we get a result that stacks, pools, extends, and contends. Think about it.

My lock picking skill might be 1d6 and the lock I'm picking might have 20 lock points. The quarry I'm tracking might be 25 points away and my tracking skill might be 2d6. The spell I'm researching might be 100 points occult and my spell craft skill might be 1d10, and my apprentice adds another 1d4.

Now, to make this exciting all obstacles must pack a penalty for not being overcome. At the end of the player round, if a challenge has not been bested the challenge itself will penalize the skill user in some way. The exact penalty obviously depends on the nature of the challenge; the lock will waste a minute of my life, the quarry will hide an re-add 1d6 points of distance and my researched spell will inflict 1d6 points of fire damage.

 

[Sadrik]

We need to get rid of the skill check. Rolling 1d20 to determine if a skill attempt is successful is the wrong way to go. In combat making a to hit roll is a great idea. For skills it does not do us any good. But, please bear with me, there is something else that really does work that we are not using today... In combat we first roll to hit and then we roll damage.
-The damage roll would be great for skill checks.

I had recently considered what if the default for a skill check was "take 10"... I had not considered rolling for effect in some way after that, could be interesting...

 

[sheadunne]

We need to get rid of the skill check. Rolling 1d20 to determine if a skill attempt is successful is the wrong way to go. In combat making a to hit roll is a great idea. For skills it does not do us any good. But, please bear with me, there is something else that really does work that we are not using today... In combat we first roll to hit and then we roll damage.
-The damage roll would be great for skill checks.

Imagine that all skill checks automatically succeed but the extent of success is determined by a success roll (comparable to a damage roll). If we do this we get a result that stacks, pools, extends, and contends. Think about it.

My lock picking skill might be 1d6 and the lock I'm picking might have 20 lock points. The quarry I'm tracking might be 25 points away and my tracking skill might be 2d6. The spell I'm researching might be 100 points occult and my spell craft skill might be 1d10, and my apprentice adds another 1d4.

Now, to make this exciting all obstacles must pack a penalty for not being overcome. At the end of the player round, if a challenge has not been bested the challenge itself will penalize the skill user in some way. The exact penalty obviously depends on the nature of the challenge; the lock will waste a minute of my life, the quarry will hide an re-add 1d6 points of distance and my researched spell will inflict 1d6 points of fire damage.

Getting there, now try it again without the points. As a DM I have enough to keep track of. How can we do it without points.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Skills should not be saves because of bonuses and how certain spells work. Skills can be [mind effecting]. You should get bonuses to resist mind affecting things. If it is a skill, it is clunky at best. Something like sense motive/insight can very easily be a will save. This is just me putting things in boxes, could it be another way? Of course, but why have two types of saves that are basically will saves? One that resists magic and one that resists skills? Would not someone who is very good at disbelieving illusions and resisting compulsions and shrugging off Id insinuation, and other psionic attacks also be good at resisting a bluff or intimidate? I do.

In a way this goes into my miff about integrating the skill system in with the spell system rather than have them be two separate entities that function in their own subsystems and rarely touch each other.

I agree with your sentiment though, ability checks and saves are essentially the same and follow the same die rolling mechanic. Each type of check applies different bonuses though, but are the same.

I'm not sure I totally follow your logic. Lets imagine there's an 'Insight' skill and there's a 'Suggestion' spell. Lets say Insight is a defense against Suggestion, then the character's passive Insight (10+bonus) can be used as a defense against suggestion (IE a DC that the attacker has to meet to make their spell work). I don't see any issue with this at all, in principle. Now, 4e has issues in that there are some fairly wide skill bonus spreads. OTOH I think it might work fine for specific things, or as a feat for instance where you get to use your skill in place of an ability score. As for skills on the ATTACK side, I think it makes perfect sense. I'm a wizard, I use my Insight to make Suggestion attacks. Assuming I build my character even vaguely effectively (or some packaging system insures that I have all the right stuff to be an 'Enchanter', etc) then it seems like a very nice system and quite similar to what is used in most skill-based systems.

Straight from 3e:
Very Easy -> 0
Easy -> 5
Average -> 10
Tough -> 15
Challenging -> 20
Formidable -> 25
Heroic -> 30
Impossible -> 40

So it is in both 3e and 4e. 4e is much more granular and provides a level chart that you look up to see what the DC is for any given task based on the the level of the party. 3e approach is different, look at the task determine how difficult it is and then set the DC. I would rather see a chart like 3e's in 5e rather than a level 1-30 chart to look up DCs. To each his own though.

What's wrong with 4e's approach? It is just the same thing, a difficulty number. You don't even have to go look up on the DC chart, you just pick a number that works for the given situation. The chart is just a set of guidelines as to what the developers think will provide good numbers at different levels. Assuming the devs have done their job then those DCs should also give you a good handle on XP awards. The current 4e numbers seem to work quite well IME. Honestly I always thought 4e's EASY/MEDIUM/HARD was kind of redundant, but whatever.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

We need to get rid of the skill check. Rolling 1d20 to determine if a skill attempt is successful is the wrong way to go. In combat making a to hit roll is a great idea. For skills it does not do us any good. But, please bear with me, there is something else that really does work that we are not using today... In combat we first roll to hit and then we roll damage.
-The damage roll would be great for skill checks.

Imagine that all skill checks automatically succeed but the extent of success is determined by a success roll (comparable to a damage roll). If we do this we get a result that stacks, pools, extends, and contends. Think about it.

My lock picking skill might be 1d6 and the lock I'm picking might have 20 lock points. The quarry I'm tracking might be 25 points away and my tracking skill might be 2d6. The spell I'm researching might be 100 points occult and my spell craft skill might be 1d10, and my apprentice adds another 1d4.

Now, to make this exciting all obstacles must pack a penalty for not being overcome. At the end of the player round, if a challenge has not been bested the challenge itself will penalize the skill user in some way. The exact penalty obviously depends on the nature of the challenge; the lock will waste a minute of my life, the quarry will hide an re-add 1d6 points of distance and my researched spell will inflict 1d6 points of fire damage.

Yeah, I am not sure what you are gaining here. There are still success and failure, but now you've created a whole different variant subsystem. Why not just use SC type mechanics instead? Count number of successes and structure each challenge in whatever fashion makes sense for the situation on the ground. For simpler things and just general ad-hoc stuff, just go with a simple d20 check, pass/fail. The DM should know to use interesting pass/fail results (IE fail forward or as we say "out of the frying pan and into the fire").

I think you would just find that in the end a "hit point" based system really isn't simpler, doesn't inherently produce better results, and just ends up making the rules more complicated for at best some very minor gain.

 

[Lanefan]

At least we sometimes agree . I'd MUCH rather keep the half-level bonus myself. Call me old-school, but level means to me "get better at stuff", and I just don't see 20th level PCs wandering around on 'dungeon level 1' and expecting or needing anything to challenge them. The other thing is just simplicity. All the skills just work the same all of the time, there's no muss or fuss, the rules are just simple and straightforward.

I'm old-school, and to me "get better at stuff" only applies to what your class(es) train you to get better at. A caster gets better at casting spells. A thief gets better at thiefly skills. All classes get better at fighting but fighters get better way faster than everyone else and can do things no others can.

A thief does not get better at casting spells, nor does a cleric get better at picking locks; and nor should they.

Non-adventuring skills like cooking or mining work the same - the simple fact of being a 20th-level cleric instead of a 1st-level cleric does not and should not have any direct influence whatsoever on how good a cook or miner you are as neither is a feature of your class.

Lan-"not that I'll ever see 20th level anyway"-efan

 

[GMMichael]

A thief does not get better at casting spells, nor does a cleric get better at picking locks; and nor should they.

I like the idea of a thief who knows how to cast Invisibility. Or a lock-picking cleric of a Treasure-God.

Non-adventuring skills like cooking or mining work the same -

Hit points for checks - giving a different skill die to characters is cool. But assigning hit points to challenges could be tricky, and you'll have to decide how many rolls a character gets before failure is declared. And you have to include failure because...

Let's talk cooking (INT). Cooking is a skill where taking longer, if there's a fire involved, doesn't mean you'll just succeed later. It means you can royally mess up your effort. Which is a fail. And I suspect players won't want to sit and roll dice until they automatically succeed after scoring so many points.

But work with hit points. It's a cool idea, just needs some polishing.

Abdul, this is how I got rid of saving throws:
Turn them into skills. Give them something proactive to do, when they're not being used as defenses. But like other skills, the new saving-skills take time, during the combat round, to conduct.

Example: Parry is the skill for physical defense. You use it to avoid damage, from weapons (armor class) or spells (reflex save). If your Parry check beats the attacker's check, you take no damage. Importantly, Parrying takes effort. You have to save an action (or in d20, use a swift action) to Parry something. If you don't save an action, you'll take damage, and hope your armor absorbs lots of damage for you.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Getting there, now try it again without the points. As a DM I have enough to keep track of. How can we do it without points.

The points are necessary, I'm afraid. -And they are quite useful. You see you can roll towards a low number and create a succeed/fail situation, you can pick a moderately high number and get a thrilling situation, you can pick a higher number that several characters must work together to achieve, you can compare the results of two characters (or more!) competeing. This is where skills should be.

Imagine my character having Climb 1d6. If the DM sets the DC at 2 I will probably succeed in one go. If the DC is 6 I might make it in one turn (and get away from the orc) or require two turns and get whacked in the process. Mount Doom might require 1000 success points.
When the entire party rolls for perception the highest scorer spots the enemy first.

Yeah, I am not sure what you are gaining here. There are still success and failure, but now you've created a whole different variant subsystem. Why not just use SC type mechanics instead? Count number of successes and structure each challenge in whatever fashion makes sense for the situation on the ground. For simpler things and just general ad-hoc stuff, just go with a simple d20 check, pass/fail. The DM should know to use interesting pass/fail results (IE fail forward or as we say "out of the frying pan and into the fire").

I think you would just find that in the end a "hit point" based system really isn't simpler, doesn't inherently produce better results, and just ends up making the rules more complicated for at best some very minor gain.

It's not more complicated. It's exactly as complicated as the 3Ed system but it produces comparable results that can be accumulated. Counting successes 4Ed-style was a complete dead end*.

It also solves the old "can I try again?" question without add-on rules. The answer is "of course you can, but there will be a penalty".

It also answers the question "when do I roll a skill check?" question. The answer is "whenever there is an obvious penalty". If there is no penalty then you don't need to roll.

It's also intuitively compatible with special items, circumstances, and even combat. A cloak of elvenkind adds to your stealth roll, darkness halves your die rolls, and if you have 20 climb points you can autocrit the colossus.

Lastly, any DM will quickly learn how to appreciate any challenge in terms of difficulty. In the same way we know 3hp is a kobold and 24 hp is an ogre.

* A cool idea that just wouldn't work.

 

[pemerton]

Magic and gear to eliminate or reduce skill tasks. This is a big feature of D&D

It's not an especially big feature of 4e.

it's not that the person cannot climb the cliff, it's that climbing the cliff is irrelevant. I'm arguing for making climbing the cliff relevant. Currently there is no system in any edition that makes climbing the cliff relevant.

Would you agree that 4e comes closest? (Although at high levels the "cliff" will only be relevant if it is the Pillars of Creation in the Elemental Chaos.) I don't ask this to try and prove a point, but more to check that I'm properly getting what you're saying.

So in the standard railroad game model you can tailor all DCs to be an appropriate challenge for PCs

It is a mistake to categorise "tailored DCs" as a "standard railroad game".

"Tailored DCs" are a staple of games like The Dying Earth, HeroQuest revised, Maelstrom Storytelling and other systems which so far from being railroad games are pioneering player-driven narrativist games.

From the point of view of game design, the point of "tailored DCs" is not to engineer a railroad, but rather to ensure robust mathematics in encounter design, and hence reliable pacing and a context in which players will take narrative risks because they know the maths won't hose them.

You are making it sound a bit like "one way or the other, the PCs are going to win the game, so why bother with the details? just let them pick that lock..."

<snip>

I love those details and I absolutely love a game filled with corner cases, which once the game is full of them they're together not so irrelevant.

In my favourite gamestyle, that Rogue at 20th level can certainly pick almost any lock if he bothered to invest in lockpicking. Otherwise maybe the wizard can cast Knock if she chose to learn that spell.

Well that's what a 4e wizard's level bonus consists in! Magical prowess - the wizard waves his/her fingers and the lock pops open!

I think of it as akin to the 1st ed AD&D saving throw rules - as the DMG explains, a rogue's save vs fireball corresponds to reflexes and slipperiness, whereas a MU's save vs fireball correponds to the ability to manipulate magic and generate momentary counterspells. 4e's skill system is this sort of logic extended over a further part of the game.

You are stating that something which is a challenge for a 1st level character should not be a challenge at all for a 20th level character. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the message I get is that everything which is a challenge at 1st level should be trivial at 20th. This is one gamestyle, and AFAIK it's a design assumption of 4e.

What I don't get in relation to 2nd ed AD&D (with its NWP) and 3E (with its skills) is why killing ordinary people with swords becomes trivial for every high level PC (even the ones with low STR and DEX and who aren't proficient in swords), but climbing cliffs and opening locks remains hugely challenging for everyone but the rogue (and, in 3E, perhaps the fighter as far as climbing is concerned).

Either go all the way with a simulationist skill system for PC buidling (Rolemaster, Runequest, Burning Wheel etc) or take level seriously as a measure of general prowess. But why go gonzo on combat and gritty on non-combat? I just don't get it.

I think skill challenges should and could still be a challenge at high level. By simple virtue of being high level I dont think you should be adept at diplomacy with a king. That would be dependent upon your CHA and if you have diplomacy skill.

<snip>

just because you are 20th level you should not be able to climb a cliff, swim in a violent storm, know everything (that is not highly obscure), run for hours, jump ten foot chasms, ride difficult mounts, open locks.

This is the gonzo/gritty thing again.

A 20th level PC can withstand being breathed on by a dragon - how is that character in danger of drowning in a whirlpool other than perhaps on the Plane of Water? The same PC can withstand being chewed on by that dragon, and in many cases is capable of cutting that dragon apart with a sword - in other words, is a paragon of physical prowess and resilience. How can such a chracter not be able to jump a ten-foot chasm - something I think I might be able to do with a running start - or run for hours?

And in some versions of D&D, at least, a 20th level PC is an archmage, a mightly lord, or a demigod, on a first name basis with the gods! Wouldn't a mere mortal king tremble in the presence of such a person?

I just think you reach a point when certain things become dungeon dressing and not a challenge. It's just the nature of the game. Pick your flavor and move on, it's going to happen in 5e the way it's happened in every edition so far. That lock just won't be a challenge to high level characters.

I like this post and have enjoyed your posts that follow on from it.

For me, it relates back to gonzo vs gritty - my take on what you're saying is that in a system with gonzo combat and casting, trying to treat skills as gritty is inevitably doomed to failure - the gonzo will just completely overtake them. That seems plausible to me, and fits with my own play experience.

people state things like X is always a problem and then some of us come on and say "it wasnt an issue for how I played the game, in fact I piked how x worked in edition x".

At least for my part, I'm not saying that gonzo spells & combat combined with gritty skills must be a problem. But I agree with sheadunne that it means that skills will tend to get crowded out or overshadowed over time. Whether or not that's a problem is a matter of taste, but as I've said I don't personally understand the aesthetic of gonzo combat and spells + gritty skills. I don't see what it adds in terms of verisimilitude, fantasy tropes, ease of play, immersion, or any of the other standard aesthetic criteria for fantasy RPG.

 

[sheadunne]

Would you agree that 4e comes closest? (Although at high levels the "cliff" will only be relevant if it is the Pillars of Creation in the Elemental Chaos.) I don't ask this to try and prove a point, but more to check that I'm properly getting what you're saying.

I like this post and have enjoyed your posts that follow on from it.

For me, it relates back to gonzo vs gritty - my take on what you're saying is that in a system with gonzo combat and casting, trying to treat skills as gritty is inevitably doomed to failure - the gonzo will just completely overtake them. That seems plausible to me, and fits with my own play experience.

At least for my part, I'm not saying that gonzo spells & combat combined with gritty skills must be a problem. But I agree with sheadunne that it means that skills will tend to get crowded out or overshadowed over time. Whether or not that's a problem is a matter of taste, but as I've said I don't personally understand the aesthetic of gonzo combat and spells + gritty skills. I don't see what it adds in terms of verisimilitude, fantasy tropes, ease of play, immersion, or any of the other standard aesthetic criteria for fantasy RPG.

Yes, you nailed it, a bit more eloquently than I did I think. 4e at least acknowledges that skills are an issue and attempts to deal with them in a way that matches its play style. What I want is a way to do the same thing in reverse but without seriously impacting spells and combat. It might not even be possible, but I'd like to see if it can be done.

4e did some interesting things with encounter-based resources, which, overall, I don't like for combat and spells, but may be interesting with skills, most of which don't facilitate a need to limit to daily or can't be done at-will. Climbing a cliff and failing can require a short rest to recoup and try again. Diplomacy may require leaving the room, taking a breather, and returning to renegotiate. Crafting a chair might require a short rest to revisit the blueprints and see if you're on track. Etc. Perhaps skills can be encounter-based resources. I don't know, but I think every possible angle should be explored. I want to enjoy skills as much as I enjoy other facets of the game, but have been disappointed with so far.