D&D 3E/3.5 the 3e skill system

[Greenfield]

Each edition has had strong and weak points.

1st edition was fairly freewheeling, as was 2nd. 2nd introduced skills as something other than "noncombat proficiencies".

3e standardized the mechanic and reversed the AC scale. Earlier, lower was better, but from 3e on higher was.

This allowed a dice/combat simplification that eliminated the need for half a dozen charts and accelerated play. They also introduced Feats and a more complete skill system. In addition to that, the formalized the item slot/location rules and clearly defined what stacks and what doesn't. Prior to that 2 magic Rings of Protection stacked, for example.

With the addition of feats and a progressive skill system (you can add points to get better, over time) an amazing thing happened: More rules and more structure allowed for far more flexibility and creativity. Between the improved cross-classing rules and prestige classes it became possible to sculpt and fine tune a character to be just about anything you wanted.

It also opened the door for new levels of abuse, as some people decided that the "anything you wanted" thing included "broken". Additionally it wasn't really play tested for anything above about level 10.

4th edition tried to rein in the rampant abuse, but in doing so lost the flexibility that had become D&D's hallmark. It introduced new concepts, such as Skill Challenges, which were a much needed way to formally address non-combat encounters and situations. My own problrms with it were that it seemed like an attempt to move World of Warcraft to the tabletop, with all the status bookkeeping inherent in that, and without a computer to keep track of it.

Pathfinder, often described as D&D 3.75, also took a shot at fixing some of 3.5's problems, but unlike 4e they didn't just throw everything out and start over. They removed some of the abuse potential by limiting or eliminating prestige classes. They tried to correct some class-related power imbalances, but they did it by powering everyone up. That changed the imbalances, but didn't really address them very well.

I've played 5e, but not a lot, so any opinion or analysis I expressed here would be poorly informed at best.

One thing I saw (and disliked) in 4e, which they carried over to 5e, was the non-progressive skill system. You're either trained or you aren't, but there aren't any gradations. You can't improve a skill through practice and training. Instead you advance all skills (even those you never use in game) based on levels. In 4e that advancement was an illusion, since the DC advances at the same rate.

Over all, the economy of the game world has been broken since day one. Different editions have had different flavors of "broken", but "broken" has been a constant.

The flaws with skill challenges in 4e can be handled by a good DM. So can the abuse of race/class/prestige class in 3e.

The reality is that a good DM can make any system work, and a bad DM can't make any system work. What we need are systems between those two extremes, systems and mechanics that the average DM can keep workable. In that light I see the most potential in 1/2E, 3.*e and Pathfinder.
Your mileage may vary, naturally.

 

[dave2008]

One thing I saw (and disliked) in 4e, which they carried over to 5e, was the non-progressive skill system. You're either trained or you aren't, but there aren't any gradations. You can't improve a skill through practice and training.

Not completely true. In 5e you have untrained (no prof. bonus), trained (+prof. bonus), and expert (+prof. bonus x2).

 

[Charlaquin]

One thing I saw (and disliked) in 4e, which they carried over to 5e, was the non-progressive skill system. You're either trained or you aren't, but there aren't any gradations. You can't improve a skill through practice and training. Instead you advance all skills (even those you never use in game) based on levels. In 4e that advancement was an illusion, since the DC advances at the same rate.

The thing is, this was functionally the case in 3.X too. Sure, in theory you got a certain number of ranks each level to put into any skill you wanted. But unless you picked a number of skills equal to the number of ranks you got at level up and always put your ranks into those skills, you fell behind the treadmill and didn’t have a reasonable chance of succeeding at level-appropriate challenges with the skill. Literally the only reason not to just pick a number of skills and keep them all maxed out was if you needed a few ranks in something else to qualify for a prestige class. 4e and 5e just removed the trap option of spreading your ranks too thin.

 

[5atbu]

I like trained or untrained.
I could cope with untrained, trained, adept

 

[RSIxidor]

I like the granularity of skills in 3/3.5/PF.
I like that you can take basically any skill, even if its not in your class list.
I dislike how numbers go crazy at high levels.
I dislike how your build may be completely hinged on boosting a skill far enough to pick up a specific feat at specific levels, or be left behind.

I like the tiered (untrained/trained/expert) modes of skill training in 5e (though I wish expertise had a static definition instead of being explained in each class feature that uses it).
I dislike the lack of granularity in choosing how to advance skills (because outside of a few class features and feats, advancing skills is not an option).

It would be nice to have something somewhere between the skill rank system and what 5E has. Pathfinder 2 has a decent system that's somewhere in there, so another good thing to consider. I'm not 100% on it, but it's somewhere in there. You've got tiers of training and you choose what skills you take more training in but the 9 levels where you choose to learn a skill or advance one usually only give a single skill to learn or advance - but at least all characters get to learn and advance skills after level 1. At the same time, like 3/3.5/PF1, I don't like the expectations of skill ranks related to feats.

I liked basically nothing about the 4E skill system, except that classes often had utility powers that improved a significant class skill some of the time (like Bards getting a big boost to charisma skills once an encounter). I wouldn't hate that being a normal part of the game again, in some way.

Anyway, I'll probably never be happy with a skill system.

 

[billd91]

The thing is, this was functionally the case in 3.X too. Sure, in theory you got a certain number of ranks each level to put into any skill you wanted. But unless you picked a number of skills equal to the number of ranks you got at level up and always put your ranks into those skills, you fell behind the treadmill and didn’t have a reasonable chance of succeeding at level-appropriate challenges with the skill. Literally the only reason not to just pick a number of skills and keep them all maxed out was if you needed a few ranks in something else to qualify for a prestige class. 4e and 5e just removed the trap option of spreading your ranks too thin.

Sort of. It's definitely true with opposed skills because monsters and NPCs would often have them maxed out - and for monsters it was based on hit dice, not CR, and that meant they could grow even faster than PC scores in some cases.

But many other skills had suggested DCs that weren't level-dependent. Some tasks could only be accomplished by high level PCs, but that was because they involved lots of difficulty. There were skills that a PC could taper off investing in once they achieved their desired level of competence.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It can feel like your only option is to max out a few skills, because otherwise you fall behind the competition, but that's only in the contrived case where everyone and everything you encounter is exactly your same level. Yes, if you have a bad DM, then the game is going to play poorly.

In any other case, where the DM isn't contriving things to make your choices meaningless, your skill point investment remains important.

 

[Bawylie]

Here’s what I’d like:

Skills have 5 “levels,” that are eligible for increase as the proficiency bonus increases. Each class gets a number of skill points to invest. 1 point to train/invest in skills on your class/background list or 2 points for skills that are NOT on either list.

The first level of every skill is a +2 on your ability check.
Each level thereafter includes some use-case or ability that expands your characters capabilities.

This system would include armor, weapon, and tool proficiencies as well and would probably end up “eating” the feat system.

Essentially, I’d like the customization, I’d like the bonuses to remain relatively small compared to the ability modifiers, and I’d like default settings to be on par with carefully selected cross-classing (meaning, anyone who just sets their skills and auto-invests in the same thing at every opportunity shouldn’t regret that choice).

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

In my experience, the granularity was just too much, especially when it came time to level up certain classes. I'd often get stuck by decision paralysis - sure, if I'm playing a bard, I'm going to want to max out Persuade and Perform, but surely I really want to not be stuck not knowing how to swim. Or should I put a point into Appraise to get better deals? Or what about Bluff, that's a handy skill for a bard. Then there's Spellcraft, wouldn't that be handy?

 

[Celebrim]

I quit D&D/D20 after 1e, and did not return until 5e.

I like 5e, but I was thumbing through the various editions which I had missed, and I was struck by the way it seemed to do more than 5es, especially in the way it allowed you to customize your character.

How was it in actual gameplay?

It depends on the GM.

3e is my favored edition, but it does have some problems and can benefit from house rules.

But the biggest issue as to whether skills are meaningful is whether the DM actively works to make them meaningful.

If you have 40' x 50' room that is flat and largely featureless, and all your combats occur in that room or ones similar to it, then yeah balance, jump, climb, swim and to a certain extent even tumble might all be meaningless skills. The same can be said of basically all the skills, though the exact situations required for them to be useful, it's up to the DM to provide for and empower that. Fundamentally it comes down to whether the DM wants them to be meaningful and is willing to see skill usage gain major advantages, solve problems, and so forth.

One important thing you have to do as a DM if you expect skills to be meaningful is routinely provide low DC challenges. That is to say, you need to routinely assume that there are situations with DC 5, DC 10, and DC 15 that come up, where passing the check gives you some small benefit. If you don't, then the only time that skill usage might come up is contested skills, which leads to the impression in some groups that 'spot/listen' (or perception) are the only useful skills.

There are things you have to watch for if you really want to make skills important in your game. Certain spells will need to be rewritten. Magic items which enhance skill are by default based on the assumption that skill isn't that important, and if you make skill important you will break that assumption resulting in skill items being undercosted. Depending on what you do with the skill list, whether trimming it down or expanding it, you may need to tweak how many skill points certain classes get. For example, my skill list is slightly longer than the standard, so Rogues get 13 skill points per level base (Fighters get 5, and most full casters get 3). (Despite this, Intelligence is STILL the preferred highest stat for most Rogues in my game, and I've rarely seen a player dump stat Intelligence regardless of the class he's playing.) Personally, if I was going to tweak the system further, I'd probably adopt the cross class skills system from pathfinder which makes going into a cross class much less punishing while still making class archetypes important, and makes it less important which class you take at 1st level.