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

[tetrasodium]

3.X does have effective auto-advance in some skill areas though. For example, the difficulty in knowing anything about a creature is based on a DC of 10? + Hit Dice. Higher level threats typically have more hit dice (often many more than 1:1 to level) so knowing information about your foes becomes progressively harder at higher levels. Having middling ranks is about the same as having none.

It may be just as easy to learn about orcs at level 10 as level 1, but the propensity of orcs as a frequent encounter typically drops off.

and you probably won't care about "orcs" so much as learn about what the western Inverted circle tribe/clan of orcs are doing & they happen to have about+YourLevel Hit dice or more

 

[Greenfield]

Well, 4e had a two tier skill base: Trained or Untrained.

5e did the same when I first looked at it. Is that good or bad? It's a matter of preference and focus. Some players enjoy the simplicity of the trained/untrained approach. Others are willing to deal with the complexity of it in exchange for the fine control over character ability.

 

[Catolias]

I'll second that. As a party grows, different people specialize in different skills. One guy is the face man, one or two walk point, one is the designate searcher, and so forth.

I don't see how anyone can 'fall behind'.

Agreed. The basic premise is that everyone brings something different to the table - different focus, different abilities. Even in circumstances where everyone chooses to be the same race and class, 3.x and it’s persistence with using die to determine abilities meant each character would be different.

I agree that there were a lot of skills in 3.x and the choice seemed daunting but not each class got the same number of skill rank to allocate to a skill at each level. For instance, Bards generated lots of skill ranks that they could use untrained and a lot of skill ranks to be allocated for each level (6+Int). Wizards, by comparison had a mere handful and few skill ranks to be allocated.

Some skills in 3.x could use the take 10 and take 20 mechanics. It allowed a partial roll on take 10 - that is 10 plus your roll to ensure greater success - and take 20 that if you spent time and effort you could forego the randomness of a roll. The Take 20 was useful searches and healing for everyone. As the PHB, said though, take 20 was not useful in all applications. For instance you couldn’t take 20 on the move silently skill to sneak up on a hobgoblin guard.

As for the OP original view, yes in IMHO 5e should have better adapted skills and not effectively dumbed them down to the point that they are. They are generic now and not really meaningful in creating sufficient variation between characters. I also think the fortitude, will, and reflex saves had some value too - particularly to ensure use of what are otherwise now under-utilised abilities (ie, Con and Int).

I was thinking about leveling the 5e skills:

Untrained: No modifiers.
Trained: Attribute mods.
Expert: Attribute & proficiency mods.
Master: Attribute & proficiency mods plus Advantage.

Well, that seems not to far off what PF2e is doing.

 

[tetrasodium]

Agreed. The basic premise is that everyone brings something different to the table - different focus, different abilities. Even in circumstances where everyone chooses to be the same race and class, 3.x and it’s persistence with using die to determine abilities meant each character would be different.

I agree that there were a lot of skills in 3.x and the choice seemed daunting but not each class got the same number of skill rank to allocate to a skill at each level. For instance, Bards generated lots of skill ranks that they could use untrained and a lot of skill ranks to be allocated for each level (6+Int). Wizards, by comparison had a mere handful and few skill ranks to be allocated.

Some skills in 3.x could use the take 10 and take 20 mechanics. It allowed a partial roll on take 10 - that is 10 plus your roll to ensure greater success - and take 20 that if you spent time and effort you could forego the randomness of a roll. The Take 20 was useful searches and healing for everyone. As the PHB, said though, take 20 was not useful in all applications. For instance you couldn’t take 20 on the move silently skill to sneak up on a hobgoblin guard.

As for the OP original view, yes in IMHO 5e should have better adapted skills and not effectively dumbed them down to the point that they are. They are generic now and not really meaningful in creating sufficient variation between characters. I also think the fortitude, will, and reflex saves had some value too - particularly to ensure use of what are otherwise now under-utilised abilities (ie, Con and Int).



Well, that seems not to far off what PF2e is doing.

I agree with most of this. My totally made up inverted circle orc example earlier might sound bad, but there were a -lot- more skills then and knowledge skills especially...(Most of the 5e knowledge skills are loke 3-5 of the old skills) you didn't have the8int Rogue who thought Bob the gm made arcana expertise or religion super important in his campaign being just as good or better than the high int arcana trained wizard or cleric just because the Rogue invested heavy in knowledge wardcraft* or knowledge undead**

*those might have been a "magical trap" and only the Rogue could handle those even if the wizard was a criminal who had cross class ranks in thieves tools... There were pros and cons both ways but 5e is better in most ways here
**technically they mostly fell under knowledge religion iirc

 

[billd91]

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.

Well, that part, at least, is substantially done in Pathfinder 2. While you can trigger various extra options with skills thanks to the descriptors of being trained, expert, etc, I'm not at all convinced it offers much in the weapon/armor realm other than more bonus bloat.

 

[GlassJaw]

I liked the granularity of 3ed's skill system but it was needlessly complex. It added significant time to character creation and leveling up for little gain at the table. And it got messy when multiclassing.

Well, 4e had a two tier skill base: Trained or Untrained.

5e did the same when I first looked at it. Is that good or bad? It's a matter of preference and focus. Some players enjoy the simplicity of the trained/untrained approach. Others are willing to deal with the complexity of it in exchange for the fine control over character ability.

As mentioned previously, 5E's skill system is an improvement over 3ed in every way. However, like many systems in 5E, goes just a bit too far towards simplification. I'd like to see more than just trained & untrained as it makes characters feel very similar in what they can do.

This recent thread (5E - Using different skills in 5e) was a good discussion on variant skill ideas.

 

[Leatherhead]

It's kind of interesting that so many people are thinking about a 4 step skill mastery system for 5e, when The 5e system already has 4 levels of skill mastery:

Untrained (Ability mod)
Intuition (Race only +1d4 bonus that doesn't count as being trained, a new mechanic from Eberron)
Proficiency (The level up bonus, you need this to count as trained.)
Expertise (Double the level up bonus, available only on things you have proficiency with.)

Which makes the final roll: Ability Mod (untrained)+1d4(intuition)+ 2*Proficiency Mod (Proficiency+Expertise)

The system is in place for you, you just have to use it. Though personally I think Expertise is going too far with the math, and would use it to replace the ability mod for smoother numbers.

 

[Celebrim]

As mentioned previously, 5E's skill system is an improvement over 3ed in every way.

No. It's simpler but it has problems from a simulationist perspective.

However, like many systems in 5E, goes just a bit too far towards simplification. I'd like to see more than just trained & untrained as it makes characters feel very similar in what they can do.

Ahem. This second statement seems to contradict the first.

My suspicion is that there is no perfect skill system. There are just tradeoffs.

 

[tetrasodium]

No. It's simpler but it has problems from a simulationist perspective.



Ahem. This second statement seems to contradict the first.

My suspicion is that there is no perfect skill system. There are just tradeoffs.

I disagree, it's possible to improve on something and fix most if not all of the problems in the original but still go too far and wind up causing new problems

 

[Celebrim]

I disagree, it's possible to improve on something and fix most if not all of the problems in the original but still go too far and wind up causing new problems

Sure that is possible, but then it literally wouldn't be "an improvement in every way". If you fix all the problems, but you create new ones, then in the area you created new ones it is not an improvement.