D&D General Do you prefer more or less Skills?

[loverdrive]

This is probably a subject onto itself, but I'm trying to gently nudge my players in that direction. On the flip side I don't want to treat social skills as if they're mind control. So when to roll versus when to just role play isn't always an easy decision to make.

I think, using social checks with abilities other than CHA and generally taking PC's fictional positioning works quite well for avoiding faces.

 

[tetrasodium]

Statistically I hear you, but the character isnt actually rolling a die. So to them its an overall average tendency to be better than someone else with a lower score.

While true, the result is that you lack the creativity & flavor shifting that players employ to leverage systems with fewer skills & the reliability between gaps that still require the creaivity from the player & party to work around gaps that goes with systems that have a wide array of skills leaving 5e with downsides of both approaches

 

[Maxperson]

I think, using social checks with abilities other than CHA and generally taking PC's fictional positioning works quite well for avoiding faces.

I've found that just treating NPCs as if they are people works well for avoiding the party "face." NPCs aren't just going to sit there and ask one person what everyone thinks. If the party was hired to enact plan X, the lord is going to ask each PC what they think about his plan, not just the bard. In many situations it will also be quite rude for only one person to do all the talking for the group.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Statistically I hear you, but the character isnt actually rolling a die. So to them its an overall average tendency to be better than someone else with a lower score.

No, you are absolutely right in that from an in-game point of view, characters don't know one from the other. They either are able to do really cool stuff or they can't so higher is always better. My post was really from the meta-view in relation to the posts about what players want for skills and skill systems.

From our outsider perspective looking at the mechanics, we can all get into arguments about the pros and cons of this or any other skill system: whether we should have more or less skills... whether we should add proficiency or Expertise bonuses to ability checks... whether the system should be skill-point based... whether there should be different levels of proficiency... whether there should be specializations within skills... so on and so forth. But all those questions are the ones whose answers get wiped away once we realize that the bonus from the d20 roll pretty much supercedes whatever bonuses we might try and apply in whatever skill system format we push. So our arguments ends up essentially pointless. It's like arguing about where is the based place to stand around a bulldozer to help push it as it drives forward. The bulldozer's actually doing all the work, so what we decide doesn't actually matter in the least.

 

[Stalker0]

I'd prefer a short list of skills that see regular use rather than an exhaustive list with skills that rarely see any use.

Nailed it. What's the point in a skill if its going to be used once in a blue moon?

If a player noted that they were a circus tamer in their background, and the players go to the circus....then I'll just give them a bonus. They don't need to have a "circus taming" skill that will only be relevant for this one adventure.


This also feeds the notion that PCs are "Renaissance people", they are just good in a lot of different things that NPCs aren't. So I don't need super detailed skill lists. Does it make sense that an npc is a good running but not a swimmer?....sure, and I might adjust it in the event both things came up in an npc encounter. Do I really need players to divy things up that granularly....no I do not.

 

[Stalker0]

I voted lots, but what I really want is more ways to engage the skill system. I miss interacting with the skill system every level via points in 3E/PF1. 5E is Ronco "set it and forget it." Once you choose your set up at level 1 you never really look back. In PF2, Paizo decided to take the feat system "cool, but too specific vs. mundane, but total utility" dynamic and apply it to the skill system. Modern games have really been a miss for what I want out of a skill system.

I think PE 1 did it best for me.

A rank in a "class skill" gives you a +3 base. So you don't need so many points to be decent, encourages a range of skills, still allows for tailoring. Also removes all the old 3e synergy bonuses and the cross-class stuff as that was a complexity that was not needed.

I think that is my "sweet" spot in terms of ease of use vs customability, although it still scales to absurdity at high levels. Rogues in my current 16th level pathfinder game gets 40s on many skills regularly, and my Paladin can generate 40 diplomacy checks commonly.

I probably would prefer a max rank of 8 or so, and then every 4 levels after 8 you get a +1 to all skills you are maxxed. So again the skills improve but at a slower rate to curb some of the high level crazy.

 

[Zaukrie]

I admit I haven't read much of the thread.......my desire is for two kinds of skills: untrained (like athletics and things anyone can try to do) and trained (like arcana or picking pockets....things you have to learn to do). How that works, without it being silly long lists, I don't know.

 

[Stalker0]

The bulldozer's actually doing all the work, so what we decide doesn't actually matter in the least.

I get the point but I think you give it too much weight. Its true that for a person with a +5 vs a person with +0, that the D20 has a bigger impact on who gets a 15 on a particular roll. But if you need a 21 there's only one person to call....and as soon as you add in die adjustments like take 10/20, or advantage (aka roll 2, keep best), then die becomes less swingy and the stat more important.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I get the point but I think you give it too much weight.

Well, it's because bulldozers are REALLY heavy...

 

[Horwath]

Little fewer skills.

5E has about the right number, but;

Sleight of hands combined with thief tools into Thievery(just need the gear to open locks/traps), like in 4E
Investigation removed. Any mechanics involving finding something is folded into Perception. What you find is then on players to come up with solution, not a roll.

Animal handling merged into Survival.

So, now we have 16 instead of 18 skills.