D&D 5E Some thoughts on skills.

[DEFCON 1]

One of the issues regarding skills which will always be an issue no matter how the numbers are moved around is the fact that for a large number of players... the numbers are not important. What is important is the drama and narrative of the game and all skills do is potentially change how the drama and narrative resolve.

Some people ask why Level 15 parties should potentially get stuck behind a locked door, and whether locks should become "more difficult" to open as you get higher in levels, or whether all lock DCs should remain static and that means locked doors are just not a thing for Level 15 parties to deal with, etc. etc. etc. To a large number of us... that's missing the point.

If there's a locked door in front of a Level 15 party... what is the reason why they are behind a locked door? What's the drama that this locked door is presenting to the group? What's the story that this group finds themselves in and what does not getting past this blocked passage do for the story? The DM has put this blocked passage in front of the group for a reason-- what IS that reason, and why does it matter the group might not be able to get past it?

That kind of drama and narrative occurs at all levels of play. There is movement, or information, or obstacles that prohibit or re-route forward movement of the party towards their goals. And so the question is WHY does the DM wish to re-route the party away from their goals, what does that change DO for the drama and story the group is playing out, and just how important is it that the group just not accomplish their goals straight away and instead HAVE to get re-routed?

And a big answer to all of these question is "Throw up skill checks that can be failed so that the group cannot just succeed in everything they do, regardless of their level."

Which means that having "set DCs" or "maxing out your skills" are not anything that should be cared about or done... because they run completely counter to drama and story. There is no drama or story in a DM putting a locked door in the path of the Level 15 party with the lock being the same set DC as it's always been, because it's no longer accomplishing anything. The party picks the lock and they move on. Okay. So what was the point of having it? Same with a 5' pit trap in front of the party-- at their level they all can easily step over it with no risk of falling in... so what was the point of putting it there in the first place?

Or if you are a player that tries to "max out Perception"... you basically are telling the DM that you as a player (and thus as a group) have no desire to every experience the drama or narrative of being taken by surprise. Oooooooookay? If that really matters to you... then... fine? But from my perspective, losing that important part of drama and story-- shock-- makes the game a lot less interesting or compelling. Why does avoiding being surprised matter that much that you will do everything you can to make sure it doesn't happen? That's like the party that has to make sure every PC has Darkvision, so they never have to have light sources and thus can see all the creatures out there in the dark. Yeah, it can be done... but why is the removal of that avenue of drama so important to you?

And that's the thing about skills... they really aren't there to make sure you always "win" rolls. They are there to vary up the different story-beats you will experience as part of playing the game. Sometimes you will make Arcana checks and get some info to use... sometimes you won't make Arcana checks and not get that info. Sometimes you will make an Insight check and get a sense of whether this stranger is trying to pull a fast one on you... and sometimes you won't make the Insight check and thus you'll have to make choices based on incomplete information (with all the positives and negatives that drama gives out.)

Long story short... trying to just gamify any skill system so that it's just not anything more than charts of numbers to have and charts of numbers to roll against misses the forest through the trees.

 

[Reynard]

Long story short... trying to just gamify any skill system so that it's just not anything more than charts of numbers to have and charts of numbers to roll against misses the forest through the trtrees.

I think that if what people really care about is drama and story, and don't care about the "game" part, skill systems are irrelevant and they would be better off playing a game explicitly designed to enable storytelling and fiction.

 

[jgsugden]

I am of a different view. I have a simpler approach - but one designed to keep the game moving fast and be a bit more dynamic to adjust to situations.

When I call for a check, I usually just call for the ability to be checked and tell the player whether to add their proficiency bonus. For example, rather than calling for an Arcana check I'll call for an Intelligence check. Then, if they have a relevant proficiency (tool or skill), or if they have background experience that would give them significant familiarity/practice that would be relevant, I add their proficiency bonus. So, if someone is trying to remember something about a lesser Demon Lord, I call for an Intelligence roll and then look at what proficiencies they have and determine if they get to add proficiency ... and even if they did not have a proficiency, I might add their proficiency bonus in because their backstory ties into the Demon Lord.

I also may give people slight bonuses or penalties to the roll based upon circumstance - but it is all invisible to the players, and generally falls between -3 and +3. I decide on these silently in my head before they roll.

Once you get to know your player's proficiencies this becomes very smooth. I have a cheat sheet at my side so that I do not need to ask players their ability scores, proficiencies, etc... but after a short bit I rarely need to reference it.

 

[ph0rk]

Or if you are a player that tries to "max out Perception"... you basically are telling the DM that you as a player (and thus as a group) have no desire to every experience the drama or narrative of being taken by surprise. Oooooooookay? If that really matters to you... then... fine? But from my perspective, losing that important part of drama and story-- shock-- makes the game a lot less interesting or compelling.

I don't mean this in an antagonizing way, but this is the line of thinking that leads to DC creep.

Some problems have instant solutions - look at spells. Teleport, Wall of Force, Fly/Levitate, Spider Climb, even Tenser's Floating Disk. Knock.

Why can't characters build towards skill-based instant solutions to some problems? If you want a harder problem, don't use a locked door or climbable wall - but also non-casters should feel like they have ways to contribute (so don't make the only simple solution a casting of Dispel Magic, either).

A rogue who chooses to build for it can have a minimum thieve's tools check of 23 at level 11. The absolutely minimum they can possible roll. With a little assistance they should be able to walk through any locked door they find, short of The Inpenetrable Vault of MacGuffin - in which case they may need to try a few times, assuming nothing happens with a failed check, and/or ask for help, guidance, inspiration, etc.

But a regular door? Even a strong door? They've made a rogue and used one of their expertise doses on lockpicking - they want to be table to pick every lock. Why should all locks in the universe grow more difficult to counterbalance this one PC?

 

[Weiley31]

Honestly, I'm happy with the current 5E skill system. I like it a heck of a lot better than 3.0/3.5's skill points. The only other time I'd go back to that would be if we used Pathfinder 1's version of the skill system.

 

[Pedantic]

One of the issues regarding skills which will always be an issue no matter how the numbers are moved around is the fact that for a large number of players... the numbers are not important. What is important is the drama and narrative of the game and all skills do is potentially change how the drama and narrative resolve.
[...]
Long story short... trying to just gamify any skill system so that it's just not anything more than charts of numbers to have and charts of numbers to roll against misses the forest through the trees.

You're describing a whole different aesthetic of play here than what I'm trying to do at my table, and I'm not at all sure having a level based, increasing proficiency system serves and purpose in the kind of game you're proposing at all. Surely you'd be better served by flat numbers, and modeling the narrative tension by adjusting the percentage chance of success through the DC, assuming you'd want a randomizer at all.

I want players to make optimal, strategic decisions. I want them to prefer a course of action over another because they think it has a better chance of success and will more efficiently achieve their goals. I want to throw them problems, and have them comb through their toolboxes, which will include skills and spells and equipment and so on, and then use that to overcome those problems.

All that drama and narrative stuff is not involved in action resolution for me, it's part of goal setting. The narrative is where my players source their victory conditions from, why they decide they need to break into this building, or kill this person, and so on, and then we play a game to try and "win" whatever it is they've decided constitutes victory. This will lead to some dramatic moments, and this will lead to some easy victories and that will be out of my control.

 

[Reynard]

Honestly, I'm happy with the current 5E skill system. I like it a heck of a lot better than 3.0/3.5's skill points. The only other time I'd go back to that would be if we used Pathfinder 1's version of the skill system.

Aren't these essentially the same, or am I forgetting some major change between 3.5 and PF1?

 

[Pedantic]

I don't mean this in an antagonizing way, but this is the line of thinking that leads to DC creep.

Some problems have instant solutions - look at spells. Teleport, Wall of Force, Fly/Levitate, Spider Climb, even Tenser's Floating Disk. Knock.

Why can't characters build towards skill-based instant solutions to some problems? If you want a harder problem, don't use a locked door or climbable wall - but also non-casters should feel like they have ways to contribute (so don't make the only simple solution a casting of Dispel Magic, either).

A rogue who chooses to build for it can have a minimum thieve's tools check of 23 at level 11. The absolutely minimum they can possible roll. With a little assistance they should be able to walk through any locked door they find, short of The Inpenetrable Vault of MacGuffin - in which case they may need to try a few times, assuming nothing happens with a failed check, and/or ask for help, guidance, inspiration, etc.

But a regular door? Even a strong door? They've made a rogue and used one of their expertise doses on lockpicking - they want to be table to pick every lock. Why should all locks in the universe grow more difficult to counterbalance this one PC?

This is exactly the problem. Character growth should be actual growth, which means challenges that used to be difficult need to grow easier over time, and challenging higher level characters should be a question of extraordinary circumstance; such challenges need to be rare and appropriate. For every 7-part rotating extradimensional door designed by the ancient master lockmage, you need hundreds of regular doors with regular locks, and it needs to be okay that the player can just open those.

Ideally the expenditure of scarce character building resources will leave characters with holes you can still exploit with more mundane challenges, and the nature of your obstacles should become notably more complex as time goes on in general.

Scaling difficult systems (or behind the screen DC creep), I think are more a response to trying to play at character growth but not have to meaningfully change the nature of challenges over time, so we can still rescue princes from towers at level 4 and level 10. Designing challenges for higher level more capable characters is hard, and the narratives you can tell are very different from low level ones.

 

[Pedantic]

Aren't these essentially the same, or am I forgetting some major change between 3.5 and PF1?

I found this strange too. @Weiley31, what is the appeal of PF1 over 3.5 here? They combined some skills down, made some class changes to offer more skill points and changed providing extra ranks at level 1 over to providing a +3 bonus to class skills, along with removing the (admittedly obnoxious) cross-class skill penalty, but the guts of the system seem very much the same.

 

[tetrasodium]

This is exactly the problem. Character growth should be actual growth, which means challenges that used to be difficult need to grow easier over time, and challenging higher level characters should be a question of extraordinary circumstance; such challenges need to be rare and appropriate. For every 7-part rotating extradimensional door designed by the ancient master lockmage, you need hundreds of regular doors with regular locks, and it needs to be okay that the player can just open those.

Ideally the expenditure of scarce character building resources will leave characters with holes you can still exploit with more mundane challenges, and the nature of your obstacles should become notably more complex as time goes on in general.

Scaling difficult systems (or behind the screen DC creep), I think are more a response to trying to play at character growth but not have to meaningfully change the nature of challenges over time, so we can still rescue princes from towers at level 4 and level 10. Designing challenges for higher level more capable characters is hard, and the narratives you can tell are very different from low level ones.

5e is not designed for resource expenditure to matter. By targeting an absurd 6-8 encounters the system itself ensures that resource attrition will not be a meaningful concern in all but the grindiest of grindfests or grossly failed to acount for the difference between ttrpgs like d&d and metroidvania style videogames with a layer of RPG tacked on.