D&D 3.x 3.5e Skill Rules Modified To Perfection?

[_Michael_]

So, I wanted to revamp the 3.5e skill rules a bit. There's several flaws that we all know about and I've yet to see a fix. You know them--point dumping ("Oh, look! My non-magic user suddenly knows how to use magical devices just in time to activate this rod!"), unexplained rises in ranks players weren't using over the course of the level, and a too fast progression that made everything a cakewalk by level 10.

Well, here at Acme Incorporated, those days of easy living on bloated skill ranks and magical deus ex machina are over. You point-dumpers are fired.

I'm implementing a tiered proficiency system, where every 5 ranks you go up a tier. Each skill has skill uses that before, you could use regardless of number of ranks if you had the skill. I've separated that a bit and made skill uses themselves ranked, with the really incredible ones being higher profiency tier. What does this get you? Observe.

Tier 1: Apprentice (1-4 ranks), gets to use apprentice-tier skill uses (uses within a given skill)
Tier 2: Journeyman (5-9 ranks), gets to use journeyman-tier skill uses
Tier 3: Master (10-14 ranks), gets to use master-tier skill uses
Tier 4: Legendary (15-20 ranks), gets to use legendary skill uses

On top of which, there's no more skill progression. When you level up, your skills do not automatically level up with you. Players start out at level 1 with a pool of skill points they can assign during character creation, but then they no longer earn skill points each level. Instead, they have to rank them up through use. This is done by using the proficiency tiers. Each tier has a progressively higher base number of tries + current skill ranks that must be successfully attempted to rank up that skill. For example, you could put 10 for all Apprentice skill ranks (1-4), so the number of successful uses would be 10 + current number of skill ranks. Once they complete their mastery test, they then go to the next proficiency tier, which might be 15 + current number of ranks. Then 20 for Master and 25 for Legendary.

Players therefore must engage with their skills in play to progress. No point "dumping" is possible. Instead, the player must actually use them. Moreover, advancement slows down naturally as the character becomes more expert, forcing them to focus on fewer skills. To advance a skill by one rank, the character must achieve a number of successful skill checks equal to the value in the table below, corresponding to their current Tier. Once the required number is reached, the character immediately gains +1 Rank in that skill.

Once a character reaches the highest Rank in their current Tier (Rank 4, 9, or 14), they cannot gain the next rank until they successfully complete the appropriate Mastery Challenge (as a quest or high-DC check).

What about Trained/Untrained? Cross-Class Skills?

To use an untrained skill, the player can just has to make 10 successful attempts to get that first skill point in a new skill, but if it's a trained skill, the player would likely have to find someone to train with to learn from, during which they'd make their attempts and note successes until they had 10 sucesses. With cross-class skills, this could be modified to say the player needs to find someone to teach him, regardless of trained or untrained, and it would require double the number of successful attempts. That decreases the cross-classing skills willy-nilly, like players winding up with barbarians that can sing opera or other oddball quirks.

This effectively means that skills like Decipher Script, Disable Device, Forgery, and Use Magic Device cannot be learned "accidentally" through repeated use; they must be taught by someone. This preserves their high-risk, specialized nature.

Going from Rank 2 to Rank 3 in a cross-class skill now takes 24 successful uses instead of 12. This is a significant time investment and will force players to prioritize their Class Skills. No half-ranks avoids the clunky 3.5e system of accumulating half-ranks and keeps the math simple (integer ranks only).

So, if the Barbarian truly wants to sing opera (Performance, a likely Cross-Class skill), they can, but they will need to dedicate a massive amount of game time to it, making it a conscious, earned quirk rather than a result of simply dumping leftover points.

What do you think? I'd really appreciate any feedback on this. I'm not sure how this would play out, but it sounds good on paper and doesn't really require much record keeping other than tracking the number of successful attempts made for each skill (a box next to each skill on the character sheet would do the job).

​

 

[GM Lent]

I see what you're going for, and it looks like this system would accomplish your goal. But I have to ask: how big an issue has this been, really? I don't think I've ever worried about it.

I have always taken the aproach that just like when gaining a character level, adding a skill rank represents a meassurable improvement in capability - think of it like passing the final exam in a math class. Sure, you could add and subtract and maybe use variables in your work before, but now you've shown your mastery of algebra. Now you work on trigonometry!

Unlike a math class, I don't require players to show all of their work. If the player says that their barbarian has been secretly practicing opera in the campaign's downtime, who am I to argue?

 

[sevenbastard]

It looks like it would work, but probably more record keeping than i would want.

Plus players are just going to game the system slowing down the game making skill checks on things that dont move the plot forward but instead help check a use box.

"I try to use stealth to sneak up on the stable boy and give him a jump scare, then I apologize and offer to sing him a song, then when he is listening to the song I attempt to pick his pocket."

 

[Lord_Blacksteel]

It looks like it would work, but probably more record keeping than i would want.

Plus players are just going to game the system slowing down the game making skill checks on things that dont move the plot forward but instead help check a use box.

"I try to use stealth to sneak up on the stable boy and give him a jump scare, then I apologize and offer to sing him a song, then when he is listening to the song I attempt to pick his pocket."

Yes - old school Runequest has a "must make skill checks to advance skills" type system and this is exactly what we used to see in those campaigns.

I think OP is trying to solve a problem most people aren't that concerned about 20+ years on.

Also this:
Going from Rank 2 to Rank 3 in a cross-class skill now takes 24 successful uses instead of 12. This is a significant time investment and will force players to prioritize their Class Skills. No half-ranks avoids the clunky 3.5e system of accumulating half-ranks and keeps the math simple (integer ranks only).
It keeps the math simple - maybe - but who is tracking this kind of thing for 4-6 PC's over the course of a campaign? That's a level of hassle that most people aren't going to be interested in maintaining in my experience.

 

[_Michael_]

I see what you're going for, and it looks like this system would accomplish your goal. But I have to ask: how big an issue has this been, really? I don't think I've ever worried about it.

I have always taken the aproach that just like when gaining a character level, adding a skill rank represents a meassurable improvement in capability - think of it like passing the final exam in a math class. Sure, you could add and subtract and maybe use variables in your work before, but now you've shown your mastery of algebra. Now you work on trigonometry!

Unlike a math class, I don't require players to show all of their work. If the player says that their barbarian has been secretly practicing opera in the campaign's downtime, who am I to argue?

I get it. It’s more about getting players to think about something other than just min-maxing and opens the door for the players to come up with their own goals in-game that they would like to pursue, which in turn gives the GM more hooks to grab onto for storyboarding the campaign and filling the spaces between adventure modules.

It looks like it would work, but probably more record keeping than i would want.

Plus players are just going to game the system slowing down the game making skill checks on things that dont move the plot forward but instead help check a use box.

"I try to use stealth to sneak up on the stable boy and give him a jump scare, then I apologize and offer to sing him a song, then when he is listening to the song I attempt to pick his pocket."

i also get this. I guess it would be up to the GM to discourage such shenanigans as people doing that are liable to be looked at as a menace by the local guard and tossed in gaol until they sober up (the guards assuming they’re drunk).

Record keeping wouldn’t be too bad—just a single number for each skill success, tracked on the player’s character sheet. The skills section on a character sheet is already sort of information dense.

Yes - old school Runequest has a "must make skill checks to advance skills" type system and this is exactly what we used to see in those campaigns.

I think OP is trying to solve a problem most people aren't that concerned about 20+ years on.

My wife and I were just laughing about this last night when I posted it. I was like, “Babe! I did it! I solved a problem for a game system that’s obsolete and 20 years old!”

Still, I like the 3.5e system and wanted to freshen it up a bit with some flavor for this campaign setting. It’s also totally optional so I won’t force people to use it in their games, but it’s a nice alternative for those who like the more nitty-gritty feeling of old school games like Cyberpunk (3 hour character creation only to be killed by a random druggie an hour in, anyone…?).

I am a fan of the details, and don’t mind record keeping as much because it just serves as a cliff note for me.

 

[Maxperson]

So, I wanted to revamp the 3.5e skill rules a bit. There's several flaws that we all know about and I've yet to see a fix. You know them--point dumping ("Oh, look! My non-magic user suddenly knows how to use magical devices just in time to activate this rod!"), unexplained rises in ranks players weren't using over the course of the level, and a too fast progression that made everything a cakewalk by level 10.

Well, here at Acme Incorporated, those days of easy living on bloated skill ranks and magical deus ex machina are over. You point-dumpers are fired.

I'm implementing a tiered proficiency system, where every 5 ranks you go up a tier. Each skill has skill uses that before, you could use regardless of number of ranks if you had the skill. I've separated that a bit and made skill uses themselves ranked, with the really incredible ones being higher profiency tier. What does this get you? Observe.

Tier 1: Apprentice (1-4 ranks), gets to use apprentice-tier skill uses (uses within a given skill)
Tier 2: Journeyman (5-9 ranks), gets to use journeyman-tier skill uses
Tier 3: Master (10-14 ranks), gets to use master-tier skill uses
Tier 4: Legendary (15-20 ranks), gets to use legendary skill uses

On top of which, there's no more skill progression. When you level up, your skills do not automatically level up with you. Players start out at level 1 with a pool of skill points they can assign during character creation, but then they no longer earn skill points each level. Instead, they have to rank them up through use. This is done by using the proficiency tiers. Each tier has a progressively higher base number of tries + current skill ranks that must be successfully attempted to rank up that skill. For example, you could put 10 for all Apprentice skill ranks (1-4), so the number of successful uses would be 10 + current number of skill ranks. Once they complete their mastery test, they then go to the next proficiency tier, which might be 15 + current number of ranks. Then 20 for Master and 25 for Legendary.

Players therefore must engage with their skills in play to progress. No point "dumping" is possible. Instead, the player must actually use them. Moreover, advancement slows down naturally as the character becomes more expert, forcing them to focus on fewer skills. To advance a skill by one rank, the character must achieve a number of successful skill checks equal to the value in the table below, corresponding to their current Tier. Once the required number is reached, the character immediately gains +1 Rank in that skill.

View attachment 418568

Once a character reaches the highest Rank in their current Tier (Rank 4, 9, or 14), they cannot gain the next rank until they successfully complete the appropriate Mastery Challenge (as a quest or high-DC check).

View attachment 418569

What about Trained/Untrained? Cross-Class Skills?

To use an untrained skill, the player can just has to make 10 successful attempts to get that first skill point in a new skill, but if it's a trained skill, the player would likely have to find someone to train with to learn from, during which they'd make their attempts and note successes until they had 10 sucesses. With cross-class skills, this could be modified to say the player needs to find someone to teach him, regardless of trained or untrained, and it would require double the number of successful attempts. That decreases the cross-classing skills willy-nilly, like players winding up with barbarians that can sing opera or other oddball quirks.

View attachment 418570

This effectively means that skills like Decipher Script, Disable Device, Forgery, and Use Magic Device cannot be learned "accidentally" through repeated use; they must be taught by someone. This preserves their high-risk, specialized nature.

Going from Rank 2 to Rank 3 in a cross-class skill now takes 24 successful uses instead of 12. This is a significant time investment and will force players to prioritize their Class Skills. No half-ranks avoids the clunky 3.5e system of accumulating half-ranks and keeps the math simple (integer ranks only).

View attachment 418571

So, if the Barbarian truly wants to sing opera (Performance, a likely Cross-Class skill), they can, but they will need to dedicate a massive amount of game time to it, making it a conscious, earned quirk rather than a result of simply dumping leftover points.

What do you think? I'd really appreciate any feedback on this. I'm not sure how this would play out, but it sounds good on paper and doesn't really require much record keeping other than tracking the number of successful attempts made for each skill (a box next to each skill on the character sheet would do the job).

​

That looks like it could work, but I think it might be more hassle than the benefit that it gives.

What I did for 3e was 1) give every class a minimum of 4 skill points per level, 2) get rid of the lame class/cross-class idea, and 3) require reasons for why skills were gained.

At 1st level I didn't require the reasons to be given, since the character had an entire life prior to game start to learn stuff. My players tended to pick skills that fit class and background, though. Once game play started, if a player wanted to gain a new skill, it had to be roleplayed out prior to leveling. Joe the Barbarian is learning to recognize spells from Sparky the Wizard when they camp at night. Lefty the Rogue is going to libraries in the city and reading books on flora and fauna, then as they travel he's doing his best to see animals and plants he has read about. Then when they level up, they can put points into Spellcraft and Knowledge: Nature respectively.

I didn't require such justification for raising skills already known, though. Even if climbing wasn't actively used during levels 2 to 3 for example, travel happened, including time skipping like, "You guys travel 4 days with nothing much happening and reach the town of Holy Crap, Not Again, known for attacking monsters..." During those 4 days of travel, the rogue might have climbed some trees or a cliff side to get height to look for trouble or whatever, so I wasn't going to make him justify why he put points in climbing.

Just the simple act of getting rid of class/cross class skills helps out a lot on its own. People no longer feel like investing in oddball skills for their class is a waste of time, so points tend to spread out a bit more, which mitigates having a few skills that are maxed out.

 

[payn]

On one hand, I love the rank up by using the skill, on the other I've been moving away from XP type systems because play tends to become about just spamming skills instead of engaging the game narratively/organically. In a progression system like Traveller this might go over better as you dont level, so expectations of progress are not expected so rapidly.

It seems this system is concerned about learning skills from seemingly nowhere, it does allow learning which seems more natural. Though im concerned with 3E/PF1 numbers scaling that you actually have time to get good at the pace required to be good. I could see a lot of falling behind in this if the successes dont go your way. I think it would go over better in a 5E bounded accuracy style system where you dont have runaway DCs and levels of competence.

While on the subject of bounded accuracy, ive long wanted to bring that into a 3E/PF1 heartbreaker as its my favorite fantasy RPG to date. It helps make sense of the game world and how things of 0 to 20 level power scale exist in the same world. So, ive had some of the narrative concerns this skill system seems to echo in its construction. However, I've long taken to compartamentalizing the zero to hero power progression of D&D myself. Getting skill "dumping" as you call it, to me is just under the hood mechanics which exist outside the narrative; its simply the game part of the RPG. Though, I get the desire to marry the two. Im just curious how mechanically this system would work, and weary it might lead to metagame irritation.

 

[Koloth]

One simple way to nerf the 'point dump' is to only allow 2 points per level per skill. So no more going from untrained in Use Magic Device to 10 ranks in one level. 2 points represents spending a lot of time studying vs a 1 pt bump.

 

[AlexofBarbaria]

I like the idea of skills advancing through use. The bookkeeping is not onerous and I think it'd work fine to say skills must be used while "adventuring" to count for advancement -- this type of judgement is what DMs are for.

A few thoughts:

• Why only successful uses? I'd lean towards any use, success or failure.
• Might want to adjust the number of uses required by the frequency the skill tends to be used in play (e.g., maybe Decipher Script takes fewer uses to advance than Spot?)
• The required actions to advance a tier don't make sense for many skills (a permanent, world-shaping use of Spot?). If you just want safety brakes for skill advancement, you could give the tiers a required character level (e.g., you must be level 6 to advance a skill to Master tier).

 

[Celebrim]

This doesn't seem to me to address any problems I actually have at the table. This to me looks like pure theory crafting.

A lot of this reminds me of my theory crafting and design back in the 1990s and I got to tell you, you aren't designing rules for a table top social roleplaying game. You are designing software that runs on wetware. This sort of thing might be fine for a video game but it addresses no real problems that occur at the table.