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Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition (A5E)
#1 Origins Playtest Document - (Heritage) Nitty Gritty Feedback
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<blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 8083736" data-attributes="member: 71699"><p>Regarding expertise, I felt the general point was clear enough, but I can speak to some examples as I appreciate you want something concrete to think about.</p><p></p><p></p><p>So why have expertise here <em>at all</em>? Why not just give them a proficiency on an artisan tool? If it is important to the racial identity, make it impactful. If not, delete it. Keep it as simple as possible. Don't design by a thousand cuts.</p><p></p><p></p><p>When I started DMing 5e, it felt special to the "skill-monkey" classes to have expertise. Why have it here? What is it doing to deliver on "orcish communal culture" to let them apply it to any skill? The question for design is not <em>why not</em>, it is <em>why?</em>!</p><p></p><p></p><p>Boosting survival kicks the legs out from the exploration pillar, because it means that the DCs as written in a lot of material are passed too often to make what they are simulating, impactful to simulate. It's a problem that unfortunate design such as that in Outlander (i.e. Wanderer) already creates, sadly, but there's no reason to exacerbate it. The whole point of skill checks is that PCs fail them often enough to matter. For check chains such as are used in hexploration, this type of design just pushes DC inflation that in turn means some characters fail too often, or none fail often enough. It's undoing something 5e attempted to fix (over 3e).</p><p></p><p></p><p>When a whole culture has it, then it is an issue. An approach to the design could be to say - we envision kithbain being especially insightful - and then do divergent thinking around that? Are they uniformly insightful, or just in certain areas? How can we give them an impactful mechanic. Do they even need this, if they have the more impactful free cast of <em>detect thoughts</em>?!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="clearstream, post: 8083736, member: 71699"] Regarding expertise, I felt the general point was clear enough, but I can speak to some examples as I appreciate you want something concrete to think about. So why have expertise here [I]at all[/I]? Why not just give them a proficiency on an artisan tool? If it is important to the racial identity, make it impactful. If not, delete it. Keep it as simple as possible. Don't design by a thousand cuts. When I started DMing 5e, it felt special to the "skill-monkey" classes to have expertise. Why have it here? What is it doing to deliver on "orcish communal culture" to let them apply it to any skill? The question for design is not [I]why not[/I], it is [I]why?[/I]! Boosting survival kicks the legs out from the exploration pillar, because it means that the DCs as written in a lot of material are passed too often to make what they are simulating, impactful to simulate. It's a problem that unfortunate design such as that in Outlander (i.e. Wanderer) already creates, sadly, but there's no reason to exacerbate it. The whole point of skill checks is that PCs fail them often enough to matter. For check chains such as are used in hexploration, this type of design just pushes DC inflation that in turn means some characters fail too often, or none fail often enough. It's undoing something 5e attempted to fix (over 3e). When a whole culture has it, then it is an issue. An approach to the design could be to say - we envision kithbain being especially insightful - and then do divergent thinking around that? Are they uniformly insightful, or just in certain areas? How can we give them an impactful mechanic. Do they even need this, if they have the more impactful free cast of [I]detect thoughts[/I]?! [/QUOTE]
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#1 Origins Playtest Document - (Heritage) Nitty Gritty Feedback
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