5 Skills for Any Situation

[Camelot]

D&D skill systems that I've seen have a wide range of skills that each use a specific ability score, implying that they are only used in certain ways. The best example of why this is a problem is Intimidate. If a really strong fighter with a high Strength but low Charisma wants to scare the feeble guard into letting him pass by threatening him with physical pain, wouldn't it make more sense for Intimidate to use Strength than Charisma?

In my home games, I allow skills to be used with any ability score. It's a simple math step for the players, but when using the currently long list of skills, it hits a snag. When could Intimidate be used with Dexterity, or Constitution?

To solve that, I shortened the list to 5 skills that can each be used with every ability score (though I combined Strength and Constitution, as well as Intelligence and Wisdom, so there are only 4 ability scores). Here are the skills that I came up with, along with some examples of how they can be used:

Deception
* Strength: The PC pretends to be in pain.
* Dexterity: The PC performs a card trick using sleight of hand.
* Intelligence: The PC uses his or her knowledge of the enemies' religion to fake a sign from their god that the PCs should be trusted.
* Charisma: The PC puts on a really convincing act.

Investigation
* Strength: The PC looks under every chair in the tavern for the lost item.
* Dexterity: The PC spots something that the others missed.
* Intelligence: The PC can tell that the tavern owner isn't telling the whole truth.
* Charisma: The PC asks around town to see if anyone noticed something suspicious.

Movement
* Strength: The PC climbs up the cliff wall.
* Dexterity: The PC balances above the acid pit.
* Intelligence: The PC uses his or her 10-foot pole as a lever to move the boulder out of the way.
* Charisma: The PC pretends to move one way, but actually goes the other.

Negotiation
* Strength: The PC threatens the guard with his or her muscles.
* Dexterity: The PC retains perfect posture to impress the duke.
* Intelligence: The PC reasons with the duke.
* Charisma: The PC flatters the duke, or makes subtle threats.

Survival
* Strength: The PC endures the harsh wilderness conditions.
* Dexterity: The PC steps lightly to make sure that he or she leaves no tracks.
* Intelligence: The PC uses his or her knowledge of nature to find food or herbs.
* Charisma: The PC keeps up morale as the group travels.

To make a skill check using this system, you first come up with your goal. "I want to make the guard let us pass" is an example of a goal. Then you assign the skill; that would be Negotiation, because you are trying to influence the decisions of another person. You then determine your methods: "I tell him that if he doesn't let us through, I'll beat him up." That allows you to assign the ability score; in this case, Strength.

It's not a perfect system yet, but I think it could work. Are there situations that you think aren't covered here? What skills could be added, combined, split, or taken away?

 

[Ainamacar]

In the non-d20 homebrew I play we similarly let any ability score be used with any skill. (Incidentally also a 4 score system, with Brawn, Agility, Mind, and Soul.) However, I don't think it is necessary to formulate the skill list to make sure each one has a use for every ability. The skills above are closer to ends side of things than to means. (It's a spectrum, of course, since the end goal is to find the lost sword, or to save the world, or to have fun, etc.) Skill training, in my mind, is better represented as learning specific activities which serve more as means within the game world. In other words, your system is a little more utilitarian/abstract than I prefer. Given your apparent preference, though, I think your list is pretty decent. Investigation has some overlap with deception/negotiation. I think Investigation also overlaps with Survival, e.g. finding shelter based on environmental clues. Skills don't necessarily need to be orthogonal, and the very idea of multiple ways to achieve the same goals suggests that, at some fundamental level, they can't be. So if someone can come up with a creative use for a skill they know, that's great, but I don't think we need to guarantee such uses exist for every skill. The example for strength with investigation strikes me as existing to fill that blank, for example.

That's a mild criticism, especially since characters will tend to use the skills they know using the ability scores that give them the greatest benefit if at all possible, and in every case it needs to make sense in context. So a wizard trained in your negotiation skill could technically try to use his muscles to get what he wants (and be decent at it due to his training), but why would he unless there were no other choice?

I will say that systems like these can help out some types of players to roleplay a little more thoughtfully. Since there is no canonical ability score to use, the player must (well...is more likely to) justify the one they choose by describing what they do. This can cut down on the "I diplomacize the watchman" rollplay that is a temptation/excuse for some. For players that have wanted to stretch the uses of their skills for a long time, it's nice for the system to enable rather than fight that urge. Tools that enable creativity are a welcome thing in my games.

One time this can be a problem is when a character is grasping for fairly tenuous ideas to make their high ability scores work with a skill in a given instance. (It can also happen regarding which skill to use in the first place, of course.) Usually the system is essentially no slower than fixed ability score skills, but it can drag here. In my game such corner cases give the user half-ranks if the use seems somewhat plausible. That can shortcut some of the more onerous "Can I try ____?" discussions by throwing the player a bone, and is satisfactory in many of the inevitable corner cases. A DM can do this on the fly, of course, but it is such a helpful rule of thumb that I think players appreciate knowing it is available.

Happy gaming.

 

[Mark CMG]

Think, Feel, Care, Act, Repeat.


Interesting thread. I'll take my own advice and give this some thought before responding beyond this initial encouragement. Thanks, Camelot, for nudging my brain on this matter!

 

[olshanski]

Negotiation:
I'd really dump dexterity as "Posture" for negotiation.
Perhaps you might use dexterity for seduction, a proper caress, or nudging a foot under a table, something like that would work. But posture? I don't think so.

Survival: Dexterity could also be used for avoiding avelanches, deadfalls, and walking over talus fields.

 

[Nagol]

What about sneakiness (like stealth, shadowing someone, etc.) or would that fall under deception?

And then there is tech use/systems operation (use magical device, build a trap, disable a trap/open a lock, etc.)

 

[haakon1]

Not all of these make sense to me. Calling out only the one's that don't.

Deception
* Strength: The PC pretends to be in pain.
* Dexterity: The PC performs a card trick using sleight of hand.
* Intelligence: The PC uses his or her knowledge of the enemies' religion to fake a sign from their god that the PCs should be trusted.
* Charisma: The PC puts on a really convincing act.

I don't buy STR here at all. And the DEX version of the skill is completely different from the INT/CHA versions.

Investigation
* Strength: The PC looks under every chair in the tavern for the lost item.
* Dexterity: The PC spots something that the others missed.
* Intelligence: The PC can tell that the tavern owner isn't telling the whole truth.
* Charisma: The PC asks around town to see if anyone noticed something suspicious.

STR and DEX don't make sense to me here, and the "Sense Motive" seems more likely Wisdom, or perhaps Charisma, than raw intelligence. That is, IQ and EQ (Emotional Intelligence) aren't correlated in my experience.

Movement
* Charisma: The PC pretends to move one way, but actually goes the other.

The last one should be DEX, not CHA, I think.

Negotiation
* Strength: The PC threatens the guard with his or her muscles.
* Dexterity: The PC retains perfect posture to impress the duke.
* Intelligence: The PC reasons with the duke.
* Charisma: The PC flatters the duke, or makes subtle threats..

The STR one might be marginally OK, but the DEX one is really grasping at straws.

Survival
* Strength: The PC endures the harsh wilderness conditions.
* Dexterity: The PC steps lightly to make sure that he or she leaves no tracks.
* Intelligence: The PC uses his or her knowledge of nature to find food or herbs.
* Charisma: The PC keeps up morale as the group travels.

Four unrelated skills, I think, and the first should be CON, not STR. I think CON and STR are different, though perhaps they are related.

I'm left wondering what the goal is here? It seems like you are trying to make all ability stats equally useful in all non-combat situations. That doesn't make sense to me -- I LIKE trade-offs and having different characters who are good at different things, not just everyone is good at everything, all abilities are equally useful in all situations.

If you don't do the same "any ability stat can be used for any use" approach for combat situations (that is, if you aren't playing something like 4e where I can kill you equally well with STR or CHA if I'm a paladin), then I'd worry that player will min=max for only the combat abilities.

If the fighter who has min-maxed everything into STR to maximize hand-to-hand combat and used INT as a dump stat, can then use STR instead of INT everytime a "use your head as something other than a helmet holder" situation comes up, then there's no trade-offs -- everyone should be Mr. Muscle and "use STR to figure out the riddle, by flexing".

 

[the Jester]

In my homebrewed version of D&D, your skills give you a bonus to ability checks related to that skill, so if you have "Armorer" as a skill, your bonus would apply to:

-Intelligence checks to appraise or identify armor;
-Strength checks to forge armor;
-Dexterity checks to adjust armor for a wearer of different size;
-Charisma checks to try to sell armor;
-Constitution checks to keep working on armor for hours on end;

And so on.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Not all of these make sense to me. Calling out only the one's that don't.



I don't buy STR here at all. And the DEX version of the skill is completely different from the INT/CHA versions.



STR and DEX don't make sense to me here, and the "Sense Motive" seems more likely Wisdom, or perhaps Charisma, than raw intelligence. That is, IQ and EQ (Emotional Intelligence) aren't correlated in my experience.



The last one should be DEX, not CHA, I think.




The STR one might be marginally OK, but the DEX one is really grasping at straws.



Four unrelated skills, I think, and the first should be CON, not STR. I think CON and STR are different, though perhaps they are related.

I'm left wondering what the goal is here? It seems like you are trying to make all ability stats equally useful in all non-combat situations. That doesn't make sense to me -- I LIKE trade-offs and having different characters who are good at different things, not just everyone is good at everything, all abilities are equally useful in all situations.

If you don't do the same "any ability stat can be used for any use" approach for combat situations (that is, if you aren't playing something like 4e where I can kill you equally well with STR or CHA if I'm a paladin), then I'd worry that player will min=max for only the combat abilities.

If the fighter who has min-maxed everything into STR to maximize hand-to-hand combat and used INT as a dump stat, can then use STR instead of INT everytime a "use your head as something other than a helmet holder" situation comes up, then there's no trade-offs -- everyone should be Mr. Muscle and "use STR to figure out the riddle, by flexing".

I was going to just give you an experience point, saying: Beat me to it. But I need to spread some around before I can give you any more.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It sounds like your system works pretty good for you, so that's the big takeaway!

I prefer more granularity, though I do think the idea of organizing skills by their effects has merit.

There are basically 3 things that skills are actually ever used for:

1. Movement
2. Interaction
3. Knowledge

If you want, you can chop your list down by about half in this way.