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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercule" data-source="post: 6815846" data-attributes="member: 5100">The double-edged sword of D&D is that it's a large-grained system. This is absolutely inherent in a class and level based game.This is good because it's what allows you to create a 12th level Fighter in 15 minutes, teach the game to a newb, and play with house rules in some isolation (new feats, new classes, etc.). This is bad because it makes it hard to fine tune many character concepts without bending rules or even requiring the GM to create new house rules. Personally, after 30+ years of gaming, including some ridiculously detailed systems (Phoenix Command), I think the positives outweigh the negatives for that sort of large-grain system. There are a lot of places where it sucks from an academic/theoretic perspective. The real-world impact is slanted the other way, though.As far as the specific case of the 5E skills goes, I find it to be the best system I've seen in D&D, to date. The vagueness of 1E "skills" caused problems for my group. The 2E NWP sucked more than any other iteration. 3E/3.5 skills were a nod in the right direction, but were (generally) only of value if you maxed out your favored skills, which is pretty binary. I don't recalled 4E skills, honestly. The 5E skills are a lot like 3E skills, in practice (binary), but address some math problems.I'd still like to see a third tier (average, good, great or untrained, secondary, primary), but Expertise might be the practical answer (see theory vs. reality, above). Also, the tools thing sucks, but that's been beaten up well enough by others.At a warm-fuzzy level, I absolutely despise that skills are formally considered a special case of ability checks. It might just be a reminder of 2E NWP, but I don't like it. Skills are their own thing, and are modified by ability scores. In practice, it all works the same. It's just an itch I have with the 5E system.</blockquote>

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