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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jasin" data-source="post: 6361582" data-attributes="member: 7531">I have never met anyone who played 2E without non-weapon proficiencies. Have you? My impression was that they were as optional as feats and the grid in 5E, i.e. optional in name only.Again, I think you need to explain what exactly you mean by "skills and feats".If you mean those exact labels in 3E, I agree. You could as easily have a Climb Walls Thief Function instead of a Climb Skill. You could as easily have a Move-Attack-Move Class Ability instead of a Spring Attack Feat.If you mean the general rules concepts, a scaling success rate for an activity (like 3E skills, or 2E thief abilities, or attack rolls in any edition), and a advantageous exception to the default rules (like 3E feats, or class abilities in any edition), then I think the claim they add nothing to the rules is preposterous.I wasn't suggesting that the example would've been helped by the inclusion of skills or feats, just that in my experience 2E play wasn't the utopia of crazy freewheeling stunts you seemed to portray.This is a radically different claim than "the introduction of skills and feats is problematic". This is much closer to "crappy, not-thought-through maths is problematic".Again, while I'll enthusiastically agree that these gaps in 3E/Pathfinder are large enough to detract from the fun, they're still smaller than the gap between the sword using ability of a 2E fighter (can do it) and a 2E wizard (can't do it), or the gap between bar bending effectiveness of a 2E fighter (some % of success) and a 2E thief (can't do it). If you want everyone to be able to contribute (and I think that's a desirable goal), I'm not sure how it's better to have binary can-can't abilities like in 2E than scaling ones like in 3E. The problem, to me, seems to be that the scaling is too fast, and the gap ends up being an effectively binary can-can't divide, but at least it starts off better than in 2E. I've seen low level clerics succeed at sneaking in 3E, I haven't seen 2E clerics even try.You think 5E will end up being a significantly different experience in that respect? We'll see Archery fighters, fighting with sword and shield sometimes, forgoing their +2 to ranged attacks, or other characters going outside of their specializations?Why is that? Do you think the bounded accuracy philosophy will close the gap between the specialized and the non-specialized enough that it will be worthwhile to attempt stuff outside of your specialization reasonably often? Or is there something more?</blockquote>

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