Blog (A5E) A Quick Look At Skills

[Nebulous]

What don't you like about it? Too grainy, not grainy enough, something else?

Not detailed enough. I wouldn't even mind at all if it was divorced from the d20 and relegated to a percentile system, but that will never happen. It would be neat to have more granular advancement, and critical successes and failures built in.

 

[Morrus]

critical successes and failures built in.

Well that we can do.

 

[Darkwynters]

So specific critical successes, such as Durgan the one-eyed and limping dwarf diviner rolls a critical success on his Athletics check while climbing… what happens? Or just he has a critical success and DM makes up something (not saying this is bad, it’s just my gamers want rules for skills). They have mentioned missing that aspect of 3.5.

 

[Faolyn]

So specific critical successes, such as Durgan the one-eyed and limping dwarf diviner rolls a critical success on his Athletics check while climbing… what happens? Or just he has a critical success and DM makes up something (not saying this is bad, it’s just my gamers want rules for skills). They have mentioned missing that aspect of 3.5.

He clearly divined the best way to get up whatever he was climbing.

 

[Darkwynters]

Morrus, it was extremely cool when you showed that section on crafting. Anyway we could see just a tiny bit of this “specialization” section for skills. I was explaining it to my gamers last night and I said, “I think it will be like you’re a ranger who has Stealth and have a specialty in woodlands… so you get to roll the extra die in that environment”. Of course, they asked is there a list of specialties…

 

[pacnw.owlbear]

Expertise Dice, I have never liked the pushing the die type up mechanics. I can't do the math for distribution but I think there are other ways to implement this idea and other systems have done so.
1. Two expertise dice, 1d4 -> 1d6. You are just as likely to get a 1 as a 6, which is what I don't like about this.
2. Two expertise dice, take the highest number. This is similar to the boon/bane system in Shadow of the Demon Lord. (FYI, SotDL has no advantage/disadvantage. Instead, you get boons +1d6 or banes -1d6. Banes and boons cancel out.) Anyway, if you have multiple expertise dice under this system, you would be less likely to only get a 1 (1/16). It will shift the distribution up, although you can't get higher than the highest die face.
3. Two expertise dice, take the highest number. If multiple dice show the highest value, increase the value by 1 for each die. So if you roll 2d4 and get 4 and 4, the value is 5. If you roll 3d4 and get all 4s, the value is 6. I believe this would be similar to the Silhouette System which was based on a d6. Again, you are less likely to get a 1 with multiple dice, but it is possible to get a value above the highest value.

 

[Starfox]

Two expertise dice, 1d4 -> 1d6. You are just as likely to get a 1 as a 6, which is what I don't like about this.

As long as you roll a d20 and your expertise die together, you get a bell (or rather flattened pyramid) curve.

 

[Xethreau]

Morrus, it was extremely cool when you showed that section on crafting. Anyway we could see just a tiny bit of this “specialization” section for skills. I was explaining it to my gamers last night and I said, “I think it will be like you’re a ranger who has Stealth and have a specialty in woodlands… so you get to roll the extra die in that environment”. Of course, they asked is there a list of specialties…

Yes, the game does have a list of specialties! Plus, there's no reason why the Narrator can't add more based on their setting or the disposition of the players. IDK if "woodlands" is a type of Stealth specialty in the Core Rulebook, but I see a strong argument for environmental stealth specialties existing at your table!