"Hey, I am smarter than Einstein and I never even did the homework"

[BluWolf]

Most of the games I have played have paid a lot of attention to verisimilitude in regards to things like, weapons and armor and excellent background story an believable economics or legal code.

But man, do they take an absolute wiff in the skill point department.

Now I have always been influenced by an old Dragon article called "Gandalf was a 5th Wizard" or some such, I have not dug my Dragons out in awhile. And, there is an excellent article here http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/d&d-calibrating.html , that discusses skills in more detail as to how they stack up in the "real' world. So I take it with a grain of salt that maybe I am a little more skewed to the mundane end of the spectrum whe it comes to gaming.

But I have an issue with a player just assigning max skill points to his skills waxh level with out any real "effort". I say effort with a grain of salt. We use training rules so there is a time and money cost associated but I am not buying the trade off here.

Essentially, if you go unabated just by the core rules a 10th level Wizard with 16 Int (and the average 10th lvl Wiz is probably 18) could have a Knowledge Arcana of 12 w +3 Int bonus. He is a lock for knowing just about anything magical.

I think this potentially robs the game of some of its mystery.

I propose that training in certain skills, Craft and Knowledge in particular, should become more and more scarce as a PC advances.

You want to go from Kno: Arcana 1 to 2. Fine spend a week reading your correspondence course from Hoggwart's. You want to go from 5 ranks to 6, 7, or 8?? Ok, now you are getting in the realm of Grad school and post doctoral thesis. Go find some one who knows this or start looking for lost texts.

I think GMs are passing up on an opportunity to make the PCs earn some of their ungodly skills when it comes to things other than BaB and more spell slots.

Just my opinion, but I think in my next game, whihc will be an E10 game, that most skills over 5 skill points aer going to start needing some adventure/roleplay heavy adventuring to come by.

Thoughts??

 

[Iago Planetarius]

I love this idea, personally. I think skills (and many feats) should be earned, and can open up lots of opportunities for RP, especially in E6/8/10. But it heavily depends on the gaming group. Such a level of detail can shift the focus of a campaign away from "kill the BBEG and save the world" to constant character development. And some groups might consider it too "book-keepy".

I once started work on a (unfinished) use-based skill system similar to CoC, but haven't used it in actual play. Essentially, successful use of a particular skill (either in terms of number or "spectacularity" of success) earns the character the right to try to advance his rank in that skill by rolling greater than some scaled percentage. The higher the rank, the lower the likelihood of advancing. In this way, skills are kind of forced into the game: if a skill is never used, it never advances. (Sorry, i don't have more details on me; if I can scrounge them up, i'll post).

I also sometimes require appropriate mentors for characters. Then skill and feat advancement is automatic whenever the character can spend some time with the mentor, provided the mentor has the skill or feat. This allows for character-driven side-quests and RP opportunities when the character out-levels his mentor and has to seek out a new one.

This is ok for low level characters (eg, in E* games), but breaks down later when characters are themselves mentor level. In that case, maybe assume the characters have underlings helping them learn (like a prof with a cadre of grad students). Then RP happens every few levels when he has to find the Lost Tome or commune with the Sage Soul or defeat the Special Enemy or whatever (ie, "research") in order to gain a little more enlightenment.

 

[Sigurd]

There is already a huge attack on knowledge skills in the form of special cases for every new flavour of splat book. Knowledge Alchemy should cover poisons & drugs for example.

Physical skills, if they are real skills require just as much training for muscle memory, technique, don't forget purchased gear to learn with etc....

You just can't fix a system where a back alley rogue has 8 skill points and a collegiate wizard has 2. You can do what you like but verisimilitude is not the cornerstone of D&D. You're better off with a number of other gaming systems if you are looking for realism.

I'd worry that my players, who have the rules too, wouldn't think I was just being a pain making them do something they don't want to.


Sigurd

 

[Piratecat]

...why? I understand and respect the verisimilitude aspect, but does this make the game more fun to actually play?

I'd argue that it has no positive impact on play, and just makes leveling more annoying and less fun. Its end result is that high intelligence PCs will diversify instead of specialize. Just speaking for myself, I'd rather have a PC in my game be really good at a few things than good at lots of them.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

But I have an issue with a player just assigning max skill points to his skills waxh level with out any real "effort". I say effort with a grain of salt. We use training rules so there is a time and money cost associated but I am not buying the trade off here.

Thoughts??

You're already imposing a training rule, so assuming that skills are not included in that is not realistic in any way, shape, or form. That's really not what you're going for.

Assuming you don't mind that, there are a few other things that make this a really bad idea:

* - The fighter, and other classes without large skill lists, will run out of places to put skill points.

* - High DCs are often assumed in high level play. By discouraging high skill ranks, this penalizes the player unduly.

* - This does not take into account that PCs can advance the field of their skill(s) by themselves. Remember, by definition, they are exceptional characters in the game world. Using your own example, who taught Einstein?

Brad

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Here are a couple ways to handle the concern about training, from my experience at least:

1> Current rule in a standard campaign: The character must train off-camera for 1 month per current level to advance to the next. This reflects the time taken to seek out mentors/libraries/etc.. without tying up game session time.
If a player wants to seek out something special, and can convince the rest of the group to go along, this time can be on-camera and end up being a major part of the campaign.

This method has worked quite well for me, and avoids the 20th level 14 year olds nicely.

2> Change the skill system to match the WEG SW or CP2020 rules where the cost to advance a skill is the current rank. This tends to create generalists over specialist, and would require alteration of the DC scales or bumping up the number of skill points. WEG SW usually gave out 8 to 10 skill points per session, which isn't much when you start aiming for a Heavy Blaster specialization of 14

3> Go for broke and steal FASA Aliens skill rules. As the poster upthread mentioned, use of the skill in play grants a % chance to improve that skill (called a learning check, your INT + WIS as a % roll) . The first couple ranks only take a single success. Expert level requires two successfull learning checks. Master level required three successful checks.
.. It was kinda funny to see how characters developed, had a Hard Suit trooper who couldn't pilot his suit for _____ but could ID a fly on the motion scanner...
It was also silly to see players pulling out the stops to be able to use a skill in a given session... seduction is *really* hard to practice when you are running for your life in an Alien infested complex... with a bunch of all male troopers

 

[BluWolf]

...why? I understand and respect the verisimilitude aspect, but does this make the game more fun to actually play?

I'd argue that it has no positive impact on play, and just makes leveling more annoying and less fun. Its end result is that high intelligence PCs will diversify instead of specialize. Just speaking for myself, I'd rather have a PC in my game be really good at a few things than good at lots of them.

But I think it can have a positive aspect.

In my homebrew (I know, I hate starting off a statement this way) magical knowledge has been greatly lost. One aspect of the E10 style of play. So allowing someone to end up with a Knowledge Arcana of 13 ranks, Plus Int plus Skill focus makes the knowledge lost aspect a little hokey.

The situation would paly out like this.

Player "I am adding 3 more skill points to Kno: arcana"
DM "well you have sort of tapped the skills and understadning of your local contact. In fact, he suggests in order for you to increase your formidable understanding, you will need to seek out the work of the great Wizard Pointyhead. Last seen in the fallen city of Dustball some hundred years ago."

Now we have a RP session where the Wizard convinces the party they should REALLY go to dustball. They may even decide to do some more research. Seek out info or people who have been there. So WAS this the last place Pointyhead was seen? Why did Dustball fall? Are they up to the challenge??

Physical skills I am not so concerned with but the Craft & Knowledge skills I am.

You want to become a better weapon maker?? Seek out Legendary sword maker Amakuni and see if he is taking apprentices??

 

[Arkhandus]

But that sounds more like you should be applying the DMG suggestion of a modifier to the DC based on circumstances and such. Rather than penalizing the player's choice of how to spend their skill points, why not just increase the DC by 5 or 6 points for some things, representing the greater scarcity of lore on those subjects?

Heck, increase the DC by +10 if you think it's something that should be really obscure knowledge. And some things just won't be known through skills; you don't have to use any kind of houserule to just say "Nobody knows the true name of the Demon of Gobbledegook" or whatever.

If they're unlikely to know something because it's rather obscure, that just means the DC is supposed to be high enough to represent the level of obscurity. The game doesn't assume they just learn this knowledge magically out of nowhere, it just doesn't go into detail about however they choose to go about learning it in-character. So it shouldn't exceed whatever limited knowledge is available for learning in-game through research and whatnot.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

The way that I see it, the player putting his ranks in a given skill is the character doing the work to get better at it. Using the example of the wizard and knowledge (arcana), this would represent the wizard character pouring over old tomes (where available), discussing theory with his peers, and generally pondering and theorizing on the nature of the arcane.

Later
silver

 

[BluWolf]

The way that I see it, the player putting his ranks in a given skill is the character doing the work to get better at it. Using the example of the wizard and knowledge (arcana), this would represent the wizard character pouring over old tomes (where available), discussing theory with his peers, and generally pondering and theorizing on the nature of the arcane.

Later
silver

Right but sort of what I am saying here is that don't pass up the RPing potential and hand wave the scenario. Once characters start getting into the realm of "autosuccess" with some skill checks make em really earn those last few points.