How to play music, forge a sword and so on

[Garthanos]

We did exactly what you described. But then started the discussions: what abiltiy to use for drawing? Dex, because you need a steady hand? No, its Wis, you have to feel it intuitive. For sure not, its Int, all about learning the theorie.

If you are using my house rule then the above is a DM choice based on the particular usage attempted with the skill, and yes I mean with all skills.

If someone with a nature skill is trying to remember a detail or fact its intelligence. If someone with the same skill is trying to notice something strange in the description of animal behavior which doesnt fit thats wizdom.

 

[ra-punzel72]

If you are using my house rule then the above is a DM choice based on the particular usage attempted with the skill, and yes I mean with all skills.

Since all of our players DM at some time there is no "authority" of a DM that could do that. Sure we give the DM the authority to make a quick rule to go on, but because this did not work in this case I ask for ideas for a written rule.

My fault, I should have written this clearer from the beginning.

 

[Garthanos]

Are they DM'ing at the same time?? if not then go with what the current GM thinks applies best to this particular performance and mellow out.
Perhaps I failed to mention one of the goals of this house rule is to encourage people to build characters that emphasize all the attributes, and make no stat a dump stat. If you are building characters that blow out in one stat and the stat which modifies there skill from usage to usage jumps around they will feel undermined.

 

[ra-punzel72]

I thank you all for your time and support.
I think I should have made clearer that we tried several things already and I was seeking for a simply but rocksteady written rule.

This wish seems not to apply to you, instead you propose things our group already tried (I thought I did explain that we already tried the "DM does the decision on time" thing in my first post). So thank you again, but this wastes just your and my time.

It's like one would ask you for ideas about a recipe for a beef burger and you try to convince this person to a) go vegetable and b) cook without recipe. Your answer is maybe "better" but simpy not what was asked for and so of no help.

Thx anyway, I appreciate your efforts to convince me that a written rule is just wrong (I really mean this, you did spent your time for a stranger).

 

[ra-punzel72]

Perhaps I failed to mention one of the goals of this house rule is to encourage people to build characters that emphasize all the attributes, and make no stat a dump stat. If you are building characters that blow out in one stat and the stat which modifies there skill from usage to usage jumps around they will feel undermined.

We are a very experienced group (anyhow or maybe therefore I ask others for their ideas) and we agreed that we do not want "one stat" heroes. So we did start with only 16 point buy and no ability is allowed over 16 (with racial modifier!) at first level. From level 2 to 10 you get an ability every level, that reflects that our heroes start as pretty average guys and learn things on the way. You are not allowed to take the same ability more than 3 times in this process and you are not allowed to take the same ability every level. This leads to a 100% original rule compatible end at level 11 where we take on with the original rules (you can do the math, its the same like point buy 22 and taking abilites on level 4 and so on, just a cap on how high one ability can get until level 11).

So, yes we encourage ourselfs to not invest in only one or two or three abilites.

 

[Nytmare]

This will fit in any cinematic system very well. But D&D never was and is still not a cinematic system.

Who what? *flips through his 4th Ed books again*

We did exactly what you described. But then started the discussions: what abiltiy to use for drawing? Dex, because you need a steady hand? No, its Wis, you have to feel it intuitive. For sure not, its Int, all about learning the theorie. The same with forging a sword: I take strength, I need this to hammer. No, you take Con, its all about endurance. Endurance? Heck, this is a skill! Then take int, you had to learn this art and remember ist now.

There's more than one way to get to a single outcome, and each one of those methods easily describes a different method of getting there. You can be a natural artist that relies on intuition or raw talent, or you can be trained and rely on technical knowhow and knowledge. Likewise you might have enough of one but not enough of the other. I know plenty of artists who know the techniques, but can't apply them with any reliability because they don't have any of the talent.

What about the viewers subjective ability to appreciate art? Every person's tastes are different, and they fall back on personal preference, and/or learned appreciation. What if the viewer is a simpleton with single digit intelligence and wisdom who can't appreciate anything that isn't a bowl of fruit with a naked woman behind it? How does that factor into your player's single die roll? Do you make it an opposed roll? "I rolled a 20 for that statue! Why don't any of the orcs appreciate my modernistic representation of the struggle of the worker class against the tyrannical supression of the state?"

On top of all that, creating a piece of art under any circumstances other than the heat of battle really shouldn't be a die roll. It's the epitome of a "take ten" situation.

The more concrete you try to make something like this the more complex it gets. Leave it as open ended as possible (and in my opion leave out as many numbers as possible.) If they want their character to be a talented artist, any normal character sheet will be able to describe one. If they want them to be misunderstood, unappreciated, or even just outright suck, any stack of attributes will do.

If you're seriously afraid that your players will decide that their characters are just plain spectacular at absolutely everything, ask them to pick one singular thing that they're good at, be it a talent, a profession, a craft, or whatever.

And if you really, really, really want to turn it into a game, make it a skill challenge, but be prepared for it to get really boring by the third or fourth pencil sketch they decide to make.

 

[grickherder]

The basic issue here is determining how authoritative a given statement/result is in the shared story. Players often think that something their character does isn't legitimately authoritative in the shared story unless it was backed up by dice rolling or some appeal to the rules. Something to give it weight or to give the player the sense they earned it.

But if no one has a stake in the statement or result not becoming part of the shared story, there's no need for an appeal to rules or dice.

For example, say there's a skill challenge to woo the Eladrin noble into sending troops to help defend a human village. One character decides to make the Eladrin noble a beautiful long sword and a matching hunting spear. Skill to use? Diplomacy. If you roll high, you have a positive effect on the Eladrin noble. If you roll low, you have a negative effect.

But what about the quality of the sword and the spear? It could be either way. Perhaps you rolled a 2, and while the sword and the spear are of the finest dwarven craftsmanship, the Eladrin noble's business ventures as a youth failed because of competition from superior dwarven made goods. Or you rolled a 19 but the goods could be sub par but the Eladrin is impressed by the time spent and the attempt to pay homage to their traditions.

What's at stake? Concentrate on that rather than trying to give traction through the dice or rules.

 

[JoeNotCharles]

The Advanced Player's Guide from ERP has a set of crafting rules which includes both building things and creating art. It works somewhat like Rituals - you pay a cost in time and money to learn how to make the craft, and then when you want to actually create an object you roll on the related skill. (For art it's Insight; for smithing it's Endurance.) There are rules for how much the kits to create these items cost and what the DC to create them is.

As for singing, in my game I added 3 skills: Perform (Cha; covering singing, dancing, making speeches, etc), Natural Philosophy (Int; because I wanted a non-magical academic type skill) and Tactics (Wis; mainly for symmetry, but also I like the idea of warriors having a knowledge type skill so they're not all muscle). Then I gave most classes an extra skill choice and made these class skills for some of them, so that players aren't penalized by having the same number of choices spread out over more skills.

I don't know how well this works since none of these skills have actually come up yet. Heh.

 

[Garthanos]

We are a very experienced group (anyhow or maybe therefore I ask others for their ideas) and we agreed that we do not want "one stat" heroes. So we did start with only 16 point buy and no ability is allowed over 16 (with racial modifier!) at first level. From level 2 to 10 you get an ability every level, that reflects that our heroes start as pretty average guys and learn things on the way. You are not allowed to take the same ability more than 3 times in this process and you are not allowed to take the same ability every level. This leads to a 100% original rule compatible end at level 11 where we take on with the original rules (you can do the math, its the same like point buy 22 and taking abilites on level 4 and so on, just a cap on how high one ability can get until level 11).

So, yes we encourage ourselfs to not invest in only one or two or three abilites.

I rather like that somewhat it does move in the direction of removing the dump stat, I might have to make use of it.

 

[Garthanos]

Who what? *flips through his 4th Ed books again*

Heh my minds eye flashed back to how we improvised everything in early D&D you know when there wasn't any skills defined and you didn't have a clue if the character knew how to swim or not? And now the introduction of minions, heck I just decided he meant something entirely different.

There's more than one way to get to a single outcome, and each one of those methods easily describes a different method of getting there. You can be a natural artist that relies on intuition or raw talent, or you can be trained and rely on technical knowhow and knowledge.

That might be a reason to make the particular skill artist with a basis in either Wisdom or Intellect or Dex - at the players choice at the time of usage.