Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lyxen" data-source="post: 8375479" data-attributes="member: 7032025">First, this was a very obscure option in a corner of only 3.5, and while it adresses the choice of skills at level 1 and not having points to add, it does not touch the main game changers in skills in 5e, the bounded accuracy and use of advantage/disadvantage.Moreover, this does not date back to 3e, but this was already present in AD&D 1e, in the dungeoneer's survival guide: "All characters start play with a number of proficiency slots at 1st level..." The only difference is that, like everything before 3e, it was reversed as it did not yet benefit from the d20 unification, which was one of the major breakthroughs of 3e.Which, you are right, I forgot as a very crucial change in 5e (and a bit of a shame, if you ask me, as it really lowers the value of intelligence, maybe the solution lies into allowing intelligence to gain you some expertise, or half-expertise), but still minor compared to BA and Adv/Dis.Indeed, but still not addressing the two major game changers above.And this is absolutely critical, much more than the number of skills or having only certain skills maxed out, because exactly for the same reason, it allows almost any adventurer a chance to succeed at almost any skill check or, the other way around, allows any adventurer, even a very skilled one, to fail at even fairly easy tasks in his chosen domain of expertise.This is for me the real game changer compared to all previous editions, and I think the point that the OP is complaining about.While there is an ancestry here, the effect of bounded accuracy and adv/dis are the game changers here, the other two points have nothing to do with the OP's problem.Not only did it considerably quicken the game (a brilliant design choice IMHO), it's also part of the game changers (compared to skills chosen at level 1 and "max bonus") because once more it contributes to what no other edition did, allowing untrained characters to regularly beat very skilled ones at skill checks (because modifiers, even stacking ones, could never compensate the differences of skill and abilities of previous editions where these were mostly unbounded - both the "proficiency bonus" and the ability modifiers went up arithmetically with level).So, for me, the only way top prevent this has nothing to do with going back to the roots of the system, it has to do with compensating for bounded accuracy and adv/dis mechanics, both new to 5e.I would hasard maybe getting proficiency and expertise slots based on INT, or maybe level or feats, so that characters who really want to specialise can get bonuses that are so differentiating that they cannot be beaten by normal folks and so that they can succeed at really high DCs (25+) with some regularity.And I would also advise certainly not going back to modifiers, especially not negative ones that are almost never used in 5e and that are universally hated when they are negative. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

Verification