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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ferratus" data-source="post: 5999977" data-attributes="member: 55966">That's not what you said.  You said carting all this stuff around was immersion breaking, but whatever.  I don't see why carrying around a bunch of stuff in a bag of holding is immersion breaking either.Now to your other point of why any group should be so multi-talented, well that ship has sailed.   Not only is everyone doing ability checks for everything in D&D Next, making it possible for a D&D character to know lockpicking, training animals, gathering food, forging documents, or identifying heraldry and as many skills as you can think of.   You could do this in OD&D, 1e, and 2e if you didn't use proficiencies and it didn't cause any problems, except when DM's tried to tell their players what they could and couldn't do.It is like the big bruhaha about blacksmithing not being in the skill list for 4e.  Some people cried that they couldn't be blacksmiths anymore.   When informed that skills like that could just be taken without skill slots because it didn't matter because blacksmithing isn't that useful, they screamed that now everyone was going to be a blacksmith.   Well, that never happened.   A couple dwarves picked up some blacksmithing, but most people just didn't give a crap about blacksmithing if it didn't match their character concept.Likewise, if people don't have a high dexterity, they won't care about blacksmithing.   If they have a low wisdom, they won't really try to bother with being an animal trainer.  If they have low con, they are going to hail a rickshaw instead of running across town.   That's what's going to happen.Also, people generally split up all possible skills in the party in 3e or 4e to cover their bases.   Therefore even if you do have a skill system, people are still going to haul around the equipment they need to use those skills in a bag of holding.If you are in the gallows, you don't have any equipment that can help you.  So that is that example gone.   But even if you were in the gallows, and your companions want to save your low Charisma ass by forging some papers to corroborate your story?   That's what equipment should be for, to make your skill checks easier.So what's your solution?   I mean, I'm just talking about moving the skill bonus from the background over to the equipment chapter.   I'm not even changing the numbers at all from the default design.   The alternative will probably be having a skill bonus to both equipment and background.   I'm just arguing against a) the idea of reintroducing a skill system and b) instead of having a +3 bonus to a skill generally that makes one character more skilled than the rest, instead of putting it on equipment everyone can use in a specific situation.Yeah, that's how magic item crafting worked in most editions but 3e.   3e sacrificed a feat to do it, but other editions sacrificed constitution points and/or a massive pile of gold.  In BASIC you spent a lot of gold and might lose it all if your enchantments fizzled.  But 3e was the only system that required something like a feat to cast magic items generally.As for alchemy, well you can sink a large amount of gold to build an alchemical laboratory, and each potion requires expensive ingredients.    Sure you get a slight discount on the alchemical items you produce in your downtime, but probably not enough to recoup the cost of building the lab for quite some time.    Sure, you could sell some alchemical potions, but the profits margins probably aren't much better than any other business.   You could hire somebody to run the lab for you that could churn out potions every day and that might get messy... but you can do that in a skill system anyway.What else you got? *shrugs* Well we don't have skill ranks in the basic game, we have ability checks.   Even if a skill system is introduced, I imagine it will remain optional because a lot of us want it to die in a fire.  Skill systems exist for one thing only, to say no to people wanting to immerse and interact with the world through artificial barriers.  There is simply no amount of skill points you can assign to make characters make sense.I can do basic welding, I can do basic service and repairs on cars and heavy machinery.  (Blacksmithing) I can make furniture, I can cut rafters and build and shingle a roof, and I have raised a few small wooden buildings.  I have raised and cared for chickens, sheep pigs and horses.  I can ride a horse and train a dog,  I have planted crops and harvested them.  I  have a double honours degree in philosophy and history. I am well versed in my religion and passibly well versed in other major religions. I can read Latin and Greek.  I can assemble computers.   I can program computers in three languages.  I know how to cook very well.  I can shoot a rifle, butcher an animal, and know basic survival techniques and (most importantly) how to summon help.   I can can stalk and kill a deer.    I have picked a lock or two when I have needed to.    I can sew and knit.   I can keep listing other skills, but the point is, I sure as heck can use almost every mundane tool that is in the PHB, and I have far more skills (and far more varied skills) than 3e will allow me.I'm not anybody especially talented.   I'm just a farm boy who got a liberal arts degree.   I'm not particularly bright or out of the ordinary.   If you starting jotting down things on a piece of paper with all of your varied skills there is no doubt you could probably match it.  If you look at the equipment list in the PHB, subtracting the weapons and armour, you probably could use most of it too.If the 3e skill system can't model the abilities of ordinary nerds like us because you could never fit all the skills you have on a single character sheet, what is it good for?  Where is the realism and immersion it is supposed to be giving?All that is required is that you don't insist on saying it backwards.   I practiced with these lockpicks that I bought, so I am going to pick the lock.  If your players are interested in immersion then they will give you plausible explanations of why they can do the skills that they do.   If you players aren't interested in immersion enough that they are willing to break immersion for no real mechanical benefit but being obnoxious... then why worry immersion at all?</blockquote>

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