D&D 5E L&L Sept 16th . The Latest on Skills

[Minigiant]

RE: What skills we need.

I see it as nature vs nurture. Raw talent vs Trained expertise.

I can see an average or slightly above average Strength rogue being a trained athlete. He or she might have STR 12 but has experience climbing and jumping due to being from the mountains and that's all mountain kids had to do for fun which is espressed as a +2 in Athletics.

Or a person with average instincts (Wisdom 10) having sharp eyes and ears from living one the mean streets (proficient in Perception).

Or a coarse brute with no tact (Charisma 8) who somehow can spin together the scariest threats (proficient in Intimidation)

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

One thing I like about this proficiency/expertise system, as opposed to skill points, is that new proficiencies can be created as needed, and they don't have to all be equal. If a character wants to spend some downtime studying how to make siege engines, it's simple to grant them the proficiency. If they only want to learn to make a trebuchet, I can give them only that. Or perhaps give them mastery in that one creation because it's so specific.

 

[occam]

Pet peeve since 2000: How come some skills are verbs (sense motive) and some are nouns (nature)?

So I'm not the only one who's a language nitpick! What was wrong with Insight, instead of Sense Motive?

And do we really need a separate Search skill? How is that different than just using Intelligence with Perception?

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

So I'm not the only one who's a language nitpick! What was wrong with Insight, instead of Sense Motive?

And do we really need a separate Search skill? How is that different than just using Intelligence with Perception?

Insight is a good word, but the common understanding of the term is too broad. The usage of that term to mean "sensing motivation" is limited to the field of psychology and thus non-obvious to most people.

Perhaps sympathy or empathy... though those could have other problems.

 

[fjw70]

This skill system they propose sounds a lot like an evolution of the 4e skill system. It keeps a broad skill list, has a level based bonus (but restricts the bonus to those with prof), and adds a +5 expertise/trained bonus. it restricts which classes can get the expertise bonus (sort of like the trained skill list for each class) and looks like that will be narrower than 4e. There will probably be a feat to get expertise in something your clad normally doesn't allow.


This with rolling weapons proficiencies into the system makes me pretty happy.

 

[Greg K]

I was pretty happy with the list until I saw that
a. Seamanship, and Find and Remove Traps, Open Locks won't be skills
b. Culture Lore (specific), Dragon Lore, Fey Lore, Forbidden Lore, Profession Lore, Streetwise and Undead Lore will also not be individual skills.
c. Bonus is based on your total level. (I'll tolerate level based attack bonuses and 4e unified defense progression bonus). I will not tolerate it for skills. That their was no mention of a skill points module or the module from an earlier packet where you had a die that increased with level, but you could choose a new skill instead does not feel me with hope.

 

[Stalker0]

I like the overall idea, and I'm really glad they are reintroducing the idea from the original packet of using a skill and combining it with the ability score that makes sense at the time.

But that said, I think they can condense the skill list even more.

Athletics and Acrobatics -> Athletics, with strength for climb/jump/swim and dex for tumble and acrobatics.
Perception and Search -> Perception, with wisdom for spot/list and int for searching around.

 

[Li Shenron]

And do we really need a separate Search skill? How is that different than just using Intelligence with Perception?

Exactly!

Insight is a good word, but the common understanding of the term is too broad. The usage of that term to mean "sensing motivation" is limited to the field of psychology and thus non-obvious to most people.

Perhaps sympathy or empathy... though those could have other problems.

I like Empathy. I'd generally prefer nouns than verbs for skills names, as in "make a Persuasion check" rather than "make a Persuade check".

 

[Minigiant]

I was pretty happy with the list until I saw that
a. Seamanship, and Find and Remove Traps, Open Locks won't be skills
b. Culture Lore (specific), Dragon Lore, Fey Lore, Forbidden Lore, Profession Lore, Streetwise and Undead Lore will also not be individual skills.
c. Bonus is based on your total level. (I'll tolerate level based attack bonuses and 4e unified defense progression bonus). I will not tolerate it for skills. That their was no mention of a skill points module or the module from an earlier packet where you had a die that increased with level, but you could choose a new skill instead does not feel me with hope.

Seamanship is "Proficiency with waterborn vehicles +X"
Find and Remove Traps is "Proficiency in Search +X"
Open Locks is "Proficiency in thieves tools +X"

X being you level bonus. Level bonus is +2 at level 1 and grow up to +6 .
Essentially a level 1 elf wizard with the sailor background is:'

• Proficiency in Arcana +2
• Proficiency in Acrobatics +2
• Proficiency in Nature +2
• Proficiency in Perception +2
• Proficiency with waterborne vehicles +2
• Proficiency in daggers +2
• Proficiency in darts +2
• Proficiency in longbow +2
• Proficiency in longswords +2
• Proficiency in quarterstaffs +2
• Proficiency in shortbows +2
• Proficiency in shortbows +2
• Proficiency in slings +2
• Proficiency in light crossbow +2

Skill points and Skill die would be easy to make modules. 'Proficiency in Arcana +2" becomes "Proficiency in Arcana +1d4"

Instead for 4 proficiencies at +2 each at level 1, you get 8 skill points with a +2 cap on any one proficiency.

Exactly!



I like Empathy. I'd generally prefer nouns than verbs for skills names, as in "make a Persuasion check" rather than "make a Persuade check".

It is to prevent superskills.

With no Acrobatics, Athletics would catch every exploration action outside of traps.
Without Search, Perception would catch too many checks.
Same with Persuasion.

Otherwise, some rogue could get Athletic, Perception, Stealth, and Persuasion, beat everything, and use the rest of the party as bodyguards and cadddies.

 

[billd91]

I feel like we've come around full circle almost to where we were when we first started playtesting.

Nothing wrong with that, particular if the explorations and experiments you tried along the way end up validating the original ideas.