Mearls: Abilities as the core?

[Pentius]

Good grief, we're not back to the old swimming argument, are we?

In 3.x, everyone can swim, since the Swim skill can be used untrained; the basic DC is fairly low - DC 10 for calm water - and you can take 10 on a Swim check.

In 4E, everyone can also swim. Same rules apply, except you get better (every even level) at swimming, along with all other physical activities.

So, neither system is good at modelling someone who cannot swim at all. Let's move on...

Humans have an inborn instinct for swimming, just like all other animals. We just need to overcome our fear of water/drowning (which doesn't take much time), and the basic motions of swimming come naturally. Sure, practicing to be a world-class swimmer is not the same as paddling along in the water, but that is not the issue (since D&D is not about setting athletics records).

Incidentally, I am personally really overweight and out of shape. I spent last summer going to the gym thrice a week for 2 hours (a lot less exercise than a typical adventurer gets). Guess what? Even though I spent no time practicing swimming at all, when I went to the pool in the fall, I was much, much better at swimming than I was in spring prior to the gym. So, practicing one type of physical activity can obviously make you better at other physical activities.

The only thing I will support here is that 4E's 1/2 level bonus is too good. But some sort of bonus needs to be there, for both gamist reasons and verisimilitude.

Actually, to be fair, 3.5 is the better edition at modeling a character who can't swim. To take 10, you need to be trained(dmg, page 304). DC10 doesn't sound like much, but armor penalties are doubled. If you have no ranks in swim, and you wear even medium armor, your chances of making that check start to fall pretty low.

 

[Greg K]

Actually, to be fair, 3.5 is the better edition at modeling a character who can't swim. To take 10, you need to be trained(dmg, page 304).

So, it is the same as in 3.0 as shown in my page reference to the 3.0 DMG.

 

[Sammael]

Well, if 4E doesn't take armor/encumbrance penalties into account for Athletics checks (not sure if it does), that's just... dumb.

Even if you cannot take 10, DC 10 is a very low check, provided you are not swimming in armor (again, not the brightest idea in the world). And you have to fail the check by 5 to start drowning, IIRC, so the DC for merely staying afloat is 5.

 

[Mark CMG]

Sink or swim, I was avoiding system comparisons for the usual reasons.

 

[Sammael]

Regardless of system, my points stand:

1. Humans can swim, as long as they can overcome their fear of water.
2. Practicing any sort of physical activity makes you better in all physical activities in general.

 

[Greg K]

Even if you cannot take 10, DC 10 is a very low check, provided you are not swimming in armor (again, not the brightest idea in the world). And you have to fail the check by 5 to start drowning, IIRC, so the DC for merely staying afloat is 5.

Correct, in relatively calm water over your head, you go under if you fail the check by 5 or more, but you are rolling a check every round.

 

[Pentius]

Well, if 4E doesn't take armor/encumbrance penalties into account for Athletics checks (not sure if it does), that's just... dumb.

Even if you cannot take 10, DC 10 is a very low check, provided you are not swimming in armor (again, not the brightest idea in the world). And you have to fail the check by 5 to start drowning, IIRC, so the DC for merely staying afloat is 5.

4e does take armor into account, but the penalties are not doubled, and they are lower in the first place(-2 on plate, as opposed -6), so swimming in 4e is not a difficult task, in calm water, anyway.

 

[GSHamster]

In some respects, it might have been better if the 3e skill system cap didn't increase every level. I know that when I played it, I tended to think of skills as "my character is good in these three skills" and just put a point in chosen skills every level.

If the cap didn't increase so rapidly, such that players were always bumping against the cap, it would encourage them to spend excess points on new skills. Their chosen skills would always be maxed out, but they'd have points to toss at new skills.

You'd probably get the same effect if the number of skill points you got per level increased as you got more levels.

It would give some of the sense of the 4e system, but avoid this "being able to swim even though my character is hydrophobic and has never learned how"

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Not particularly interrested in the swimming argument but relating it to the original topic. Would the people with a preference for 3.x then be unwilling to play a system like Mearls talked about in his column where skill as such do not exist but the checks are made against the ability scores?

 

[3catcircus]

Odd you use the word "good" when that sort of one-size-fits-all, auto-improve-across-the-board system doesn't seem to appeal to everyone. What of someone from a land where water is either frozen or so cold even limited exposure means death? What about someone, from anywhere, that has a phobia that would negate any chance of ever learning to swim? Could these people still be heroes in all other respects? And the time they don't spend learning to swim, coudn't it be devoted to becoming a better climber? Or are we now haggling and is that bad? Naw. The generc nature of a system where everyone simply gets better at all skills, right along side and in parallel with all of his comrades, regardless of whether they devote any effort to learning, by virtue of gaining XP by killing things doesn't sound "good" to me.

This is why systems like D&D are at a disadvantage when compared to systems like Traveller or Twilight:2000/2013 (I've never played GURPS, so that might support this as well) where a comprehensive "life" system ensures that players have the opportunity to create a background for their characters mechanically that supports their characters background narratively. In those kinds of systems, you can typically select one of more levels in skills like swim, climb, etc.

As an example, in Twilight:2013, you get 9 (+ a variable number based upon that system's equivalent of INT) skill points to distribute amongst a small number of skills (about 30), with a max of 3 ranks except for a language skill. And that is even before the character reaches age 18 and you ever select the equivalent of a class...

TORG's templates establish background skills through the use of character templates.

Mechwarrior 3e's chargen system starts in early childhood...

Even the d20 version of Traveller modifies which skills you can take as class skills depending upon the tech level of your homeworld, which, while not a full lifepath system, still attempts to do so.

3.x/Pathfinder/4e are sadly lacking in this regard. The closest that they came was the Hero Builder's Guidebook in early 3.0.