Mike Mearl's on simplifying skills in D&D

[Aus_Snow]

I already hand out more skill points all round.

I like the system more or less as is, otherwise - it's great! I like the basic mechanics, I like class / cross-class, "trained only" skills, skill synergies. . . everything. It all works very well together, IMO.

It could do with a bit more complexity, and more emphasis upon it relative to other game subsystems (both are things that I have done with my own house rules) - but regardless, I sincerely hope that the current skill system survives the next edition change, rather than being dumbed down for no apparent reason.

 

[Stalker0]

Mike, I agree that you should keep posting these ideas. No matter what you right about, it always seem to get a lot of attention, and its nice to see so much debate on the boards.

I do think this system is way too simplistic. I think the iron heroes skill system is a good direction to go to. The skill system in 3.5 is too bloated imo. There are too many skills. Combining skills into one skill or into skill groups cleans up the system, makes it easier to use, and can help balance out weaker skills.

Someone might think balance is a weak skill, but one that encompasses balance, tumble, and climb might not be, etc.

One other problem I have with the skill system is the balance of CR to HD to skill ranks. For monsters, skills are awarded based on HD. HD tends to increase expotentially as CR increases, which means high CR monsters tend to have crazy high skill numbers.

What's the point of a 20th level rogue having +40 to his hide checks when a CR 20 monster will often have +60 to spot?

 

[Klaus]

You're not the only one!

My only would-be tweak to the current skill system is more points all around!

-The Gneech

Amen!

 

[Kunimatyu]

Like others have said, keep posting, Mike! Signal-to-noise aside, it's nice to see some debate.

I'm of two minds on this:

On the one hand, I really don't like the ridiculously huge number of skills, and certain skills beg to be subsumed into others, or turned into d20+stat+level checks. I don't think D&D would suffer if Climb, Jump, and Swim became Athletics and Balance, Escape Artist, and Tumble became Acrobatics. I'm not even certain it would suffier if both of those became d20+stat+level checks(provided, as Mike said, options existed via feats and class abilities to distinguish masters from everyone else).

However, there are lots of skills that don't benefit from this sort of lumping so well, particularly a lot of the trained ones.

I will say that the choice seems to be on letting everyone use a skill to some extent(Mearls' idea) versus letting the users of those skills shine(D&D 3.5). It'd be nice if we could have our cake and eat it too.

 

[3catcircus]

I don't think d20 goes far *enough* with skills. If you like C&C - great. I love C&C and play it regularly.

Unfortunately d20 and D&D 3.x really don't allow enough verisimilitude when it comes to skills. Additionally, the DCs for those skills aren't really that well defined. When it comes to a true skill system, I look at Rolemaster and Dangerous Journeys/Mythus.

Let's face it - you can swim really really well and be a total clod when it comes to trying to climb. You can climb like an insect and have a 1" vertical leap.

 

[Remathilis]

Sadly, WotC has already done a better version of what Mearls is considering:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/alternativeSkillSystems.htm

I like the Skill System as is. Barring more skill points or some combined skills, I think the system works perfectly well.

 

[RodneyThompson]

I hope that idea dies a quick death. I would not buy or gm this game.

Please don't take this as me picking on you, as that is not my intent, but I think that in the interest of the evolution of game mechanics wishing an idea to "die a quick death" is more harmful than helpful. One of the best things about ye olde intarwebs is that we get to discuss things in depth, weigh their merits and flaws, and hopefully arrive at a more sophisticated set of mechanics. Dismissing ideas out of hand is neither productive nor beneficial.

I am slightly taken aback by the vehemence with which people seem to react to some of Mike's (and other peoples') brainstorms. Some of the best concepts in D&D (and all gaming systems) come about when someone says, "What if we did X?" and then the idea was molded into something new.

As to the topic at hand, I'm not a big fan of Mike's idea for D&D, but it could work well for some other games. I actually think it would be more appropriate for games where you don't improve heroically and for low-power games. For example, I could see a system like this working in a modern horror game where ordinary people are thrust into extraordinary situations. Clive Barker is a master of writing stories like these, and I think if you wanted to do a modern horror-fantasy game along those lines then this would be a perfectly viable system.

It's probably not for D&D, but it certainly has its merits.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

I think the project turned out rather well, but there are several areas where it needed more work.

For instance, stunts, zones, and tokens all compete with each other in terms of cool stuff you can do. I think I would've looked to ways to make things more standardized across the different systems, and then worked to ensure that each one did different stuff. For example, maybe zones are always better than an attack or stunt you can do. Stunts tend to improve attacks, and so on. I tried to make them too separate, rather than taking a more global look at the game.

Cool, thanks for responding. I actually don't own Mastering Iron Heroes. If I did I might have a better idea what you're talking about. So, I'll chalk that up as another reason to grab it.

It's no secret IH was rushed out the door. You had an opportunity you couldn't turn down and I know I would've done the same had I been in your position. But as buzz and some others keep saying, you presented lots of great ideas in that book, and let's face it, if there weren't an avid fan base they wouldn't be digging into the system and rework and reinventing things.

The argument I'm reading is "why does a rules book have to tell you the cool things you can do? Why can't you just do them?" I think, "Well ok, but why shouldn't it?" I don't believe it destroys creativity the way some claim. I actually think it encourages it. E.G., "Cool, challenges let me do this and this. What else can I do?"

 

[CRGreathouse]

I must say I don't like it. I generally approve of the system as it stands, and I like the flexibility to have different levels of training for different skills, as well as synergies and the like. This system ditches this flexibility and simplifies something away that I liked. Further, it doesn't seem that it would be faster in play at all -- negating the only benefit I'd care about.

That said, I've liked most everything I've seen from Mike Mearls and I'm glad he's with Wizards now.

 

[Particle_Man]

One minor fix a DM of mine used that I like is "one roll, two mods". So if you need to check to see if you are suprised, instead of rolling spot and rolling listen, you roll once, and modify it for spot and separately modify it for listen. so the person with a ton more ranks in listen will still hear more than she sees, but we won't get wonky results where she happens to be really good at seeing and really bad at hearing by virtue of rolling a '20' followed by a '1'.

I could see a similar idea with sneaking. Just have one person roll once for the entire party, then have everyone separately modify that one roll for individual hide and move silently (producing two separate numbers per player). Thus we reduce the ever-growing chance of one of the ninjas rolling a '1' on one of the scores, even if all the other ninjas get high rolls.