missing skills

[Quickleaf]

I'm sure this has been discussed, but I'm wondering about skills I'm not seeing in the 4e list. I'm thinking along the lines of "non-adventuring skills". Are these just left to player fiat, as in "you have however many non-adventuring skills you think fit your PC's background"?
Is there an official word for non-adventuring skills?
How will you handle them?

Some examples:

1. Craft -- I've heard unsubstantiated rumor that it's handled by ritual rules. Any confirmation?

2. Engineering -- How to model a PC exploiting a weakness in a mechanical system like a mill or an aqueduct?

3. Farmwork -- Things like beekeeping, brewing, cheesemaking, farming, herding, teamstering, and winemaking were common skills. How do PCs control a herd of rampaging cattle?

4. Culture -- Besides language, there's etiquette, heraldry, and folklore. Are these covered by Diplomacy and History? How do PCs identify a coat of arms?

5. Gaming -- I'm thinking of cards, chess, dice, riddles, and puzzles. How will games of chance/strategy be handled in 4e? How about puzzle/riddle hints?

6. Letters -- How about business, calligraphy, cartography, composition, civics, linguistics, literature, mathematics, painting, and philosophy? How does a PC covertly fund rebels fighting the tyrannical king? How does a PC recognize a book or language?

7. Perform -- What about acting, comedy, dance, oratory, percussion, poetry, stringed, and wind instruments? Are these subsumed by Diplomacy or Intimidate and class powers?

8. Seamanship -- How will navigation and boating be handled?

9. Science -- I realize these are out of place in a traditional fantasy game, but what about a more historically based one? How would a PC perform an amazing feat of chemistry?

 

[tombowings]

These are a combination of my potential rulings and complete guesses.

1. Craft -- I've heard unsubstantiated rumor that it's handled by ritual rules. Any confirmation?

I think this one got cut

2. Engineering -- How to model a PC exploiting a weakness in a mechanical system like a mill or an aqueduct?

I would rule either Dungeoneering or History

3. Farmwork -- Things like beekeeping, brewing, cheesemaking, farming, herding, teamstering, and winemaking were common skills. How do PCs control a herd of rampaging cattle?

Another one bites the dust

4. Culture -- Besides language, there's etiquette, heraldry, and folklore. Are these covered by Diplomacy and History? How do PCs identify a coat of arms?

History

5. Gaming -- I'm thinking of cards, chess, dice, riddles, and puzzles. How will games of chance/strategy be handled in 4e? How about puzzle/riddle hints?

Thievery

6. Letters -- How about business, calligraphy, cartography, composition, civics, linguistics, literature, mathematics, painting, and philosophy? How does a PC covertly fund rebels fighting the tyrannical king?

Hu?

How does a PC recognize a book or language?

Arcana or History

7. Perform -- What about acting, comedy, dance, oratory, percussion, poetry, stringed, and wind instruments? Are these subsumed by Diplomacy or Intimidate and class powers?

I would go with Bluff, Diplomacy, or acrobatics, depends on the performance.

8. Seamanship -- How will navigation and boating be handled?

Nature or Dungeoneering

9. Science -- I realize these are out of place in a traditional fantasy game, but what about a more historically based one? How would a PC perform an amazing feat of chemistry?

Arcana

 

[FourthBear]

I think that many of the skills such as Profession: Beekeeper and Perform: Dance are better captured in the character description and background than mechanically. PCs should feel free to pick as many such skills as they think their background calls for (within reason). If a check is needed, the DM and player can decide exactly if their character is best described as untrained, trained or trained and focused, allowing for a quick mechanical modifier for a difficulty check. This brings up the next point in mechanically assigning such skills: will there be room in the books for systems that adequately capture these skills in a way that isn't trivial? I know that people disagree, but I don't consider the Craft, Profession and Perform rules in 3e particularly compelling. Mechanically, the effect of each skill is largely reduced to how many gp you can earn on a successful skill roll with little else supported by the text in the core rules. Almost everything else boils down to improvisational rulings by the DM, which can be captured adequately on the fly without forcing PCs to choose between Athletics or Profession: Farmer.

Of course, in a particular campaign where a skill that isn't represented on the core rules list *is* important enough that it is expected to have regular, mechanically important checks (such as Sailor checks in a seafaring campaign), then the DM can lay out the skill and what successful skill check means for a character.

 

[VannATLC]

In most of my campaigns, characters have generally skipped over these kinds of skills, as they weakened too many other areas.

I could throw a bone at the odd person that went for character skills instead, and they'd feel meaningful.. but it wasn't great.

Since last year, I've required, independant to skills, that people have a solid background on their character, and that background would adjudicate what they knew and did not know, prior to their adventuring campaign.
This works much better, as most of those things are poorly abstracted, at best, by the game rules, and a freeform, non-skill based approach works better.

Utilising some of that information may require skills, however, and I admit to being dissapointed in some of the rogue-y skills disappearing.

I won't easily be able to recreated Ludwig Von Moist, in this new edition.

 

[Quickleaf]

After looking over the 4e Lite Player's Handbook I was surprised to find that neither Stealth nor Thievery had "disguise"...I wonder how it's being handled?

 

[zoroaster100]

I would guess that disguise would be covered by Bluff?

 

[Scrollreader]

That would work for me. But I don't see a problem creating lipwig von moist. (Who is, by the way, an /awesome/ character concept) Granted, you have to assume he's just as good at sleight of hand and jimmying locks as forging, but if anything, I'd argue that he is, and his real thrust is in skill training, and skill focus in bluff and insight, along with a very, very high charisma score.


Maybe it's because I'm used to Exalted, where the Larceny skill is equally broad or Saga, which also collapsed the skill sets from d20, but it doesn't seem that difficult to me. While I will miss some aspects of skill granularity (like my current game, #thieves, set in Sharn, where we have a trap and lock expert, a sleight of hand gambler, a con man, a second story thief, etc) that's a very, very small subset of the games I want to run, and honestly, might be better run in another gaming system altogether, rather than D&D.

 

[MaelStorm]

I hope the Skills chapter in the PHB will state most situation for using a skill in the description. What is covered and what is not covered and be very specific.

I think the idea of cutting duplicating skills is a very good one, but I would prefer if 4E used a system like Shadowrun, where you have general skills + additional level of specialization. This way if you want to be better in one aspect of the skill you can. Also this type of skill system makes it very easy for GM to know which skill must be use for each actions.

 

[Glyfair]

I would guess that disguise would be covered by Bluff?

IIRC, Star Wars Saga has it under Deception (i.e Bluff).

 

[Stalker0]

Currently the only skill that I saw real mechanical use for and that is not represented in 4e is the ride skill.

Does that mean there won't be anymore taking cover on the mount, no more fast mounts and dismounts?