My Wife Has a List of Demands! Part One: Skills

[Charwoman Gene]

My marriage is in serious trouble ever since 2008 put us on opposite sides of and edition war. So much that I almost tried converting to Pathfinder of all things, despite my revulsion for all things Paizo*. Unfortunately, they actually moved the disputed issues in the same direction as Wizards, so that was ruled out. I agree with her on the points but I liked other aspects of 4E enough to not want to run 3e anymore.

I have my concerns that 5th Edition will not include these things. So I am hoping to rally support and find out if others feel the same.

Demand one: REAL SKILL POINTS.

Does anyone out there like having truly flexible skill points spendable one at a time with a fine grained and broad skill selection to be a major feature of 3.X vs. PF and 4E? I miss non-combat skills. I miss taking one rank in Religion to represent my Catechism classes. I miss taking a rank of Swim for those classes I took at the YDMA** Pool.

We also miss synergy bonuses. Yes, they need to be controlled, but it made simulationist sense and encouraged having a shtick.

Does anyone else support this idea?

*[sblock]Forgive my hyperbole.[/sblock]
**[sblock]Young Dwarves Moradinite Association[/sblock]

 

[Hassassin]

Does anyone out there like having truly flexible skill points spendable one at a time with a fine grained and broad skill selection to be a major feature of 3.X vs. PF and 4E? I miss non-combat skills. I miss taking one rank in Religion to represent my Catechism classes. I miss taking a rank of Swim for those classes I took at the YDMA** Pool.

Here I think PF made things easier. You can put one skill point into a cross class skill just as easy as a class skill. The skill list was trimmed down, but I didn't have a problem with that.

We also miss synergy bonuses. Yes, they need to be controlled, but it made simulationist sense and encouraged having a shtick.

Does anyone else support this idea?

Ok, this one I just oppose. It was so annoying calculating them for higher level characters. Instead I like to ask for two rolls where two skills will help*. Grouping the skills PF style also helped, since I didn't understand why e.g. Open Locks and Disable Device didn't have a synergy.

* Depending on the situation, the rolls may matter individually, or one may grant a +2 on the other if successful.

 

[delericho]

Demand one: REAL SKILL POINTS.

Does anyone out there like having truly flexible skill points spendable one at a time with a fine grained and broad skill selection to be a major feature of 3.X vs. PF and 4E?

In principle I prefer 3e/PF-style skill ranks. In practice, they're just so damn complex for no great benefit.

I think PF made some huge improvements - switching class skills to a +3 bonus instead of "half-ranks" was a major improvement, consolidating the skills was a really good move (though they should have had an Athletics skill, consolidating Climb, Swim, Run, etc, and also allowing characters to increase their base movement - instant chase mechanic!), and getting rid of synergy bonuses was a definite plus, IMO.

I miss non-combat skills.

Yes. Getting rid of Craft/Profession, Perform and (especially) Ride was a blunder in 4e.

We also miss synergy bonuses. Yes, they need to be controlled, but it made simulationist sense and encouraged having a shtick.

Nope. Hate synergy bonuses, and was very glad to see them go. Hopefully, equipment bonuses (and especially huge bonuses from magic items) will join them very shortly.

 

[Li Shenron]

I used to love the fine-tuning skill points system, but on the long run I realized that such flexibility is not that needed, and it has some other drawback (like players thinking too much about how to spread points to be "trained" in as many skills as possible).

I am sure that skill selection is an area of PC creation that WotC can most easily give different levels of customization, so I wouldn't take the option away. Anyway, once I was tired with fine-tuning, I just started to max out as fewest skills as possible, with no need for house rules.

Regarding non-combat skills... hell yeah! I know that most players wanted to find ways to make their skills useful in combat, just like all spells, but for me an adventure is combat PLUS non-combat, and skills were the perfect tools in 3e to represent non-combat situations. To the point that when I presented 3e to newcomers I used to say that the game was made of combat, magic, and skills, with the latter kind-of covering "everything else beside combat and magic"

About synergy bonuses... I liked them, they made a lot of sense, but it's one of those things that got forgotten regularly in our games. I think we can live without them, or make them an optional subsystem of the skills rules.

Right now, I think the skill systems in 5e will have to be presented in its most basic form, meaning that characters choose a number of skills and they are maximized. Maybe with a variant that for each skill max'ed you can opt for 2 skills at half their max. Then a sidebar/paragraph can introduce a fine-tuning point system. For both to coexist, I think the 3e skill system is better suited than the 4e system.

 

[Hassassin]

I used to love the fine-tuning skill points system, but on the long run I realized that such flexibility is not that needed, and it has some other drawback (like players thinking too much about how to spread points to be "trained" in as many skills as possible).
[...]
For both to coexist, I think the 3e skill system is better suited than the 4e system.

You could easily take the PF system and have the ones you chose at 1st level level up each time. The flexibility can be turned on by allowing individual choices every level.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I would put 'non-combat skills' into the same place as 'non-combat feats'. If you can split them up within the game so that you earn points to get 'combat' skills and feats as well as points to get 'non-combat' skills and feats separately... then yes, I agree absolutely to have them both just for flavor if nothing else.

However, if you have to buy both combat and non-combat with the same pool of points... then no. Simply because the d20 mechanics do not lend themselves to making it worthwhile, nor actually "indicate" you are skilled in something from a game mechanics sense. Taking your 1 point in Swim for example... that's only a 5% better chance of success than not having it. If you really took swim lessons at the public pool... you aren't just 5% better than if you didn't. You'd actually be "trained" in Swim, or at the very least should have enough points in it to give a fair increase. And considering that many characters also have STR modifiers of +2 or better... that right there tell us from a game perspective that those "swim lessons" weren't any big deal, because your natural strength has more of an impact (5% to 15% more) than any of those lessons did. That skill point in Swim does not really indicate what you want it to indicate. It's purely an attempt to pay lip service with the mechanics to something that could easily just be a descriptive trait to the character. Craft skills fall into this same type of category.

What really bites you in the butt by doing that though... is that what is actually happening by putting a point in this skill and a point in that skill and a point over here in this skill... you are removing points from your main skills that should be higher than everything else, if not even maxed out. A 5% increase to four different skills "just to get a taste" does no appreciable difference. However, that 20% loss to that top skill that otherwise might've gotten those points is HUGE. Especially considering that the DC charts are deliberately set up with the understanding that characters max out many of their skills. So removing an extra 20% chance of succeeding on Hard DCs in a consistent basis is really shooting yourself in the foot in the long run.

 

[KidSnide]

Does anyone out there like having truly flexible skill points spendable one at a time with a fine grained and broad skill selection to be a major feature of 3.X vs. PF and 4E?

We also miss synergy bonuses. Yes, they need to be controlled, but it made simulationist sense and encouraged having a shtick.

Does anyone else support this idea?

I love 4e's simplified, un-fiddly skill system. Most characters I make are for one shots and/or other players. Synergy bonuses and selecting individual skill points used to drive me batty.

-KS

 

[Crazy Jerome]

In principle I prefer 3e/PF-style skill ranks. In practice, they're just so damn complex for no great benefit.

I would put 'non-combat skills' into the same place as 'non-combat feats'. If you can split them up within the game so that you earn points to get 'combat' skills and feats as well as points to get 'non-combat' skills and feats separately... then yes, I agree absolutely to have them both just for flavor if nothing else.

Agree with both of these, and for related reasons, though I'd use "non-adventuring" instead of "non-combat". It isn't only that mixing the adventuring and non-adventuring stuff causes problems. It does. It is also that only having a handful of "skills" in the non-adventuring slot is insufficiently interesting to matter--which is probably why they had cross-class and half ranks initially, and kept it mixed. But this fails to make it interesting for some of us, because there isn't enough meat there. It's all garnish.

Whether or not a sufficiently meaty non-adventuring silo can be made that will still be reasonably simple, but have some decent scope and heft to it, I don't know. But I for one am not interested in a silo of nothing but parsley.

 

[Jawsh]

What really bites you in the butt by doing that though... is that what is actually happening by putting a point in this skill and a point in that skill and a point over here in this skill... you are removing points from your main skills that should be higher than everything else, if not even maxed out. A 5% increase to four different skills "just to get a taste" does no appreciable difference. However, that 20% loss to that top skill that otherwise might've gotten those points is HUGE. Especially considering that the DC charts are deliberately set up with the understanding that characters max out many of their skills. So removing an extra 20% chance of succeeding on Hard DCs in a consistent basis is really shooting yourself in the foot in the long run.

So change the DC charts. Why are they based on character level in the first place? Shouldn't DC charts be based on what's actually possible?

This has been a pet peeve of mine in game design for a while. When you make all the challenges match the players' bonuses, it takes away the feeling of advancement.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

I think all things should be ability checks, and a skill "point" or "rank" should not provide any overall +1 bonus. Instead, the skill point should unlock a new use for the ability or make some activity easier. Much like a feat, in fact.