New Mearls Article - Skills in D&D

[vagabundo]

I love the new system. Especially skill talents. I'm running SWSE at the moment and the talents are great. Keep the base system very simple - and I like going back to ability scores, which were very neglected in my 4e game.

I like the way this system is going.

 

[TerraDave]

I was very pleased with the full example.

Also, FWI, at Gencon, he made a statement that seamed to imply these were to test out ideas for 5E, but that wasnt just around the corner. (the new minis game at the top of the article is).

 

[Jan van Leyden]

In my experience, too many fiddly bits become an end in themselves. I know there are gamers out there who want to build the FAST CLIMBER! or the TEAM CLIMBER! and these rules are fine for them; I am not one of them, and I neither want to play nor am I willing to run a game in which this degree of specialization is considered necessary or desireable.

You want to scramble up a wall faster than the other guy? No problem, take a -4 on your Acrobatics check and get on with it. That's how I roll.

You're absolutely right with this, but Mr. Mearls seems to take some pains to ensure modularity. The climbing rules given work with or without the skills. You'd be perfectly OK to let your character climb without any Skill involved, but your friend who wants to build his FAST CLIMBER can do so without making your character in the same game any less useful. That would be scalability at its best.

 

[vagabundo]

You're absolutely right with this, but Mr. Mearls seems to take some pains to ensure modularity. The climbing rules given work with or without the skills. You'd be perfectly OK to let your character climb without any Skill involved, but your friend who wants to build his FAST CLIMBER can do so without making your character in the same game any less useful. That would be scalability at its best.

I don't think you could mix the two styles. If one player has invested in a lot of skill talents the DM will have to be careful not to give these abilities to other players for free.

It would be easy to allow only basic skills to those without those customisations though. I like that the skill description gave a good account of what you could and couldn't do. Makes it easy to tell players "you cannot do that". I know some DMs just like to increase the DCs but that just feels hokey to me..

 

[pming]

Hiya.

WARNING: Long...

All of these diatribes by Mr.Mearls keep nagging at me. His reasoning seems...inexperienced? I guess that's the closest way to put it from where I stand. At any rate, most of his 'ideas' aren't anything new; they've been out there for decades in various rpgs and campaigns. What keeps bothering me about his articles is he seems to be all about the "absolutes".

I see him write When you climb, you must be standing up and have both hands free. and my first reaction is...Bad Designer! No twinkie for you! With that very first sentence he's set an "absolute". In a game like Monopoly, Chess or Poker...absolutes are fine, if not needed. But this is a role-playing game. Using such language is always, IME, a *very bad* thing. I immediatly thought of a two situations that would simply not be allowed by this RAW; a character treading water in a pit (not standing), or a character laying prone in a small sinkhole as nasty critters grab his legs and try and pull him into their earthen lair (not standing). What about someone who his holding onto an uncounscious halfling friend (two hands not free)? You get the point. Using "absolutes" is best avoided if at all possible.

Next is his use of a single ability to govern all aspects of a skill. Again, not the best idea, and one that screams lack of experience. Climb, in his new skill version, uses Strength. Period. As if someone with a 16 Str, 4 Dex and 5 Con could climb as well, fast, and constatnly as someone with 16 Str, 14 Dex and 15 Con. Again, IMHO, a missed opportunity to get away from D&D's current "uber stat for XXX skill" problem (ex: in 3.x Fighters are better climbers than Theiv...er...Rogues are). By brancing out to even 2 stats (say, STR and DEX), the've reduced the likelyhood of a one-stat-wonder having crazy-good ability in some skill by simply taking '1 rank' in it, beating out the average stat guy with multiple ranks in it.

When he starts to get at the obvious...a skill gives you a bonus...all is fine. That is, until he gets to the whole "skill talents" thing. Then he's right back to square one, with the absolutes. Just look at the first 'climb talent'.

Cautious Climber: You never fall when making an ability check to climb. If you fail a climb check, you still move half your climb speed.

Absolute = BAD DESIGN...even if it's disguised as a 'talent'. What if a player says "I'm going to move at half speed and be very cautious so I don't fall". I know that I, as any self-respecting DM, would not be able to look the player in the face and say "Uh, no. You don't have that talent". This kind of rule writing will result in very 'numbers-and-absolutes' role-playing styles. You know that kind; where the players say things like "I just jump into the 20' pit, ignoring the tightrope, because I don't have the Tightrope Walker talent I can't even try it, so may as well just jump in now." Not cool for keeping the tone and suspension of disbelief in an RPG.

His whole blurb on "Layers and Complexity" is rendered pointless simply because he has already set up 'absolutes' on what the climb skill allows (or disallows) PC's in the game to do. So, even if a DM decided to go "light" and not use the Skill Talents, for example, the nagging "well, if we were using the skill talents then my guy could at least try to do this...".

Sorry, Mike, I'm going to have to give your rule design a solid C-. It may work, but it won't be particularily good or fun.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[vagabundo]

Hiya.

WARNING: Long...

I see him write When you climb, you must be standing up and have both hands free. and my first reaction is...Bad Designer! No twinkie for you! With that very first sentence he's set an "absolute". [snip]

Next is his use of a single ability to govern all aspects of a skill. Again, not the best idea, and one that screams lack of experience. ...[snip]

You may have missed this:

If the DM rules that climbing a surface requires a check, you usually make a Strength check to pull yourself up. Your DM might instead ask for a Dexterity check to climb a swaying surface, or a Wisdom check to find the handholds on an invisible wall of force.

Your points are valid, but I wouldn't focus too much on the wording, it is really just a doodle and he mentions that. I doubt after all the designers and editors have a look it would be as absolute.

Absolute = BAD DESIGN...even if it's disguised as a 'talent'. What if a player says "I'm going to move at half speed and be very cautious so I don't fall". I know that I, as any self-respecting DM, would not be able to look the player in the face and say "Uh, no. You don't have that talent". This kind of rule writing will result in very 'numbers-and-absolutes' role-playing styles. You know that kind; where the players say things like "I just jump into the 20' pit, ignoring the tightrope, because I don't have the Tightrope Walker talent I can't even try it, so may as well just jump in now." Not cool for keeping the tone and suspension of disbelief in an RPG.

I would use the DM slide rule and give him a +2 to his check, but not the full description in the talent, if that module was being used in play. Sure you can slow things down, but your friend with that talent has the mojo to do this better than you ever can (until you level up and take that talent too)...

 

[Gargoyle]

Hiya.

WARNING: Long...

All of these diatribes by Mr.Mearls keep nagging at me. His reasoning seems...inexperienced? I guess that's the closest way to put it from where I stand. At any rate, most of his 'ideas' aren't anything new; they've been out there for decades in various rpgs and campaigns. What keeps bothering me about his articles is he seems to be all about the "absolutes".

Diatribe? It certainly didn't come off to me as a diatribe. It seemed more like an earnest attempt to communicate.

I see him write When you climb, you must be standing up and have both hands free. and my first reaction is...Bad Designer! No twinkie for you! With that very first sentence he's set an "absolute". In a game like Monopoly, Chess or Poker...absolutes are fine, if not needed. But this is a role-playing game. Using such language is always, IME, a *very bad* thing. I immediatly thought of a two situations that would simply not be allowed by this RAW; a character treading water in a pit (not standing), or a character laying prone in a small sinkhole as nasty critters grab his legs and try and pull him into their earthen lair (not standing). What about someone who his holding onto an uncounscious halfling friend (two hands not free)? You get the point. Using "absolutes" is best avoided if at all possible.

Agree, absolutes are generally bad.

Next is his use of a single ability to govern all aspects of a skill. Again, not the best idea, and one that screams lack of experience. Climb, in his new skill version, uses Strength. Period. As if someone with a 16 Str, 4 Dex and 5 Con could climb as well, fast, and constatnly as someone with 16 Str, 14 Dex and 15 Con. Again, IMHO, a missed opportunity to get away from D&D's current "uber stat for XXX skill" problem (ex: in 3.x Fighters are better climbers than Theiv...er...Rogues are). By brancing out to even 2 stats (say, STR and DEX), the've reduced the likelyhood of a one-stat-wonder having crazy-good ability in some skill by simply taking '1 rank' in it, beating out the average stat guy with multiple ranks in it.

I guess this depends on how important realistic skills are to you. In D&D, particularly in a theoretical 4E where skills are optional, I'd say they're not that important and modeling on a single ability score is reasonable. I'd hardly call this "inexperienced" design. In fact, I'd reason that bowing to the pressure of making it more realistic is more inexperienced.

When he starts to get at the obvious...a skill gives you a bonus...all is fine. That is, until he gets to the whole "skill talents" thing. Then he's right back to square one, with the absolutes. Just look at the first 'climb talent'.

Absolute = BAD DESIGN...even if it's disguised as a 'talent'. What if a player says "I'm going to move at half speed and be very cautious so I don't fall". I know that I, as any self-respecting DM, would not be able to look the player in the face and say "Uh, no. You don't have that talent". This kind of rule writing will result in very 'numbers-and-absolutes' role-playing styles. You know that kind; where the players say things like "I just jump into the 20' pit, ignoring the tightrope, because I don't have the Tightrope Walker talent I can't even try it, so may as well just jump in now." Not cool for keeping the tone and suspension of disbelief in an RPG.

His whole blurb on "Layers and Complexity" is rendered pointless simply because he has already set up 'absolutes' on what the climb skill allows (or disallows) PC's in the game to do. So, even if a DM decided to go "light" and not use the Skill Talents, for example, the nagging "well, if we were using the skill talents then my guy could at least try to do this...".

I sort of agree with you on the issue of absolutes, in particular, the talent that allows you to never fall from a bad roll seems to be a bit much, but these are details, and I don't think that's the main point he's trying to debate. I think the main point of the article is: Would it be a good idea to go in this direction of having the rules for systems such as climbing tied to ability scores so that Skills could be an optional system?

I'd say yes, as it allows for more choices. I could then use Skills or not.

Sorry, Mike, I'm going to have to give your rule design a solid C-. It may work, but it won't be particularily good or fun.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Have to disagree. I think it would be more fun than the existing 4E climbing rules, but would need some tweaks/refinement. I'd give him a respectful B, especially considering this wasn't even meant to be a playtest article, much less a DDI article or an official rule change. In fact, I'd give it an A+ for its intended purpose, that is, to open up a conversation with fans about the rules.

I also agree with an above poster who is wondering about the skill talents overlapping in the design space with feats. But I have a feeling Mearls already has an answer for that, and hopefully will share that with us in a future article. Feats need an overhaul more than anything IMO.

 

[vagabundo]

One of the interesting concepts that I hope they follow through with is that they are going to keep things modular. So you can use the skill talents or not and just use the basic skills. The great thing is that it will allow for different play styles and ease of house ruling.

I can see a game were I do not use skill talents, but they would give the players ideas for things to try, and I just assign differing DCs, kind of like a stunt system. The talents are not exhaustive and we could ad-hoc new ones as the situation demands.

 

[KidSnide]

I really like the general idea here. Specifically, I would love to remove the "giant section of very specific rules" version of the skills chapter and replace it with "non-combat feats". It's really a little bizarre that "crawling" and "running" are part of the combat chapter while "climbing" and "jumping" are skills. (And that's separate from the question of why fighters are better than rogues at rogue-y skills like climbing.)

That having been said, the actually implementation described is a little too complicated and finicky.

-KS

 

[I'm A Banana]

One thing I'm a bit cautious about is that "you cannot fail" talent. It's sort of like adding "Miss: Half Damage" to all of your attacks (not just dailies! every one!). Or, perhaps even closer to it, saying "You cannot be damaged; every attack against you deals at least 10 points of damage per tier to those who attacked you."

But I guess that'd be sussed out in development.

Still, even with the cautions, it seems very solid. I like making it closer to ability scores, reducing the training bonus, and providing "tricks" for trained folks rather than just a higher bonus for trained folks. That opens up a massive level of design space, not just for players, but for DMs wanting to make an interesting climbing challenge. I like it quite a sight better than the "DO U LIKE CLIMBING/JUMPING/SWIMMING? CHECK YES/NO" rules we have currently.