New WotC Article - The Role of Skills

[Hassassin]

I think there needs to be some sort of limiter on skills, so that as the skill level gets up, it gets harder to learn. And there is a maximum in a skill. Otherwise you have exploding DCs and everyone just puts skill points into the same skills every level to keep up.

IMO, that's what DCs are for.

Adding more ranks to a skill has diminishing returns, because there are fewer and fewer tasks of each DC. DC 10 and below tasks are common, you will run into DC 15 tasks all the time, DC 20 tasks every once in a while, DC 25 rarely and although there are a lot of tasks with DC higher than 30, DC 42 specifically is very rare.

One problem is that opposed rolls have a different distribution. Therefore, it works better if one side always takes 10. You can just do it like above. Likewise, it doesn't work with skills like Jump where the number rolled matters. Those skills should be built differently, I think.

 

[Daztur]

If ability checks are the central mechanic in 5ed, I'd rather see NOT having a skill give you a penalty then having a skill give you a bonus. Basically everything is an ability check but some thing require training to use your ability fully. That removed the weird dichotomy of something things (such as jumping) being much easier to get better than than other things (such as kicking down doors) depending on what counts as a skill and what counts as a vanilla ability check.

 

[Li Shenron]

Perhaps the core problem with skills is that they put both adventuring skills and downtime skills in the same pot.

You can't require someone to be a 10th level adventurer to be a great worldwide-known cook. It makes no sense.

OTOH, you can't allow a 1st level PC to have a super modifier on skills which are used against challenges of the adventures, e.g. disable device vs traps... or can you?

Now that I think about it, I would rather have a 1st level PC with +20 on a skill (how much damage can this do?) than being forced at using silly stuff like the Commoner NPC class just to have very good craftsmen in a village (ps, normally when I need that I just splice the bonus I want on the NPC and I don't bother if it's rules-compliant or not, but I'm thinking about published adventures here, and how people do want them rules-compliant).

One thing I certainly dislike is automatic scaling with levels. I just dislike the idea of every wizard getting better at jumping or a barbarian getting better at opening lock without ever doing it.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Not all skills rely on gear though. Plus i dont know if it creates a better result for the game. Just because mecanics can brought into sinc(for instance combat rolls and skill rolls), i am not sure they always should be.

I think we could get great symmetry from having a door with 5 hp being possible to break down or lock pick within the same frame of mechanics. Rolling damage/effect is also really fun. Employing gear is important because it brings to the table interesting detail and gear can readily serve as macguffins.

 

[Hassassin]

Perhaps the core problem with skills is that they put both adventuring skills and downtime skills in the same pot.

You can't require someone to be a 10th level adventurer to be a great worldwide-known cook. It makes no sense.

Why is it any more OK to require the world's leading martial artist to be an adventurer?

IMO the solution to this problem is simply that (at least non-combatant) NPCs level up differently than PCs.

 

[Guest 85555]

I think we could get great symmetry from having a door with 5 hp being possible to break down or lock pick within the same frame of mechanics. Rolling damage/effect is also really fun. Employing gear is important because it brings to the table interesting detail and gear can readily serve as macguffins.

I just dont personally think combat mechanics play well with skills (whether they be social or physical). I dont want to roll damage to sneak by the guard, jump over the fence or detect a pit. To me this forces a mechanical sub system that wont work well across most skills and it adds a leve of complexity most skills simply dont need.

 

[El Mahdi]

If ability scores are used for skill resolution, it means they represent your "basic training" and not just intrinsic talent.

I disagree. They are still your natural potential and not part of training. However, they can increase (or decrease) just as they do in real life. But they are increases and decreases to general abilities, not specialized and specific skills.

Bonuses for skills are bonuses from "training".

 

[KesselZero]

I think we could get great symmetry from having a door with 5 hp being possible to break down or lock pick within the same frame of mechanics. Rolling damage/effect is also really fun. Employing gear is important because it brings to the table interesting detail and gear can readily serve as macguffins.

I'm intrigued by this idea, mainly because I like the idea of a spectrum of success and failure rather than a binary you succeed/you fail, which constantly drives me crazy.

What this makes me think of is a system in which certain tasks have a point value that has to be hit before the effect is complete. For example, a door may have 10 "breakdown points," and succeeding on a Strength check would let you roll your "break stuff" skill die. So we'd replace "Everyone makes a Strength check until someone hits the break DC of the door" with "Everyone who hits a certain DC weakens the door a bit until it breaks." This would let non-specialized characters participate more and could also be a way to differentiate levels of training-- untrained characters get a d4 for effect, trained characters get a +1 to the skill check and a d6 for effect, journeymen get a +2 and a d12 for effect, masters get a +3 and 2d6 (or something like that).

Overall, this would increase swinginess, but maybe that's a good thing as it would remove the entitlement issue of high-mod skill-monkeys walking all over every skill check. It could even replace skill challenges, as many skill checks (Diplomacy, e.g.) would take multiple rolls to earn the points needed to get the job done (the duke has 20 "convincing points" that get worn down as he's turned to your side of the argument). This would eliminate another pet peeve of mine, the super-high Diplomacy/Intimidate check that the players expect will just immediately sway the NPC's mind.

EDIT: In some situations, perhaps you could have a failed skill roll add a (smaller) effect die back to the difficulty of the task. So a failed Diplomacy check would add d4 back to the duke's "convincing points," making the task more difficult to finish out. And perhaps if the duke hit 30 points (having started at 20) he's so peeved that he shuts down negotiations and you've failed the complex skill check. Note that the points added on a failure would always be a smaller die than those removed on a success, to incentivize trying new things and not punish the untrained. Note also this wouldn't apply to everything; failing to break open a door won't really make it harder to break open, it'll just make you look silly in front of your friends.

However, I'm not convinced this implementation would work as intended in all situations-- if a door has 10 hp, why bother rolling a skill check when you could just attack it? But I guess that's always been true about doors.

Oh, and for those to whom this sounds like too much rolling, I hear that, and let us all repeat together as one: IT WOULD BE AN OPTIONAL MODULE!

 

[fuindordm]

I disagree. They are still your natural potential and not part of training. However, they can increase (or decrease) just as they do in real life. But they are increases and decreases to general abilities, not specialized and specific skills.

Bonuses for skills are bonuses from "training".

I knew I wrote that post way too quickly. I did mean it contains both (whence the 'just'), but I didn't mean that specialized trainning is unnecessary.

But using your talent effectively in a variety of situations is also a form of training. A 15 strength might represent someone of average build who has played lots of sports, does manual labor, and generally uses their body in a lot of different situations--so they've learned a lot of body skills useful for meeting a variety of physical challenges. On the other hand, a 15 strength might represent someone very large without this acquired knowledge, or a bodybuilder who cares about the appearance of big muscles but doesn't do any other sports. Any of those people could spend a summer rock-climbing to gain training in the Climb skill, and the ability to attempt challenges that require more specialized knowledge.

So I was just suggesting that if we recognize that the ability scores represent both talent and this sort of broad-based skill in using that talent, then increasing ability scores through training (e.g. skill ranks) makes more sense as a game mechanic.

Contrast this with the 1/2E ideal that ability scores were ONLY talent, and improved only rarely through powerful magic.

I think a game that allowed players to make the choice between increasing ability scores and increasing specialized skills, at some suitable rate of exchange, could be interesting.

 

[Andor]

Why is it any more OK to require the world's leading martial artist to be an adventurer?

IMO the solution to this problem is simply that (at least non-combatant) NPCs level up differently than PCs.

Given that class levels are primarily a way to measure combat ability, how else would you make the worlds leading martial artist besides class levels?

Unless you mean he might be a 20th level monk but have never left the Monestary or thrown a blow in anger, to which I reply: Sure. Who said you couldn't? I mean really, do apprentice bakers have to grind rats in the pantry to level up to journeyman? No.

You know, several good points have been raised here. I think the one that bugs me the most (and to which good answers have been suggested) is that the skill system WotC is discussing seems to draw no line between skills which can be reasonably attempted by an amateur, and those which simply cannot be done without the appropriate knowledge base.

Most in-combat skills for example are something that, while training helps, are not impossible to accomplish without it. Tumble, sneak, spot, disarm trap: These are are skills which could be successfully performed untrained with talent or luck.

No amount of natural talent however will let you correctly guess how to speak Ancient High Illithid however, or design a nuclear power plant.

If they are using a 3 tier system with bonuses of +3/5/8 (which I can only pray will be Apprentice, Journeyman, Master and not something genre inappropriate) I think it should actually be a 5 tier system with two different +0 tiers.

• Ignorant: Ignorance of a skill means you cannot make the attempt (or take a -10 or worse penalty) The only word of Orc you know is a mortal insult that you think means please. At blacksmithy you might successfully hit your thumb with a hammer.
  
• Familiar: Being familiar with a skill means that while you have no special training in it, but it is part of your background and you can make your check without a penalty. For a language you might know a dozen words or speak pidgin. As a blacksmith you could assist with the bellows or maybe straighten a nail or sharpen a blade.
  
• Apprentice: You have a solid basic training in the task, +3 to attempts. You can speak with an accent and occasional errors. You can forge acceptable kinves and horseshoes.
  
• Journeyman: You are on the way to profesional level in the skill, +5 to attempts. You can speak flawlessly and with little accent. You made your own blacksmithing tools.
  
• Master: You are an acknowledged master of your craft, + 8 to checks. Your speech can impress diplomats. You can create mastercraft weapons.

The fun part is that then you can jigger around the 0 state of a skill to express cultural or character background.

For example maybe the Nomads of the Goditzhot desert have never seem a body of water bigger than a bucket but do have trade with the mysterious Djinn. So for someone with the Goditzhot background Swimming defaults to Ignorant rather than Familiar but they get to be Familiar with the Djinn Language in exchange.

It can work for classes too, so probably all fighters should be at least familiar with blacksmithy so they can do their own basic maintenence.