D&D 5E Skill idea 3,142

[sheadunne]

1 hour = 60 minutes = 6 turns = 60, 360, or 600 rounds

Haha
In D&D 1 turn = 6 seconds
But 6 seconds doesn't equal 1 turn

 

[Frostmarrow]

Haha
In D&D 1 turn = 6 seconds
But 6 seconds doesn't equal 1 turn

In D&D 1 turn is 10 minutes. 1 round is 1 minute.

Nowadays 1 round is 6 seconds but that is a newfangled change from the late 90s.

 

[Sadrik]

Why not say that you can you use your ability score or your skill, whichever is higher, and limit skill progression to 5 ranks.

Strength or Climb
Dexterity or Stealth
Intelligence or Knowledge

I think this is a neat way of doing it. Though I placed a poll up several months ago and overwhelmingly people wanted stat + skill not stat or skill.

 

[Sadrik]

Hey! Skills as mundane Spells - I like it!

A rogue at 2nd level can open locks as if casting a Knock.

A 9th level fighter can summon 12 2nd level warriors as if casting Summon Monster IV.

-That'd be cool.

Discuss here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?337195-Skills-as-mundane-Spells&p=6138288#post6138288

Feel free to add your skill ideas in this thread we have a long way to getting 3,142 of them in this thread.

That said I don't like the limited nature of spells being doubled over to attribute a smart rogue picking a lock or a charismatic warrior attracting/hiring a retinue of followers. Much to abstract for me. I want the rogue to use the lock pick whenever, and I want the warrior to be attract/hire whenever. Granted both of these examples are different, one is a purely mechanical resolution, presented with lock... roll skill to adjudicate. The other is more involved, need to be where there are warriors available to hire/attract then perhaps a charisma check and then perhaps payment or favors resolved through roleplay.

 

[sheadunne]

In D&D 1 turn is 10 minutes. 1 round is 1 minute.

Nowadays 1 round is 6 seconds but that is a newfangled change from the late 90s.

Agreed! I was trying to be hip and "with-it".

 

[GX.Sigma]

Haha
In D&D 1 turn = 6 seconds
But 6 seconds doesn't equal 1 turn

So from the beginning of D&D, there was this concept of a turn, which was 10 minutes. You could move a certain amount within 1 turn, there were certain actions that would take a whole turn, and you had wandering monster checks every once in a while (1 in 10 every turn, 1 in 6 every three turns, etc. depending on edition and module). The DM would keep track of in-game time. But 3rd Edition changed this. And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost.

Edit: Nevermind, lol.

My point is, leaving time undefined does cause problems for spells, but it also causes problems for basically everything else (after all, if time is meaningless, why not listen at every door and search every wall, and make the game session take forever?). If you solve the root problem, a lot of those symptoms go away.

 

[sheadunne]

So from the beginning of D&D, there was this concept of a turn, which was 10 minutes. You could move a certain amount within 1 turn, there were certain actions that would take a whole turn, and you had wandering monster checks every once in a while (1 in 10 every turn, 1 in 6 every three turns, etc. depending on edition and module). The DM would keep track of in-game time. But 3rd Edition changed this. And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost.

Edit: Nevermind, lol.

My point is, leaving time undefined does cause problems for spells, but it also causes problems for basically everything else (after all, if time is meaningless, why not listen at every door and search every wall, and make the game session take forever?). If you solve the root problem, a lot of those symptoms go away.

Agreed. D&D Next has not solved those problems, although it looks like they're trying to "block" time into digestible chunks, which doesn't really solve the problem but oh well.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

Why not say that you can you use your ability score or your skill, whichever is higher, and limit skill progression to 5 ranks.

Interesting idea

Strength or Climb
Dexterity or Stealth
Intelligence or Knowledge

So under this proposed system, would you apply your Str Modifier to your climb check or would it just be pure climb? Stated another way - Is the point a pure +1 to your normal Str check.

If you want a short list of skills, give less skill points. If you want more skills, give more skill points. Give out skill points every 3 levels and limit them to 1 rank per a skill.

Using 3.5 rules, how do you handle multi-class characters.

I'm prepping a 3.5 Dark Sun game and I've been struggling with the skill system. I really like the trained / untrained system that was implemented in 4th and I'm hoping to add that level of simplicity to my upcoming 3.5 game.

 

[variant]

Could make skills a list of alternative focused ability scores with their own modifiers with the same maximum 20 as regular ability scores. Each skill would start at a low base score such as 8 with a -1 check penalty. Your ability scores would modify the skill base number instead of add onto your roll. So a 14 Strength would increase untrained climb from 8 to 10. You can then increase skills with skill points. With this you could keep the DCs the same, but simply put less emphasis on the ability scores for the checks themselves. The maximum bonus you would end up having would be the same +5 as if you had a 20 in your ability score.

 

[sheadunne]

Interesting idea

So under this proposed system, would you apply your Str Modifier to your climb check or would it just be pure climb? Stated another way - Is the point a pure +1 to your normal Str check.

Using 3.5 rules, how do you handle multi-class characters.

I'm prepping a 3.5 Dark Sun game and I've been struggling with the skill system. I really like the trained / untrained system that was implemented in 4th and I'm hoping to add that level of simplicity to my upcoming 3.5 game.

Under the either/or system, it would be Str 18 (+4) or Climb 5 ranks (+5). Don't add them together. It bugs a lot of people to not add your stat to your skill roll, but it does balance the two.

Use the Pathfinder system which is a bit easier of a system than the 3.5 model. You don't have to use their skill list but the ranking system is easier and gets rid of class skills.