D&D 4E Skill tweaks (or how to deepen the 4e skill system just a touch)

[Graethynne]

Hello and thanks for looking at my thoughts. I am a big 4e fan, but one item that I was a little disappointed in was the lack of "something special" available to a character trained in a skill as opposed to one who wasn't. The exceptions in the PHB are Arcana and Acrobatics. So I took my inspiration from there and ran with it. Hence this thread. First a couple of quick points –

1) this is not an effort to “fix” skills. I don’t think they are fundamentally “too weak” or something along those lines. Nor am I trying to make the skill training feasts “as good as” the various multi-classing feats. I will let someone else fight that battle if it is necessary. I simply want to make training in a skill more interesting and differentiate between a character who trains in a skill and a character who doesn’t but has an ability mod 5 points higher (mostly identical in the rules as written).

2) I have a working understanding of 4e math. Meaning, I know that the +5 bonus from training in a skill is relevant all the way through level 30.

3) This is only the first beta version (alpha was purely in my head). Feel free to point out problems, that is why I am posting this, but lets just assume if I did something really stupid, the really stupid part will be obvious simply by your kind and gentle comment.

4) Suggestions are welcome. For example, I had a little trouble coming up with a “special effect” for training in insight.

5) Please feel free to use these ideas in your game and let me know how they turn out.

6) If you don’t like the idea of complicating the skill system at all, that’s fine, but probably not too useful in evaluating this set of tweaks.

7) Appraise – there are two (intended to be mutually exclusive) options for appraisal rolls. The one I like better is that in order to appraise something you need to be trained in the most relevant skill (e.g. Nature for valuing horses etc). The trouble is that with the truncated 4e skill list many things (like for example gemstones or fine weapons) don’t appear to have a most relevant skill. Hence the other option – training in perception allows you to appraise. Comments are even more welcome here.

8) Again thanks for looking and for your comments. This is my first EN post ever (though I have been lurking for a while), so be gentle.


Skill tweaks

Varies (Appraisal) In order to appraise anything you must be trained in the most relevant skill
-- Arcana for mystical objects
-- Nature for horseflesh or foodstuffs
-- Religious art objects

Tracking DCs are always +6

Nature +6 to perception (tracking) checks in the wild
Dungeoneering +6 to perception (tracking) checks underground/in caves/tombs/castles/temples etc
Streetwise +6 to perception (tracking) checks in living vibrant urban areas

-----
Monster Knowledge Gain one piece of information from one information category above that actually achieved.

Arcana, Dungeoneering, Nature, Religion
-----
Knowledge Cannot exceed Common Knowledge unless trained

Arcana, Dungeoneering, History, Nature, Religion
-----
Athletics (Climb) move falling threshold from miss by 5 to miss by 10, and roll twice to catch from a fall (use better roll)

Bluff (Diversion) one additional ally may make an immediate stealth check to hide per point of Charisma Mod and/or feint one additional time during an encounter

Diplomacy (Diplomacy) Immediate action - once per encounter cover the faux paus of an ally (Rogue caught stealing, Wizard insults the noble who's aid you need, Warlock gives the wrong answer to a riddle from a sphinx etc)

Endurance (Endurance) Once per encounter when knocked to 0 hp or below, if you have not used your Second Wind, as an immediate action, use your Second Wind. You are at 1 hp/lvl instead of 1/4 max hp.

Heal (First Aid) Use the first aid options as a move action instead of a standard

Insight

Intimidate (Intimidate) Make an immediate diplomacy check against the target of your intimidate check. If the target was not hostile before the intimidate check, it remains non-hostile.

Perception (Appraise) cannot appraise items without being trained in perception.

Stealth (Stealth) if you have cover at the start of combat, gain concealment until you activate.

Thievery (Pick Pockets) move detection from fail by 5 to fail by 10

Acrobatics Dex Ranger, rogue
Arcana Int Cleric, warlock, wizard
Athletics Str Fighter, ranger, rogue, warlord
Bluff Cha Rogue, warlock
Diplomacy Cha Cleric, paladin, warlord, wizard
Dungeoneering Wis Ranger, rogue, wizard
Endurance Con Fighter, paladin, ranger, warlord
Heal Wis Cleric, fighter, paladin, ranger, warlord
History Int Cleric, paladin, warlock, warlord, wizard
Insight Wis Cleric, paladin, rogue, warlock, wizard
Intimidate Cha Fighter, paladin, rogue, warlock, warlord
Nature Wis Ranger, wizard
Perception Wis Ranger, rogue
Religion Int Cleric, paladin, warlock, wizard
Stealth Dex Ranger, rogue
Streetwise Cha Fighter, rogue, warlock
Thievery Dex Rogue, warlock

 

[kiznit]

Looks really good. I think it's important for this kind of rule depth to come from the ground up rather than necessarily from the CORE down, because it keeps play styles open.

Keep up the good work!

 

[Graethynne]

A few more thoughts ...

In reviewing the skills that were lost (as opposed to folded into other skills) in the transition, I noticed a few of my favorites were missing. So here a couple more things to play with in your heads as prepare excellent constructive criticisms.

Decipher Script - fluent in 3+ languages allows a History roll to decipher.
the selection of 3+ allows (I believe) some races to try this out of the
gate. I don't have the PHB in front of me. My goal was that the most
linguistically gifted races would be able to do this automatically.
Everyone else would need to spend a feat.

Forgery -
There are two ways to go with this one. The idea of "crafting" a
forged document like a work of art, or imitation proficiency. The latter
could solve my problem about what to do with Skill Training: Insight
(your deeper understanding of someone's psychology allows you to
better mimic their script). But that has a very 20th century feel and I
think I prefer more of the crafting idea. I am stuck on how to reflect
this though.

Thanks again ...

 

[Graethynne]

(Does anyone know how to make my post appear on the 4e, recent forum topics page? I haven't seen it pop up and I am wondering if I might be getting more comments if it did ;-)

One more idea trickling out of my brain

Insight -
It doesn't state by default that it operates only against creatures similar to the one using insight. I have not read the DMG exhaustively, but I would think that while a human could read another human easily, it might be more difficult to read an eladrin and certainly would be confusing to interpret the twitching tentacles of a Mind Flayer. One solution, would be to roll these checks into the appropriate Knowledges. I think my preferred solution is to simply increase the Insight DCs (say +2 for unrelated PC races and increasing from there) and a character trained in (Religion) for planars or (Nature) for animals and those other PC Races gets a bonus that offsets or eliminates the extra difficulty.

Thanks for *your* Insight

Graydon

 

[JBeatnik]

on forgery, I would make it a combined skill check between Perception (understanding the nuances of a person's handwriting, the format and style of a document) and thievery (for sleight of hand, manual dexterity)

basically, you have a complex skill check which involves a DC to study the original document (a requirement for the forgery) and a DC to create the forged document. Your perception check gives you a +/- to your Thievery check (forgery) but you have to beat the minimum DC of 20. Here is a table I'd probably use:

Perception:
DC 20 (25?) minimum to be able to understand document enough to make a reasonable copy.

+2 circumstance bonus if you have multiple documents.

You may be aided by the following skill checks, each providing a +2 bonus:

History: DC 20 - history check of the type of government, who or what group creates the documents, royal seals, signatures, etc. (this check is only available for historical and governmental documents)

Insight: DC 20 - knowledge of the race/clan/tribe the document comes from (only for racial sub groups), must know language and/or have experienced the culture.

Religion: DC 20 - Religious texts, internal church documents, any sort of general scribing done by church scribes.

Streetwise: DC 20 - documents of guilds (thieves guilds), street documents (commerce/trade), letters of credit, general documents found in the underground economy, etc etc.

As you can see, most documents will only fall under 1 of these skill checks. But it puts the Forgery as a mini-skill encounter, but allows for a second party member to input into the encounter.
--------------

The second part of this check is the actual Thievery check for the manual dexterity required for forging.

For every 5 DC the Forger beats the Perception check by, he gets a +2 to the Thievery check.

Ok, now on the other end, this forgery is subjected to a passive peception check by anyone viewing it. If they have reasonable suspicion, they are able to make an active perception check with a DC equal to the Thievery Check of the documents forger. As you can see, when you really put the time and effort into forging the document, this DC could be 20+ or more.

 

[Graethynne]

re: Forgery Notes

Hey JBeatnik,

Thanks for your thoughts on forgery. Any ideas on how to keep the degree of success hidden from the players? (beyond the classic of rolling for them and then describing the copy to them)

Also, did you have any thoughts re: the other skill tweaks I listed? I am contemplating implementing them, but I was hoping for more feedback before I did so.

Thanks again!

Graydon