D&D 5E Skills as mundane Spells

[Frostmarrow]

From here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?337187-Skill-idea-3-142

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.

***

How about there are no skills in D&D but that some classes might emulate spells in a non-magical way?

Just by changing one variable of a spell it becomes a skill. Let's say an 11th level ranger can Teleport - with a casting time of 1 week.

Knock requires lock picks as a material component and the Summon Monster schtick requires a castle.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm in, in principal.

Skills = Feats = Spells, and it works well enough for me.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

From here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?337187-Skill-idea-3-142

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.

Where are those fighters coming from? How do they just appear like that? Can't the fighter go and recruit them using RP and skills instead? If the fighter doesn't have a lot of Charisma, why are these guys even listening to him? (Plus, 2nd-level warriors aren't much use to a 9th-level fighter.) This ability existed back in the oldest editions of D&D without a magic "crutch". I don't see any need to add magic to a class that doesn't need it.

I don't think these are good ideas, they break the suspension of disbelief.

 

[1of3]

I don't think these are good ideas, they break the suspension of disbelief.

They require a different approach to the narrative. D&D usually assumes that everything known to the characters is known to the players (not necessarily the other way round). Abilities like these would assume that the character had acted off-stage - for example in recruiting those warriors. That is indeed different from RPing it. The player pronounces what happened while no one was looking.

Of course, such an approach is a severe departure from the way D&D is usually played.

 

[Li Shenron]

Not interested, for the reasons explained by [MENTION=1165](Psi)SeveredHead[/MENTION] and [MENTION=48555]1of3[/MENTION], this idea would certainly lead me to hate the game.

 

[steenan]

I really like the idea of equating skills' and spells' usefulness. This would make high-level D&D playable for me.

It also made me realize that the biggest problem is not that magic can do things that are impossible without it. It is that players got used to magic that re-frames situations and circumvents obstacles, while non-magical means doing the same are hard for them to accept.

There's a lot of things that can be achieved without magic, but there will be many obstacles on the way. A typical GM will require many rolls, severely decreasing the overall chance of success or introducing additional complications. Casting a spell achieves the same effect automatically.

If the system just judged the difficulty of the final effect, no matter how it is achieved, the power difference between spells and skills would be much smaller. There will still be limitations of non-magical methods, but magic also has its limitations, just different ones.




Example 1:
A teleportation spell can take you to the other side of a sea or a mountain pass instantly, with one roll and a small chance of complications.
A mid-level ranger should be able to guide the party there with a single roll. This roll, if successful, assures that any dangers encountered on the way were overcame or circumvented and that no significant resources were consumed. It's definitely not instant, and takes time dependent on the distance - but, on the other hand, there's no need to know the destination in detail.


Example 2:
You can magically dominate somebody in combat. There is no direct non-magical equivalent.
But you should be able (without spending two whole sessions and a lot of resources) to gather enough information, contact one of BBEG's lieutenants and successfully bribe/persuade/blackmail them into betraying their employer.

 

[Funkmaster Rick]

While it takes a lot of tweaking and immense forethought, this is not necessarily idea at base. As always, you want to be careful about giving your players small, useful things like this.

Overall, though, it has certain implications; wizards aren't quite so powerful or difficult to understand as magic becomes more commonplace.

Even if you're talking about just the flavour, I'm sure you'll find your players might come to view magic as less... magical.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I think this idea is backwards. Instead of taking the most anachronistic, complicated, unbalanced, and idiosyncratic mechanic in D&D (the spells) and trying to make other things more like it, it would be better to take the elegant d20 roll with modifiers and make spells work like skills. No guaranteed success, the results open to interpretation, improvisation is the norm.

Magic-enabled characters simply get skills that regular characters don't. Which is, after all, the point of magic. Taking summoning and teleportation and trying to give those abilities to nonmagical characters is not a desirable goal.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I think this idea is backwards. Instead of taking the most anachronistic, complicated, unbalanced, and idiosyncratic mechanic in D&D (the spells) and trying to make other things more like it, it would be better to take the elegant d20 roll with modifiers and make spells work like skills. No guaranteed success, the results open to interpretation, improvisation is the norm.

Magic-enabled characters simply get skills that regular characters don't. Which is, after all, the point of magic. Taking summoning and teleportation and trying to give those abilities to nonmagical characters is not a desirable goal.

This seems a more workable approach to me. The one proposed by Frostmarrow just wouldn't work for any conception of a D&D game which I'm used to.

The alternative is to ditch classes. Allow anyone to learn magic, because at epic levels everyone has magic through either their native spells or magical items and needs it. Worked well for Runequest 2.

Cheers

 

[keterys]

Where are those fighters coming from? How do they just appear like that?

I imagine it's more like a "spend a day gathering" type thing, in concept.

Can't the fighter go and recruit them using RP and skills instead?

Not at most tables that I've seen. And if he could, the caster will be better at it (better skill access, enchantment spells, etc).

If the fighter doesn't have a lot of Charisma, why are these guys even listening to him?

This is a better question. The answer, in this case, being "Because he took the ability that says I'm good at gathering soldiers who will listen to me". You could put a Charisma requirement on it, but does it need more than that?

Plus, 2nd-level warriors aren't much use to a 9th-level fighter.

Actually, in Next, they're pretty badass. 12 2nd-level guys are likely tons more effective than the 9th level fighter himself - at least, until they die

This ability existed back in the oldest editions of D&D without a magic "crutch". I don't see any need to add magic to a class that doesn't need it.

I don't believe there's any magic involved here, in the idea. It's rather a codification that non-magical abilities that cost the same amount of resources have the same amount of benefit, by at least some metric.

That is to say, perhaps magic is faster and shorter duration, but non-magic can get in the same ballpark.

I think it needs refinement, but it doesn't mean it's impossible.