D&D 5E Skills in 5e

[Ratskinner]

I hope not. Nothing bogs down the tension of a good chase scene more than having to deal with fiddly bits with multiple vectors like individual speed, speed relative to opposition, spatial orientation relative to one another, and mechanical resolution affecting the prior three incrementally. Argh. Easy, functional resolution with minimal handling time and mental overhead, fail forwards and success with complications interpretations and sensible, genre-logic narrative rendering all the way.

Hunh? I must not have been clear since you're reacting to the exact opposite of what I was suggesting.

So. A chase would start. Pursuer and Prey both have speed or movement skills/modifiers. (With the suggested "damage" system, the intitial conditions probably represent starting separation--::shrug: Run it kinda like a skill challenge from there. Pursuer wins and he closes, Prey wins and he puts some distance on. etc. For non-chases, movement checks would be used to zip around the battlefield.

I would personally love it if D&D adopted "Easy, functional resolution with minimal handling time and mental overhead, fail forwards and success with complications interpretations and sensible, genre-logic narrative rendering all the way." for everything, ever. But then it would be MHRP or FATE or something like that, and half the people playing would say "its not D&D". 'course, part of me thinks they'd be right.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't think "feeling like they are touching something real" is a touchstone in this conversation, because I haven't seen anyone say that they don't want parts (if not all) of the game to feel like they are touching something real.

At 20th level, the wizard has +10 to hit, and with a +2 dagger does 3 to 6 points on a hit. In AD&D, 3E or 4e that is a virtually guaranteed hit and kill against any commoner. In the meantime, the wizard has (in AD&D) probably around 40 to 50 hp, and in 3E or 4e around 90 to 100. It's a commoner blood bath. I personally find it hard to imagine someone capable of exerting that much physical prowess in combat, but unable to do a running jump over a 10' chasm.

What do you mean, from the beginning? There is nothing in B/X or 1st ed AD&D to suggest that high level fighters aren't able to jump over 10' chasms. Nor that they are able to. This was left to individual groups to adjudicate.

2nd ed AD&D has hints at gonzo/gritty (via the NWP system), but it is really 3E that codifies it. And 4e departed from it.

Again 3-6 damage isnt what I would call gonzo. But either way, I dont see why there needs to be an expectation of all his skills going up, just because he can inflict 3-6 damage on a commoner by 20th level.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This, to me, is fairly obvious. Attacking is a skill. Dodging a dragon's fiery breath takes skill. But in many D&D systems, these aren't treated as skills - they're treated as a THAC0, or attack bonus, or saving throw, or reflex defense.

Make them skills. Solve the problem.

It isn't obvious at all though. Sure, we all know that the mechanics ARE such that these things end up scaling differently. What Pemerton wants to know is WHY do they? In the most basic sense, taking a step back from specific implementation, in a vernacular sense we would talk about someone's SKILL with a sword, and their SKILL at picking locks. They are the same sort of thing, capabilities that one practices and hones by study and practice. There is no NARRATIVE reason why all PCs, even wizards and such, get better with swords but not with other 'skills'.

Obviously one mechanical approach is to make "everything a skill", but if you think about it 4e has already effectively done that. If you attack with "Reaping Strike" and a Fullblade you are in effect using a skill, based on STR. It uses SLIGHTLY different rules than skills, proficiency bonus instead of +5 for being "trained" (IE having proficiency) and there are more carefully spelled out conditions for its use and modifiers, etc, but there's no essential difference between the two, and in 4e indeed there isn't too drastic a difference in their bonus progression either (though it could be closer). Personally I think 4e is close enough. I don't see a need for every 'skill' to be 100% exactly the same, but its nice that they are similar. It would be even nicer if they were so close that you could use a skill as an attack, but unfortunately in 4e feats and such cause some variation.

 

[Manbearcat]

@Ratskinner Gotcha. I was responding to "For the sake of chases, would movement need to be wrapped into this system as well?" I inferred from that (obviously incorrectly) that you were questioning whether tracking movement (and all the comes with it) would/should be involved in the system that Frostmarrow put forth.

I agree, uniformity would render that MHRP or FATE...and that wouldn't be D&D. I think the threshold for "highly functional, additive fiddliness" (not ponderous, incoherent, distracting fiddliness) that I use (biographical fact about me...this says nothing objective) would be:

Genre: Focus
- D&D: Combat
- Star Wars: Starship combat
- Investigative games: Clue or lead finding/following
- Cyberpunk/non SW sci-fi: Hacking/maybe ranged combat
- Aftermath: Attrition
- Horror: Sanity
- Pure Story Now: None

I prefer systems like MHRP and FATE (which fall under the pure Story Now). But, my tolerance level (and possibly my corresponding expectation level) for mechanical depth follows that schematic above. Everything outside of those foci, I want "easy, functional resolution with minimal handling time and mental overhead, fail forwards and success with complications interpretations and sensible, genre-logic narrative rendering all the way." Some may see that as incoherent (you've had questions about that before), but personally, given that I considering each of the above to be the primary relevant focus for game resolution for each genre, I consider it coherent.

 

[Bedrockgames]

yeah...but 2e didn't use the same for thieving skills. I'm pretty sure sneaking shouldn't be exclusive to thieves anymore, so it'd be nice if they all went the same.

Thief skills were class abillities and perentile rolls. The abillities were purchased as you went up in leven in 2E. The thief could customize and other characters had minimal access to thief skills. I dont think people want to go back to that, but I do think thieves need a greater edge on thir class skills again.

If we're going "roll under" again, I'd prefer that you just had your ability number + mod as the target for a normal check. harder checks are at target - 5 (maybe super hard at -10) and easy at target +5. I will say though, as a former Alternity GM, roll-under systems take some getting used to.

I was not suggesting going back to roll under. I subtract your ability score from 20 to arrive at the DC for anything you are skilled in.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

My first point is that 5e should handle both playstyles, period. It is not a question of one or the other or they pick one for us and then we are stuck accepting or not accepting it. Both play styles need to be accepted and both need to be supported. With such an easy fix it really seems like a non-issue. Simply add +1/2 level to DCs and add +1/2 level to ability checks.

Its certainly fair. Of course I want to crush all opposition and take no prisoners!

The notion that you espouse in your post, is why have a gritty skill system and super-heroic combat. This is how D&D is mixed, this is the natural state of D&D from the beginning. Commoners and merchants and the game world are not super-heroic, they have skills, many are quite good at them. They are effectively penalized by virtue of not being 20th level characters in their skill use?

Eh, if a regular old guy in the town is the Mayor and he's been super successful and convinces people to go with him left and right, etc, then sure, maybe he has a +25 Diplomacy bonus. Rules serve play, not the other way around. I don't have to slavishly go by a formula and justify with what feats and level and etc the guy is how he got a +25. He may well be a minion combat-wise. He's not an adventurer is the point, the character building rules are for building PC adventurers. They can be a guideline for NPCs, but they aren't intended to cover every possible character that could ever exist. Norm the Glad Handed is just a super ridiculously diplomatic guy who can charm the pants off an Efreet lord.

Last point, I am in no way saying that skills cannot have super-heroic qualities, to get those super-heroic qualities though, I think you should take a feat or have a class feature. The baseline of the skill system should be mundane though. Spruce the tree up with add-ons. Don't make it level based, add on the option to add +1/2 level for those who want it, tack on feats and features that allow you to use skills in new and interesting ways. High level ones could be quite powerful and even border on magical, diplomacy might give the effects of charm person, sneak might give the effects of invisibility. There is a lot of latitude there, I personally do not want to see the game assume more than mundane skill use at the basic level.

I guess it depends on what you consider 'super heroic'. For a level 30 PC it seems to me that most things are actually fairly mundane. At the brink of godhood your character is pretty far beyond the concerns of ordinary folks. They can swim a mile, climb a mountain, sail across an ocean, etc without really needing to make a check of any kind. If they run into things like low level guards, locks, or bars they are barely slowed down. A feat might be needed by a low level PC to do that sort of thing, it would be pretty fantastic, but for Questioner of All Things, the greatest archmage in an age of the world a pathetic deadbolt lock isn't even noticeable. He'll need a feat to be able to unleash raw magic and rend a hole in the fabric of reality to swallow up his ultimate enemy, but that's pretty deep stuff, even for a near-demigod. I'm not sure how to handle all of that mechanically, but I'd guess 4e already is basically on track there, with feats that allow big bonuses to do certain things.

 

[pemerton]

2e didn't use the same for thieving skills. I'm pretty sure sneaking shouldn't be exclusive to thieves anymore, so it'd be nice if they all went the same.

Thief skills were class abillities and perentile rolls. The abillities were purchased as you went up in leven in 2E. The thief could customize and other characters had minimal access to thief skills. I dont think people want to go back to that, but I do think thieves need a greater edge on thir class skills again.

A modest tangent on this. Back when I used to GM AD&D, I had players who preferred thief-acrobats to ordinary thieves as PCs, because they weren't that into the whole dungeoneering element (locks, traps etc) and liked the acrobatic element (jumping from rooftop to rooftop, tightrope walking etc).

In 2nd ed AD&D, though, the acrobatic stuff all got rolled into the NWP system. But the locks and traps stuff didn't. What was the logic in that, other than mucking things up for thief-acrobat players?

 

[Bedrockgames]

A modest tangent on this. Back when I used to GM AD&D, I had players who preferred thief-acrobats to ordinary thieves as PCs, because they weren't that into the whole dungeoneering element (locks, traps etc) and liked the acrobatic element (jumping from rooftop to rooftop, tightrope walking etc).

In 2nd ed AD&D, though, the acrobatic stuff all got rolled into the NWP system. But the locks and traps stuff didn't. What was the logic in that, other than mucking things up for thief-acrobat players?

I think the thought probably was that the acrobat wasn't a strong enough concept to stand as a class on its own (I think they tried to set the scales differently in 2E for what qualified as a class). Not sure I agree with that or not. But I don't think it would have hurt things to just pull those into the thief skills and let the player make the choice to purchase them or not.

 

[pemerton]

Commoners and merchants and the game world are not super-heroic, they have skills, many are quite good at them.

Just to add to what [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] said: D&D (perhaps with 3E as an exception) has never required NPCs to meet PC class requirements in order to have good abilities. For instance, in the 1st ed DMG there are NPC spies who are as good at that as assassins; there are NPC soldiers who can fight as mid-level fighters but who don't need to meet the fighter stat requirements and who are incapable of gaining levels; and there are rules for NPC stats and stat requirements that exempt (say) NPC rangers or druids or monks from the requirements set out for PCs in the PHB.

My point was not to say that you have to be a high level PC in order to be able to pick a challenging lock. It was the opposite - that I don't understand the aesthetic, nor the fictional logic, of high level PCs who are unable to deal easily with simple locks.

 

[pemerton]

Again 3-6 damage isnt what I would call gonzo. But either way, I dont see why there needs to be an expectation of all his skills going up, just because he can inflict 3-6 damage on a commoner by 20th level.

It's not the damage on its own, it's the inability to miss, and the inability to come within cooee of losing that fight, that I'm pointing to.

Another way to look at it is this: a 20th level wizard can kill a commoner in a single blow, but has almost no chance of killing a simulacrum of him-/herself in melee combat. Why not? And whatever the explanation for this state of affairs is, why does it not also explain why the wizard can jump 10' chasms and avoid drowning in stormy waters?