D&D 5E Skills in 5e

[Li Shenron]

It's a little over the top and doesn't appeal to some types of gamers. Nor do I think that 5e should use any such thing. It was part of my project to get rid of "feats" and integrate them into various other components of the game, like ability scores, skills, class abilities, etc.

I love feats, but if you want to get rid of them, 5e will be a perfect edition since you can ignore them completely or you can make all of them available to anyone meeting the prerequisites or do something else with good chances of not screwing up the balance between classes.

 

[Sadrik]

Honestly, I think the scaling in DDN will be MORE complex than the scaling in 4e was. Instead of just knowing that a bonus is DEX + .5 level + skill, you now have a variable stat bonus, some sort of skill bonus based on needing to stack various feats etc to keep improving (since you WILL want some way to be better than EVERYONE else at high enough level). You're actually putting more of it on adding up various feats, and forcing the players to add in STAT bonus at play time instead of ahead of time, even though 99% of the time the same stat will apply to any given skill.

Both systems will likely use the same math, however the DCs will be significantly simplified due to the removal of the + half level.
The math will be very similar:
4e d20 + skill + stat + race + armor penalty + half level + other bonuses*
5e d20 + skill + stat + other bonuses* (disadvantage in armor)
*feats, magic items, circumstance, etc.

The only time the 4e system COULD hypothetically seem odd is if your wizard for some weird reason at level 20 has to get through some low level lock, and finds it easy to do so. This is a vastly corner case situation.

I think this is a big issue. Tasks have to become harder for high level characters (we all agree). But due to "wacky" math if an untrained wizard can, even at high level, defeat a common lock, something is amiss. We dont need level 20 locks to challenge the rogue, we need a quality lock that will challenge everyone, and might give the level 20 rogue reason to roll rather than just take a 10.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Both systems will likely use the same math, however the DCs will be significantly simplified due to the removal of the + half level.
The math will be very similar:
4e d20 + skill + stat + race + armor penalty + half level + other bonuses*
5e d20 + skill + stat + other bonuses* (disadvantage in armor)
*feats, magic items, circumstance, etc.

ALL the math in 4e is done before play. I know exactly what my characters total skill bonus is for every skill all of the time and it doesn't change, aside from some situational modifier or something, but those will always potentially exist.

In DDN this is not true. When a skill check is called for the DM must first determine which skill is being used, and which ability score is relevant, then sum those factors. The player will never be sure enough of what the bonus is to be able to just snap off checks, it requires stopping, negotiating, and then rolling. The math itself is trivial, the fact that it involves 'run time' decision making that is unrelated to the narrative is both disruptive to some people's play and slows things down.

I think this is a big issue. Tasks have to become harder for high level characters (we all agree). But due to "wacky" math if an untrained wizard can, even at high level, defeat a common lock, something is amiss. We dont need level 20 locks to challenge the rogue, we need a quality lock that will challenge everyone, and might give the level 20 rogue reason to roll rather than just take a 10.

I don't understand your reasoning at all. In 4e a level 1 lock is simply not intended to be a challenge to a level 20 PC of ANY class. It will never appear in-game in the context of being such a challenge. Thus there is no issue at all. Tasks become harder for high level PCs because the things they face are literally more difficult. The 20th level wizard will NEVER ENCOUNTER a level 1 lock as a challenge. The only sort of scenario where it would even show up would be some character doing some non-adventuring sort of task around town or something like that and encountering a lock. Now, think about this, why is the DM putting a lock there? If he wants to avoid a problem, then simply don't put a level 1 lock there. If you MUST put a lock there and want it to be impossible to pick then simply state "this lock is level 20" or "this lock requires training to pick" etc. Alternately if the wizard decides to pick the level 1 lock you still illogically decided to challenge them with, AND you refuse to use the above solutions OK the wizard 'picks' it, which can easily be passed off as "you make a quick prayer to Ioun and the lock is magically deactivated" etc. This is NOT something that happens again and again in a campaign. In fact in 5 years of running 4e it has never happened to me yet even one time.

The thing is such a trivial corner case objection seems like a terrible reason to condemn a skill system that in every other respect kicks the ass of what we're debating instead. Really, was it worth it? IMHO no, not at all.

 

[Li Shenron]

In 4e a level 1 lock is simply not intended to be a challenge to a level 20 PC of ANY class. It will never appear in-game in the context of being such a challenge. Thus there is no issue at all. Tasks become harder for high level PCs because the things they face are literally more difficult. The 20th level wizard will NEVER ENCOUNTER a level 1 lock as a challenge.

I want to point out that this means the 4e skill system is strongly designed for a specific gamestyle (or at least, a specific style of using skills and related challenges in your game).

If you want that gamestyle the system is perfect. If you don't want that gamestyle the system is a failure.

I don't think it's easy to create rules that are so flexible to allow many gamestyles of course, but I'm just saying here that it's a moot point to argue about how great a (sub)system is when other people are looking for a completely different style of handling this part of the game.

In this case, I want a level 1 lock to be always a challenge to any PC who's never ever bothered learning how to pick locks, no matter if she's a 20 level PC. And if nobody in the party ever bothered, then I want the whole party to be challenged by that 1st level lock (if they try to pick it, obviously if they're level 20 they most likely have alternative ways to deal with the lock!). That's part of my favourite gamestyle regarding to using skills.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I want to point out that this means the 4e skill system is strongly designed for a specific gamestyle (or at least, a specific style of using skills and related challenges in your game).

If you want that gamestyle the system is perfect. If you don't want that gamestyle the system is a failure.

I don't think it's easy to create rules that are so flexible to allow many gamestyles of course, but I'm just saying here that it's a moot point to argue about how great a (sub)system is when other people are looking for a completely different style of handling this part of the game.

In this case, I want a level 1 lock to be always a challenge to any PC who's never ever bothered learning how to pick locks, no matter if she's a 20 level PC. And if nobody in the party ever bothered, then I want the whole party to be challenged by that 1st level lock (if they try to pick it, obviously if they're level 20 they most likely have alternative ways to deal with the lock!). That's part of my favourite gamestyle regarding to using skills.

Definitely agree with this.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I want to point out that this means the 4e skill system is strongly designed for a specific gamestyle (or at least, a specific style of using skills and related challenges in your game).

If you want that gamestyle the system is perfect. If you don't want that gamestyle the system is a failure.

This is a rather pointless and trivial kind of statement on game design really. Obviously every game is what it is. However if you're going to make a successful game it would be best to start with a motivation that is more than just "not like that other game" because that won't get you far. I'd end with 4e's objective with skills was no different from that of any other edition of D&D so far. Challenges always get harder as you level up, that's sort of definitional for D&D...

I don't think it's easy to create rules that are so flexible to allow many gamestyles of course, but I'm just saying here that it's a moot point to argue about how great a (sub)system is when other people are looking for a completely different style of handling this part of the game.

In this case, I want a level 1 lock to be always a challenge to any PC who's never ever bothered learning how to pick locks, no matter if she's a 20 level PC. And if nobody in the party ever bothered, then I want the whole party to be challenged by that 1st level lock (if they try to pick it, obviously if they're level 20 they most likely have alternative ways to deal with the lock!). That's part of my favourite gamestyle regarding to using skills.

Your level 20 characters will never encounter a level 1 lock, there is no reason for them to. It is simply never important. You're fixating on building a system around a corner case that NEVER HAPPENS in real games, which again you can easily fudge in the one time in your entire years long campaign when 'NEVER' turns into "except for the one time the wizard got drunk and ..." lol. Ultimately every system will only work well within some set of assumptions and outside that it will work less well, or maybe not at all. Pick your battles. At least that's my philosophy, make a system that handles the 90% of all cases very well and the 10% you can do something about, vs optimizing for a corner case.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Why would 20th level characters never encounter a level one lock? They inhabit the same world as anyone else.

 

[sheadunne]

Why would 20th level characters never encounter a level one lock? They inhabit the same world as anyone else.

I think the argument is that they would encounter it, but it's such a none issue that it wouldn't be intended to be a challenge. Which is right, but does lend itself to not being immersed in a real world. Any party of 20th level character should have little to no problem with a simple lock. It doesn't present a challenge. Now if a character was all alone in the world and came across that lock, the individual might (and probably should) have some issue with it. My 20th level wizard shouldn't be able to "pick" the lock, but he'll have no issue getting around it. The 4e ruleset basically says since it tends to be a none issue, we're not going to include it in our design system. And I think that's a perfectly reasonable assumption for pretty much any edition. But it does rub me the wrong way whenever I think about it and look at it too closely. There are plenty of those types of things that exist in all editions so I don't let it bother me too much when it comes to 4e. It's lower on my food chain of issues

I'd rather it not be the case in 5e, but I'm not going to call shenanigans if it does.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The lock in particular seems likely to come up for me as my characters are frequently out in different directions investigating things. So stuff like that tends to come up in my games at least.

 

[Sadrik]

In 4e a level 1 lock is simply not intended to be a challenge to a level 20 PC of ANY class. It will never appear in-game in the context of being such a challenge. Thus there is no issue at all. Tasks become harder for high level PCs because the things they face are literally more difficult. The 20th level wizard will NEVER ENCOUNTER a level 1 lock as a challenge.
I want to point out that this means the 4e skill system is strongly designed for a specific gamestyle (or at least, a specific style of using skills and related challenges in your game).

If you want that gamestyle the system is perfect. If you don't want that gamestyle the system is a failure.

I don't think it's easy to create rules that are so flexible to allow many gamestyles of course, but I'm just saying here that it's a moot point to argue about how great a (sub)system is when other people are looking for a completely different style of handling this part of the game.

In this case, I want a level 1 lock to be always a challenge to any PC who's never ever bothered learning how to pick locks, no matter if she's a 20 level PC. And if nobody in the party ever bothered, then I want the whole party to be challenged by that 1st level lock (if they try to pick it, obviously if they're level 20 they most likely have alternative ways to deal with the lock!). That's part of my favourite gamestyle regarding to using skills.

This is the exact sentiment I was going to point out. It really goes to the heart of adventure design. If you lean more toward sandbox style games having DCs have an integral and more realistic value, quality lock means quality lock, not some abstract meaning of character level 20 lock (or worse good lock plus some wacky modifier to make it harder based on the character's level).

So in the standard railroad game model you can tailor all DCs to be an appropriate challenge for PCs but in an internally consistent sandbox design it is better to say a good lock is a good lock, then how characters interface with it is based on the intrinsic value. Not the other way around. To me it strikes me as funny to look at it the other way... so characters will have x bonuses over x levels so to make it a challenge we have to add what amounts to a level penalty to bring the DCs in line and make them still a challenge. Finding hard secret doors and traps based on level and not on quality of said devices (yuk).

Really it is a matter of scaling. I think challenges should become easier as characters level up. I also think things like searching and lock DCs should be looked at as what they are rather than as a way to fit in with a scaling system that makes character level so important.

Last point, if the scaling is extremely important to a certain segment of D&D gamers, and it sounds like it is a feature for some. It is very easy to add back in. Abdulalhazarad, you can simply add +1/2 level to all characters and +1/2 level to all DCs. An extremely simple fix, but it will give you the same feel you are looking for.