OnlineDM
Adventurer
After some good discussions on these forums and elsewhere, I decided to put my thoughts about skills in 4th Edition into a pair of blog posts.
The first post has my thoughts about passive skill use and rewarding skill training. I'll use almost any skill in a "passive" manner to hand out bonus information or small advantages to PCs. However, rather than setting a DC and then comparing the PC's passive skill value to the DC, I hand out the information to any PC who's trained in the relevant skill.
The second post has my thoughts about player skill versus character skill. I tend to be more "new school" in focusing on the character's skill rather than the player's skill (the classic example being a tongue-tied player who's running a high-Diplomacy character - I let the character's skill win out). I do hand out bonuses to players who do an excellent job on the player skill side of things, but I don't penalize players who don't do a good job on the player skill side of things. I also don't let the skilled players abuse this (so you can't dump Charisma and count on your own sweet talking to let you always excel at social situations).
So, that's my approach. I'm sure the conversation will continue!
The first post has my thoughts about passive skill use and rewarding skill training. I'll use almost any skill in a "passive" manner to hand out bonus information or small advantages to PCs. However, rather than setting a DC and then comparing the PC's passive skill value to the DC, I hand out the information to any PC who's trained in the relevant skill.
The second post has my thoughts about player skill versus character skill. I tend to be more "new school" in focusing on the character's skill rather than the player's skill (the classic example being a tongue-tied player who's running a high-Diplomacy character - I let the character's skill win out). I do hand out bonuses to players who do an excellent job on the player skill side of things, but I don't penalize players who don't do a good job on the player skill side of things. I also don't let the skilled players abuse this (so you can't dump Charisma and count on your own sweet talking to let you always excel at social situations).
So, that's my approach. I'm sure the conversation will continue!
