Fifth Element
Legend
Well, yes, basket-weaving is a poor example. It can arguably only be done by someone who's been trained in it.
Noticing something does not fall into that category.
[Skills] Solutions to the oblivious rogue problem
- Thread starter Chris_Nightwing
- Start date
Noticing something does not fall into that category.
nightwalker450
First Post
I'm fine with +5 (maybe even +6) for trained with no stat.
If there's an actual contest going on, you can use stats to break ties, or they can be used to determine who was quicker at achieving the task. (For every 5 points you beat the DC by increase your attribute by 1 for determining speed)
--As to Basket Weaving, I'm neither highly dexterous nor had any professional training, but it took me less than a day to weave a functional basket (that's as a 12 year old boy scout). So for the sake of this, Basket Weaving represents generic skill. I'd rather leave out the "you must be trained to do this" skills, since it just results in players having fewer ideas they are able to try.
If there's an actual contest going on, you can use stats to break ties, or they can be used to determine who was quicker at achieving the task. (For every 5 points you beat the DC by increase your attribute by 1 for determining speed)
--As to Basket Weaving, I'm neither highly dexterous nor had any professional training, but it took me less than a day to weave a functional basket (that's as a 12 year old boy scout). So for the sake of this, Basket Weaving represents generic skill. I'd rather leave out the "you must be trained to do this" skills, since it just results in players having fewer ideas they are able to try.
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But is there any point in making that argument? That's the question!
Adventure stories are chock-full of characters who improbably, if not impossibly, succeed at things in which they have no training. This isn't realistic, but it's certainly genre-appropriate (in several of D&D's source genres).
The season finale of The Legend of Korra has a great example of this, where a character learns to fly a fixed-wing aircraft very quickly. As in: while doing it for the first time.
My (current) feeling is: with a good enough roll, why not? I mean, how much verisimilitude will be lost by letting a PC weave a nice basket via beginners luck?
maybe if you're trained you get to roll twice and use the better (much like the advantage mechanic) - thus keeping away from modifiers?
(maybe in addition to the minor modifier that was in the playtest, or not, would have to fiddle with numbers to see how much of a change all that really brings)
And if you want to take it a step further specifically for rogues: "When detecting traps, rogues can use their Intelligence modifier for perception instead of their Wisdom modifier"
though to be honest for this specific issue of rogues having poor perception, i don't really get bothered by it as some other people simply because i see it as a choice made at character creation if you put a higher score in wisdom for your rogue or not if that's what you want to be good at. But I'm willing to accept the premise that it does bother other people.
(maybe in addition to the minor modifier that was in the playtest, or not, would have to fiddle with numbers to see how much of a change all that really brings)
And if you want to take it a step further specifically for rogues: "When detecting traps, rogues can use their Intelligence modifier for perception instead of their Wisdom modifier"
though to be honest for this specific issue of rogues having poor perception, i don't really get bothered by it as some other people simply because i see it as a choice made at character creation if you put a higher score in wisdom for your rogue or not if that's what you want to be good at. But I'm willing to accept the premise that it does bother other people.
I almost posted this in its own thread, but this seems like a more appropriate place at the moment.
Is Perception the oddball skill that shouldn't be based on an ability score? You look at stories, literature, movies, and you see heroes of all sorts that are perceptive in various ways. A gambler rogue may not be wise with his coin, but can spot a cheater from a mile away because he knows what he's looking for. A guardian warrior may not have the priestly wisdom, but could still have naturally keen hearing, such that he can identify the unsheathing of an assassin's dagger in a crowded room. A wizard need not be wise to notice the magical trap the rogue is about to trigger, and shout out a warning to him.
Perhaps wisdom and perception could be divorced. Some systems approach Perception as an ability score of its own, though I'm not too fond of that approach either, as I think a dwarf spelunker, a halfling swindler, and a high elf wizard might be perceptive in different areas relating to their expertise, while an urban human cloistered priest might be the least observant member in his party despite a high wisdom (though he might be the only one to spot an inaccurate spelling of Yeenoghu in a wall writing that points to a double entendre).
Perhaps one approach is removing the skill altogether. A wizard uses Arcana to perceive magical wards, a rogue detects mechanical traps with his Thievery, a fighter perceives threats in a crowd with his Streetwise, a dwarf notices hazards with his dungeoneering, etc. In 3e and 4e, Spot/Listen/Perception have been the most used and most valued skills, because it works on everything, and is used every adventure. Why not just let everyone be good at it, except, they are only good at it when it relates to their area of expertise? This way we can hopefully avoid the situation where the cleric is better at detecting traps, than the rogue, and the ranger is better at detecting magical wards than the wizard.
If someone wants to really go the extra mile in Perception, perhaps "Perceptive" could be a trait/feat/what have you, and whenever the individual is making a check to perceive using a trained skill, he could roll with advantage (whatever the final mechanic for that turns out to be, double rolls, or +2).
I think other than Perception, the 5e approach to skills seems quite good. Let's say I am trained in streetwise. I want to tail a suspect in the crowds without being seen, I make a dexterity check and add my streetwise. This would reflect my ability to keep the target in sight, and use passing wagons and carts to my advantage to not be noticed. I want to use my knowledge of the streets to come up with a shortcut, I make an intelligence check and add my streetwise. I want to gather information about a local vigilante, I make a charisma check and add my streetwise. This allows skills to reflect what a character is truly good at. So my fighter trained in streetwise doesn't need to be trained in "stealth" to tail someone in a city, and doesn't need to be trained in "knowledge local" to know a few short cuts around town. I think being trained should be a +5 rather than a +3, so training has a greater impact than natural talent, but that's just a numbers game.
Is Perception the oddball skill that shouldn't be based on an ability score? You look at stories, literature, movies, and you see heroes of all sorts that are perceptive in various ways. A gambler rogue may not be wise with his coin, but can spot a cheater from a mile away because he knows what he's looking for. A guardian warrior may not have the priestly wisdom, but could still have naturally keen hearing, such that he can identify the unsheathing of an assassin's dagger in a crowded room. A wizard need not be wise to notice the magical trap the rogue is about to trigger, and shout out a warning to him.
Perhaps wisdom and perception could be divorced. Some systems approach Perception as an ability score of its own, though I'm not too fond of that approach either, as I think a dwarf spelunker, a halfling swindler, and a high elf wizard might be perceptive in different areas relating to their expertise, while an urban human cloistered priest might be the least observant member in his party despite a high wisdom (though he might be the only one to spot an inaccurate spelling of Yeenoghu in a wall writing that points to a double entendre).
Perhaps one approach is removing the skill altogether. A wizard uses Arcana to perceive magical wards, a rogue detects mechanical traps with his Thievery, a fighter perceives threats in a crowd with his Streetwise, a dwarf notices hazards with his dungeoneering, etc. In 3e and 4e, Spot/Listen/Perception have been the most used and most valued skills, because it works on everything, and is used every adventure. Why not just let everyone be good at it, except, they are only good at it when it relates to their area of expertise? This way we can hopefully avoid the situation where the cleric is better at detecting traps, than the rogue, and the ranger is better at detecting magical wards than the wizard.
If someone wants to really go the extra mile in Perception, perhaps "Perceptive" could be a trait/feat/what have you, and whenever the individual is making a check to perceive using a trained skill, he could roll with advantage (whatever the final mechanic for that turns out to be, double rolls, or +2).
I think other than Perception, the 5e approach to skills seems quite good. Let's say I am trained in streetwise. I want to tail a suspect in the crowds without being seen, I make a dexterity check and add my streetwise. This would reflect my ability to keep the target in sight, and use passing wagons and carts to my advantage to not be noticed. I want to use my knowledge of the streets to come up with a shortcut, I make an intelligence check and add my streetwise. I want to gather information about a local vigilante, I make a charisma check and add my streetwise. This allows skills to reflect what a character is truly good at. So my fighter trained in streetwise doesn't need to be trained in "stealth" to tail someone in a city, and doesn't need to be trained in "knowledge local" to know a few short cuts around town. I think being trained should be a +5 rather than a +3, so training has a greater impact than natural talent, but that's just a numbers game.
This is only a "problem" for people who don't want to deal with MAD. My view is that every character should have an incentive to put points in every stat -- if you want to ignore WIS on your rogue, feel free, but know that there are consequences to this choice.
Fifth Element
Legend
No, it's not the question. Or at least it wasn't. And one reason it was a poor example is because it brings up the topic of "trained only" skills, which isn't really relevant to the OP's issue.
The OP's issue is basically: rogues don't have the best Spot check. Clerics end up being good at it, too (which seems counter-intuitive).
I don't really see this as a problem. A rogue with a high WIS will still be better than a cleric, and it's fine for there to be more than one way to skin a cat/arrive at a high check bonus. It's okay to have cleric/druid capable of spotting a trap, a mage (or a fighter not wearing armor) being pretty good at sneaking around, or, conversely, a mage or a thief capable of hitting and doing meaningful damage with a weapon (at least against certain enemy types).
Besides, there are plenty of good reasons not to have your priest out in front on trap-finding duty... doesn't seem like a big deal in practice. I'd probably declare Spot dependent either on WIS or INT and leave it at that.
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Crazy Jerome
First Post
Why not make it separate? It is not as if everything in D&D is treated like a skill. If certain weapon abilities and spell casting are somewhat separate from the heart of the skill system, why not have a few other things that are as well?
In fact, it would make a certain amount of sense within the D&D context to have:
- Really important, central stuff that you get through class, theme, etc. that is at least partially separate from ability/skill checks. (Like weapons, they may interact with the checks, but are not fully tied to them.) Niche protection is important here.
- Things that many adventurers can at least try and/or are likely to have some reason to develop "skill" with (e.g. rogue lockpicking) that work almost entirely in the normal ability/skill system.
- Minor and/or different things that function more as pure ability checks and/or traits, background, etc.
ZombieRoboNinja
First Post
I agree. This whole change to the skill system seems like trying to patch a screen door with a jackhammer: it not only causes a great deal of peripheral damage, it doesn't even address the original problem.
Issue: This new system would encourage min/maxers to train skills in their worst stats, since if my fighter has 8 int and 18 dex, training in Acrobatics is only a +1 but training in Knowledge (Arcana) gives me +6.
Issue: It's highly counterintuitive that the most effective, say, Diplomat in the game can have Cha as a dump score (as long as he took a diplomatic background).
Issue: This system would make for some weird DC effects. Like, every rogue thief in the known universe can always spot and disarm a DC 15 trap and open a DC 15 lock, but up the DC to 16 and their success rate goes from 100% to 50%. This is an artifact of the rogue's skill mastery ability, but if skill bonuses are affected by stats, at least there's some variation in these hard-and-fast DCs based on bonuses to ability scores.
Issue: The playtest rogue would STILL HAVE A -1 PERCEPTION SCORE, since he's not friggin' trained in it! And if he WAS trained in it, there wouldn't be a problem under the existing rules to begin with; he would have a minimum result of 12, way better than the cleric's minimum result of 5. His average roll would be 14.75, while the cleric's average is 14.5. If both the rogue and the cleric had the Soldier background for trained perception, then the cleric would have a range of 8-27, and the rogue would have a range of 12-22; in that case, the cleric would have a higher average result and a higher maximum result, but that's okay because he's a friggin' zen warrior. And he'd STILL get beat out by the rogue 20% of the time.
I think the easiest way to fix this would be to change the "thief" scheme to have perception as a trained skill - that is, if it really needs fixing. Personally, I'd just swap the commoner background for soldier, if I was playing the rogue. The biggest lesson I take from this whole thing is that Perception (and Stealth) are way more important in combat than any other skill available in the playtest, and it behooves a min/maxed rogue to be trained in both (since skill mastery makes training so important); I would argue that both these skills should be trained for most or all of the rogue schemes.
TLDR: The overall system is fine as it is; just make sure you choose your trained skills carefully, especially as a rogue. The devs might want to take steps to ensure that Perception and Stealth are readily available (or even automatic) as trained skills for rogues, since any rogue without them is at a big disadvantage (whereas almost every other skill in the playtest, like Folklore or Animal Handling, is much more tied to roleplaying than combat).
I think the real resolution here is that Rogues shouldn't use Wisdom as a dump-stat. If you want to be good at observing people and objects you should take a good Wisdom score. Between that, the +3 bonus for training, and a minimum 10 on checks with it the Rogue's a good trap radar.
The play-test Rogue was just built badly.
Rogue stats should break down like this:
Primary: Dexterity - combat and stealth
Secondary: (Helpful, but optional)
Constitution - Hit Points + Toughness
Wisdom - Searching, Listening, Reading People
Charisma - Streetwise, Fast-Talking
Neither Strength (more of a finesse class) nor Intelligence (not typically an academic) are particularly necessary for a Rogue. They could be used to develop a more well-rounded character, but none of the Rogue's primary skills or combat techniques use those stat modifiers.
A Dungeon-crawling Halfling Thief should spend his Heroic Array like this:
STR 8
CON 13
DEX 17
INT 10
WIS 14
CHA 12
This small, affable fellow is a well-qualified burglar (or "expert treasure hunter" if you prefer).
- Marty Lund
The play-test Rogue was just built badly.
Rogue stats should break down like this:
Primary: Dexterity - combat and stealth
Secondary: (Helpful, but optional)
Constitution - Hit Points + Toughness
Wisdom - Searching, Listening, Reading People
Charisma - Streetwise, Fast-Talking
Neither Strength (more of a finesse class) nor Intelligence (not typically an academic) are particularly necessary for a Rogue. They could be used to develop a more well-rounded character, but none of the Rogue's primary skills or combat techniques use those stat modifiers.
A Dungeon-crawling Halfling Thief should spend his Heroic Array like this:
STR 8
CON 13
DEX 17
INT 10
WIS 14
CHA 12
This small, affable fellow is a well-qualified burglar (or "expert treasure hunter" if you prefer).
- Marty Lund
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DogBackward
First Post
Yeah, I'm gonna second the "If you want to be good at finding things, don't tank Wis." approach. That's like saying "Oh, the Fighter chose to put an 8 in Strength? Well, let's just give them a flat +5 to attacks and damage. Fighters should be good at melee attacks, after all."
If you have a low score, you will be bad at things related to that score. As you should be.
If you have a low score, you will be bad at things related to that score. As you should be.
It use to be that your required the trap-finding ability to find traps. They could bring that back. Maybe you can't spot traps unless you have the perception skill or maybe they can bring back trapfinding as a skill that lets you use your wisdom skill to find traps. Then you can use this idea with other things. Maybe you can't make masterwork weapons without a skill that says you can.
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We did this as a houserule in 4e. Perception was a such a super skill, and the same questions arose. Why cant my rogue notice traps, why cant my mage see those runes on the wall?
So, we dumped the perception skill and said that you use the appropriate skill to what you are trying to notice. It was inelegant as you had some kludginess involved (like why is Dexterity helping me notice a trap) but the payoff was that ... (drum roll) ... the characters capabilities matched expectations.
I will suspend my disbelief just a little longer so long as characters are working right, and a rogue being the worst at spotting traps is NOT what I call working right.
Chris_Nightwing
First Post
I disagree that the Rogue should dump Int so that they can have a good Wis and thus spot things. Rogues should be clever, but they shouldn't necessarily be wise - to me, a Wizard ought to be more likely to find a trap than a Cleric, after all, they're better at Knowledge (Engineering) and used to be better at Search (3E). I'm arguing that Find Traps ought to use Int! All active searching should!
CON = thug
WIS = treasure-hunter
CHA = faceman
CON+CHA = swashbuckler
WIS+CHA = thief
CON+WIS = assassin
I disagree. Rogues are generally good at feeling their way through situations and relying on their experiences to give them a sixth sense for danger and a keen eye for detail. Those things are all in the primary wheel-house of Wisdom. None of that calls for an particular talent at logic, formula, organization, memorization, or academic aptitude that a high Intelligence score implies. Now a proper infiltrator will probably have great Intelligence too; it gives him an advantage casing targets, researching subjects, making solid plans, and improvising new tactics on the fly.
With the fluid form of the game and skill system they'll definitely be rational, narrative opportunities where you use Intelligence to search for something instead of Wisdom. Looking for something in a library or a book? Use Intelligence. Looking for a pattern? Use intelligence. Trying to remember what sort of tricks or techniques a creature uses to hide traps / valuables / ambushes? Use intelligence. Want to identify what made those tracks, which way they were going, and how much they were carrying? Use intelligence.
High intelligence would definitely be useful disabling devices too.
- Marty Lund
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Falling Icicle
Adventurer
So, anyone who is trained in a skill is just as good as anyone else, regardless of their respective ability scores? Horrible idea. This makes even less sense than what people were complaining about. I can't believe they're even considering this.
The answer is so simple I don't know why they won't do it. Just make skills give a +5 bonus. That way, an untrained person would need to have a 20 ability score and the trained person have an 8 or lower ability score in order for the untrained person to be better. But then, we're talking about the pinnacle of humanoid perfection compared to someone who is clumsy, stupid, etc. So that makes sense.
It seems they're just afraid of high numbers, but really, the numbers won't be that high. Since ability scores cap at 20, the highest bonus a player could have when using a skill is +10. That really is nothing to freak out about. If anything, I think the numbers people are adding are far too low compared to the impact of the d20 roll, making things way too swingy. This helps alleviate that.
For example, they say a DC 10 action is "trivial". So trivial that one shouldn't even have to roll. And yet a typical person (ability score 10) would only succeed on such an action 50% of the time! Even with my proposed +5 bonus from skill training, he would fail trivial actions 25% of the time, which is far more often than one would expect.
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