D&D 5E Skills that you u are not proficient with

[iserith]

I just told him that I dont wanna play it anymore, told him that is his world and his rules, I dont like them thus leave. Before that he said gave me his negative answer.
And this time he said he really did change JoAT and Proficiency Bonuses, but that none of my buisness to know that.
I told him that I have the rights to know the changes thats affecting my class, like I had the right to read about the version in the book, he said its non of players business to know : |

It sounds like there's some personal issues at play here. So you probably made a sound decision to part ways when it comes to D&D. Hopefully it will not affect your friendship otherwise.

Perhaps you should look into running your own games!

 

[Ovinomancer]

I just told him that I dont wanna play it anymore, told him that is his world and his rules, I dont like them thus leave. Before that he said gave me his negative answer.
And this time he said he really did change JoAT and Proficiency Bonuses, but that none of my buisness to know that.
I told him that I have the rights to know the changes thats affecting my class, like I had the right to read about the version in the book, he said its non of players business to know : |

Oh, that kind of DM. Yes, you may very well be happier out if the game. Sucks, but if he's hiding big changes to the core rules as something the players have to trip over to learn, nothing better is on the way.

 

[Shirebrok]

Yup, opting out was the better decision. No gaming is better than bad gaming, IMO.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

( & @Inoeex )Did...you actually read the OP's posts, Paul? Because these house rules don't actually follow the math you're describing. Untrained skills suffer a -5 penalty--more or less equivalent to Disadvantage except that it stacks with Disadvantage--and trained skills get +1/2 level. It's literally nothing like the standard 5e math anymore. By level 6, the gap between a low-stat (-2 or even -3, because they rolled their stats), no-proficiency (-5) character and a high-stat (+3 to +4), proficient (+3) character can be as large as -8 vs. +7--fifteen points. Compared to the standard game gap of -1 vs. +5, or six points, it's two and a half times as much. And I'm not even sure that that's the whole story--I think there might be the normal proficiency bonus on top of that, for a total gap *three* times as big as the "standard" game.

All of your comments here literally don't apply to the game the OP's DM is running. Not even in the least. Particularly because you're looking at proficient vs. unproficient, whereas he's looking at Jack of All Trades vs. unproficient, and noticing that it's basically meaningless with his DM's houserules. Normally, at 2nd level, JoAT is giving +1 compared to a normal proficiency bonus of +2; with these house-rules, it still only gives +1, does nothing at all about the -5 penalty, and doesn't benefit from the +1/2 level thing.

Yes, I did read it. I admit I did struggle with that post, actually. I re-wrote it three times, eventually ending up with what I posted. The part you quoted from me was more aimed at "Present this to your DM if you haven't already; number are smaller, and a +2 bonus WILL matter". I'm sorry if that didn't come across. My bad.

His DM is obviously of the "if you don't have it, you have a penalty" camp. This is fine. I actually don't see his house rules not working...I do see them, like everyone else, including the OP, as drastically changing the "tone" of Skill checks. What I am saying is that I don't think his DM "gets 5e's number range" yet. The whole bounded accuracy thing. I don't think he's truly grasped the concept of "if you have it, you're better....if you don't have it, you're not worse". I think I may have missed or misinterpreted how his DM is handling JoAT. Having +1 more than everyone else (re: being at "only" -4, not -5) for non-skilled ability checks still makes the Bard better than everyone else. The Disadvantage thing is a wash; everyone gets it, so there is no "picking on the bard" here.

I'd still suggest either making a new guy or "re-focusing" the RP aspects of the character. As they are using Feats, I'd pick up Skilled as many times as I could; each time adds 3 skills/tools. He also gets another 3 at level 3 (Lore College, iirc). He starts with 3 as well. So, basically, 9 at level 3 (if using the Human Varient where they get a Feat at level 1), 12 skills at level 4, 15 at 8th, 18 at 12th, and...er...stop. At 12th level he would be proficient in ALL SKILLS. Using his DM's house rule, this would be a MASSIVE advantage. While everyone else has 6 or so skills and rolling at -5 with Disadvantage on everything else, the bard is rolling, lets see, any and all skill checks without Disadvantage, and with a bonus of something likely in the +4 to +12 (Expertise doubles Ability Bonus; +4 Proficiency at level 12...and he has ALL skills, so he always adds at least his full +4). Seriously bad ass if you ask me! And this is 'only' at level 12! There are still two more Feats or Ability Score improvements to be had (or 1 if no Human Variant; then up 12th to 16th). Hell, having over half of all the skills at only 4th level would be impressive!

Anyway...I can understand the DM's house rule. I don't think it nerfs JoAT as much as it seems. I think that, once the levels start to climb, along with DC's to some extent, that if the Bard focused on the whole "knowledge" thing with taking Skilled as a Feat when he could...well, yeah. Awesome sauce in my book.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

...he said its non of players business to know : |

When you have a DM that far "gone" there is no choice but to exit their game.

Some DMs make their decisions for all the wrong reasons and have these counterproductive ideas of how to make their game "good", and are so convinced that they have everything "right" and couldn't possibly do "better" that the only thing that has any chance at all to convince them otherwise is to be clearly told that what they are doing is causing the game to be unfun for players as those players actually leave the game, leaving the DM without any players willing to put up with their "style."

I speak from experience; last guy that DMed for my group before I figuratively stole it out from under him leading to him not getting any gaming for 5 years refused to believe that any objection to his way of running (overly deadly and antagonistic DM vs. players, with next to no hope of any plot more than 'X is angry with you and wants you dead' or any end to the campaign other than a TPK or full player abandonment) less than quitting and not coming back the next time he wanted to start a campaign was sincere, answering complaints brought to him with "Well, you're still playing, so you must actually like it."

 

[Zorku]

I would strongly argue against this advice. Engaging in passive aggressive methods to derail the game is never the best method to deal with a rules or metagame issue, especially with friends. If you choose to remain, you also choose to accept, to the best of your ability, the outcomes that can happen. If ever those outcomes overwhelm your ability to stomach them, the proper response is to talk to your friends about it and work out a solution or remove yourself from the problem, not to intentionally try to wreck the game to show how the rule sucks.

Alright, more direct then: hand the DM your character sheet and ask to roll a new character. This class doesn't do anything you wanted it to under his system, so move on to something else.

 

[jayoungr]

Or just leave politely. Which the OP did, and which I think was the right call in this case.

 

[Bleys Icefalcon]

Hehe... Rolemaster. Here's my Rolemaster story. I was at an old, long failed game store in Bellevue, Washington some years back that had a couple private rooms for gaming. On this particular day there were two different groups playing away, one in each room. One group, the group I was a part of, was playing good old fashioned AD&D (1st Edition), the other was playing Rolemaster. Both groups were playing established characters, in ongoing campaigns, with experienced players. About two hours into our dungeon crawl our group took a break, and I wandered by the other room and peeked in. I was somewhat intimidated by what I saw. Each person had several different rules books, tomes, and manuals, including what looked like actual historical reference books, say from the Napoleonic era - and alot of them - they also had what I assumed were various pieces of drafting equipment; dividers and compasses, protractors and t-rulers... not to mention various tape measures, and oh the graphs and tables and charts... it was oh so complicated, complex... I'd even say alien. And they were having a very thunderous and passionate debate about the movement of a goblin; that was chasing a player's character. I believe the issue was the stone floor was uneven, and there was much ado about what rolls the goblin would have to make, to actually catch the elf archer. The fight in question was between two of the players and three goblins. So much passion over textures and resistance and relative speed and physics... I was getting dizzy!

I wandered back into our room, and we played for a few more hours; we finished our crawl, faced several encounters, found and fought the boss - a lich - and ransacked his treasury and made our way back to the city. Another break and once again I wandered next door. Everyone looked utterly exhausted, and it was much, much less chaotic. They were on a break as well. If anything, there was even more graphs and charts and diagrams out. I wandered up to one of them and asked what they were up to.

He brightened, and cheerfuly told me they'd finished almost three rounds of battle. The same battle that they were arguing about some 6 or 7 hours earlier. It turns out the goblin in question was not a skilled enough athlete to smoothly run over the uneven floor and the elf lass was able to elude him, though there was still a bit of disagreement over this. The side debate that continued moments later was about the "looseness" of the small rocks, gravel and pebbles that were strewn across the floor, and just how this should have effected the barefoot goblin...

I think, in all honesty, a part of my soul died as I was overhearing this. Then again, to each their own, right?

 

[Inoeex]

Alright, more direct then: hand the DM your character sheet and ask to roll a new character. This class doesn't do anything you wanted it to under his system, so move on to something else.

Or just leave politely. Which the OP did, and which I think was the right call in this case.

When you have a DM that far "gone" there is no choice but to exit their game.

Yup, opting out was the better decision. No gaming is better than bad gaming, IMO.

Guess what ? : )

Right now he called me, said he has removed half level prof bonus, we still have -5 on non proficient skills but JoAT will now add raw PB !!! Not Half !

OMG now I am buffed ! 8D

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I figured something like that could--but not necessarily would--happen. Your DM has let DM "empowerment" get to his head, and is now realizing that the designers did things for reasons, sometimes even good ones. This is one of the unfortunate costs of such a design stance; it is open to good and to bad in equal measure.

I hope this is the start of a more open interaction between the two of you. Good luck!