Skills?

[IanArgent]

The skill system is one of the things they got right in 3.5e.

Then you and I will have to agree to disagree. It was better than the predecessor, and OK for it's time, but the SWSE system is better. It's not the best; and individual DMs can probably get decent performance out of it, but for general use, it's not as good as it could be.

I am rather hoping we will get something better than the SWSE skill system; its answers to some of the game design questions are not the best, and even some of the answers I agree with aren't ones I'd choose. I'd like some variability between trained and untrained, and trained and focused. But not at the cost of keeping the current system. But mindlessly claiming the 3.x skill system is the best ever isn't going to get me to change my mind. I am trying to use examples from the mechanics of adventure design to show why the current system is broken for general-purpose use. Tell me why the current system works from the system and adventure-design point-of-view. I have already conceded it's better for micro-level character differentiation. Yippee, your character can be different from others in 5% (more or less) increments. Why is this a good thing from the macro-design POV, when it enormously complicates adventure and world design?

 

[AllisterH]

I don't know how you design adventures, but if I setup a challenge I either set it up compared to my players' PCs (which means I know who's going to disable the device or climb the wall), or I just don't target anyone and see if they make it. With the new system of skills you're pretty much doing the same as before, because if you used to target both the maxed and the half-maxed, now you will still target both: the maxed and the half-maxed. Or if you only targetted one, you will now still target one.

This though is the point people are trying to design for the "sweet spot".

How do I set up a skill check that isn't automatic for the rogue yet at the same time, isn't impossible for the non-skilled character. If you look at the AC and its relation to BAB, you can easily create a monster that has an AC where all melee classes have to roll and be uncertain (beyong the automatic miss and hit of the 1 & 20 respectively) to different extents.

Similarly, you can throw a spell or poison at the party and everyone is sweating a little but to different extents. True, in both cases at around 18 and above, this is no longer the case (by this pt in time, you can no longer have a creature which isn't an automatic hit for say a half-orc barbarian who pumped everything into STR yet the halfling paladin is out of luck) but in the vast majority of the levels, YOU CAN.

Not so with the skill system as currently used which for many of us, is a problem.

Ex: At level 10, design a skill challenge that isn't an automatic success for a skillmonkey yet won't be an impossible challenge for a guy who has it as a cross-class skill or a dabbler (only puts 1 sp/2 levels into the skill) or the guy who didn't sink ANY sp into the skill. Assume all have te same ability modifier.

The range is simply too huge (at level 10, a skill monkey could have a +18 to a skill BEFORE ability modifiers....)

Contrast this with making for a level 10 challenge a creature with an AC that you don't want to make automatic for a half-orc barbarian and yet the halfling has a fair/decent chance of hitting.

 

[Sun Knight]

On the DM side of the screen I usually divide the total skill points by the number of class skills the NPC has and that is how many ranks he has in each class skill. Quick, and easy, and takes less than minute per character.

On the player side of the screen I like it because it allows me to pick and choose how much I want to specialize in a skill, or if I want to spread out the points. It gives the player the choice in his or her character idevelopment, and more choices one has in that regard the better.

 

[Veril]

I don't think Dorkis, the 20th level wizard should get 10 free ranks in Intimidate, and be as much or even more intimidating than Destructor, the 10th level Barbarian.

Really? A 20th level wizard is much more intimidating than a 10th level barbarian. Put both up against say a 10th level party, and see which really is the scarey of the two encoutners.

 

[IanArgent]

On the DM side of the screen I usually divide the total skill points by the number of class skills the NPC has and that is how many ranks he has in each class skill. Quick, and easy, and takes less than minute per character.

Oh, then the rogue sucks - rogues HAVE to specialize right now. The Bard and Ranger have similar issues.

On the player side of the screen I like it because it allows me to pick and choose how much I want to specialize in a skill, or if I want to spread out the points. It gives the player the choice in his or her character idevelopment, and more choices one has in that regard the better.

No, actually, more choices in character development is not better from a macro point of view; in fact, it makes introduction to new players harder, and it makes adventure design for unknown parties MUCH harder. There's enough choices already in feat and talent choice, skill choice doesn't need to be that granular (especially since nothing else in the game is that granular). Plus, in most cases, the level of choice you get is a false choice anyway. All you're doing by palying with single skill ranks is make the DMs job harder.

 

[Sun Knight]

Why do they have to specialize?

I have introduced new players to the game with little problems. I mean the people I tend to game with can do basic math and are capable of reading the PHB. Also when I DM I tend to mkae the adventure regardless of what the party can or cannot do. I focus on what the NPCs can and cannot do, and why a location is built the way it is with the general idea of the PC power level.

If the party is lacking in a skill or ability then sucks to be them. They just need to be inventive.

 

[IanArgent]

Why do they have to specialize?

? Why does who have to specialize?

I have introduced new players to the game with little problems. I mean the people I tend to game with can do basic math and are capable of reading the PHB. Also when I DM I tend to mkae the adventure regardless of what the party can or cannot do. I focus on what the NPCs can and cannot do, and why a location is built the way it is with the general idea of the PC power level.

You've gotten lucky, then. Especially with your scheme earlier of having NPCs divide all their skill ranks across all their class skills. Do none of your PCs max skills?

If the party is lacking in a skill or ability then sucks to be them. They just need to be inventive.

Exactly - it sucks to be them when the adventure designer assumes that the rogue maxed bluff or diplomacy, and it turns out that the rogue half-maxed both. It sucks to be the party where nobody has maxed climb at 3rd level and the sorcerer didn't get levitate on his known spell list. All of these examples can be dealt with by a DM that has time to modify the adventure, or generate his own.

The devs have stated that there's a reason that 7-12th level play is the "sweet spot" (I'd have said 5th to 12th, myself) of D&D play; that's where the math works out. What they're doing with 4E is making sure the math works across the board for 1st - 30th level play. Right now, the skill system math does not work well in most circumstances above about 5th level, and goes completely off the rails above 12th level. It can be made to work, I'm not denying that. But it takes more work, work that would be better spent elsewhere.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Why do they have to specialize?

I have introduced new players to the game with little problems. I mean the people I tend to game with can do basic math and are capable of reading the PHB. Also when I DM I tend to mkae the adventure regardless of what the party can or cannot do.

And here is the important point: When _you_ make the adventure for _your_ group.
But I know that most of the people in my group don't have the time to make adventures, and therefore they buy modules. It's not them that have to set the skill checks and DCs, it's the adventure and module designers that have to do it. And they don't know how your party looks like.
And since one of the complaints I heard is that there aren't enough (good) adventures and modules, I think a lot of DMs have the same problem - not enough time to plan a whole adventure, just reading an existing one and then playing it with the group.
Sometimes, that's a bit sad, because these DMs can make good adventures (if they had the time), sometimes, it's for the better, because they aren't really that creative or inventive. But either way, in the end, I think it is better if the system acknowledges this and helps the writers of adventures to write adventures that can be played by everyone. As a side effect, even non-professional adventure writers (DMs like you maybe) can put out their adventures online, so that the whole D&D community gets a lot of adventure material to use.

 

[IanArgent]

http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=13496433&postcount=7 - James Wyatt's blog entry where he talks about the math behind the system.

The reason there's a "sweet spot" in the current game is that it's the approximate range of levels where, purely by coincidence, the math of the system actually works. In those levels, PCs don't drop after one hit, and they don't take a dozen hits to wear down. In those levels, characters miss monsters occasionally, but less than half the time, and monsters miss characters only slightly more often. It's pure chance, really, but it means the game is fun. Outside of those levels, the math doesn't work that way, and the game stops being fun.

In Fourth Edition, we've totally revamped the math behind the system, and that's a big part of the way that we've extended the sweet spot across the whole level range. When PCs fight monsters of their level, they'll find that the math of the system is more or less the same at level 30 as it is at level 1. There will always be variation with different PCs and different monsters, but that variation won't be so great that monsters are either too deadly or too weak.

I whole-heartedly hope they start with the math as the foundation, and build out from there. 3E tried to do that, but then they compromised by keeping some "sacred cows". Once a solid foundation is built, it's a lot easier to modify without throwing off balance elsewhere.

 

[BryonD]

Really? A 20th level wizard is much more intimidating than a 10th level barbarian. Put both up against say a 10th level party, and see which really is the scarey of the two encoutners.

This is a tangent really, but it is one of my little hang-ups that people constantly confuse being "scary" and being able to use that fear to get what you want.
A 20th level wizard could easily be much more scary than a 10th level barbarian. But if the barbarian knows what he is doing he can use that fear to persuade his subject. Whereas if the wizard doesn't know what he is doing then he may simply create a "stiff back-ed" "Then I'll die first" response, or a subject that faints dead away, or a million other options. Being afraid does not equate to being compliant.

I don't mind if wizards get intimidate as a class skill. (or the 4e version thereof)

If all PCs get some automatic degree of competency in intimidate then the system will be stupid, boring, and counter-heroic.