Skills?

[F4NBOY]

Just adding a voice in favour of Victim's response to F4nboy.

...it may or may not make the game less interesting...

Anyway, take a look at my post #129 where I rethink that post you quoted.

 

[pemerton]

...it may or may not make the game less interesting...

Anyway, take a look at my post #129 where I rethink that post you quoted.

Sorry, I had seen that later post but thought your earlier one captured one important viewpoint (which Henry re-iterates in his post in reply) and Victim's the opposite.

What I was really doing was using both your and Vicitm's posts as foils to present my incoherence argument.

 

[F4NBOY]

Sorry, I had seen that later post but thought your earlier one captured one important viewpoint (which Henry re-iterates in his post in reply) and Victim's the opposite.

What I was really doing was using both your and Vicitm's posts as foils to present my incoherence argument.

Actually, I the post I meant was the 127, not 129, sorry.

 

[anton1066]

I think most of the arguments being made are rather unfair. Yeah, so a 20th level barbarian who has had no 'training' in diplomacy is equal to a first level paladin who has focused on it. Whats the big deal? That +10 means that they can both talk their way bast a few city guards without trouble, but that really isn't a problem for the barbarian. He wont use that +10 except for stuff that is well beneath him.

Remember D&D is a world of the fantastic. If you get to 20th level you ARE better then 99% of everyone out there at everything. No one bats on eye when a 20th level wizard can beat up a 1st level fighter in a fight with only weapons, 'cause the wizard is friggin 20th level.

My point is this, the 1/2 level benefit does not scale with the challenges you should throw at the party. if you require skill checks, they should be challenging to people that have invested no resources into something, and moderately easy for someone who has. We need to think of non combat encounters the same way we think of combat encounters. That is, they have their own difficulty range that is related to the level of the parties involved and the amount of resources they have invested into them.

If you read any D&D fiction, you will notice that all the heroes 'know a little something about everything'. The D&D world is a world where dungeoneering is a knowledge that you can learn about and adventure is an acceptable profession.

To give an example, i would find it very tedious if a 20th level wizard could only sneak past a couple of first level thugs by casting invisibility. But as a DM i would only use an encounter like that to showcase how super cool the wizard is, no to provide a challenge to the wizard. Now if the wizard wants to sneak past a couple of balors, thats another story. only a master thiefe could do that without magic.

 

[Falling Icicle]

I really hope they don't give everyone half their level in ranks in every skill they're not trained in. While I would very much like to see people have more skill points and for some of the skills to be combined, I want to keep skill selection as an important choice for characters.

Just because someone has gained power and experience and journeyed around the world doesn't mean they should gain skill at everything. It's all a matter of training. I could travel around the world a thousand times and kill a million monsters, but if I haven't spent any time training to climb, I shouldn't be any better at climbing then when I started.

In 3rd edition most characters were narrowly focused and had to resort to combat because most classes got only 2 skill points per level, which is hardly anything. All that needs to be done, imo, is to combine skills together and give characters more skill points per level. Having the skill points you get not based on intelligence would also be a good change, imo.

 

[pemerton]

Just because someone has gained power and experience and journeyed around the world doesn't mean they should gain skill at everything. It's all a matter of training. I could travel around the world a thousand times and kill a million monsters, but if I haven't spent any time training to climb, I shouldn't be any better at climbing then when I started.

But exactly the same logic applies to combat training. Why is a 10th level Wizard as good with a longsword as a 1st level Fighter (+5 BAB -4 non-proficiency = +1)?

Either you posit that high-level characters are heroic in all respects (as per Saga or some variant thereof) or else that everything, including combat skill, is paid for with training points (as is the case in RM, and is approximately the case in RQ).

In 3rd edition most characters were narrowly focused and had to resort to combat because most classes got only 2 skill points per level, which is hardly anything. All that needs to be done, imo, is to combine skills together and give characters more skill points per level. Having the skill points you get not based on intelligence would also be a good change, imo.

I don't think that that would necessarily solve the problem. The structure of D&D play, with its emphasis on level-appropriate challenges, means that it would almost always be more efficient to spend those extra points maxing out another one or two skills rather than building up a modicum of expertise in a wide range of skills. So the problem of 20th level Wizards drowning in shallow ponds would not go away.

Within the D&D adventuring paradigm, I think some variant of Saga makes sense. In another paradigm (like RM or RQ) gritty points-allocation works. I think the current mix that is D&D 3.5 doesn't work so well.

 

[JustinA]

What I have yet to see anyone explain cogently.... why is this a problem? If I'm a level 10 character, using a skill I've been exposed to and perhaps coached in by my adventuring buddies, is it entirely beyond reason that I would win opposed checks against level 1-5 or so characters who are also not trained in the skill? Is it also entirely beyond reason that being a seasoned adventurer might have taught me enough tricks to have an even chance of parity at mundane tasks with a trained neophyte (level 1 person)? This trained neophyte is STILL going to mop the floor with me in complicated tasks, since I can't even attempt them untrained.

Seriously. One attempt at telling me why that makes no sense would be nice.

Because not everyone is Leonardo da Vinci.

The SAGA system makes everyone a universal polymath. Everyone is handsome, smart, and a world-class athlete by 10th level. It's not only that this is unrealistic, it also does a lousy job of emulating even the most heroic and cinematic of genres.

I'm on the fence with it, because the parallel can be drawn to BAB and HP. But I generally like character creation systems that give me MORE control over who and what my character is. And so my instincts are rebelling pretty hard against this change.

I'll need to see it in actual play before I draw any final conclusions on the matter.

Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net

 

[Sammael]

Everyone is handsome, smart, and a world-class athlete by 10th level.

A +5 bonus doesn't make a world-class athlete. IMO, a world-class athlete could well be level 1, with training and focus in the appropriate skill, as well as a natural talent (high ability modifier). That comes out to about +14 at first level, almost three times the bonus of a non-athletic 10th level character.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

Yes, one thing many posters seem to forget are ability modifiers, circumstance modifiers and trained-only uses of skills.

For a 10th level (class x) who is trying to use (skill y) that you can't imagine them having used very much at all, chances are that their +5 level bonus is on its own, or penalised by the relevant ability. Not to mention that they can do (simple example of skill y) but have no chance of doing (complex example of skill y).

I also think that the 'opposed' nature of most really really important checks will foil said character almost all of the time. Level bonuses will only be effective against static difficulties, such as environmental hazards. I still think it has a decent real world analogy too, since when you finish high school (or your appropriate level training) you are certainly better than a 16 year old at many skills you trained in formally (maths), trained in informally (social interaction - ok maybe not all of us here ) and even things you probably never did just through confidence and maturity.

 

[Falling Icicle]

But exactly the same logic applies to combat training. Why is a 10th level Wizard as good with a longsword as a 1st level Fighter (+5 BAB -4 non-proficiency = +1)?

Either you posit that high-level characters are heroic in all respects (as per Saga or some variant thereof) or else that everything, including combat skill, is paid for with training points (as is the case in RM, and is approximately the case in RQ).

I never defended the BAB rules in 3.5 edition, so don't put those words in my mouth.

That said, it isn't quite the same thing. D&D focuses heavily on combat, so it is fairly safe to assume that even wizards spend at least some of their time training in this area. It is quite another stretch to assume that the wizard has also spent time trianing in climbing, swimming, jumping, diplomacy, intimidating, sneaking, etc etc etc.

I don't think that that would necessarily solve the problem. The structure of D&D play, with its emphasis on level-appropriate challenges, means that it would almost always be more efficient to spend those extra points maxing out another one or two skills rather than building up a modicum of expertise in a wide range of skills. So the problem of 20th level Wizards drowning in shallow ponds would not go away.

I have never once, in all my years of playing this game, seen a wizard drown in a shallow pond. I think one problem is that people think a skill check should be required for almost everything a character does. If an action is easy, no roll should be required, imo. You don't ask your characters to roll to tie their shoes, do you? So why ask them to check to see if they drown in a shallow pond?

Within the D&D adventuring paradigm, I think some variant of Saga makes sense. In another paradigm (like RM or RQ) gritty points-allocation works. I think the current mix that is D&D 3.5 doesn't work so well.

I don't like the way skills are handled in 3rd/3.5 edition either. I guess we just have different opinions on what the best way to change it would be. I don't think making everyone a talented generalist is the way to go. And to be honest, I don't particularly like the huge emphasis on levels either. Why not give the character's attributes a greater role instead? If I'm a very dextrous person, then it is reasonable to assume that I should be able to tumble, balance, etc fairly well, even without training. Having that based on levels makes broad experience and dabbling much more significant than natural ability, and I don't like that at all. A 20 Dexterity ends up meaning less than 20 levels in a class that has no emphasis on such skills whatsoever. I'm not comfortable with that.