Skills?

[el-remmen]

The only problem I see with the skills system as is, is the whole monster/NPC issue - which is easily handwaved.

As for PCs and important NPCs, I personally perform MORE skills not less.

 

[GlassJaw]

Well my wizard/fighter (2/1) has ranks in 4 different Craft skills (Alchemy, Painting, Armorsmithing, Weaponsmith), 3 different Knowledge skills (Arcana, History, Local-Sharn), and ranks in Heal, Perform (Dance), Concentration, Decpher Script, Spellcraft, and Swim.

And your character would be the exception. As Wulf stated, I would bet a large sum of money that the vast majority of characters ever created in the 3ed system follow those 5 rules.

Perform (dance) for a Ftr/Wiz?! Gimp!!

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Well my wizard/fighter (2/1) has ranks in 4 different Craft skills (Alchemy, Painting, Armorsmithing, Weaponsmith), 3 different Knowledge skills (Arcana, History, Local-Sharn), and ranks in Heal, Perform (Dance), Concentration, Decpher Script, Spellcraft, and Swim.

And your character would be the exception. As Wulf stated, I would bet a large sum of money that the vast majority of characters ever created in the 3ed system follow those 5 rules.

Perform (dance) for a Ftr/Wiz?! Gimp!!

All kidding aside, that kind of sub-standard skill allocation represents a legitimate design problem.

I think we can all agree by now that D&D Design and Development is heavily Gamist, focusing ever-more on the "encounter," on the essential d20 mechanic as the arbiter of "dramatic conflict," and balancing the design around that.

So when you compare two characters side by side, both with the same number of skill ranks, and you have one who has spent his skill points on Craft, Dance, and Profession, and the other character has invested his skill points in Jump, Balance, and Tumble, is it really any wonder at all that 4e will (allegedly) do away with the "sub-standard" skills like Profession?

They are at odds with efficient and balanced design. (And I make that observation without any value judgment.)

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Did you read the post you just quoted? I'll re-emphasize "multiple paths to success". Which means that there are a variety of skills that could be applied to a given situation to improve the odds/ease of success. It's not difficult to write adventures this way, and more skill based systems have done so for a long time.

I did read it. My point is that "multiple paths to success" is an illusion in almost all cases (at least in D&D). Sure, the paths might be laid out in better adventures, and certainly were when I did my damnedest to build them in myself, but you almost never have enough characters capable of following it.

Result: The players kick in the door again, because it's the only thing at which ALL of them are good. EDIT: Correction: It's the only thing at which all of them are competent.

As has been pointed out at least a half dozen times in this thread, D&D does not provide nearly as much versatility in skills for most characters as legitimately skills-based systems, which is the source of the problem. No one EVER has enough points in the skills they need to get interesting things done, unless you've got a party full of rogues and bards who consulted with each other on what bases to cover.... in which case the party sucks at combat if you don't stack the environment in their favor or entirely change the nature of encounters.

 

[Zimri]

That has been claimed. But that doesn't make it true.
It is a false scenario to suggest that one key skill is always (or even often) the only way to avoid fights.

I assure you it happens at my gaming table weekly Bryon. I am the subterfuge, sneaky skill monkey, well one of two, coupled with a psionicist that won't use mind affecting abilities, and a cleric in plate with a bow. The cleric can't sneak past anything and we can't exactly leave her behind, When our frontliner does show up she is less stealthy than a bull in a china shop but hey at least someone will get in close so the ninja and my ascetic rogue can get a flanking bonus.

So please tell me how to save my badwrongfun from clerics that can't climb or sneak. From a party of friends with no frontline fighter to provide essential services, and players and characters that are about as well received diplomatically as Paris Hilton at a mensa symposium. Shall I make them re-roll, or just take the ninja and myself out places and leave them behind to run the bar ?

Of course given the tone of the post I have quoted I am obviously spouting untruths.

 

[IanArgent]

I'm not arguing that you can't do the skilled party thing in D&D as it stands. I am arguing that it is harder than it needs to be and that SWSE gives a better approach for the general case.

I prefer Shadowrun to D&D, to be honest, at least partially because it is a skill-based system at the core; and it's a lot easier to do skill challenges from the GM side, and to meet them from the PC side.

Is a SWSE-type skill system the best ever? No, an RPG built out from the core is much better. Is it a better bolt-on system than we have now? IMHO, yes.

 

[Psion]

Most skill-based systems can safely assume that each PC has a few spare skill points. To pick some examples of PHB core classes that don't: Fighters, clerics, and Sorcerers. All 2 skill points per level, and all have a fairly restrictive class skill list.

Ah... now we are getting somewhere. THAT is an aspect of the system that, AFAIAC, is most singularly responsible for the skill system being under-utilized in 3e and that is worthy of addressing. Many characters should have more skill points, particularly those at the low end of the scale.

You can design around your specific party, of course. But generic adventure writers can't do that. When you target an unknown party, you have to target the "iconic" party, who only has the one character capable of sneaking, bluffing, balancing, or swimming.

Once again, I am going to have to insist this is incorrect, having seen many non-D&D adventures (and even a few D&D adventures) over the year that do just that.

After all, your skill points have to go somewhere. If you design the skill based challenges such that:
1) having the requisite skill level is more helpful than essential (I emphasized this point in the post you quoted, but there it is again.) and/or
2) a given task has multiple skills that can accomplish it (for example, getting through a door might be accomplished by sneaking in after a legitimate visitor, picking the lock, intimidating a merchant with the key, or bluffing a guard), and/or
3) different DCs provide different levels of success and benefit from different skills levels...

then not is the writing of such adventures possible, I can point to many actual examples where such adventures actually exist.

 

[Psion]

I did read it. My point is that "multiple paths to success" is an illusion in almost all cases (at least in D&D). Sure, the paths might be laid out in better adventures,

Well, I would hope that if the aim of 4e is to provide for better gaming, better adventure methodology would come with it.

As has been pointed out at least a half dozen times in this thread, D&D does not provide nearly as much versatility in skills for most characters as legitimately skills-based systems, which is the source of the problem.

Sure. And that is a point worth addressing. Characters need more and broader skills.

No one EVER has enough points in the skills they need to get interesting things done, unless you've got a party full of rogues and bards who consulted with each other on what bases to cover....

And yet somehow, in Living Spycraft games, player who have NEVER had a chance to consult with each other seem to manage. Of course, it's noteworthy that in Spycraft 2.0, no character class has only 2 base SP per level, and there are more skills combined (True20 and SWSE also combine skills). D&D could definitely afford to learn from its protoge's here.

 

[BryonD]

I assure you it happens at my gaming table weekly Bryon. I am the subterfuge, sneaky skill monkey, well one of two, coupled with a psionicist that won't use mind affecting abilities, and a cleric in plate with a bow. The cleric can't sneak past anything and we can't exactly leave her behind, When our frontliner does show up she is less stealthy than a bull in a china shop but hey at least someone will get in close so the ninja and my ascetic rogue can get a flanking bonus.

So please tell me how to save my badwrongfun from clerics that can't climb or sneak. From a party of friends with no frontline fighter to provide essential services, and players and characters that are about as well received diplomatically as Paris Hilton at a mensa symposium. Shall I make them re-roll, or just take the ninja and myself out places and leave them behind to run the bar ?

Of course given the tone of the post I have quoted I am obviously spouting untruths.

Resorting to putting words in my mouth now, eh?

You claim is "can't". My claim is "can". Your apparent lack of working within the system doesn't prove "can't", it only shows a case of "didn't". My consistent positive experience does prove that "can" exists.

I can't begin to speak to why it isn't working in your game, because I don't have a fraction of the needed information. But in my game, players with diverse skill sets are able to work as teams and get things done even when only 1 or 2 has the exact skill required at certain times.

And the bottom line is, you can have exactly what you want already by changing the DCs. (Which might be the root of the problem.) After all, if you want everyone in the party to make the checks, what real difference is there between everyone beating DC20s because of high bonuses and everyone just beating DC5s? Nothing really. As long as all party members achieve the same result you are there.
Your alternative however would flat out deny everyone else the option of a system that works to provide a range of challenges to truly diverse parties.

 

[IanArgent]

Well, I would hope that if the aim of 4e is to provide for better gaming, better adventure methodology would come with it.

Sure. And that is a point worth addressing. Characters need more and broader skills.

Heres the problem with this thinking in 3.5 - Skills is about all the Rogue has going for him. Bumping everyone's skill points make the rogue less powerful relatively - if everyone can be good at skills outside their expertise, whither the rogue? Even if the rogue bumps his skill points as well (and I can make an argument that the rogue needs more skill points, or at least some consolidated skills), more skill points all around waters down the big class feature of the rogue (those 8 skill points per level).

SWSE skill system tries to walk the middle ground between making everyone capable of anything and only having the skilled capable of anything. In some ways I don't like it - I'm still not convinced that a class skill list is a terribly good idea, but since multiclassing grants you access to the sum of the class skill set, and you can pick up a new skill at a reasonable skill-level by expending a less rare resource (feats are rather more common in SWSE, as are stat bumps), I can live with it.