Skills?

[BryonD]

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.)

Which leads to a fairly obvious conclusion that a separate system for building encounter skills and background/profession skills would be very worthy of consideration.

Every character gets a pool for defining each category and you don't sacrifice one to build the other.

 

[IanArgent]

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.

How do I challenge, in the same encounter, a character with a +15 skill check modifier and a character with a +0 (or even a negative skill modifier due to armor-check penalties) with the same environmental challenge, and have both be challenged, but not prevented from acting? Without having to rely on the magic-item christmas tree? Or when the casters are out of magic?

Please note, there is still a place for the skilled character to do that which the unskilled cannot, but you can also challenge both of them at the same time.

And pardon me for not having the prep time I did in college. I pretty much have the time to read an adventure summary, skim the encounters to try and make sure that there's nothing to break the party in there, and then run it straight up. I may change some names to make it fit a little better in my world, but if I have an hour prep time per session, I've got better things to do than to hand-tune DCs that may or may not come up (I do prefer adventures with the multi-paths).

 

[iwatt]

How do I challenge, in the same encounter, a character with a +15 skill check modifier and a character with a +0 (or even a negative skill modifier due to armor-check penalties) with the same environmental challenge, and have both be challenged, but not prevented from acting? Without having to rely on the magic-item christmas tree? Or when the casters are out of magic?

Spirit of the Century handles this by using shifts: if you succeed by a lot, you get some additional benefit like looking really cool, or doing it really fast, or others. True20 and Iron Heroes allow you to be extra cool by taking challenges (a skill penalty or increase in the DC). So climbing that wall is still DC 15, except that Roger the rogue get's to keep his Dodge bonus (-5 penalty to his climb check) and does it at his normal speed (another -5 penalty).

 

[Baumi]

I think the 1/2 level bonus is awesome! You can have finaly have a whole group sneak into the lair instead of sending the rogue alone (and split the party), let fighter try to be diplomatic once in a while (seducing a barmaid!) or a wizard climb a tree (when he flees from some bears ),...

It's like in combat where also everyone gets a level-bonus (BAB, HP's, AC, Saves,...) so that everyone can participate without spendig all ressources/effort for combat.

With the +5/+10/rerolls bonus you still shine in your speciallity and let's not forget that the most powerfull skill-uses are only for trained Characters (like the Tumble Part of Athletic or Threat Poison from Healing).

 

[Zimri]

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.

No your assertion was that the claim I made that this happens is untrue. I know it IS true because it happens to ME all the time. Your claim that it is untrue is calling me a liar and I don't know how you can competently do that without having sat at my table.

 

[IanArgent]

Spirit of the Century handles this by using shifts: if you succeed by a lot, you get some additional benefit like looking really cool, or doing it really fast, or others. True20 and Iron Heroes allow you to be extra cool by taking challenges (a skill penalty or increase in the DC). So climbing that wall is still DC 15, except that Roger the rogue get's to keep his Dodge bonus (-5 penalty to his climb check) and does it at his normal speed (another -5 penalty).

Good for Roger. But the DC 15 is still a bloody hard challenge for a wizard at 10th level if he has no climb, and worse if he has a strength penalty. It's even worse for the fighter who hasn't been buying climb, because of armor-check penalties. Whereas the rogue who's been maxing Climb for the past 10 levels can potentially take 0 on the base challenge, so he can breeze the hard stuff. It gets worse from there. And a SWSE-style skills system doesn't prevent him from doign things like that, either.

Ramping the DC is not always a viable answer, whether by doing via the base DC or by penalties.

Yes, the wizard could bypass by use of spells (and probably should). But that requires him to have a fairly specific spell set ready. If he wasn't expecting to have to climb a tree today, what does he do? (That's possibly answered by the new resource management system, I hope it is anyway). It doesn't help the fighter, and I'm not sure it helps the cleric.

At any rate, game design should not be driven by character design. And to the extent that adventure design is driven by character design, I would prefer to have more options to challenge the characters before I know what the character's are capable of than I do now. Without knowing what skills the party has, I can't begin to set a DC appropriate to their level, because I don't know what skills they have, and I don't know what skill bonus they have. SWSE tells me, within a 10-point range (+/- stat bonus), what DCs I should be using, without having any knowledge whatsoever of the character or party capabilities. As an adventure consumer, I can therefore assume that a competently-written module can set DCs appropriate to the party's capability without knowing anything about my party. That means that, among other things, there can be a purely skills-based encounter without a "kill them all" escape hatch, without having to guess that my party has enough characters with a particular skill-set to get through the encounter.

If I had the time to hand-tune each encounter to my party, I'd care a lot less. I don't. I have the time to take off-the-shelf adventures, change a name or two, and run it as-is. I've had near-TPK because module authors have made assumptions about skillsets that aren't the case in my party. I've also had it go the other way where what was supposed to be a challenging encounter for the party was not at all for the same reason.

I don't care as much about how much this makes NPC design easier; I don't design NPCs right now. But to the extent it does, I'm all for it. I am glad to hear that the devs are looking to make adventure design easier, maybe that will let me do it again. But while I'm working 10-hr days, and have social obligations on the weekends that limit me to maybe 1 or 2 sessions a month of around 4 hrs each; I'll take simplicity over complexity every time.

 

[Victim]

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.

If you just change the DCs to get the result you want, then there's no incentive to allocate resources to skills. If the party is always just good enough (or if the challenge is always just a touch too hard), then skills are pointless. They have zero mechanical worth if you're going to precisely tailor every skill based challenge, so characters might as well sacrifice skills and devote the resources to other abilities. Unless of course you do that for every sort of challenge, and then the entire rules system and Game element is negated.

 

[iwatt]

Ramping the DC is not always a viable answer, whether by doing via the base DC or by penalties.

I don't understand what you're aiming at here. You asked how too handle challenges for PCs with vastly differing skill modifiers. I answered by saying: set the DC as appropriate for the "typical" skill value, and then allow the skill monkeys to benefit from cooler effects. That way you can have skill encounters that everybody can use, and still allow those who specialize to shine.

At any rate, game design should not be driven by character design. And to the extent that adventure design is driven by character design, I would prefer to have more options to challenge the characters before I know what the character's are capable of than I do now. Without knowing what skills the party has, I can't begin to set a DC appropriate to their level, because I don't know what skills they have, and I don't know what skill bonus they have. SWSE tells me, within a 10-point range (+/- stat bonus), what DCs I should be using, without having any knowledge whatsoever of the character or party capabilities. As an adventure consumer, I can therefore assume that a competently-written module can set DCs appropriate to the party's capability without knowing anything about my party. That means that, among other things, there can be a purely skills-based encounter without a "kill them all" escape hatch, without having to guess that my party has enough characters with a particular skill-set to get through the encounter.

Is this aimed at me? Because it has nothing to do with what I posted. Seems more like you have an issue with the way adventures are designed than a problem with the skill system per se.

BTW, I'm all for a simplified and streamlined skill system in which PCs are more skillful than in 3.5 I haven't checked out SAGA yet, but I play in systems in which character are generally more skillful than in D&D (True20, Iron Hereoes, etc..).

 

[IanArgent]

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.

If I mess with the DCs, I am hard-capped by the system at right around DC18 or so if I want an unskilled person to ever make the check. Softcapped at DC 15. Skillmonkey can "take 0" against a DC 15 test at around 10th level assuming a +2 stat bonus. He can "take 0" against it at 5th level if he takes 2 feats. He can take 0 against it by 3rd level with an 18 in his stat. If it's a skill for which there is a synergy bonus, the minimum level is 2. I need a minimum DC of 20 to challenge skillmonkey at this point, and that's the maximum DC I can expect the rest of the party to pass. Once his skill check breaks +15, the rest of the party struggles. Once it breaks +20 (at a minimum of 7th level and a realistic max of 15th level), the rest of the party cannot keep up. That is an inescapable function of the skill system as it stands - too much variance.

 

[IanArgent]

I don't understand what you're aiming at here. You asked how too handle challenges for PCs with vastly differing skill modifiers. I answered by saying: set the DC as appropriate for the "typical" skill value, and then allow the skill monkeys to benefit from cooler effects. That way you can have skill encounters that everybody can use, and still allow those who specialize to shine.

See my immediately previous post - the current skill system has too large a range to make messing with DCs anything but a band-aid.

Is this aimed at me? Because it has nothing to do with what I posted. Seems more like you have an issue with the way adventures are designed than a problem with the skill system per se.

BTW, I'm all for a simplified and streamlined skill system in which PCs are more skillful than in 3.5 I haven't checked out SAGA yet, but I play in systems in which character are generally more skillful than in D&D (True20, Iron Hereoes, etc..).

No, it wasn't aimed at you. I have a problem with adventure design because it has to be able to handle a job that's too big, as a consequence of the wide-open potential of the skill system. And that is an issue with the skill system, not adventure design. It was more of a shot at ByronD, which is why I went and made another post about it.