So...wut's the deal with NWP?

[eyebeams]

I like the 3.x idea of commoners-with-levels for above-average skill levels.

Levels are how competent/experienced a character is overall. A high-level commoner is highly competent with what he does, even if it's not adventuring-related. A 7th level commoner could be a legendary farmer but only as useful in a fight as a 1st or 2nd level PC, a 5th level adept could be a master alchemist & expert sage even if he was only as useful in combat as a 2nd or 3rd level Cleric or Druid.

The trouble is that the commoner is also competent at adventuring related stuff. A 7th level commoner is better in a fight than most low level PCs. He's tougher than a 1st level fighter.

Now, a 1st level Commoner could be a passable journeyman in a trade with 4 ranks, a +1 or maybe even +2 from ability score, and a Skill Focus feat (and maybe another boosting feat if Human). +8 or +9 to a skill is piddly to mighty adventurers, but it can still do the everyday tasks of a profession just "Taking 10". A 3rd level commoner could even get a synergy bonus, a couple more ranks, and another feat which might be in something related and easily get over +10 and be easily able to masterwork items and could fairly be called a "master" of their trade. There is little need for even mid-level NPC classes to fairly depict even the overwhelming majority of NPC's.

A PC can be just as good (and probably better) without even performing the skill for a living. This is the problem. It dulls the motivation to have ties in society.

The whole "0 level" concept never made sense to me, the idea that the only way to gain levels is in combat-related, adventuring-oriented styles of training (i.e. classes) and that a brand new PC who has never actually clashed swords with an orc or cast a spell in battle is more worldly (i.e. experienced/levelled) than a master alchemist or swordsmith who has been practicing for decades.

1) It's no different in 3e, since levelling, as a function of XP, is based on a system of adventure awards. This doubles the problem since not only do you need levels to replicate PC level skill, but granting NPCs those levels is totallu arbitrary since they wouldn't earn them in the first place.

2) It makes no sense for most NPCs to become more resistant to threats and better at combat because they've improved in professional skills. We let PCs do this because we assume that as adventurers they are tested on multiple fronts in extreme situations.

Secondary Skills, for a similar reason, also didn't make sense. If you didn't start with one (which were randomly rolled anyway), you couldn't learn it. You might have been an armorer or a fisherman or sailor before you began adventuring, but there was no learning any of that after that first dungeon crawl, even if you spend most of your later adventures after 1st level in a seaside fishing village based out of an old smithy.

The 1e DMG is very clear that Secondary Skills represent a life before adventuring and that adventuring is a rigorous enough pursuit to take up time that would otherwise be spent learning a trade skill. In 1e adventurers live in a world where most people are not heroes, but are still important, and skilled in ways adventurers are not.

Now in 4e you can have this just by designing most people as monsters, since 4e monsters need not obey the PC framework at all, but you still have the "Paragon Ice" issue. A flaw 1e and 4e share is a lack of support for bringing adventure-marginal skills (like various craft skills) into focus as meaningful character trait. 1e assumes you'll never learn them and 4e defines "skills" as things you would do in an adventure, period. For all folks complain about 4e being MMO-like, MMOs actually do this at times, and some adaptations (such as EQD20) worked with this.

It seems to be that in the end, each system has its flaws. Right now I'm busy with a skill system that is organically evolving from playing AD&D1e RAW, then gradually changing things. I've identified 4 categories of skills in the process:

1) Trade or professional skills unrelated to adventuring -- the Secondary Skills system.
2) Skills where being an adventurer does not put one at a special advantage over 0-level types. I use ability score checks for these.
3) Skills that relay on an adventurer's overall talent and experience, but are not race/class-dependent per se. I have folded these into saving throws.
4) Class/race dependent skills.

Now #4 has led to an interesting situation with regard to thief abilities, since many of them are things anybody should be able to attempt. I have decided to work with them by emphasizing their definitions. Anybody can sneak, but Hide in Shadows is equivalent to Invisibility. Anybody can try to climb, but Climb walls allows sheer surfaces without tools that non-thieves (or monks, etc.) can't attempt. I am also allowing these as rerolls for more mundane attempts at things anybody can do.

 

[Hussar]

I wonder if, in 4e parlance, siloing off non-adventuring skills might work. Make it a completely separate system. You could possibly include all sorts of elements into it - trade guilds, political import, fame, actual ability to craft something, that sort of thing.

By making it a separate subsystem, it wouldn't compete with "adventuring" stuff and makes a sort of separate mini-game.

 

[Baphomet]

I always liked NWP and secondary skills, back in the day I never had a problem with them, though I probably like 3E skill system the most and 4E the least.

 

[kenwolf]

why do people think that 4th editon skill checks are so good. your actually getting worse at your skills as you go up in level. it is pretty easy to see.

1st level your DC's are 5, 10, 15 right ?
30th level they are 19, 28, 33 right ?

if you took the so call advancement from 1/2 your level away and took that same amount away from your DC check number at 30th level your DC's would be 4, 13, 18 so you actually got worse as you leveled up.

why even go threw the trouble of having them improve if in reality they dont ? it would just be easier to leave them the same as when you was 1st level.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

nevermind

 

[wingsandsword]

The trouble is that the commoner is also competent at adventuring related stuff. A 7th level commoner is better in a fight than most low level PCs. He's tougher than a 1st level fighter.

Why is that so bad?

A 7th Level Commoner is pretty rare. He's probably a middle-aged man who's been in a few bar brawls, been part of the town watch or militia to deal with orc raiders coming by every few years (and may have taken Simple Weapon Proficiency as a feat to have more proficiency than with just 1 weapon, like so he can effectively carry a crossbow or mace while on watch), has to chase away the wolves and coyotes from the livestock occasionally, had to deal with some highwaymen once, lived through some fierce storms, and even then he's only marginally better than 1st level fighter. 7d4 HP with no max HP at 1st level is about 17 HP, with a +3 BAB, but only proficient in 1 simple weapon and has no combat feats and bad saves in all categories. That vs a 1st level fighter with 10 HP (plus CON), a +1 BAB but martial weapons, armor, and a couple of probably combat-oriented feats. The 7th Level Commoner might not be an instant pushover, but he's still probably going to lose.

NPC classes over 1st level in 3.x aren't the norm, they are the particularly skilled or outstanding. A typical non-adventuring townsfolk is a 1st level commoner: 2 or 3 HP, +0 BAB and proficiency with 1 simple weapon (probably a club or dagger), AC 10, and a couple of skills at +4 (maybe one with +7 if they have Skill Focus as their 1st level feat and the character is actually somewhat serious about his occupation).

A PC can be just as good (and probably better) without even performing the skill for a living. This is the problem. It dulls the motivation to have ties in society.

They may well do that skill for a living, at least the "between adventures" living. PC's, especially high-level ones, are the most talented and skilled people in the game world, the kind of people who tend to excel in just about everything they put their minds to. Just like in the real world, you have the unmotivated lazy types that are marginally skilled and middle-aged having barely any skill, and the young go-getters that are good at their job and going to college to get their degree while taking martial arts classes or learning soldiering in the ROTC.

1) It's no different in 3e, since levelling, as a function of XP, is based on a system of adventure awards. This doubles the problem since not only do you need levels to replicate PC level skill, but granting NPCs those levels is totallu arbitrary since they wouldn't earn them in the first place.

They would have earned those levels by life experience. Dungeon crawling and modules aren't the only way to earn XP. As I listed earlier, there are many things in a typical townsfolks life which could earn XP. They earn it slowly, and NPC classes represent the non-adventuring path they are on which is far weaker than those who live far more dangerous lives.

The levels in NPC classes exist to be able to scale NPC's so that they have stats other than raw DM fiat (frankly, leaving the stats of 90+% of the population in the game world to DM fiat is the result of lazy designers, one bit of design elegance I love about 3.x is actual codified stats for almost every creature and person, instead of arbitrary fiat). I'd be just fine with it being more like in OCR and RCR Star Wars, where only PC classes got vitality, and NPC's only had wound points (i.e., NPC classes get no HP after 1st level), but even then it's not that big a deal, since higher level NPC classes are relatively rare.

2) It makes no sense for most NPCs to become more resistant to threats and better at combat because they've improved in professional skills. We let PCs do this because we assume that as adventurers they are tested on multiple fronts in extreme situations.

As I said, I let NPC's do it because especially in a medieval-type setting, even the mundane people live lives far more dangerous than the typical 20th/21st century Earth civilian life. If you've lived to the age of 30 or 40 in a typical D&D world, even as a townsfolk, you've probably seen more action than a 30 or 40 year old office worker or retail clerk. Also, you don't have to get very high level at all to be able to do anything we typically expect NPC craftsmen to accomplish. A 3rd level Commoner can be able to make masterwork items in his trade easily. Renowned sages, grand-master smiths, highly skilled alchemists and other accomplished NPC's could just as easily be mid-level PC-classed NPCs as NPC-classed.

The 1e DMG is very clear that Secondary Skills represent a life before adventuring and that adventuring is a rigorous enough pursuit to take up time that would otherwise be spent learning a trade skill. In 1e adventurers live in a world where most people are not heroes, but are still important, and skilled in ways adventurers are not.

I'm not a 1e expert, I learned D&D on 2e and became an expert on 3e. To me Secondary Skills is a lazy bolted-on facsimile of a skill system that makes a token nod towards the idea that characters have skills other than purely class-related ones. The idea that PC-classed characters can never learn trades because their adventuring life is far too rigorous is seems to be a flimsy rationalization. Spend a few years on sailing ships doing adventures at sea. . .but you don't learn how to be a sailor because it's too much work practicing your lockpicking and backstabbing skills? In the D&D games I've played in, PC's often had weeks or months between adventures, times PC's could quite plausibly be practicing skills only tangentially related to their character class (i.e. class skills like Craft or Profession).

 

[eyebeams]

Why is that so bad?

Because I want to be able to create a blacksmith of superlative skill who does not also have the ability to waste orcs. Forcing me to create one sucks.

They may well do that skill for a living, at least the "between adventures" living. PC's, especially high-level ones, are the most talented and skilled people in the game world, the kind of people who tend to excel in just about everything they put their minds to. Just like in the real world, you have the unmotivated lazy types that are marginally skilled and middle-aged having barely any skill, and the young go-getters that are good at their job and going to college to get their degree while taking martial arts classes or learning soldiering in the ROTC.

PCs are the most talented at all skills in 3e because 3e's skill system is damaged to appease the egos of players who want to show up supporting characters. It's idiotic that the greatest swordsmith *must* be a PC. The popular sentiment that PCs must dominate every niche is wrong, dumb and ignores the precedents set by fiction and blink-test plausibility.

They would have earned those levels by life experience. Dungeon crawling and modules aren't the only way to earn XP. As I listed earlier, there are many things in a typical townsfolks life which could earn XP. They earn it slowly, and NPC classes represent the non-adventuring path they are on which is far weaker than those who live far more dangerous lives.

You're making my point for me. I have to make a blacksmith who is a superior combatant to make him a good blacksmith . . . but such a character can't actually arise organically in the system because non-adventuring XP awards are piddly. So the advice is kind of "Screw it, just cheat." I respect that. It's just in no way a defense of 3e's skill system. On the other hand, it handily explains why 4e dropped the whole idea of everybody using the same framework.

The essence of it is that you are telling me that something I don't want is awesome for reasons you like and I don't. 3e could have accommodated us both, but didn't. Elements of 4e do accommodate us both, but screws up any idea of skill as a rich background signifier.

2e only has weak links between classes and skills/NWPs, so we can both get what we want. You want every NPC smith to kick ass, make them all fighters. I don't and I still get the smith I want.

I'm not a 1e expert, I learned D&D on 2e and became an expert on 3e. To me Secondary Skills is a lazy bolted-on facsimile of a skill system that makes a token nod towards the idea that characters have skills other than purely class-related ones.The idea that PC-classed characters can never learn trades because their adventuring life is far too rigorous is seems to be a flimsy rationalization. Spend a few years on sailing ships doing adventures at sea. . .but you don't learn how to be a sailor because it's too much work practicing your lockpicking and backstabbing skills?

Nope. Secondary Skills have no system, so they are on par with anything you might claim as background in play. The DM has complete discretion.

In the D&D games I've played in, PC's often had weeks or months between adventures, times PC's could quite plausibly be practicing skills only tangentially related to their character class (i.e. class skills like Craft or Profession).

If you put down your sword and get to the anvil, why should you still be good at using your sword? Class levels are not supposed to represent magical gene therapy. You can always say that yeah, your guy is also practicing his fighting skills, magic, whatever -- but that just puts the ball begs the question of why he gets to be as good as the guy who isn't splitting his attention. But this is in-world rationalization -- secondary to game play.

The real problem is that locating ultimate competence in all things in PCs turns D&D's background into cardboard. Adventurers lose the need to barter with NPCs for many essentials and lose deep embedding in the world. As designers pander to players who whine whenever they must rely on something in spite of themselves for fear of getting upstaged by a bad DM's pet character (which bad DMs can create regardless of what you design) they shove the vast majority of NPCs into a kind of bland sub-world where they cannot even provide supporting services beyond facile ego-stroking, and it suborns all activity in the world to violent power (you must be able to kill someone to make anything) instead of making that power something specially possessed by PCs. So the irony is that allowing PCs to have inflated skills actually makes them *less* special, because anybody with similar skills has to be like them.

In short: It stinks. 4e got rid of some of these issues but then ripped out skills that vividly situate people in the world. 1e didn't even have a system. Nobody's done a very good job of it, really.

 

[TerraDave]

Coming to this late. And having used NWP (starting with 1E) for almost ten years...

They seemed to fill a gap in terms of charecterization and being able to do certain things, but, they had issues:

-They were one of multiple skills systems, coexisting with % based class skills and skill like things, like listning at doors

-They had a unique mechanic that evolved out of a simple convention, roll under ability, that could be surprisingly confusing for new players (and not so new) who also where making roll high on a d20 and other checks.

-They where hard to advance in. Take the 0 level examples given above. To be good in the craft or whatever would require a high ability score. The idea of the smith who was good because he had been doing it a long time didn't really fit.

-They included a mix of "proto-feats" (blind fight), adventuring skills (mountneering, healing) and various crafts and professions. This was the fashion at the time, but didn't really work well in a game like D&D, were a lot of key "skills" were kept as part of the class, and the accepted range of charecter activities was a little narrower then in some games.

-They, and other skill systems, have also been critiqued for "challenging the charecter, not the player". This I think is more an issue of implementation. I mean, does CoC not challenge the player?


I think making more use of % based skills--adventuring skills--maybe with some choice within a class, would have been a better way to go given the gaming "technology" of the time.

 

[LostSoul]

Nobody's done a very good job of it, really.

I beg to differ. My skill system is awesome.

 

[evildmguy]

Coming late to this as well but it's been a fascinating read, so thanks to all who have participated!

For myself:

1E: Secondary skills were an okay idea but too random. If they had broken up the charts by class, race or even geography (town vs wilderness) it would have been better. I never understood why my fighter/mage inland city elf had a secondary skill of sailor. It didn't fit but that was the roll so I had to keep it.

2E: NWPs were good but like many others, I had the problems they had and a few more. The descriptions were not very good and hid things, such as the sneaky -6 to Tracking if you weren't a Ranger. The first time I pointed that out to a player, he was pissed. (He was the rules lawyer and it was merely one more thing to argue about.) Like others, as the DM, I wanted to have heroes with above average ability scores, but then they were experts at NWPs as well. Pluses and minuses in having the skilled blacksmith but one NWP later and the characters could do it all themselves.

3E: I didn't mind the skill system of 3E to a point. But, as others have pointed out, there are still the potential of "wonky" results or having to "fudge" things. That's fine but it does seem weird at times. What got to me was how DCs kept going up to scale with levels but that creates other issues. I do think the system went overboard in trying to define all of the craft, profession and knowledge skills.

4E: Again better to a point. DCs still scale but there is better advice about how to use them. I think said advice is needed but there is good advice about not letting characters do things they haven't done before. That's probably why the skills have been reduced to those skills needed adventuring and not worrying about the others.

(TSR/WotC skill systems)
Alternity: This was the big strength for me of the Alternity system. A character's ability in a skill was based on talent (ability score) AND experience (skill rank). Further, rank benefits showed why ranks in a skill helped offset talent. (In other words, the 13 DEX, 3 ranks in pistol had the same numbers as the 10 DEX 6 ranks in terms of hitting but the character with 6 ranks has more options due to his experience (ranks) in the skill.) Further, while it makes it complicated, skill costs came into play to make it more expensive to learn combat/adventuring skills while "background" skills were cheaper. Whether or not that was intended is another question.

As KamikazeMidget (I think it was KMK) pointed out, skills/NWPs are only as needed as what the group is going to use them. And this opens the argument of when to play DND versus another game system. DND handles heroic fantasy very well. As long as the game is about going on quests to stop the orc horde or the rampaging dragon, DND is a really great and fun system to use. It's when the group wants to create their own magic item, be diplomats to a foreign dignitary, or barter with the king for their pay that DND doesn't handle it so well. Sometimes that's bad but most of the time it doesn't matter.

Just a few more coppers.

edg