Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7034570" data-attributes="member: 82106">IMHO 5e's skill system is flawed by comparison to 4e's in a number of ways. Its not terrible or anything, but it is strictly inferior in actual play.Being trained is of limited value, you just aren't that much better at a skill, and no amount of trying will take you numerically to the point where you can pull off stuff nobody else can. OTOH you also never get to a point where you can do most things without a chance of failure either, this is weird.There are too many skills (and tool proficiencies, which are just back-door skills that are poorly explained). Its not too bad, the list isn't stupid long, but it exceeds what is strictly necessary and yet some critical and obvious areas are not covered clearly by any given skill. At least if 4e's list was going to be extended couldn't you fill gaps instead of creating MORE gaps?Without an SC system there's a void in terms of how to leverage skills into encounters and just what it means to have exploration and social 'pillars' (not that I buy into that concept at all, but WotC does, yet they don't support it!). 4e also had a somewhat richer background system (its less mechanically detailed, but that actually makes it better in some ways). You can quite effectively attach a mechanically acknowledged &quot;I know all about X&quot; to a character, without it being a significant resource that has to be justified against some other resource, and thus become a 'skill' that required implicit incompetence for lacking it.I simply saw no logic by which 5e's skill system was an improvement over 4e's. It doesn't do anything better. 4e's skill system, within the totality of 4e, is really quite good. Leaps and bounds better than in any other edition.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7034570, member: 82106"] IMHO 5e's skill system is flawed by comparison to 4e's in a number of ways. Its not terrible or anything, but it is strictly inferior in actual play. Being trained is of limited value, you just aren't that much better at a skill, and no amount of trying will take you numerically to the point where you can pull off stuff nobody else can. OTOH you also never get to a point where you can do most things without a chance of failure either, this is weird. There are too many skills (and tool proficiencies, which are just back-door skills that are poorly explained). Its not too bad, the list isn't stupid long, but it exceeds what is strictly necessary and yet some critical and obvious areas are not covered clearly by any given skill. At least if 4e's list was going to be extended couldn't you fill gaps instead of creating MORE gaps? Without an SC system there's a void in terms of how to leverage skills into encounters and just what it means to have exploration and social 'pillars' (not that I buy into that concept at all, but WotC does, yet they don't support it!). 4e also had a somewhat richer background system (its less mechanically detailed, but that actually makes it better in some ways). You can quite effectively attach a mechanically acknowledged "I know all about X" to a character, without it being a significant resource that has to be justified against some other resource, and thus become a 'skill' that required implicit incompetence for lacking it. I simply saw no logic by which 5e's skill system was an improvement over 4e's. It doesn't do anything better. 4e's skill system, within the totality of 4e, is really quite good. Leaps and bounds better than in any other edition. [/QUOTE]

Verification