The Case for Hide and Move Silently (Splitting Skills)

[Horwath]

I think it's a bad idea.

It's basicaly a "skill tax", you need hide and move silently together to be effective.

And then what, split perception back to spot and listen? Then have double the rolls for each sneak attempt?

I would even delete investigation and put it in perception(just to remove the debate about what gets to be used for that specific situation).


Perception is too good? So what? It is a skill that makes you better at noticeing things. Keep it simple, to notice ALL things. No need to split the "things" in different groups.


Problem is that some skills are not checked at all.

Even in published campaigns there is very few Athletics, acrobatics, animal handling checks, Medicine is unheard of,

In homebrew campaign it's up to DM to put challenges into various categories, not just perception vs. stealth ambushes.


Also, I would not go away from proficiency bonus, at it is the cornerstone of mechanics in 5e.

But, maybe add option to have 3 skills at half proficiency(round down) instead of getting one full proficiency.

Also skilled feat is too weak. If it gived 4 skills or +1 ability and 2 skill, it would be seen much more.

 

[Xeviat]

Well, part of my suggestion was to have a separate tree of abilities for skills, not costing your ASIs. You could use them to learn new skills or to learn new abilities with your skills. This way, it doesn't cost feats to improve your skills, unless it's a combative ability.

I do see the issue with doubling the skill checks for stealth vs perception. That would be a problem.


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[jayoungr]

Even in published campaigns there is very few Athletics, acrobatics, animal handling checks, Medicine is unheard of,

What campaigns have you been reading? I see athletics and acrobatics all the time in published adventures.

Agreed on animal handling, though. Medicine is useful if you are in a low-magic setting with little or no healing magic.

 

[phantomK9]

The only possibly helpful solution I can give is to how to reduce the power of Perception as a skill:

Perception only applies to finding living creatures that can move around and are Hiding.
Investigation applies to finding all inanimate hidden things, like secret doors and traps.

People who are trying to Hide have to mask not only their location based upon sight, but also their sounds, their scents, any indications they have left behind like tracks and such. And all of that tends to be at a distance. The person is "out there" somewhere, and you just get a sense of noticing where they might be. And becoming good at noticing those people is different than being good at noticing slight differences in how things look. Finding a secret door means getting right up close and noticing small thin gaps in the wood or stone, noticing slight color differences, slight texture differences, extremely slight changes in air movement. There's no "sixth sense" about finding secret doors like there is finding people hiding out in the wild. Instead, it's just very careful, slow investigation of the ever-so-slight clues that are right there in front of you that you can barely see. Getting on your hands and knees and finding where that thin tripwire is. Tapping the ground and hearing the hollow ring that comes from having nothing underneath it indicating a pit.

If you treat finding Hidden creatures and secret doors/traps as two different skills to be good at (which I do)... Perception as the uber-skill gets cut down in half.

That's basically how I've been running it as well, but I think you have articulated the difference far better than I ever had.
I'm copying and forwarding this to my players now....

 

[Saeviomagy]

I think that perception, insight, investigation and the in-combat properties of athletics and acrobatics should be removed, replaced with appropriate DCs based on saving throws, preferably ones that match the classes intended to be good at each task.

I think rolling to see if players notice something is an awful mechanic, as is making characters spend skill proficiencies on combat defenses, modes of attack and basic deduction.

 

[77IM]

A few players in my group don't like that they feel like they can't improve their skills beyond leveling or multiclassing to get Expertise.

Re-introducing skill ranks seems like a very shallow and artificial-feeling way to achieve this.

I think a better approach would be to add more (and better) skill feats. For example, Stealth has Skulker feat, Deception has Actor feat, Athletics has Athlete feat, etc. Most of these feats are weak, but you could improve them in various ways. (For example, let those feats grant proficiency in the relevant skill, or Expertise if you are already proficient.) In fact, you could come up with a system of "half-feat" skill improvements, where a character can give up 1 or 2 points of ASI to get a skill special ability.

I like feats for two reasons:

• It's qualitative instead of quantitative. Increasing skill ranks to increase your bonus (quantitative improvement) is boring; it doesn't really change anything, unless the increase is massive (Expertise). Getting a whole new cool ability (qualitative improvement) is interesting.
• Players who don't give a crap can just ignore this subsystem altogether.

Also, I've noticed that some skills seem far more useful than other skills.

The simplest solution here is to charge variable amounts for skills. Initial brainstorm: Perception costs 2 skill picks; Athletics and Stealth cost 1.5 skill picks; History, Insight, Medicine, Nature, Performance, and Religion cost half a skill pick; you can also get a tool or language proficiency for half a skill pick if you want.

I like variable costs better than splitting skills into multiple skills because it isolates the complexity to character-creation time. During game play, nobody wants to manage Hide and Move Silently as two separate things, but doing a smidge more math during chargen isn't so bad.

 

[Xeviat]

I think that perception, insight, investigation and the in-combat properties of athletics and acrobatics should be removed, replaced with appropriate DCs based on saving throws, preferably ones that match the classes intended to be good at each task.

I think rolling to see if players notice something is an awful mechanic, as is making characters spend skill proficiencies on combat defenses, modes of attack and basic deduction.

So make all passive and defensive skill uses saving throws? I could appreciate that.


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[Sunseeker]

I gratuitously award bonuses for in-game roleplay and learning to "sub skills". Stealth is still stealth, but a character might have a +2 when they are only concerned about being heard (such as being on a creaky floor above the bad guys) or a +2 to hide when they don't need to move, they just need to hold still and not be spotted.

These bonuses are only earned through in-game action. Studying, training, practice in the field. The more specific the sub-knowledge, the more likely I am to award a permanent bonus. Perhaps one day you too can become a Trekkie. Knowledge>History>Television>Pop Culture>Sci-fi>Star Trek.

 

[DaedalusX51]

I like the intent of this but added complexity bothers me.

How about tying skills to proficient bonus? Give one class skill, one background skill, and one for each PB point. That means starting with four skills then adding more as the character levels. To make it more interesting, allow trading a new skill gained at higher levels for expertise in an existing skill.

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I liked your idea, but gave it a little of my own spin.

Check it out

 

[bgbarcus]

I liked your idea, but gave it a little of my own spin.

Check it out

That looks good enough that I considering asking my players if they want to try it.

Although, after regular weekly game that started with the second to last playtest, the skill system may be the only thing nobody in my group has complained about. [emoji1]