The Core Mechanic and DCs

[Crazy Jerome]

I think this would work rather nicely in representing different skills where as ability score alone fails to represent training heavy skills such as the appraisal of obscure items, disabling traps, the mundane but highly skilled healing of severely injured characters, highly gymnastic manoeuvres and so on.

It would be a heck of a more plausible system than anything D&D has used heretofore. I'd be worried about people getting a little too focused on simulating particular genres and expectations with such a system, but that is an implementation/testing problem, not an issue with the main idea.

 

[Minigiant]

I think this could be solved using a similar system of auto-success but related to the nurture side of things rather than nature. Imagine if based on training, a character's skill was rated:

• Unfamiliar/Hampered
• Familiar
• Proficient
• Expert
• Specialist
• Master

In this way a ranger who is an expert in Woodlore (that is based on a secondary ability modifer: wisdom) can accomplish many things automatically simply because they are an expert in that field. Likewise for any character who is well-trained but perhaps behind in raw ability, this becomes a method of automatic resolution.

The other feature that I like about this is that it allows you to differentiate between skills that might be heavily skewed to either nature or nurture. For example, jumping is much more related to raw strength and dexterity, with training not having as much influence. Such skills will focus on natural ability scores (rather than training) for automatic resolution bypassing the core mechanic. Alternatively, skills based much more on "nurture" or training such as Arcane Lore, will have training based capacity such as "expert" or "specialist" be what is required for automatic success and resolution. I think this would work rather nicely in representing different skills where as ability score alone fails to represent training heavy skills such as the appraisal of obscure items, disabling traps, the mundane but highly skilled healing of severely injured characters, highly gymnastic manoeuvres and so on.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

It would be a heck of a more plausible system than anything D&D has used heretofore. I'd be worried about people getting a little too focused on simulating particular genres and expectations with such a system, but that is an implementation/testing problem, not an issue with the main idea.

The issue is, at the moment, "skill checks" are ability checks and it sounds like skills won't be defined as hard as 3E and 4E.It sounds like it is up to the DM and his fiat to determine to do Trained checks while the books handle Untrained Checks via written DCs.

Unless there are two clear systems for the Unmastered Aility checks and DCs and a Trained Ability Threshold.

Or big fat bonuses to checks for masters.

Or something like "Take Ability Score/Passive Ability Score" where anyone who has the ability score of the DC minus 2 autosuccess. The break DC for a wood door for could be DC 18. Character with 16 or higher Strength automatically breaks the door if they describe crashing through the door. Anyone with 15 or less Strength who tries brute force has to roll. Keeping from getting lost requires a Wisdom of 13 or higher for an autosuccess or a Wisdom roll of 15.

I really want to see how they do it.