The Three-Skill System

[Wormwood]

I use a similar system when I run retroclones (essentially the way I did back in 1980):

Player describes what they want to do, I set a target number (depending upon difficulty, player creativity, and character background and class), and then the player rolls d20 + relevant stat mod.

I refer to background because a former frontiersman is more likely to know how to set a rabbit snare than a former apothecary.

Character class enters in for similar reasons (rogues are trained in sneaky skills, clerics in healing, etc)

 

[mkill]

You may want to look into a small RPG called Over The Edge. This system works with just four custom stats for each PC.

I did these kind of very reductionist systems, but I don't think they fit what most people would expect a D&D to be. It's the same reason D&D will never be class-less, or fully point-buy, or diceless, or GM-less, or...

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I like the general idea, but I'd prefer that specialties not be limted to one, nor a separate skill. Instead, the specialties would be adjustments to either the background or class skill. Each "specialty" would normally be a flat pick, that gives a set bonus (e.g. +3 or something like that) to the relevant skill, when applicable.

A starting character would default to having one such pick.

This is considerably more flexibility for not very much extra complication. Plus, that way your "specialty" picks can also include things like extra languages, which don't add to a skill but do fit into the same kind of conceptual bucket.

From that base, you can customize several different ways. For example, you can provide more specialty picks over time--by level or by time in the campaign or by activity or whatever. If you have particular narrow or broad specialty picks, you can change the standard bonus to compensate. Jack of all trades would be so broad that it gave no such bonus, but rather extended the range of your background or class skill.

A default system could use a decent set (or three) of predefined specialties, in order to get people started, and fit more what people have grown to expect in the last decade or so. Then a sidebar could easily reduce that down to this base.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

I like the general idea for a rules lite approach. The one thing I've always disliked about all the skill systems in D&D is that they really don't allow for the true Jack-of-All-Trades type of character. (3E could have done it with more skill points, and 4E tries to do it by upping all skills as you go up in Levels, but they don't really do the job IMO.)

 

[Rune]

It occurs to me that this system does break down when you factor in multiclassing (however that would work).

Essentially, you would either have to widen the scope of the class skill to cover both/all classes, or add in an extra class skill per class. Neither would be too difficult, though, obviously, the second would be more balanced with non-multiclassed characters, if the different classes involved each have levels attached to them--as the do in 1e, 2e, and 3e.

For feat-based multiclassing (such as 4e uses), you could treat each feat taken as 1 or more levels in the appropriate class (depending on just what they do) for purposes of determining the bonus to that class skill.

 

[Number48]

I see a couple problems, neither of which is so egregious that it can't be addressed. First, what if your background skill just never seems to come up? That sucks when you have 8 skills, so it would suck even harder if you just had 3. This might happen if you had a sailor background, frex. Second, the class skill part really plays into the hands of DM bias or favoritism. Of course DMs shouldn't be biased or play favorites, but it happens.

There also seems to be some things missing. Race, for example. You could cover that with background, but being a Dwarf Noble almost seems like I'm getting 2 backgrounds. How does this system handle ordinary skill checks like climbing? Everybody has to climb the rope, after all.

 

[Rune]

I see a couple problems, neither of which is so egregious that it can't be addressed. First, what if your background skill just never seems to come up? That sucks when you have 8 skills, so it would suck even harder if you just had 3. This might happen if you had a sailor background, frex.

I very much doubt that a broad enough background would never be applicable. Right off the top of my head, for example, I can think of two reasonably common applications for the sailor. A sailor will be skilled both in rope use and in balance! Ultimately, however, the utility of this skill system is determined by the resourcefulness of the player using the skill.

Second, the class skill part really plays into the hands of DM bias or favoritism. Of course DMs shouldn't be biased or play favorites, but it happens.

The purpose of this system is to give adjudication back to the DM. An element of trust is important for any system that relies on such.

There also seems to be some things missing. Race, for example. You could cover that with background, but being a Dwarf Noble almost seems like I'm getting 2 backgrounds.

Personally, I was thinking that the race would be part of the background, but if you prefer to make a distinction, it could be easily done. Since the bonus for the background check is static, though, functionally, it would not matter. Your Dwarf Noble should not have any richer a background than a Human Noble would.

How does this system handle ordinary skill checks like climbing? Everybody has to climb the rope, after all.

Well, the Background Skill might cover it. If so, in most situations, the DM would probably rule that it does not actually need to be rolled (if it is mundane). If background does not cover it, many classes would (I'd say all the martial ones). The Class Skill would be rolled against a DC.

Assuming that a character no skill, whatsoever, in the climbing of ropes, a straight ability check would suffice (which ability would be up to the DM, but most likely Strength.

It occurs to me that this system would need to address overlap between the Background Skill and the Class Skill, though. In such cases, the Background modifier could be added into the Class Skill check, but ought not be too large. +2 would be a good number, because, effectively, this makes the background a conditional modifier, which seems appropriate (and in line with racial bonuses to skills in both 3e and 4e).