Untrained/trained Skills....Noooo!

[pawsplay]

I Except that isn't what it says, and I think the orginal author rightly understood the medium and the audience. Massaged, the quoted material reads less honestly to me. Action heroes really can do anything. Many RPG players really want to be able to do anything, and don't want simply a meaningful chance of success unless by meaningful you mean 'fairly close to 100% but not so close that they are continually reminded that they aren't supposed to fail.' For them, jumping a 15' gap between swinging metal disks over lava really is more meaningful, exciting, and fun than jumping a 5' gap in the same situation. For them, they want to jump across after the bad guy even if they made the decision not to play a character whose thing was jumping. They want to pull the ace of spaces. They want to win and Baccarat and golf and video games. They want to hit the bad guy right between the eyes, even though they are playing the crusty doctor. They want to jump on a cello and slide all the way austria. They want to play the square jawed merc that beats the bad guy at chess, steals his women, and then beats him soundly in a fair fight in which the bad guy cheats and draws a weapon.

But are "they" playing D&D? There are plenty of genres where that's appropriate, but even Conan was not good at absolutely everything. This might, barely, describe LOTR (the movie), probably does not describe LOTR (the book), definitely does not describe Hour of the Dragon, and is about the farthest thing I can imagine from Cugel's Saga.

I thought Eberron with action points pretty much covered this. I don't see this as plus-fun. To me, omnicompetent dungeon delvers is genre breaking.

 

[drothgery]

I thought Eberron with action points pretty much covered this. I don't see this as plus-fun. To me, omnicompetent dungeon delvers is genre breaking.

Omnicompetent? Tell that to the players in my SWSE game who, because no one was trained in Treat Injury, had to struggle with chained Aid Anothers to use a medpac. Why's that? Well, they're 4th level (or at least, they were at the end of the six-week of real time arc I called episode I they were; at the start of episode II, they'll be 8th level), and while the two Force-sensitive characters (one Jedi, one Scout) have good wisdom scores, they're not stratospheric.

 

[Remathilis]

And I think the disconnect lies in one place. People who like the Saga system want people to be able to do things, even if it's tetchy. Then, there are those of us - like myself - who don't mind telling their players "no. Your character cannot do that. You fail. Period. Your old, crippled wizard who's never worked out or jumped more than a few inches in his life can't cross. Not gonna happen. Sucks to be you - but that's a person. They have limitations."

You see, there comes a point when you have to ask "what is the cut-off line"? The old crippled wizard cannot jump more than a few inches. Why? He's old and crippled. Ok. Then how does he avoid a fireball spell (40' diameter blast of fire)? How does he avoid an orc's 10' long greataxe swing? How does he even try to HIT the fully plate-armored and tower-shield carrying knight? Yet, in ALL editions of D&D (even 1974 OD&D) that crippled wizard is entitled to a saving throw, an AC, and a To-Hit roll (with a 20 being an automatic hit). Are you going to say "Sorry Bob, but Gandalf is 90 and has a bum knee, so he doesn't get a saving throw vs the fireball. You fail. Period. Not gonna happen. Sucks to be you?" If not, what makes skill checks ANY different than a saving throw, AC, to hit roll, or ability check?

 

[AllisterH]

You see, there comes a point when you have to ask "what is the cut-off line"? The old crippled wizard cannot jump more than a few inches. Why? He's old and crippled. Ok. Then how does he avoid a fireball spell (40' diameter blast of fire)? How does he avoid an orc's 10' long greataxe swing? How does he even try to HIT the fully plate-armored and tower-shield carrying knight? Yet, in ALL editions of D&D (even 1974 OD&D) that crippled wizard is entitled to a saving throw, an AC, and a To-Hit roll (with a 20 being an automatic hit). Are you going to say "Sorry Bob, but Gandalf is 90 and has a bum knee, so he doesn't get a saving throw vs the fireball. You fail. Period. Not gonna happen. Sucks to be you?" If not, what makes skill checks ANY different than a saving throw, AC, to hit roll, or ability check?

QFT

What exactly makes Skills so different than other aspects of the system? I mean, even in 1E, a 20th level mage naked could kill a first level fighter without much trouble even if you didn't use ANY magic.

 

[Celebrim]

how does he avoid a fireball spell (40' diameter blast of fire)?

Errr... how does anyone avoid a fireball? It's not like any class jumps clear of the radius of effect.

How does he avoid an orc's 10' long greataxe swing?

Without magical protection, he probably doesn't. In standard D&D, classes are not entitled to a modifier to AC based on thier experience.

How does he even try to HIT the fully plate-armored and tower-shield carrying knight?

He's a member of the Silver Horde? Any system that quasi-separates attributes from its combat resolution system is going to have this worthy of parody issue. Even GURPS has this problem to a certain extent, and it tries hard to avoid it.

If not, what makes skill checks ANY different than a saving throw, AC, to hit roll, or ability check?

Combat resolution is the definitive group challenge. Everyone expects to contribute to combat situations and has this as a reasonable expectation, in part because combats tend to be so time consuming, in part that is because it is the nature of the game, and in part because the ways that they can contribute to solving the problem are so varied by class. Individual skill checks, not so much. Rather, the variaty in available skills mirrors the variaty in the different ways classes can approach a combat problem. Saying that every class needs a high level of compentancy in ever skill in order to participate is like saying every class needs to be able to sneak attack and cast healing spells in order to participate.

 

[Zurai]

You see, there comes a point when you have to ask "what is the cut-off line"? The old crippled wizard cannot jump more than a few inches. Why? He's old and crippled. Ok. Then how does he avoid a fireball spell (40' diameter blast of fire)?

He ducks behind a piece of scenery or another character, lessing the impact of the blast.

How does he avoid an orc's 10' long greataxe swing?

He doesn't. The orc misses.

How does he even try to HIT the fully plate-armored and tower-shield carrying knight?

Old crippled wizards try to hit knights?

If not, what makes skill checks ANY different than a saving throw, AC, to hit roll, or ability check?

The fact that a roll of 20 on a skill check isn't an auto-success. Why is a 20 not an auto-success? Because skills are one of the very, very few things you have direct and immediate control over with your character. You CHOSE to leave your skill so low that you cannot auto-succeed on the roll to climb a knotted rope.

Choices should have consequences.

 

[Celebrim]

even in 1E, a 20th level mage naked could kill a first level fighter without much trouble even if you didn't use ANY magic.

20th level naked M-U without spells versus 1st level fighter with chain, shield, and long sword? DMG or UA unarmed combat resolution system?

That's a pretty extreme case. I guess this depends on how you define 'too much trouble'. I can easily see the 20th level M-U losing half his hit points in this encounter, especially if the M-U has a strength penalty. By the time you are talking 3rd level fighter, my gut feeling is that the Archmage is going down.

In any event, this is a problem with hitpoints, not anything else. What do they represent anyway? Favor of the gods? Luck? Experience? Shear fortitude? Some combination of the above? So long as hitpoints are based on level and not strictly on constitution, you are going to have oddities like that.

 

[DandD]

Old crippled wizards try to hit knights?

If they want to give the low-level knights a chance, why not. Perhaps the old level 20 wizard only wants to ridiculise the knight before the entire court, showing to everybody that the old geezer can easily overpower the entire knight order composed of only low-level characters... unarmed... Which is possible by the rules...

 

[Zurai]

If they want to give the low-level knights a chance, why not. Perhaps the old level 20 wizard only wants to ridiculise the knight before the entire court, showing to everybody that the old geezer can easily overpower the entire knight order composed of only low-level characters... unarmed... Which is possible by the rules...

It's possible, but the likelyhood is an order of magnitude beyond happening.

A level 1 knight with a 10 con has 12 hp.

The crippled venerable level 20 wizard probably doesn't have much more than 30 hp (thanks to -6 con from age penalties coupled with a d4 HD).

The level 20 wizard has a +10 BAB but the same -6 strength penalty, and I've never seen a point buy non-gish wizard put points in strength, so he really only has +7 to hit.

Said Knight in full plate with tower shield has an AC of 23 (8 armor, 1 dex, 4 shield).

The wizard thus requires a roll of 16 or better to hit. That's a 25% chance to deal 1 point of nonlethal damage. It'll require him to attack, on average, 52 rounds before he knocks the Knight unconcious.

On top of that, he provokes every time he makes that unarmed attack, and his AC is going to be horrible without spells or magic items; probably in the AC 8 range. We'll assume the Knight is attacking nonlethally and has a +3 strength bonus and Weapon Focus, but a -2 penalty from the tower shield. for a grand total of -1 to hit. He hits on a 9 or higher, for a 60% chance to deal 1d8+3 nonlethal damage per hit. That's an average of 9 nonlethal damage per round (the Knight's attack on his turn and his AoO attack on the Wizard's turn). The wizard lasts 4 rounds on average.

EDIT: Forgot the tower shield penalty.

 

[Celebrim]

If they want to give the low-level knights a chance, why not. Perhaps the old level 20 wizard only wants to ridiculise the knight before the entire court, showing to everybody that the old geezer can easily overpower the entire knight order composed of only low-level characters... unarmed... Which is possible by the rules...

Err... possible, sure. But you are really stretching it now. A fight between a 1st level armored fighter and a naked 20th level Wizard without spells is alot closer than you are making it out to be. Give the wizard an ordinary staff, and ok, maybe, but assuming that we really assume an 'old geezer' here (that is physical attributes of 8 or less) and actually naked, the 20th level Wizard is going to have his hands full with even a single 1st level armored fighter, much less a half-dozen of them, much less a couple that might be 2nd or 3rd level (still 'low-level').

But more to the point, this example doesn't actually demonstrate anything that you seem to think that it does. It is, if you take realism to be a very high virtue, an argument for replacing D&D's level/hitpoint/class system with a universal skill system, but the reverse isn't necessarily true. It doesn't necessarily follow that if you think the skill system should be somewhat realistic, that you think hit points should be too.