Untrained/trained Skills....Noooo!

[Zurai]

Why not? Once you're unconscious, you can easily be killed. Either by coup de grace, or simply hitting the now-defenseless fighter again and again with lethal damage, till he's really dead.

Fine, then the fighter is intelligent enough to use a greatsword and wins signifigantly faster because he's now averaging 22.88 damage a round.

 

[Nifft]

... and the wizard wastes his second disarm roll, and still only makes a +6 vs +5 roll in the first place. The fighter could then spend his move action picking the sword back up (not even provoking an AoO for doing so, because the unarmed wizard does not threaten any squares) and his standard action attacking.

For those watching at home, that's a negative net gain for the wizard. He wasted his two attacks for the turn and did absolutely nothing to hinder the fighter.

Hi, I'm trying to follow along at home.

Why did the Wizard drop the sword? The nonproficiency penalty is the same as his previous "lethal damage" penalty to attack, and the damage is better.

Thanks, -- N

 

[jasin]

This Wiz20 vs. Ftr1 thing is really getting silly.

 

[Zurai]

Hi, I'm trying to follow along at home.

Why did the Wizard drop the sword? The nonproficiency penalty is the same as his previous "lethal damage" penalty to attack, and the damage is better.

Thanks, -- N

Good point. I missed the last sentence (hey, wasn't there a thread about that around here somewhere?). So, yes, once he finally succeeds at the disarm - assuming the fighter took that AoO for the wizard moving - he has a half-decent shot. Of course, I don't know many fighters that don't have multiple weapons. And if the fighter was actually intelligent and not using a longsword but a greatsword, the wizard would hardly have a shot at disarming him (+6 or +1 for the wizard vs +9 for the fighter).

 

[DandD]

Why does he waste his disarm roll when the fighter attacks him for walking around? And yes, it's really good if the wizard has the +6 bonus for his roll, he only needs to succeed once to disarm the fighter. Also, when he throws the weapon away, the weapon is out of reach for the fighter, and he'll have to use one movement action to get there, and a second one to pick it up, provided that the wizard/commoner didn't throw it away at some place that is unreachable for the fighter in the first place (like the castle-moat).

However, it seems that it's beginning to become way off-topic, having nothing more to do with discussing about trained/untrained skills. I will stop the off-topic discussion right now.

 

[Zurai]

This Wiz20 vs. Ftr1 thing is really getting silly.

Then why do you keep bringing it up?

Seriously, I'm not married to it! It's a brilliantly stupid example because it only works in extreme cases. But if people keep bringing it up and trying to find an extreme case where it works, I'm gonna keep pointing out that it still doesn't work.

The point that brought this entire stupid debate up in the first place was a DM saying he was comfortable with there being skill checks he could tell a character "No, can't be done" for, and someone asking why that doesn't apply to combat checks.

Amusingly, no one has commented on my answer pertaining to the real reason why, just tried to pick holes in the math of the most ridiculous of the ridiculous examples given by people who think combat works differently.

 

[Zurai]

Why does he waste his disarm roll when the fighter attacks him for walking around?

Because A) making that move action prevents him from making his second disarm attempt (which requires a full attack action), and B) the fighter is not required to waste his AoO on the wizard's stupid movement.

And yes, it's really good if the wizard has the +6 bonus for his roll, he only needs to succeed once to disarm the fighter.

No, he needs to succeed as many times as the fighter has weapons. I've never made a fighter that didn't carry at least one weapon per damage type.

 

[jasin]

So this unarmed, unarmoured guy whose focus has been in other things than melee combat can take on an armoured, armed warrior and have a shot at winning. Even if he doesn't win, it's a guy in his pajamas against a guy in armour with a sword. Even putting up a good fight is a pretty impressive display of physical badassery, isn't it?

No-one appears to be bothered by the fact that this is possible in D&D.

However, people appear to be bothered by the possibility that this same guy will be able to have some chance of survival if he's caught swimming in a storm.

The two aren't fundamentally different, except in familiarity: high-level characters being better at fighting is how it's always been, while high-level characters being better at swimming is a new development.

That was the point of the example. As I understood it; the original poster can correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Zurai]

The two aren't fundamentally different, except in familiarity: high-level characters being better at fighting is how it's always been, while high-level characters being better at swimming is a new development.

No, the two aren't fundamentally different because they use the exact same mechanic -- roll a d20, add your modifiers, and compare with a static DC -- with a single rule seperating them: a roll of 20 is not an automatic success.

The thing is, the wizard can't help but become a little better at handling himself in combat as he continually handles himself in combat. He has a choice whether or not "swimming in a storm" is something he cares enough about to improve.

It's that removal of player choice that I, and several other people, object to.

 

[jasin]

If this kind of choice is inherently a good thing, would it be even better if the wizard could choose to not become better at combat? To not advance BAB but advance something else instead: swimming, or Reflex, or spellcraft?