Untrained/trained Skills....Noooo!

[Nifft]

Storyteller systems have implicit universal competency, because it becomes so cheap to buy one or two dots to cover your weaknesses relative to how expensive that next dot would be to emphasize your strength(s). Sure, you can work to avoid it, but the folks in my groups did not do so.

SW Saga just made it explicit.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Celebrim]

I'll be honest, there was nothing there that 3e doesn't take into account. Size is already factored in, you receive a +4 to hide checks for being small (that's why kids are good hiders!). Its quick, clean, and easy.

I know how the system works now. It doesn't except in a very narrow range of assumptions. Get outside the assumptions, and its all about special cases and ignoring the rules and the DM is left with absolutely no guidance. You'd almost be better off with no system at all than one that is this misleading and this abusable as written.

The one thing that is annoying in 3e is the range increment is WAY too small. Make it 50' or something and be done with it. Or simply say you get a +2 to hide if your more than 30' feet away, and a +5 if your past 100' feet. Something quick and easy.

That's a big problem, but not the only problem. The hide in plain sight rules are extremely frustrating for novice DMs. By the rules as written, its incredibly easy to become basically invisible if you have any concealment at all. (Order of the Stick lampoons this with its goblin ninja's, "I feel I just failed a spot check.") It's just as easy to hide in the middle of an open tennis court shortly after dusk on a night of a full moon, as it is to hide in a nearly (but not quite) pitch dark night in 4' of thick grass. And so forth. Simple, easy, and of not alot of real value outside of 20x30 dungeon rooms.

Hide or not hiding, a reasonably good perception system should work in almost every situation that could come up in a game. This one doesn't.

 

[Nifft]

It's yet another power creep thats going to end up scaling up numbers, which scale up challenges, which scale up numbers, like we've seen ever since early in 3.X.

Are you kidding?

Cutting the maximum rate of advancement in half is not going to scale DCs up. Removing synergy, +2/+2 feats, +2 racial bonuses, +5/+10/+20 items, etc. is not going to scale DCs up.

This skill system is a reaction to the scaling up that did indeed occur throughout 3e.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Celebrim]

Storyteller systems have implicit universal competency, because it becomes so cheap to buy one or two dots to cover your weaknesses relative to how expensive that next dot would be to emphasize your strength(s). Sure, you can work to avoid it, but the folks in my groups did not do so.

Funny, but that's never how Storyteller games played out for me.

Because they worked off dice pools, the average results with large dice pools get both very predictable and absolutely overwhelming. Adding an extra dice to low dice pool gains you almost no real advantage. Whereas, adding an extra dice to a high dice pool can literally make you invincible. I've seen like 13 dice in a Sabbat player's soak dice pool before. M1 tanks were no match for that. Werewolf worked much the same way, I understand, but I tended to avoid it because even other WoD players told me how much it encouraged munkinism.

You aren't actually talking about implicit universal competency at all. By the same standards, GURPS has implicit universal competency as well. After all, its much easier to advance a low score a little than to advance a high one. But of course, anyone that has played GURPS more than a little will tell you that the way to break the game is start dumping all of your points into a single spell or martial arts or shield or whatever and forget about whether you have a 7 or 10 or even a 12 in a skill you aren't going to use that often. Get your one skill up as near to 18 as possible so that you can break the games math, and then lean on that one thing you are good at as much as you can.

What you are talking about isn't implicit universal competancy. What you are describing is your players deliberately choosing to play broad versital characters. They dabbled in alot of different skills to gain a broad - but not universal - competancy level, presumably because they weren't power gamers or didn't want to break the system.

And the thing is, we've basically got that now. If you want your fighter or wizard to dabble in some other skills not on his skill list, take a few levels in some other class - even if it means sacrificing a bit of your attack or magical skill. What a concept! I bet you've seen that in other games before.

Is it an optimal build? Probably not. Spreading your points around in Storyteller and GURPS isn't usually optimal either. Is there room for improvement in D20. Absolutely. I'm just not convinced universal competancy is the way to go.

 

[Celebrim]

Are you kidding?

Cutting the maximum rate of advancement in half is not going to scale DCs up. Removing synergy, +2/+2 feats, +2 racial bonuses, +5/+10/+20 items, etc. is not going to scale DCs up.

This skill system is a reaction to the scaling up that did indeed occur throughout 3e
Cheers, -- N

You are muddying the conversation now. We can have a separate discussion about the merits of skill enhancing feats, synergy, skill enhancing items, etc. We could remove all of those things independently and tone down the ability to abuse the skill system and not adopt Saga like rules. Or, not that I recommend it, you could keep them all in or any combination and adopt Saga like rules.

I personally hated skill enhancing magic items even more than I hated skill enhancing/bypassing spells. A +1 or +3 or +5 to a skill maybe, like the weapons. But the big numbers cheap. That was never well thought out.

 

[Nifft]

Okay, let's drop the items / feats / etc.

In Saga, the maximum advancement rate is half the rate of 3.5e.

How does this lead to "scaling up"?

-- N

 

[Zurai]

Okay, let's drop the items / feats / etc.

In Saga, the maximum advancement rate is half the rate of 3.5e.

How does this lead to "scaling up"?

-- N

Because the minimum advancement rate is infinitely higher than the rate of 3.5e. I'm not using "infinitely" in a figurative or hyperbolic sense, either - the minium rate of advancement in 3.5 is 0, and the minimum rate of advancement in SWSE is greater than 0.

 

[Nifft]

Because

Wrong.

the minimum advancement rate is infinitely higher than the rate of 3.5e. I'm not using "infinitely" in a figurative or hyperbolic sense, either - the minium rate of advancement in 3.5 is 0, and the minimum rate of advancement in SWSE is greater than 0.

Right! I don't disagree with this longer bit at all. It's a statement of fact.

But I can't quite connect this with "scaling up" DCs due to the new system.

In SWSE, your 20th level PC will have a check of 10 + ability bonus, at minimum. At maximum, you'll have a check of 20 + ability bonus.

In D&D, your 20th level PC may have a check of 0 + ability bonus. At maximum, you'll have a check of 23 +3 (skill focus) +10 (item) +2 (feat) +2 (racial ability) +6 (synergy) +1 (luckstone) +2 (competence, from e.g. bardic music or heroism) + possibly an enhancement bonus + your ability bonus.

Even if you ignore all the stuff between the 23 ranks and the ability bonus, you're still left with a 3 point reduction in the maximum DC that a 20th level dude could hit. (And note that's allowing Skill Focus in SWSE but not 3.5e.)

So it looks like there will be a reduction in DCs, and you may see some non-Trained PCs able to make those reduced DCs.

Where's the "scaling up"?

Cheers, -- N

 

[Zurai]

Even if you ignore all the stuff between the 23 ranks and the ability bonus

...which is safe to do, since one of the stated intents of 4E is to get rid of all that crap...

you're still left with a 3 point reduction in the maximum DC that a 20th level dude could hit. (And note that's allowing Skill Focus in SWSE but not 3.5e.)

So it looks like there will be a reduction in DCs, and you may see some non-Trained PCs able to make those reduced DCs.

So it's your belief that skill DCs are based solely on the maximum possible modifier, and completely ignore the "typical" ability score? Or, alternately, that the "typical" ability score IS the maximum possible modifier?

Because otherwise, your assertion makes no mathematical sense.

 

[Nifft]

...which is safe to do, since one of the stated intents of 4E is to get rid of all that crap...

Not really. You can't have it both ways. You can't say 4e is "scaling up" from 3e and then ignore over twenty points of reduction from the core rules of 3e.

But even without those twenty points, there is a reduction in maximum capability.

So it's your belief that skill DCs are based solely on the maximum possible modifier, and completely ignore the "typical" ability score?

It's my belief that the maximum will be reduced, and the minimum will be increased. The gap between PC capability will be reduced.

Thus, any given DC that's a valid challenge for one member of the party will be more likely to also be a valid challenge for everyone else in the party.

How is this "scaling up"?

-- N