D&D 5E Why Don't Barbarians or Fighters Get Bonus Skills?

[GX.Sigma]

Seriously? This is an attitude I don't get at all. I can understand saying that NOBODY should get bonus skills, or even that only rogues should get bonus skills, but when you basically say it's justifiable for every class EXCEPT fighters and barbarians to get bonus skills, you're just penalizing those two classes for no good reason.

What I'm saying is that I want fewer skills per character overall, and it's easier to get away with not giving skills to warrior types.

A barbarian is not just a shrunken-down cave troll whose only talent is bashing things and getting angry. He's a natural athlete and an expert warrior.

"Natural athlete" means raw talent. In D&D, that's represented by ability scores. "Expert warrior" means combat expertise. In D&DN, that's represented by base attack bonus and damage dice.

And a level 1 fighter isn't just a farmhand who picked up a sword. He's trained hard, probably in an army, or mercenary outfit, or under an expert teacher.

If he was a soldier, he should get soldier skills. That's what the soldier background is for.

Sometimes a Fighter is a farmhand who picked up a sword. I want to be able to make a Fighter that was a soldier, and I want to be able to make a Fighter that was a farmer. The background system lets me do that. Why do we need the class to give you skills in addition to that?

The thing about classes like Wizard is that they imply a little bit of background. A Wizard is a guy who knows about magic. It would be weird if he didn't have that skill. That's why I said "justifiable." I could get behind removing Wizard, Cleric, and Monk bonus skills.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Expand backgrounds to cover not merely skills but also cultural influences. Radically shrink the abilities that come from race direct, to those that are natural to that race, not nurture. Then make the possible skill picks a mix from class and background (as now), but without the racial stuff. If you were a fighter that was raised in the forest by elven hunters? Guess what, you have spot and/or listen on your list.

That's not the only problem with skills, but they won't be able to fix the other stuff until they make "background" a true first class element. The way to do that is to supercharge it's cross-class/cross-race influence.

 

[Argyle King]

Earlier in the design process, I had thought skills were said to be something different than class...? I had thought you gained skills via background or theme?

Is that no longer the case?

I haven't followed the last few playtests.

 

[Falling Icicle]

"Natural athlete" means raw talent. In D&D, that's represented by ability scores.

Actually, that is not the case. From the playtest packet: "Training in a skill reflects an area of expertise in which a character might have raw talent, education, or both."

Sometimes a Fighter is a farmhand who picked up a sword. I want to be able to make a Fighter that was a soldier, and I want to be able to make a Fighter that was a farmer. The background system lets me do that. Why do we need the class to give you skills in addition to that?

Because your class also teaches you things, and not just how to fight or cast spells. Your background is who you were before you became an adventurer. Are you telling me that you never learn anything after your formative years, that the skills you learned back when you were a farmer or whatever, that's it, forever?

 

[Li Shenron]

Don't forget that there will also be alot of overlap. Some characters are going to have some skills in common. You might have two party members that have spot, or diplomacy, or whatever else. That reduces the total number of skills that the party covers.

Yes, I mentioned this also, but... I know I'm going to say something that will make people object vehemently, but I really think that this overlapping should be discouraged (by DM and guidelines in books, not hard-discouraged by the rules) or at least it should be pointed out that having different PCs good at different things is better for the game dynamics.

Two PCs with good Diplomacy scores is going to cause more problems than benefits. The benefits are mechanical (two PCs able to try the same check normally means the party has better chances at winning it) but the problems are social i.e. for gameplay dynamics: you can easily get one player frustrated because he has invested in Diplomacy (or whatever skill) but another PC is even better and gets to use it all the time.

The problem is indeed a very high-level cultural problem with players, that most of the time "build" their characters in a vacuum, "optimizing" their PC without thinking about the rest of the party. This is very common in 3ed, and always leads to player thinking they absolutely need this and that or their PC will be too weak, because really they keep thinking as if their PC will have to be capable of defending against everything, as if they were playing alone. It's a general problem, more related to defensive capabilities (getting high AC, HP, immunities/resistances, defensive spells, action points/second winds mechanics, healing, defensive spells and magic items, Initiative, Listen & Spot...) but also affects skills. This tendency of players at approaching PC design as if they should handle anything without the need of the rest of the party, is what makes gamers demand more and more stuff on their character sheet at every edition and at every gaming table... Just notice what happened to healing in D&D! Since 4ed everybody now pretty much demand to be able to heal himself.

I still have a different view on the game, that a D&D adventure is played by the party of PCs, and that this is a very major point in playing a roleplay game, where everybody has a role, and is not "always equally good all the time at everything".

Thus going back to skills specifically, this means that IMHO it is a good thing if there is only one PC good at Diplomacy, only one good at Kn:Arcana, only one good at Search, only one good at Survival...

Then when you need Survival, there is one PC getting the spotlight, not two sharing it in a way that most of the time means one of them handles it and the other tries only if the first failed.

Some skills like Listen & Spot are useful on an individual basis, particularly to avoid being surprised. I have issues with these as well, but unfortunately I haven't found a way to deal with this problem, and it's not even related to multiple PCs having the skill bonus but more fundamentally related to all PCs being able at trying the check. As soon as the players figure out that ALL of them might be entitled to a Listen or Survival or Diplomacy etc check, they will all try (unles there's a penalty for failure)... when you have 4 people rolling, it becomes highly unlikely that all will fail, and this will require the DM to rethink all the DCs in order to reinstate reasonably interested chances for success/failure. Net result? Lots of rolling for basically the same outcome, and less emphasis on the character who actually invested in such skills.

 

[Sunseeker]

Just notice what happened to healing in D&D! Since 4ed everybody now pretty much demand to be able to heal himself.

I want to mention, that while the amount of personal healing any given class always has, the concept of "second wind" isn't too far off base. Giving players a limited ability to choose to recoup instead of continue to fight is IMO, a fair deal.

There's sort of a fine line between being unable to recover HP in combat AT ALL without a dedicated healer or healing magic, and being able to jump from zero to full every other attack all on your own.

 

[Sekhmet]

[MENTION=17077]Falling Icicle[/MENTION] Yes. They are people, and they have their own interests, desires, motivations, and lives.
You're not arguing that they're people, you're arguing that they should be skilled in certain things because of their class. A Fighter is not a person who runs, jumps, climbs trees, and puts on makeup when he gets there. He fights. He is a combatant. He dodges, parries, blocks, attacks, trips, sunders, and the like.
If you, instead, said that Soldiers should get the Jump, Climb, etc skills, I would be alright with that. Fighters are not always Soldiers.

Barbarians are untrained combatants. The class revolves around using your brutish strength to effective ends in combat. To become the class, you are not trained in any skill. The fact that they are often wilderness dwellers means that, in each individual Barbarian's culture, they will have grown up with various skills that may or may not have to do with climbing or jumping or riding or spotting. They might have grown up learning Underwater Basket Weaving.

You could fit these bonus skills into a Background, but they make no sense as part of the core class.

 

[Falling Icicle]

[MENTION=17077]Falling Icicle[/MENTION] Yes. They are people, and they have their own interests, desires, motivations, and lives.
You're not arguing that they're people, you're arguing that they should be skilled in certain things because of their class. A Fighter is not a person who runs, jumps, climbs trees, and puts on makeup when he gets there. He fights. He is a combatant. He dodges, parries, blocks, attacks, trips, sunders, and the like.
If you, instead, said that Soldiers should get the Jump, Climb, etc skills, I would be alright with that. Fighters are not always Soldiers.

No, fighters are not always soldiers. They can be knights, men at arms, warlords, bandit kings, gladiators, or whatever else. But whatever their background, they all have certain things in common, and need to be able to do things like ride a mount into battle, handle guard dogs, stand watch, know about military history and tactics, or know how to climb and otherwise navigate difficult terrain in pursuit of their foes. Obviously, not all fighters learn the same things as part of their training and carreer, that's why I gave them a list to choose from!

Wizards and Clercis learn lore as an inevitable part of their training and lifestyle. Monks learn certain athletic or other skills as part of their training and monastic lifestyle. Why wouldn't fighters and barbarians learn some things as part of their training and lifestyles other than how to fight? Your background is only where you came from. Your class is what you have become.

After all, a commoner doesn't just wake up one day and say "I now declare myself to be a level 1 fighter!" and SHAZAM! He now is one. No. He has to do something to learn how to become a fighter. He has to pick up weapons and train with them. He either teaches himself (a rather difficult task), or more likely, someone else teaches him how to do it. Just as a wizard has to learn his magic, a fighter has to learn his art as well. And during all that time, you're telling me that he doesn't pick up any skills related to his new occupation? Really? You'd have to live in a bubble to not learn anything other than the most 2 dimensional basics of your class while training to become it. It's not unlike when you join the military (in fact, that's where many fighters become fighters). Do you think the only thing you learn in boot camp is how to shoot a gun?

Barbarians are untrained combatants. The class revolves around using your brutish strength to effective ends in combat. To become the class, you are not trained in any skill. The fact that they are often wilderness dwellers means that, in each individual Barbarian's culture, they will have grown up with various skills that may or may not have to do with climbing or jumping or riding or spotting. They might have grown up learning Underwater Basket Weaving.

Who says they are untrained? Just because they are savage doesn't mean there's no skill or training involved in what they do!

 

[Sekhmet]

@Falling Icicle Military history is something only Knights would know. Gladiators and Men At Arms wouldn't be riding animals into battle. Bandit Kings, Gladiators, Knights, and Warlords wouldn't be training or handling dogs or other animals at all. Knights, Warlords, Bandit Kings, and Gladiators wouldn't be standing guard. None of the aforementioned have any business climbing.

You're right on one part - the commoner has to train in weapons and armor to become a Fighter. He doesn't need to learn climbing, military history, tactics, riding, or animal handling.
When you say "Fighters should be given bonus skills", you're saying that "on merit of being this class, a person should be trained in a wide variety of non-specific skills, and each individual should be able to choose what those skills are based on their specialty within the class."

See, I was a soldier. I went through Basic Combat Training. In becoming a soldier, you don't learn climbing, jumping, riding, Knowledge (Military History), Knowledge (Military Tactics), handling animals, or any other skills you've suggested. At the very best, you could add Profession: Soldier and the Endurance feat (in 3.x terms), on top of your basic firearms training.
The VAST majority of Boot Camp (Navy) and BCT (Army) is etiquette and drill training. Hell, Navy Boot Camp's firearms training is ONE DAY, where you learn to fire a PISTOL, and a man holds, aims, reloads, and maintains the issued shotgun while you pull the trigger. You never disassemble or maintain the pistol, mind you.
In the Army, although you carry your weapon from day one to the very end, you only get to use it a handful of times, the majority of which is spent in different firing positions, in your bay, getting accustomed to it's weight, the art of trigger pull, and not jerking your weapon around.
(Sources: My wife, who is currently about to become an FC2 in the Navy, and myself, who enjoyed all the benefits of being a PVT in the Army).


Also, Barbarians are untrained warriors because that is what their entries state in every iteration of D&D they've been in. Off the top of my head, the 3.x Barbarian says "The barbarian is an excellent warrior. Where the fighter’s skill in combat comes from training and discipline, however, the barbarian has a powerful rage."
No training, no discipline, hit things with a big stick.

 

[Obryn]

Wait, since when are were fighters or barbarians trained in climbing, swimming, driving, survival or, for the most part, riding? Intimidation and Knowledge (Warfare) is a -possibility- at best.

Fighters are trained in combat. Barbarians are not trained in anything, except possibly picking up heavy objects and setting them back down.
You could tie them into a background, but they shouldn't get these skills just for the sake of being these classes.

I was hoping this was sarcasm, but later posts show I was wrong.

Anyway, this is precisely the opposite of my position. Fighters and Barbarians should be Action Guys and Action Gals. Climb, swim, ride? Action skills that are completely appropriate. A Fighter is a highly-trained athlete and should either be broadly more competent at more kinesthetic skills or narrowly-focused on a few. Barbarians, because of their background and harsh environment, should likewise be good at the sorts of outdoorsy skills like survival, swimming, and endurance. Wizards learn knowledge skills through reading, rogues through training and life experience, and athletes through practice and discipline. These skills aren't gained through scholarship, but through training and devotion.

So yeah. I think we need to look at martial characters as expert athletes instead of just bashy/hitty weapons with a clumsy body attached. D&D has never done this well, and it's time to change.

-O