D&D 5th Edition XI: The 15-Minute Designer Workday

[Saph]

Welcome to the 11th thread discussing D&D 5th Edition, aka D&D Next!

As is (by now) well known to every RPGer who hasn’t spent the past year hiding under a rock, a new edition of D&D is coming out. When? Well, they’re not telling us. What they are giving us is an open playtest, which you can sign up for right here (http://dndplaytest.wizards.com/). At the time of writing, the most recent playtest packet dates from June 7th, 2013.

Use this thread to discuss the playtest, the weekly mostly-weekly Legends and Lore update articles from Mike Mearls, and other news relating to D&D’s new edition.

Useful (and freshly updated!) links:
Playtest Signup (http://dndplaytest.wizards.com/)
Legends and Lore Archive (http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Archive.aspx?category=all&subcategory=legendslore)
EN World D&D Forum (http://www.enworld.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?3-D-amp-D-and-Pathfinder&prefixid=dndnext)
Penny Arcade / PvP 5e Podcasts:
Part 1 of 4 (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4pod/20120806)
Part 2 of 4 (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4pod/20120813)
Part 3 of 4 (http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4pod/20120820)
Part 4 of 4 (http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4pod/20120827)
Previous threads:
First Edition (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=218549)
Second Edition (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=231033)
Third Edition (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=242069)
3.5th Edition (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=245504)
Fourth Edition (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=244672)
D&D 5th Edition: the fifth edition of the discussion thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=245600)
D&D 5th Edition: 6th Thread and counting (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=252870)
D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=257952)
D&D 5th Edition: 8th Revision and counting (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=265084)
Pathfinder, Next, and the Future of D&D (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=271218)
D&D 5th Edition IX: Still in the Idea Stage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=277822)
D&D 5th Edition X: Where's the Craft (RPG System) skill? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=284560)

[DeltaEmil]

I like Flickerdart's task resolution system. I wonder if it could be improved even further, or what kind of pitfalls this system would encounter.

If you wanted to be really simple about it (with potential issues I'm sure) you could make skill checks cumulative; a door has a DC of, say, 30, and you just need to keep doing skill checks until you get enough to open it. Kind of like HP for tasks.

You could also impose an "damage reduction" of sorts - the door has a progress DC of 10, and a success target of 10, so subtract 10 from everything you get and add it to the total, and when it exceeds 10, poof.

So for instance, rolling with the lockpick example, Steve the Street Rat has a +10 to Open Lock, which he's applying with gusto to a merchant's money chest. The chest has a well-crafted lock - progress DC 18 and success target 10. His friend, Trevor the Thug, has a total modifier of -3 to Open Lock (8 Dexterity and no tools), so he can't possibly do anything to the lock. It won't take Steve more than a few rounds to open it - 5 rounds if he takes 10 - but if he decides to chance it, he has a 15% chance of cracking the lock open in just one roll (18+).

This also sort of solves the issue of unreasonable rolls somewhat - unless you're skilled enough to beat the DC in the first place, you don't roll because you can't possibly make it. If you CAN beat the DC, you get to try. This neutralizes the importance of the d20 somewhat, because if you have a 25% chance to hit the DC you'll be contributing a small number to the success target even if you make it, instead of just hitting it and winning forever.

And if you wanted to have traditional one-check DCs you just set the target to 0.

[Raineh Daze]

Well, there's the obvious one of 'get people to accept something that isn't just one 1d20 roll'.

It actually gives a non-binary system to skills, which is excellent for stuff like diplomacy and climbing.

[SiuiS]

Well, there's the obvious one of 'get people to accept something that isn't just one 1d20 roll'.

It actually gives a non-binary system to skills, which is excellent for stuff like diplomacy and climbing.

There's precedent. These rolls hosed up (but were ignored and disliked) throughout 3.5, and there was an entire system behind them in 4e. So really, it's not novel at all. It's just presented in a way that makes it seem more broadly applicable than the past iterations.


One new thread, made to order. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=15463007#post15463007)

This is no longer the thread you're looking for. You can go about your business. Move along.

Thank you~ ^^

[noparlpf]

It looks like higher DC=harder task, and higher success target=longer task. So climbing a short sheer cliff would be a high DC but a low success target, but climbing up a hundred foot tall tree would have a much lower DC but an extremely high success target due to sheer size.

Obviously it depends a bit on the type of cliff and type of tree, but typically it's harder to climb a tree than it is to climb a cliff, as well as likely taking longer due to the distance (which you could compare by using two similar cliff faces where one is just twice as high). Cliff faces tend to have more natural handholds, whereas tall trees don't tend to have low branches or be narrow enough to climb up easily.

[Raineh Daze]

Obviously it depends a bit on the type of cliff and type of tree, but typically it's harder to climb a tree than it is to climb a cliff, as well as likely taking longer due to the distance (which you could compare by using two similar cliff faces where one is just twice as high). Cliff faces tend to have more natural handholds, whereas tall trees don't tend to have low branches or be narrow enough to climb up easily.

When I said 'sheer cliff', I was thinking of one that was rather... lacking in handholds. An abnormal cliff.

And for tree I was thinking some sort of really tall fir or something.

Either way, my choice of trees and cliffs doesn't really have much bearing on the system. :smalltongue:

[noparlpf]

When I said 'sheer cliff', I was thinking of one that was rather... lacking in handholds. An abnormal cliff.

And for tree I was thinking some sort of really tall fir or something.

Either way, my choice of trees and cliffs doesn't really have much bearing on the system. :smalltongue:

I used to climb a lot, and a cliff with no handholds is going to take wayyy longer to climb even twenty feet than it would to climb a hundred-foot fir.

[Raineh Daze]

I used to climb a lot, and a cliff with no handholds is going to take wayyy longer to climb even twenty feet than it would to climb a hundred-foot fir.

This is fiction, leave what happens in reality at the door and stop complaining about the inaccuracies of a single example. You're nitpicking something completely irrelevant. :smallsigh:

[Person_Man]

I like Flickerdart's task resolution system. I wonder if it could be improved even further, or what kind of pitfalls this system would encounter.

I love it as well. I think the key is that the Skills just need to be well written. You need to be clear about when you should resolve a task through and when you need an opposed check. (For example, Tumble should be an opposed Dex check, not a set task). And you need to instruct DMs that the Difficulty and Success Target (or whatever they're called) can and should be modified according to various circumstances. And the Skills themselves shouldn't be so granular that you need to invest in multiple Skills to achieve a single basic action. (For example, you shouldn't have to Hide and Move Silently in order to accomplish the opposed check of not being noticed by an enemy).

[noparlpf]

This is fiction, leave what happens in reality at the door and stop complaining about the inaccuracies of a single example. You're nitpicking something completely irrelevant. :smallsigh:

If you haven't noticed, a lot of people get upset when skills are completely unrealistic. Therefore, it is not completely irrelevant to request that skills be at least slightly realistic at the baseline.

[Flickerdart]

I posted some more thoughts on this idea in the previous thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15463357&postcount=1498), but someone pulled the thread out from under me while I was doing so. So, you know, it's there, but comment on it here.

Also, I think "10 feet of perfectly smooth stone" versus "100 feet of tree" is a pretty good example of high DC vs high success target. The stone might be something like DC 25 but have a success value of 5; if you're such a good climber that you can climb up smooth stone (like, you have suction cups or are a spider) then it's not super hard for you to do so, but anyone who isn't as skilled as you (say, a climber of moderate ability with a +5 to the check) would need five natural 20s to climb it, or an average of 100 attempts (assuming he doesn't ever fall off). Meanwhile, the tree can have a DC of 0 and a success target of 150; the average climber only needs 10 rounds to scale it, and the super awesome expert climber might do so in 6 rounds.

[Scow2]

I don't like Flickerdart's suggestion, especially because it doesn't really apply to anything that DOESN'T have visible progress. 3.5 already had two 'skills' that had a progress bar - Crafting, and Chopping Down A Door.

These kinds of checks CERTAINLY don't make sense for, say, Jump Checks - either you jump the distance you're trying to make, or you don't. You can't jump on air (Without a spell or supernatural ability at least), and successive jumps aren't usually higher than the previous.

Swingy mechanics keep the skills relevant without trivializing the challenge, while not requiring obscene investment in order to make it a possible task. D&D is designed to encourage taking risks.

...Flickerdart's later explanation in the now-dead thread swayed me over to his side, though. Yeah, it really does work well, especially given 5e's handling of accuracy.

[Ashdate]

This is fiction, leave what happens in reality at the door and stop complaining about the inaccuracies of a single example. You're nitpicking something completely irrelevant. :smallsigh:

Well, I think it's interesting that Flickerdart's proposal can handle both extremes; one where success might literally hinge on rolling high once, or another where success might hinge on a careful pace.

As an example, you could set climbing a wall with a high progress DC, but a low success target to represent a very smooth wall that is relatively short (say, progress DC 15, success target 5), or alternatively, have a very easy to climb wall that is fairly large (say, progress DC 5, success target 15).

It's certainly more complicated than a single roll DC, but I think it opens up some interesting modelling possibilities. I especially like the possibilities for using it within contests:

Conan the 16 strength barbarian goes against Wimpy the 9 strength commoner. Each character spends a round rolling against the other; Conan has a progress DC of 9, and a success target of 9 against Wimpy. Wimpy has a progress DC of 16, and a success target of 16.

Can Wimpy win? Yes, but it's pretty slim odds.

Yet another possibility:


Conan the 16 strength barbarian and Wimpy the 9 strength commoner are going against an 22 strength Giant in a contest of strength; Conan and Wimpy are trying to push the giant over a cliff (and vice-versa).

Both Conan and Wimpy are therefore facing against a progress DC of 22, with a success target of 16. Both Conan and Wimpy's successes count towards the target of 22. This unfortunately means that Wimpy isn't going to be very helpful, but instead of rolling he can give Conan a +2 "aid another" bonus to his roll.

The Ogre meanwhile, uses the highest strength score between Conan and Wimpy (16) as his progress DC, but his success target is Conan and Wimpy's strength scores added together (9+16) therefore giving him a progress DC of 16, and a success target of 25.

Another possibility:


Conan the 16 strength barbarian and Wimpy the 9 strength commoner are going against a 22 strength Giant who is trying to bust through a reinforced door that Conan and Wimpy are bracing.

Conan and Wimpy aren't trying to bust through the door to get to the giant, so they don't roll. They're simply trying to keep the door shut.

The giant's progress DC is based off the strength of the door - it's reinforced, so the DM assigns it a DC 15 - but the progress DC is created by adding Conan and Wimpy's strength scores together (16 + 9 = 25) therefore making it progress DC 15, success target 25.

Certainly there's some math to consider in how this works (the low static modifiers to skills are potentially problematic here), but I think there's a skeleton of a pretty workable system there.

[Flickerdart]

These kinds of checks CERTAINLY don't make sense for, say, Jump Checks - either you jump the distance you're trying to make, or you don't. You can't jump on air (Without a spell or supernatural ability at least), and successive jumps aren't usually higher than the previous.
A jump check has a target success of 0. Not all skills must be low-DC, high-target success.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I don't like Flickerdart's suggestion, especially because it doesn't really apply to anything that DOESN'T have visible progress. 3.5 already had two 'skills' that had a progress bar - Crafting, and Chopping Down A Door.

These kinds of checks CERTAINLY don't make sense for, say, Jump Checks - either you jump the distance you're trying to make, or you don't. You can't jump on air (Without a spell or supernatural ability at least), and successive jumps aren't usually higher than the previous.

Swingy mechanics keep the skills relevant without trivializing the challenge, while not requiring obscene investment in order to make it a possible task. D&D is designed to encourage taking risks.
As I understand it, his system is for things that shouldn't be resolved with a single check.

Jumping across a pit trap would be a single Jump check. Jumping across a series of floating platforms Mario-style could use his system-- the DC being the difficult of jumping from one platform to another, and the success being based on the number of platforms.

[SiuiS]

I used to climb a lot, and a cliff with no handholds is going to take wayyy longer to climb even twenty feet than it would to climb a hundred-foot fir.

Not really? You're expected to have adventuring equipment and be the kind o person who can climb sheer stone with daggers and grit.

everyone has daggers and grit.


I posted some more thoughts on this idea in the previous thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15463357&postcount=1498), but someone pulled the thread out from under me while I was doing so. So, you know, it's there, but comment on it here.

Here ya go!


((for reference))

You probably wouldn't raise the success target except in cases where objects are specifically crafted to do so. A lock, no matter how well crafted, only has so many tumblers, they're just harder to trip than on a shoddy lock. If you wanted to raise the success target, you could just add more locks; a rogue that got a result of 40 when unlocking a chest with three DC 10/success target 10 locks opens them all in one fell swoop, since it's really just a DC 10/success target 30 lock.

In the interest of exploring the viability of this, let's take a look at some more things one does as a skill monkey.

Trapfinding: Searching individual 5ft squares is horrible. A trap finder rolls a Search check; the DC represents the difficulty of finding a trap, the success target represents the number of traps. A trap with DC 25 to find in the old system might have a DC of 20 and target number of 5; thus, in a room with four such traps, a rogue that gets a result of 40 spots them all.

Disarming: Same deal as lockpicking.

Stealth: This one can be handled as simply an opposed check like always. Alternatively, you can have the rogue roll a target number (as above) and then the guard gets to make a Perception check against that. The target number is subtracted from the rogue's roll through some math; the rogue has a limited time frame in which to operate before the guard catches on. More experienced rogues have a lower subtracted number.

Actually, this gives me an idea. If Next hates scaling so much...this system wouldn't need to scale a lot, because the important math (how much of the DC is DC and how much is target number) is more or less a fixed total. A 20th level rogue might not have a much higher Stealth check than a 1st level rogue (let's say, a difference between +5 (+2 Dex and Skill Focus) and +11 (+5 Dex, skill focus, +2 masterwork boots, and a +1 from class features or something). If they both roll 10, that's a result of 15 for the level 1 rogue and 20 for the level 20 rogue. But the level 20 rogue's target number could be very small due to class features and such; so while a level 1 rogue's target number might be 5, and thus the DC to make progress on finding the rogue is 10, the 20th level rogue might have a target number of 0, so that the DC to spot him is a full 21. This kind of makes sense - a 1st level rogue will leave footprints and forget to close doors and stuff like that, so an average observer has a 50% chance of simply running into one of those signs and going to investigate. At this point, the rogue knows he should get out of there quickly! On the other hand, the 20th level rogue leaves no such traces. If anyone knows he was there, it's because they saw him move. The untrained person has no chance of spotting the level 20 rogue, even though his check is only 6 higher.

Target number modifiers are a pretty good example of something that might differentiate a PC from an NPC. While Joe Paladin with 0 Perception might be able to spot a skulking goblin after a few minutes of said goblin trying to sabotage the water supply, Gragnak the Warrior would fail to notice Joe's companion Joanna doing the same thing to the goblin water, even if the results of the skill checks were exactly the same.


I don't like Flickerdart's suggestion, especially because it doesn't really apply to anything that DOESN'T have visible progress. 3.5 already had two 'skills' that had a progress bar - Crafting, and Chopping Down A Door.

These kinds of checks CERTAINLY don't make sense for, say, Jump Checks - either you jump the distance you're trying to make, or you don't. You can't jump on air (Without a spell or supernatural ability at least), and successive jumps aren't usually higher than the previous.

Swingy mechanics keep the skills relevant without trivializing the challenge, while not requiring obscene investment in order to make it a possible task. D&D is designed to encourage taking risks.

...Flickerdart's later explanation in the now-dead thread swayed me over to his side, though. Yeah, it really does work well, especially given 5e's handling of accuracy.

Trouble! How do you handle a long jump that takes more than 6 seconds? Those situations where the player jumps, but runs out of movement before completion? Because 3.5 had two ways of handling it RAW. Either they purposefully declared the "begin full round action" as their jump, kept, and finished the movement on their next round, or they kept, ran out of movement despite having sufficient Jump to make the distance.... And suddenly stop dead and plummet hundreds of feet mid-round.

This thing here? Might fix it.

[Scow2]

Trouble! How do you handle a long jump that takes more than 6 seconds? Those situations where the player jumps, but runs out of movement before completion? Because 3.5 had two ways of handling it RAW. Either they purposefully declared the "begin full round action" as their jump, kept, and finished the movement on their next round, or they kept, ran out of movement despite having sufficient Jump to make the distance.... And suddenly stop dead and plummet hundreds of feet mid-round.

This thing here? Might fix it.
Not really. In 3.5. when making a jump, you make the skill check to bridge the gap. If you make it, nothing can interfere with that jump - you land the next round after moving the remaining distance. In 5e, you can make a jump check to go the distance, make a second jump check to perform your action mid-jump, and then move the rest of your speed. If you don't have the rest of your speed to finish, you stay "suspended" (But not falling - you're still jumping) and you can make a jump check to take your action next round, then move to land (Or move on either side of the action). But only one jump check's needed to see if you clear the distance. Of course, this leads to silliness where taking mid-jump stunts decreases your velocity.

[Raineh Daze]

If you haven't noticed, a lot of people get upset when skills are completely unrealistic. Therefore, it is not completely irrelevant to request that skills be at least slightly realistic at the baseline.

It is realistic.

If you have a realistic climbing skill, and a high DC, then it will take longer for you to accumulate the necessary rolls to reach the required target and climb the short sheer surface. A fir, meanwhile, you're unlikely to fail the rolls for, and you'll therefore make a lot more progress per roll--but if you roll poorly, it could still take longer.

If you have a really high climbing skill, such that you're unlikely to fail either, then you're going to get up the short surface quickly (low target) and the high tree faster than someone worse at climbing (high target, but low DC = more progress per roll).

[Icewraith]

With regards to sneaking, I think a reversal of the proposed procedure would work better. When the players are sneaking you want them to be actively rolling, and when you're trying to sneak something past them you don't want them to know it's there. Having people keep rolling perception or whatever until nothing happens is a dead giveaway, unless you're really into playing metagaming head games with your players.

It would be better for the awareness or perception or whatever to set the progress DC and the target be something like 20 + 1/5/10 per round the sneaker has been within long/medium/short range of the targets. Hitting the target lets you stay hidden in whatever square you occupy without having to make further stealth checks unless something unreasonable happens or you shoot someone, moving resets the counter and the time penalty starts accruing again. Flub the progress DC and you are noticed.

[Person_Man]

I posted some more thoughts on this idea in the previous thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15463357&postcount=1498), but someone pulled the thread out from under me while I was doing so. So, you know, it's there, but comment on it here.

Also, I think "10 feet of perfectly smooth stone" versus "100 feet of tree" is a pretty good example of high DC vs high success target. The stone might be something like DC 25 but have a success value of 5; if you're such a good climber that you can climb up smooth stone (like, you have suction cups or are a spider) then it's not super hard for you to do so, but anyone who isn't as skilled as you (say, a climber of moderate ability with a +5 to the check) would need five natural 20s to climb it, or an average of 100 attempts (assuming he doesn't ever fall off). Meanwhile, the tree can have a DC of 0 and a success target of 150; the average climber only needs 10 rounds to scale it, and the super awesome expert climber might do so in 6 rounds.

Very minor quibble. You might want to make the terminology different from previous editions, so that it doesn't get confused with similar but different rules from previous editions that had the same name. Maybe Difficulty Modifier (which gets subtracted from your roll) and Skill Target (the total result(s) you must accumulate in order to succeed).

Other then that, I'd like to reiterate that you should post your idea over on the WotC D&D Next forum, because it's a great idea.

[SiuiS]

With regards to sneaking, I think a reversal of the proposed procedure would work better. When the players are sneaking you want them to be actively rolling, and when you're trying to sneak something past them you don't want them to know it's there. Having people keep rolling perception or whatever until nothing happens is a dead giveaway, unless you're really into playing metagaming head games with your players.

It would be better for the awareness or perception or whatever to set the progress DC and the target be something like 20 + 1/5/10 per round the sneaker has been within long/medium/short range of the targets. Hitting the target lets you stay hidden in whatever square you occupy without having to make further stealth checks unless something unreasonable happens or you shoot someone, moving resets the counter and the time penalty starts accruing again. Flub the progress DC and you are noticed.

Maybe reverse the base, too, so that your stealth score gets slowly eroded by constant vigilance? You roll stealth, get your Stealth HP. Whenever something suspicious happens to make a guard actually check for you, or to dampen your stealth (light coming on, noise near you, new guard walking up, animal being disturbed) the enemy makes progress toward beating your stealth roll?

[Raineh Daze]

This would end up with an invisible master thief being caught simply because there's a bunch of normal town guards around. That's a bit... bad. :smallconfused:

[Conundrum]

Also, I think "10 feet of perfectly smooth stone" versus "100 feet of tree" is a pretty good example of high DC vs high success target. The stone might be something like DC 25 but have a success value of 5; if you're such a good climber that you can climb up smooth stone (like, you have suction cups or are a spider) then it's not super hard for you to do so, but anyone who isn't as skilled as you (say, a climber of moderate ability with a +5 to the check) would need five natural 20s to climb it, or an average of 100 attempts (assuming he doesn't ever fall off). Meanwhile, the tree can have a DC of 0 and a success target of 150; the average climber only needs 10 rounds to scale it, and the super awesome expert climber might do so in 6 rounds.

Emphasis mine.

This raises an interesting point - how do you handle "failing" a task under such a system? It'd need to be on a skill-by-skill basis, almost... if you roll below the DC while climbing, do you fall off? If you roll below the DC while picking a lock, does the lock reset?

Having said that, I really do like the system and I'm sure you have an answer for this!

[Scow2]

This would end up with an invisible master thief being caught simply because there's a bunch of normal town guards around. That's a bit... bad. :smallconfused:No such thing as an "Invisible master thief" - 5th edition is deliberately avoiding that level of skill stratification.

The way to avoid having your cover blown by having too many guards on your case is to minimize the number of guards you're exposed to at any given time. A stealth check every round to replenish the pool might work in extended stealth missions. Heck... that could actually make stealth missions fun, and do a good job of simulating a "Detection meter"

[Raineh Daze]

No such thing as an "Invisible master thief" - 5th edition is deliberately avoiding that level of skill stratification.

The way to avoid having your cover blown by having too many guards on your case is to minimize the number of guards you're exposed to at any given time. A stealth check every round to replenish the pool might work in extended stealth missions. Heck... that could actually make stealth missions fun, and do a good job of simulating a "Detection meter"

Have they removed the concept of invisibility, then? I meant a literal invisible master thief (whether they're stealing masters or just a level-capped thiefy type is up to you). :smalltongue:

[Kornaki]

Certainly there exists some density of town guards for which it's too risky to try to sneak past (one every 5 feet is an upper bound, but if there's like one every ten feet and they're all milling about there should be a chance that one of them just turns around suddenly and bumps into you)

[TuggyNE]

Maybe reverse the base, too, so that your stealth score gets slowly eroded by constant vigilance? You roll stealth, get your Stealth HP. Whenever something suspicious happens to make a guard actually check for you, or to dampen your stealth (light coming on, noise near you, new guard walking up, animal being disturbed) the enemy makes progress toward beating your stealth roll?

That would work well, assuming they have to beat a DC to make progress toward spotting you. (If it's just "auto-lose X Stealth points", that's lame.)


This would end up with an invisible master thief being caught simply because there's a bunch of normal town guards around. That's a bit... bad. :smallconfused:

Nah, that actually makes sense, as long as they have some small chance of making progress, a large number of watchers is indeed quite dangerous to be around.


This raises an interesting point - how do you handle "failing" a task under such a system? It'd need to be on a skill-by-skill basis, almost... if you roll below the DC while climbing, do you fall off? If you roll below the DC while picking a lock, does the lock reset?

Generally, "critical"/substantial failures already have been customized to the skill, so it just needs a bit more. Failing a Climb check in 3.5 by 5 points or more means you fall, for example.

[Raineh Daze]

Nah, that actually makes sense, as long as they have some small chance of making progress, a large number of watchers is indeed quite dangerous to be around.

That was in response to the idea of an automatic loss of 'stealth HP' just because, say, a guard showed up.

[Zeful]

You probably wouldn't raise the success target except in cases where objects are specifically crafted to do so. A lock, no matter how well crafted, only has so many tumblers.
If it has tumblers at all. Not all locks need them. I've designed a couple of locks that require the key to open, mostly because of the underlying argument your making here.

[Grod_The_Giant]

You could have, say, a DC based on your Stealth skill rank, and skill HP based on your roll. So if you're supposed to be really stealthy, it's harder for guards to make any progress, regardless of your roll.

[Icewraith]

My guess is that a sudden change in situation would require a new stealth check. The idea is that there is a DC related to the best guard's perception +other factors in the area (maybe +2 per additional guard at close range, as if they were aiding another?) that you need to hit to hide while moving, hitting the target lets you stop moving and stay hidden without further stealth checks.

Once hidden, the sneaker is basically in passive mode.

Hmm, let me revise.

There are three general stealth scenarios.

1: Sneaking past an unaware opponent. (Seeker passive, sneaker active)

2: Detecting an ambush. (Seeker active, sneaker passive until he acts and loses stealth or is spotted.)

3: Sneaker is actively trying to evade seeker, who is aware of sneaker's presence but not his location. (Both sides active)

In case 1, sneaker should be rolling against opponent's perception + modifiers until he gets out of the area or hits the target that lets him acheive ambush condition. If he's not where he wants to be then once he starts moving again he starts making checks, time counter is reset.

In case 2, seeker should be rolling against sneaker's stealth +modifiers until he fails a certain number of checks or hits his target and detects the sneaker, denying sneaker surprise. Seeker can make bluff? checks to deny sneaker knowledge he's figured out where sneaker is, otherwise both sides roll initiative and have to declare actions in sequence (the normal expected move for seeker here is to immediately shout a warning (giving other guards in the area an initiative roll) and attack sneaker, but there can also be mind games with bluff checks or something).

In case 3, seeker and sneaker should probably be making opposed rolls. The target is arbitrary (say 10), if seeker reaches it first he detects sneaker's location and gains surprise/advantage, if sneaker reaches it first he loses seeker and can ambush him or escape. If sneaker is trying to hide from seeker (seeker is aware of sneaker's location and is actively pursuing him) he needs to gain invisibility, cover, or concealment and outroll seeker on an opposed check.

[noparlpf]

If it has tumblers at all. Not all locks need them. I've designed a couple of locks that require the key to open, mostly because of the underlying argument your making here.

Hmm. Maybe a complex magnetic puzzle-lock. How many adventurers carry around magnets?
(Of mine only one did. For the record, he had no idea how normal locks worked, so he'd have a better shot with the magnetic puzzle lock anyway. He did think locks were really neat, though. Wouldn't be surprised to find out he had at least one permanently stuck to his bag or a belt loop.)

[Zeful]

Hmm. Maybe a complex magnetic puzzle-lock. How many adventurers carry around magnets?
(Of mine only one did. For the record, he had no idea how normal locks worked, so he'd have a better shot with the magnetic puzzle lock anyway. He did think locks were really neat, though. Wouldn't be surprised to find out he had at least one permanently stuck to his bag or a belt loop.)

That's one, the second was a lock whose key was a cylinder with a bunch of holes cut into it and gear teeth on the end. This was a lock that not only required the key to open, it also required the key be inserted with the correct orientation to let certain pins through it as you turned it to disable the traps in the door.

[noparlpf]

That's one, the second was a lock whose key was a cylinder with a bunch of holes cut into it and gear teeth on the end. This was a lock that not only required the key to open, it also required the key be inserted with the correct orientation to let certain pins through it as you turned it to disable the traps in the door.

Fancy. But you also need something to prevent the players from bypassing the door or lock in other ways.
I had a Barbarian once who, when faced with complicated doors (this DM liked complicated doors), simply cut them down. For example:
"You come to a door. Don't bother checking; it's not locked or trapped. Through it, you find another door. In order to open the second door, you need to close the first door, so only two of you can fit through at a time. One Large creature at a time."
"Are the hinges visible?"
"Uh, yeah."
*rolls to sunder*
"What was that about forcing a bottleneck?"

[Zeful]

Fancy. But you also need something to prevent the players from bypassing the door or lock in other ways.
I had a Barbarian once who, when faced with complicated doors (this DM liked complicated doors), simply cut them down. For example:
"You come to a door. Don't bother checking; it's not locked or trapped. Through it, you find another door. In order to open the second door, you need to close the first door, so only two of you can fit through at a time. One Large creature at a time."
"Are the hinges visible?"
"Uh, yeah."
*rolls to sunder*
"What was that about forcing a bottleneck?"

Well it's a drop door, so their are no hinges, and some of the gearing is breakaway to trigger the traps when you hit it, as well as fill the door with essentially concrete. And trying to cut your way through the wall resulted in the room sealing and flooding floor to ceiling with over 5 cubic feet of water per square per round (essentially the water level would raise 5 feet every 6 seconds).

I designed this door to stop my dad whose an insane lateral thinker... and I don't even think it would work.

[noparlpf]

Well it's a drop door, so their are no hinges, and some of the gearing is breakaway to trigger the traps when you hit it, as well as fill the door with essentially concrete. And trying to cut your way through the wall resulted in the room sealing and flooding floor to ceiling with over 5 cubic feet of water per square per round (essentially the water level would raise 5 feet every 6 seconds).

I designed this door to stop my dad whose an insane lateral thinker... and I don't even think it would work.

So hitting the wall triggers the flood. What happens when you hit the door, besides it filling with concrete? How much concrete is there?

[Scow2]

The "Open Lock" check doesn't care if the lock uses tumblers or not. If you roll high enough, you WILL use your tools to properly emulate the lock anyway.

...or the Wizard will cast Knock, because you decided to make the rogue cry.

[Water_Bear]

I'm not sure the idea of making everything about whittling away at HP (even combat) is such a good idea. Stealth is best handled by either being tactical with lines of sight and buckets of special stealth abilities, or by being abstracted into a single roll. And resurrecting Skill Challenges under a new name is a mistake; even if you liked them, you have to admit they've become a symbol of a lot of gameplay elements most of the potential playerbase doesn't appreciate.


"You come to a door. Don't bother checking; it's not locked or trapped

Booooooo!

*Hits your old DM with rolled up newspaper*

Seriously, if we're going to suggest anything to WotC, it needs to be that "You Don't Find Any Traps" be put in gigantic red letters in the DMG. This is like the most basic DMing tip I can think of and it seems like so many people don't know it.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Seriously, if we're going to suggest anything to WotC, it needs to be that "You Don't Find Any Traps" be put in gigantic red letters in the DMG. This is like the most basic DMing tip I can think of and it seems like so many people don't know it.

There's always a trap.

If your DM says "You Don't Find Any Traps", it just means you haven't looked hard enough.

[noparlpf]

Booooooo!

*Hits your old DM with rolled up newspaper*

Seriously, if we're going to suggest anything to WotC, it needs to be that "You Don't Find Any Traps" be put in gigantic red letters in the DMG. This is like the most basic DMing tip I can think of and it seems like so many people don't know it.

Maybe it was "you don't find any traps" and then we chose to open the first door anyway. It's been a while.
Personally I don't mind glossing over and skipping the rolls by saying "you don't find any traps, don't bother rolling." The party can either assume there's a really well-hidden trap, or none.

[TuggyNE]

I'm not sure the idea of making everything about whittling away at HP (even combat) is such a good idea. Stealth is best handled by either being tactical with lines of sight and buckets of special stealth abilities, or by being abstracted into a single roll. And resurrecting Skill Challenges under a new name is a mistake; even if you liked them, you have to admit they've become a symbol of a lot of gameplay elements most of the potential playerbase doesn't appreciate.

From what I know, the problems with skill challenges were mostly that the skills used didn't make a lot of sense, there was no direct connection between attempts and path of success (the "get into the castle on three successes but five party members" problem), the math was a bit wonky, and the explanation was almost unparalleled in its low quality.

None of this applies, since the skill being used is just a single skill, there's a direct connection between the attempts and the amount of progress made, the math can reasonably be made sensible, and of course the explanation is not set in stone yet. :smallwink:

There are doubtless some skill usages that are strictly binary, pass/fail, like the example of jumping, but the proposed system handles those by being a strict superset of binary skills. (Specifically, by setting a task to need 0 success margin, or whatever it's called, beyond the DC.)

[obryn]

No such thing as an "Invisible master thief" - 5th edition is deliberately avoiding that level of skill stratification.
...thereby ensuring, due to the existence of the Invisibility spell, that wizards will always be better at sneaking than the best rogues out there. :smallsigh:


From what I know, the problems with skill challenges were mostly that the skills used didn't make a lot of sense, there was no direct connection between attempts and path of success (the "get into the castle on three successes but five party members" problem), the math was a bit wonky, and the explanation was almost unparalleled in its low quality.
Skill challenges in the 4e DMG1 were presented terribly with a lot of bad rules, confusing elements ("why are we rolling initiative for this?") and utterly broken math which made short challenges almost impossible and longer challenges progressively easier.

Skill challenges in the online errata and as they appear in the Rules Compendium make a whole lot more sense, work more organically, don't have the "just spam your best skill" flaws, and corrected math.

The idea is a solid one. It provides a solid framework for non-combat challenges. It just came out half-baked, like so much of earliest 4e.

-O

[Zeful]

So hitting the wall triggers the flood. What happens when you hit the door, besides it filling with concrete? How much concrete is there?It makes the door mechanism totally unoperable so you have to break it or the nearby wall down to get through, and reinforces the door so it's essentially cutting through the steel frame, the gear and mechanism laden stone and the other side of the door, it would be easier cutting through the trap laden wall which possess much less HP due to the cavities.


The "Open Lock" check doesn't care if the lock uses tumblers or not. If you roll high enough, you WILL use your tools to properly emulate the lock anyway.

...or the Wizard will cast Knock, because you decided to make the rogue cry.

Except that specific design (or other similar designs I've come up with), was essentially designed by looking at those rules and going "the assumptions built into these rules assume there is exactly one type of lock", and then making something that justifies mocking the standard rules when it comes to these things. Yeah, you can open the door I posted in this thread with open lock or Knock. But the DC is essentially impossible (it's over 40 iirc), and in the instance of the suggested rules of "Lock HP", would be something more in the realm of 200/25, and as for Knock, well, Knock doesn't explicitly disarm traps.

[TuggyNE]

Skill challenges in the 4e DMG1 were presented terribly with a lot of bad rules, confusing elements ("why are we rolling initiative for this?") and utterly broken math which made short challenges almost impossible and longer challenges progressively easier.

Skill challenges in the online errata and as they appear in the Rules Compendium make a whole lot more sense, work more organically, don't have the "just spam your best skill" flaws, and corrected math.

I know. I was pointing out that the problems with the initial implementation of 4e skill challenges don't apply to this idea (or at least don't need to unless someone messes things up). I wasn't talking about later versions at all.

[Moreb Benhk]

You could have, say, a DC based on your Stealth skill rank, and skill HP based on your roll. So if you're supposed to be really stealthy, it's harder for guards to make any progress, regardless of your roll.

But how would that dovetail with the current methodologies (ie. skill dice et al)? Are there 'rank's as such?

[SiuiS]

This would end up with an invisible master thief being caught simply because there's a bunch of normal town guards around. That's a bit... bad. :smallconfused:

Not at all. For one, an invisible thief who flubs stealth is loud but still invisible. Also, this was covered, just poorly, here;


That would work well, assuming they have to beat a DC to make progress toward spotting you. (If it's just "auto-lose X Stealth points", that's lame.)

Yep. The idea behind "reverse" was that instead of thief whittling down Lock HP by overcoming a DC, the thief sets the Stealth DC and the guards whittle down the Stealth HP by overcoming the DC. It's a conceit from 3rd, but I tried to prase it such that the guards would use the same mechanism as the player.

I think the guy before me had a eater idea though, upon further examination. I just liked the idea of a stealth meter that depletes when exposed, and stuff.



Generally, "critical"/substantial failures already have been customized to the skill, so it just needs a bit more. Failing a Climb check in 3.5 by 5 points or more means you fall, for example.

Still, it creates a sense of inevitable success, even when you don't have inevitable success coming. Fail by 5, maybe too close a margin? But ten, maybe fail by 10 is too far a margin...


I'm not sure the idea of making everything about whittling away at HP (even combat) is such a good idea. Stealth is best handled by either being tactical with lines of sight and buckets of special stealth abilities, or by being abstracted into a single roll. And resurrecting Skill Challenges under a new name is a mistake; even if you liked them, you have to admit they've become a symbol of a lot of gameplay elements most of the potential playerbase doesn't appreciate.

Maybe. And yeah, they don't work for everything.



Booooooo!

*Hits your old DM with rolled up newspaper*

Seriously, if we're going to suggest anything to WotC, it needs to be that "You Don't Find Any Traps" be put in gigantic red letters in the DMG. This is like the most basic DMing tip I can think of and it seems like so many people don't know it.

Huh?


There's always a trap.

If your DM says "You Don't Find Any Traps", it just means you haven't looked hard enough.

Heh.


...thereby ensuring, due to the existence of the Invisibility spell, that wizards will always be better at sneaking than the best rogues out there. :smallsigh:

No, not really.
As a certain thread has made clear, being invisible lets you hide. It doesn't make you good at it. The DC to see a combatant who was invisible in 3e was 20. In 4e, it's automatic to detect them until they hide; and if your perception pierces the stealth they are invisible but traceable.


Skill challenges in the 4e DMG1 were presented terribly with a lot of bad rules, confusing elements ("why are we rolling initiative for this?") and utterly broken math which made short challenges almost impossible and longer challenges progressively easier.

Skill challenges in the online errata and as they appear in the Rules Compendium make a whole lot more sense, work more organically, don't have the "just spam your best skill" flaws, and corrected math.

The idea is a solid one. It provides a solid framework for non-combat challenges. It just came out half-baked, like so much of earliest 4e.

I need had that problem. The biggest hurdle was getting the party to understand that they can and should use skills for things. After that it was fine.


It makes the door mechanism totally unoperable so you have to break it or the nearby wall down to get through, and reinforces the door so it's essentially cutting through the steel frame, the gear and mechanism laden stone and the other side of the door, it would be easier cutting through the trap laden wall which possess much less HP due to the cavities.

Except that specific design (or other similar designs I've come up with), was essentially designed by looking at those rules and going "the assumptions built into these rules assume there is exactly one type of lock", and then making something that justifies mocking the standard rules when it comes to these things. Yeah, you can open the door I posted in this thread with open lock or Knock. But the DC is essentially impossible (it's over 40 iirc), and in the instance of the suggested rules of "Lock HP", would be something more in the realm of 200/25, and as for Knock, well, Knock doesn't explicitly disarm traps.

Okay. Why?

You have a door you can't open, can't bypass, and that ignores the rules of the game in several ways, making it so no character option actually does what it is supposed to solely to force a course of action.

"Open Lock" could involve peeking through the keyhole, memorizing the gear ratio, carving that into a hard end and putting the hard end onto a hot-butter-soft gel dowel, so that the teeth engage, the pins slide through and the now solidifying core allows turning of the key. And that's automatically going to fail because the open lock skill is off the table out of fiat? That's interesting, Ns certainly a fun way to work a game, but not quite so relevant to discussing rule application, And math for such.

[Saph]

On a different topic:

So, as a fantasy/sci-fi author, my publishers occasionally arrange for me to go to conventions. I'm a guest at a con this August in the UK called Nine Worlds. I was looking down the list of other guests, and guess who else is going? Monte Cook (https://nineworlds.co.uk/guest#guest_listings-page-3)!

I'm really tempted now to find him while I'm at the event and see if I can find out what happened while he was on the Next design team. :smalltongue: Though I guess he's probably under some sort of NDA . . . still, if anyone has any good questions for him, go ahead and suggest them!

[Craft (Cheese)]

So, since we're discussing Stealth, I figured I should write a mini-blogpost thing: My Problem With The Rogue.

The problem with the Rogue is that the Rogue is the dedicated Skillmonkey, but the skillmonkey is fundamentally broken as a party role.

The reason is twofold:

1. "Skills" in D&D means "Everything that's not direct combat or spellcasting." This means the rogues abilities outside of sneak attacking are generally ill-defined and flavorless. The rogue is left with the scraps of non-combat utility that spellcasters don't cannibalize.

2. Because D&D rules usually focus on direct combat rules and spells, skills are generally mechanically shallow. As a consequence of this a class whose entire schtick is interacting with the skill system is also going to be mechanically shallow no matter what toys you give them.

3. Rogues don't get any abilities exclusive to them with regards to skills, they're just the class that gets the most class skills/skill points/bonuses. A rogue benefits the most from using the skill system but they don't get anything qualiatively different from what other classes could do, if they tried. That certain skills can be bypassed entirely with spells is just salt on the wound.

My solution is simple: Redefine the rogue as a class specialized in Exploration, rather than the Skillmonkey.

Now, "exploration" is a little vague, so let me define exactly what I mean here: Exploration in D&D, as I define it, can be separated into 4 layers:

1. Find out where you need to be to do what you want to do, and what obstacles are going to be in the way.

2. Get the party there.

3. Once you're inside, avoid, bypass, or negate danger (whether in the form of monsters or traps).

4. When you inevitably screw up and the party is in danger, get everyone out of there!

So, how can we use this to improve the design of the rogue in 5E?


- Well, first of all, the Ranger can probably be nixed. Yeah, yeah, Craft wants to prune the class list and merge formerly distinct concepts together, big surprise. I just don't think there's anything the ranger has that can't be safely given to the rogue (tracking, survival skills, animal handling) or the fighter (favored enemy, two-weapon fighting). The rest is just gimped druid features. I'd rather see a small number of more flexible classes than a large number of relatively inflexible ones.

- Go through all four of these layers: Don't be lazy and fall back to a binary pass/fail skill check. That's something you reserve for minutae you don't want bogging down the game, not the core aspects of a major aspect of adventuring. Make them into rich, interesting subsystems: At least as interesting and deep as combat.

- The rogue's abilities should be able to help the entire party, not just themselves. If anyone failing can cause the whole party to fail at exploring, then the rogue being there at all is pointless. However, exploration should also be fun and something the entire table should be involved in, not something the rogue is off doing by themselves.

- Bonuses Are Boring: Design a set of qualiatively different rogue abilities to choose from. For each one, pick one of the four layers and think of a way this ability can help the party with one of those four.

[Person_Man]

On a different topic:

So, as a fantasy/sci-fi author, my publishers occasionally arrange for me to go to conventions. I'm a guest at a con this August in the UK called Nine Worlds. I was looking down the list of other guests, and guess who else is going? Monte Cook (https://nineworlds.co.uk/guest#guest_listings-page-3)!

I'm really tempted now to find him while I'm at the event and see if I can find out what happened while he was on the Next design team. :smalltongue: Though I guess he's probably under some sort of NDA . . . still, if anyone has any good questions for him, go ahead and suggest them!

I'd be most interested in knowing if he was fired because of creative differences, or because of office politics.

If it was creative differences, then I assume Monte wanted to make D&D Next into X, but the rest of the creative team wanted Y, and it was simpler to fire him instead of firing everyone else. And it would be really interesting to know what X was, even vaguely.

If it was office politics, then I don't care. People get fired all of the time for fairly petty reasons - insulting your boss, showing up late to work, missing a product deadline, failing to put the new coversheet on his TPS report, etc.



The problem with the Rogue is that the Rogue is the dedicated Skillmonkey, but the skillmonkey is fundamentally broken as a party role.

I 100% agree with your assessment, but would offer a different possible solution. Just give every class a set of combat abilities, and a separate track or pool of non-combat abilities. Why shouldn't everyone have something to contribute to combat and Exploration/Interaction?

[Raineh Daze]

- Well, first of all, the Ranger can probably be nixed. Yeah, yeah, Craft wants to prune the class list and merge formerly distinct concepts together, big surprise. I just don't think there's anything the ranger has that can't be safely given to the rogue (tracking, survival skills, animal handling) or the fighter (favored enemy, two-weapon fighting). The rest is just gimped druid features. I'd rather see a small number of more flexible classes than a large number of relatively inflexible ones.

The Ranger is the first class I ever had any experience with. Followed by the monk. And then wizard. Getting rid of it makes me sad. :(

[Kurald Galain]

3. Rogues don't get any abilities exclusive to them with regards to skills, they're just the class that gets the most class skills/skill points/bonuses. A rogue benefits the most from using the skill system but they don't get anything qualiatively different from what other classes could do, if they tried. That certain skills can be bypassed entirely with spells is just salt on the wound.

So a viable solution would be to give the rogue abilities exclusive to them with regards to skills. I believe both 2E and 3E do that to some extent.

[Scow2]

...thereby ensuring, due to the existence of the Invisibility spell, that wizards will always be better at sneaking than the best rogues out there. :smallsigh:Did 5e go back to 3.5's "Invisibility means you are absolutely undetectable"?

... they really need to bring back Merged Perception rolls, so that the Invisible Wizard isn't stupidly undetectable again. The invisible wizard can be invisible - but his "Move Silently" is bad, so he can still be detected and found, with Invisibility reduced to disadvantage on attack rolls against him.


And there's absolutely nothing wrong with the Rogue not getting any Qualitative differences in the skill set (I find the idea of the rogue needing "Niche Protection" to be abhorrent. Pathfinder's changes to cross-class skills wasn't what screwed the Rogue up - its gimping of the Rogue's primary skills, and buffs to Rogue-Replacing Magic that did it.). Having a better ability to interface with the skill system while also being useful in combat is plenty. A party shouldn't be nonfunctional without a rogue, but the presence of a rogue means they have a broader selection of skills to draw from (Or the ability to double-up on skills), and an easier time beating harder DCs.

[Kurald Galain]

Did 5e go back to 3.5's "Invisibility means you are absolutely undetectable"?

Last time I checked, hidden or invisible creatures couldn't be targeted by spells or attacks (except area effects).

[Scow2]

Last time I checked, hidden or invisible creatures couldn't be targeted by spells or attacks (except area effects).

...Wow. Talk about a huge step backward :smallsigh:

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Did 5e go back to 3.5's "Invisibility means you are absolutely undetectable"?

... they really need to bring back Merged Perception rolls, so that the Invisible Wizard isn't stupidly undetectable again. The invisible wizard can be invisible - but his "Move Silently" is bad, so he can still be detected and found, with Invisibility reduced to disadvantage on attack rolls against him.

3e invisibility made you absolutely undetectable to sight only, and only in very specific circumstances.An invisible creature (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#invisibility) can be detected with a Listen check (which each character near said invisible creature can make once per round for free) against DC 0 + 1/10 feet if the creature is in combat or DC [Move Silently result] if the creature is out of combat and moving at half speed. Beating the DC by 20 pinpoints its location, so you can attack an invisible creature in combat with a 50% miss chance if you can make a DC 20 Listen check.

At 3rd level when invisibility first becomes available, it's entirely possible to run into even-level characters with a +10 Listen (6 ranks, +4 Wis or 6 ranks, +2 Wis, +2 miscellaneous like Alertness or being an elf), meaning they automatically detect and pinpoint invisible creatures in combat within 10 feet if taking 10, and many CR 3 creatures have similar Listen mods. At higher levels, if you're just relying on invisibility and haven't trained Move Silently, your chances of detection grow higher; when the wizard gets greater invisibility, even-level characters can have around a +15 Listen without too much trouble while the DCs remain constant. And even if you do train Move Silently invisibility doesn't help with that, so you're just making opposed Move Silently vs. Listen checks with which invisibility doesn't help at all and have a 50/50 shot against equally-skilled even-level opposition as usual.

Pathfinder's merged Perception systems functions the same way, but does things "backwards"--that is, instead of saying "detecting invisible creatures in combat is DC 0, beat it by 20 to pinpoint them" it says "detecting invisible creatures is DC 20, being in combat reduces the DC by -20." The only thing a merged Perception does is remove the ability to have a creature who is good at hiding but bad at moving silently, which practically speaking doesn't really matter because most classes and monsters who have Hide as a class skill in 3e also have Move Silently and stealthy characters and creatures generally invest in both. So while merging skills is good for other reasons, merging skills does not automatically make invisibility weaker.

Invisibility does make something "basically undetectable" if it's a creature staying still and not doing anything (Spot DC 30 to detect, 50 to pinpoint) or if it's an object (Spot DC 40 to detect, 60 to pinpoint), but really, what are the chances you'd notice an invisible broom in the corner or and invisible parakeet silently and stealthily watching you even if invisibility was only Predator-style active camouflage? And even then, by mid levels you can easily get a +20 Spot (13 ranks at 10th level, +5 Wis, +2 miscellaneous) and, while taking 10, be able to literally see a completely motionless, completely invisible creature even if you can't see it well enough to be able to successfully attack it.
TL;DR: Invisibility isn't the unbreakable cloaking field it's made out to be, and merging Hide and Move Silently into Perception doesn't necessarily change the odds.

[Scow2]

3e invisibility made you absolutely undetectable to sight only, and only in very specific circumstances.An invisible creature (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#invisibility) can be detected with a Listen check (which each character near said invisible creature can make once per round for free) against DC 0 + 1/10 feet if the creature is in combat or DC [Move Silently result] if the creature is out of combat and moving at half speed. Beating the DC by 20 pinpoints its location, so you can attack an invisible creature in combat with a 50% miss chance if you can make a DC 20 Listen check.

At 3rd level when invisibility first becomes available, it's entirely possible to run into even-level characters with a +10 Listen (6 ranks, +4 Wis or 6 ranks, +2 Wis, +2 miscellaneous like Alertness or being an elf), meaning they automatically detect and pinpoint invisible creatures in combat within 10 feet if taking 10, and many CR 3 creatures have similar Listen mods. At higher levels, if you're just relying on invisibility and haven't trained Move Silently, your chances of detection grow higher; when the wizard gets greater invisibility, even-level characters can have around a +15 Listen without too much trouble while the DCs remain constant. And even if you do train Move Silently invisibility doesn't help with that, so you're just making opposed Move Silently vs. Listen checks with which invisibility doesn't help at all and have a 50/50 shot against equally-skilled even-level opposition as usual.

Pathfinder's merged Perception systems functions the same way, but does things "backwards"--that is, instead of saying "detecting invisible creatures in combat is DC 0, beat it by 20 to pinpoint them" it says "detecting invisible creatures is DC 20, being in combat reduces the DC by -20." The only thing a merged Perception does is remove the ability to have a creature who is good at hiding but bad at moving silently, which practically speaking doesn't really matter because most classes and monsters who have Hide as a class skill in 3e also have Move Silently and stealthy characters and creatures generally invest in both. So while merging skills is good for other reasons, merging skills does not automatically make invisibility weaker.

Invisibility does make something "basically undetectable" if it's a creature staying still and not doing anything (Spot DC 30 to detect, 50 to pinpoint) or if it's an object (Spot DC 40 to detect, 60 to pinpoint), but really, what are the chances you'd notice an invisible broom in the corner or and invisible parakeet silently and stealthily watching you even if invisibility was only Predator-style active camouflage? And even then, by mid levels you can easily get a +20 Spot (13 ranks at 10th level, +5 Wis, +2 miscellaneous) and, while taking 10, be able to literally see a completely motionless, completely invisible creature even if you can't see it well enough to be able to successfully attack it.
TL;DR: Invisibility isn't the unbreakable cloaking field it's made out to be, and merging Hide and Move Silently into Perception doesn't necessarily change the odds.It was actually a Pathfinder change that I think people internalized, making Invisibility not a DC 30 check to not be spotted, but a DC 20+Stealth Result check to not be spotted. And, you can't get +20 Perception without heavily investing in the skill - most classes had it cross-class, and they didn't have enough Skill Points to pick it up anyway if they wanted a skill relevant to their actual roll.

[SiuiS]

Last time I checked, hidden or invisible creatures couldn't be targeted by spells or attacks (except area effects).

Nope. Disadvantage and good old "which square do you target?" are all.

[Person_Man]

I've always hated most Invisibility mechanics throughout D&D. They're iconic in myth and fantasy stories, so you gotta have em somewhere in the rules. But they've always felt like a "auto-win" button unless you have some specific counter measure. So every PC loads up on a counter measure, and if players get access to Greater Invisibility they end up fighting an inordinate number of enemies with Blindsight/sense/tremorsense/scent/etc.

[Scow2]

I've always hated most Invisibility mechanics throughout D&D. They're iconic in myth and fantasy stories, so you gotta have em somewhere in the rules. But they've always felt like a "auto-win" button unless you have some specific counter measure. So every PC loads up on a counter measure, and if players get access to Greater Invisibility they end up fighting an inordinate number of enemies with Blindsight/sense/tremorsense/scent/etc.

Except it's pretty easy to counter in 5e and 4e :smallconfused: You can only be effective when invisible against things that matter if you're already trained in stealth.

[Person_Man]

Except it's pretty easy to counter in 5e and 4e :smallconfused: You can only be effective when invisible against things that matter if you're already trained in stealth.

90% of my tabletop RPG experience has been with 1st/2nd/3rd/3.5/3.P and Whitewolf Games. And my dislike of Invisibility rules comes from those experiences. I've played and I'm familiar with 4E and 5E playtests, but haven't used the Invisibility rules in them.

So I guess this is something they fixed?

[eepop]

Nope. Disadvantage and good old "which square do you target?" are all.

Except that its an action to detect which square to target...which leaves you no action to actually try to make them visible...and then they move before you act again.

You can get some mileage out of having a separate spotter and kill-machine, but even that is highly initiative order dependent. Spotter needs to go before the killer, who needs to go before the invisible baddie.
My druid has awesome spot abilities, so I often spot something, move next to it and tell the fighter to attack the square right in front of me.

[Flickerdart]

The obvious solution when faced with an invisible enemy is to blanket the battlefield with all-consuming flames. Ninjas can't catch you when everything is on fire.

[ImperiousLeader]

4e Invisibility does not automatically obscure your position, you still need a stealth check to become "hidden", meaning the enemy doesn't know which square you're in.

Also, invisibility provides total concealment, which is a -5 to an attacker's roll with melee and ranged attacks. Not the 50% miss chance of 3.5.

So, YMMV, but these rules do a few things. One, it's not another roll to determine a hit or miss. Two, even while invisible, you may have to make a stealth check, so it doesn't completely negate the stealth skill.

[Moreb Benhk]

I think tying disadvantage into invisibility mechanics is simple and easy and approximately mimics what 4e did. But they'd have to tidy up the advantage mechanics something fierce first and figure out how stacking works. Because it really has to in some way. Because the broad number of things that apply advantage/disadvantage means that it's not uncommon at all to be running into multiple of them at the same time.

For example. I'm a rogue. I want to sneak-attack ze wizard. I'm at disadvantage because that's the thing. He goes invisible... and is completely as easy to hit, because I'm already at disadvantage.

[VeisuItaTyhjyys]

Skill challenges in the 4e DMG1 were presented terribly with a lot of bad rules, confusing elements ("why are we rolling initiative for this?")

That's actually one of the parts that I thought made the most sense; in the 3.5 games I play, my group often goes through skill-heavy areas in "initiative order," primarily to prevent everyone talking over everyone else and rolling a check for every skill they have a rank in and a few they don't, just in case. I'm sure it's not as much of a problem in some groups as it is in others, but I often end up not getting to do anything because the louder, more belligerent voices prevail and we've passed or failed the entire encounter/challenge/whatever before I manage to even get the DM's attention.

[Scow2]

Except that its an action to detect which square to target...which leaves you no action to actually try to make them visible...and then they move before you act again.

This right here is a problem...

[navar100]

It was actually a Pathfinder change that I think people internalized, making Invisibility not a DC 30 check to not be spotted, but a DC 20+Stealth Result check to not be spotted. And, you can't get +20 Perception without heavily investing in the skill - most classes had it cross-class, and they didn't have enough Skill Points to pick it up anyway if they wanted a skill relevant to their actual roll.

There's no such thing as cross-class in Pathfinder. A 10th level fighter with 10 Wisdom can have +10 Perception if he wants, easily, +14 if traits are used, +16 or +20 if the skill is important enough to the character to spend a feat on Skill Focus (Perception).

[Scow2]

There's no such thing as cross-class in Pathfinder. A 10th level fighter with 10 Wisdom can have +10 Perception if he wants, easily, +14 if traits are used, +16 or +20 if the skill is important enough to the character to spend a feat on Skill Focus (Perception).There aren't obscene cross-class penalties, no, but it's still an effective -3 on the roll, which is pretty significant on a d20. The only reason people can get away with discounting it is because D&D3.X's math is even more horribly broken even worse than D&D Next's when it comes to skills. The fighter only has 2+INT skill points per level (And usually low Intelligence due to lack of class-ability synergy with the stats), and he's usually more interested in grabbing Intimidate and/or mobility-increasing skills instead of Cross-class ones.

Cross-class skills are still discouraged due to opportunity costs.

[Saph]

Cross-class skills are still discouraged due to opportunity costs.

They're not discouraged as much as you think. For instance, in practice, every Pathfinder character takes Perception, regardless of whether it's a class skill or not. And by the time you get up to level 10, the +3 or +0 from being trained or untrained really doesn't make all that much difference.

[Kornaki]

There aren't obscene cross-class penalties, no, but it's still an effective -3 on the roll, which is pretty significant on a d20.

Except when you're using bounded accuracy and then -3 is about as much a penalty as being forced to roll with your off hand

[Scow2]

Except when you're using bounded accuracy and then -3 is about as much a penalty as being forced to roll with your off hand

Actually, it's an even greater penalty with Bounded accuracy, as you can't compensate for it with Bigger Numbers.
They're not discouraged as much as you think. For instance, in practice, every Pathfinder character takes Perception, regardless of whether it's a class skill or not. And by the time you get up to level 10, the +3 or +0 from being trained or untrained really doesn't make all that much difference.
Not every Pathfinder character takes Perception, because there are often higher-priority skills for any given character.

[Saph]

Not every Pathfinder character takes Perception.

More specifically, the characters who don't take Perception are the ones whose players haven't yet figured out that they should be taking it. :smalltongue:

There are certain niche builds where you wouldn't take it, but they're pretty rare. Default rule for any PF character = max Perception.

[neonchameleon]

On a different topic:

So, as a fantasy/sci-fi author, my publishers occasionally arrange for me to go to conventions. I'm a guest at a con this August in the UK called Nine Worlds. I was looking down the list of other guests, and guess who else is going? Monte Cook (https://nineworlds.co.uk/guest#guest_listings-page-3)!

I'm really tempted now to find him while I'm at the event and see if I can find out what happened while he was on the Next design team. :smalltongue: Though I guess he's probably under some sort of NDA . . . still, if anyone has any good questions for him, go ahead and suggest them!

I think I can provide the answer to what happened. One of the paid consultants for D&D Next is the RPG Pundit who sent Mike Mearls the following e-mail and then published it online (http://rpgpundit.xanga.com/759157548/item/):

"Seriously dude, you need to put a muzzle on Monte Cook. Every time the guy opens his mouth about 5e he scares the living **** out of the majority of regular old-school gamers.

First his "feats are core" comment; and now his comment that he/you/WoTC wants 5e to be a "simulationist" game. Both have basically helped to undo any good PR work you might have been doing with a huge number of gamers at theRPGsite, never mind the REALLY old school sites.

You realize that you might as well be telling old school gamers that it will glorify nazi atrocities, right? It seems to me like Monte can't possibly realize what loaded ****ing terms both of those words (but especially the Forgetalk of the latter) really are, and how they are essentially saying (whatever he may have thought or intended to say) to old school gamers: "5e will be a game that will **** all over the things that you value, and we feel proud of telling you that and using the language of your Enemies, of the people that despise the type of D&D you love, to say it".

So seriously, get the man some kind of sensitivity counseling, or just disconnect his ****ing vocal cords."

RPGPundit

Now personally I'd have dropped the RPGPundit on the spot for that (not that I'd have let him anywhere near D&D Next in the first place - I can't think of someone I'd less like to see on the development team - possibly not even Byron Hall (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14567.phtml)). But the D&D Next team didn't. Which more or less meant that Monte Cook had to go - you can't have e-mails like that flying around, published for all to read, and both people remaining. From everything I've read he's probably too much of a gentleman to actually bring that up but I would be very surprised if that wasn't the main cause and wonder what could have been worse.

[Raineh Daze]

Not every Pathfinder character takes Perception, because there are often higher-priority skills for any given character.

Only the ones that don't want to be ambushed and backstabbed. :smalltongue:

More eyes looking = good.

[Scow2]

Only the ones that don't want to be ambushed and backstabbed. :smalltongue:

More eyes looking = good.

I really hope D&D Next doesn't go back to the Perception Skill-tax that plagued 3.5 and Pathfinder.

[Moreb Benhk]

I really hope D&D Next doesn't go back to the Perception Skill-tax that plagued 3.5 and Pathfinder.

This. I think if any skill/feat/option is fairly well mandatory, why pretend its an option at all? Just give everyone a scaling perception score with maybe a few options to really excell in it (like a feat or class feature or whatnot) if people want the extra investment, but have the baseline be sufficient to make you competent. I don't think that perception fits well as a skill anyhoo.

[Saph]

I really hope D&D Next doesn't go back to the Perception Skill-tax that plagued 3.5 and Pathfinder.

Couldn't disagree more. Copying Pathfinder would be vastly better than what they've got now.

Currently in Next, a basic character has 4 skill slots and Listen, Spot, and Search are all separate skills. That means that to get the equivalent of Perception, a D&D Next character has to use up 75% of their skill allowance – all to copy what in Pathfinder would be one skill. Ugh.

Skill-wise, going from PF to the current version of Next feels like going from playing James Bond to playing Homer Simpson.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Couldn't disagree more. Copying Pathfinder would be vastly better than what they've got now.

Currently in Next, a basic character has 4 skill slots and Listen, Spot, and Search are all separate skills. That means that to get the equivalent of Perception, a D&D Next character has to use up 75% of their skill allowance – all to copy what in Pathfinder would be one skill. Ugh.

Skill-wise, going from PF to the current version of Next feels like going from playing James Bond to playing Homer Simpson.
I think by "skill tax," Scow2 meant the almost-requirement to invest in perception skills. One skill would be good; some kind of automatic scaling would be even better.

[Scow2]

Couldn't disagree more. Copying Pathfinder would be vastly better than what they've got now.

Currently in Next, a basic character has 4 skill slots and Listen, Spot, and Search are all separate skills. That means that to get the equivalent of Perception, a D&D Next character has to use up 75% of their skill allowance – all to copy what in Pathfinder would be one skill. Ugh.

Skill-wise, going from PF to the current version of Next feels like going from playing James Bond to playing Homer Simpson.D&D Next's split perception skill is problematic, but Pathfinder's skill taxes and stratification are horrific - you must invest in Perception over any other skill you might want to fit your character. James Bond, unlike a Pathfinder character, isn't completely brain-dead outside of a few skills he's honed. I feel more like Conan or Indiana Jones when playing D&D Next, while Superfriends-era Aquaman when playing Pathfinder.

I don't have a problem with Spot and Listen being seperate skills, but that works best when they interact with more rules than just the Stealth rules (And DC to see an invisible character's general location should be about 20, not 30), and Out-of-Combat facing probably needs to be enforced (No more 360-degree vision - or, remember that it's DC 0 to hear battle and pinpoint its 5' square, and have that be the assumption). Stealth should not be split, though, even if it does make Stealth and Perception non-parallel, and Spot and Search should probably be one skill applied to two different attribute checks.

Personally, I hate the simplified stealth mechanics of 3.5-P-4e.

[Craft (Cheese)]

I 100% agree with your assessment, but would offer a different possible solution. Just give every class a set of combat abilities, and a separate track or pool of non-combat abilities. Why shouldn't everyone have something to contribute to combat and Exploration/Interaction?

Oh, I agree: My position on the rogue is that they should be the best at exploration, not that they should be the only ones capable of exploration.

Like, for example, let's say you need to get into the Baroness's manor to investigate something there. Every party member will be able to physically get the party inside the manor: But only the Rogue can (use their class features to) get the party invitations to the baroness's party.

[Raineh Daze]

Out-of-Combat facing probably needs to be enforced (No more 360-degree vision - or, remember that it's DC 0 to hear battle and pinpoint its 5' square, and have that be the assumption).

Clearly, you have never been around someone as fidgety as I am. :P

I would hate that rule. Would forget which way I'm facing every time. :smallsigh:

[Water_Bear]

Also putting facing in the Core brings us pretty deep into tactical wargames territory, even more than 3.5 and 4e unless you're using optional rules, which is a bad situation for modularity. The Core ought to be relatively play-style agnostic, or at least simple, if we're going to be able to use modules properly.

[Scow2]

Clearly, you have never been around someone as fidgety as I am. :P

I would hate that rule. Would forget which way I'm facing every time. :smallsigh:On second thought, it's too clumsy. Stealth just really doesn't work on the battlegrid very well. One of the complaints I've seen in 3.5 is "The need for Hide In Plain Sight to be stealthy" - because "You can't sneak between hiding places because guards have 360* Line of Sight".


Couldn't disagree more. Copying Pathfinder would be vastly better than what they've got now.

Currently in Next, a basic character has 4 skill slots and Listen, Spot, and Search are all separate skills. That means that to get the equivalent of Perception, a D&D Next character has to use up 75% of their skill allowance – all to copy what in Pathfinder would be one skill. Ugh.

Skill-wise, going from PF to the current version of Next feels like going from playing James Bond to playing Homer Simpson.I'm revisiting this, because my previous thoughts were half-assed.

Right now, D&D Next gives the better value to the classes that lack Perception as a class skill than Pathfinder does at say, level 5. It might take 75% of your abilities to grab the same skill, but for that investment, you have fully functional detection abilities. In Pathfinder, you're spending 33-100% (2+INT skill points REALLY bites if you're not an INT-based character) of your skill points on Perception just to keep up with monsters that DON'T need to invest their resources into being stealthy (Monsters only care about Perception and Stealth as skills. They don't need the Utility), and that investment keeps you from doing what you're class is supposed to do - in order to have a chance of avoiding getting ganked, a Paladin can't be able to identify his undead foes, know (dis)honest intentions of others, find peaceful and just resolution to disputes, tend to the sick and dying without drawing on a very limited resource pool, or not fall off his celestial mount because some braindedead developer decided armor interferes with someone's ability to sit on a horse and wiggle their knees... because apparently Heavy Cavalry wasn't a thing.

Meanwhile, without investing his Skill Points into Spot/Listen, a Paladin/Fighter/Cleric has about the same bonus at level 5 compared to his allies in D&D Next as a full-skill-rank member of those classes in Pathfinder has in comparison to his allies. An uninvested Paladin/Fighter/Cleric has a 0% chance of noticing something in Pathfinder, while they have about a 15% chance at worst of noticing something in D&D Next.

[navar100]

Not all of my Pathfinder characters put ranks in Perception, and they've been ok. One character had a -1 Perception - no ranks, 9 Wisdom. Yes it mattered sometimes, but it was a lot of fun. Worked with the roleplay too as I was playing an Oracle with Haunted Curse so flavor text would say I'm continually distracted by the spirits. Other party members had good Perception, so my lack of it was negligible.

Again, though, a trait makes it a class skill giving you +4. Granted traits are optional, but they seem popular enough. Perception is a good skill to have, but not a requirement to play the game.

[DeltaEmil]

I hope there won't be a skill point system. I'd rather have a 4th edition style skill power / 3rd edition style skill trick system, where you rather get special abilities that gives you something unique when you're rolling the dice to do non-combat stuff.

[Moreb Benhk]

Meanwhile, without investing his Skill Points into Spot/Listen, a Paladin/Fighter/Cleric has about the same bonus at level 5 compared to his allies in D&D Next as a full-skill-rank member of those classes in Pathfinder has in comparison to his allies. An uninvested Paladin/Fighter/Cleric has a 0% chance of noticing something in Pathfinder, while they have about a 15% chance at worst of noticing something in D&D Next.

This is a variant of 'it's good that skill investment doesn't change much'. It gives better value to classes that lack the skill because that value comes at the cost of devaluing skills.

Also I think you mischaracterize the disparity in Pathfinder. An uninvested Paladin/Cleric (especially as both likely have high Wis) / Fighter does not normally have a 0% chance of noticing something (for instance, a high level Cleric is likely to notice an average secret door), only of noticing very hard to notice things.

The problem is, the more you amplify the skills to make them meaningful (either by adding more plusses, or a more robust advantage mechanic or something else), the more you HAVE to increase the disparity between chumpy-noskill-noattribute and Mr Skillpants. Some people love the current lack of disparity (Scow2 I presume), some people think it's terrible (me).

I really love some of the implications of Flickerdart's scheme with the target and the.... hitpoints (for forgetting whatever else it could be called), as it works within the current bonusy limits to amplify the effectiveness of skill investment. But is there even a way to please two seemingly intractable seemingly mutually exclusive preferences?

[Scow2]

This is a variant of 'it's good that skill investment doesn't change much'. It gives better value to classes that lack the skill because that value comes at the cost of devaluing skills.

Also I think you mischaracterize the disparity in Pathfinder. An uninvested Paladin/Cleric (especially as both likely have high Wis) / Fighter does not normally have a 0% chance of noticing something (for instance, a high level Cleric is likely to notice an average secret door), only of noticing very hard to notice things.

The problem is, the more you amplify the skills to make them meaningful (either by adding more plusses, or a more robust advantage mechanic or something else), the more you HAVE to increase the disparity between chumpy-noskill-noattribute and Mr Skillpants. Some people love the current lack of disparity (Scow2 I presume), some people think it's terrible (me).

I really love some of the implications of Flickerdart's scheme with the target and the.... hitpoints (for forgetting whatever else it could be called), as it works within the current bonusy limits to amplify the effectiveness of skill investment. But is there even a way to please two seemingly intractable seemingly mutually exclusive preferences?

There are some skills that probably should have better stratification. But most of the ones in 5e really don't, because they're all equally necessary and intuitive to the Adventuring profession.

[Moreb Benhk]

There are some skills that probably should have better stratification. But most of the ones in 5e really don't, because they're all equally necessary and intuitive to the Adventuring profession.

Here we have a definite conflict on preference, because I do not agree. They all aren't equally necessary (perception based stuff is almost so necessary I'd advocate it not being a skill). Frankly I want there to be SOME situations where someone who has not invested anything in a skill simply cannot expect to contribute with that particular skill while the person who has invested heavily in it can. If the only thing that changes in the mechanics is your chance of success at X goes from 15% to 85% (absolute minimum to absolute maximum), with most being inside that... I find it very unappealing indeed.

However, I'd love a system that taxes specialisation in some way. For example, awarding a certain number of skill points per level which you invest in skills. The more ranks in a skill you have, the more points the next rank costs.

This way I think we might both be somewhat mollified. You can play a character with an even spread of skills who is pretty much competent at everything. I can play a character who is noticeably better in a few skills (not enough above the competent person to dominate them completely), and suck in a bunch of others (all my efforts are so focussed that I don't bother my brain about learning anything about surviving in the wilderness... I let the ranger do his thing while I read my books before the light gives out...).

[VeisuItaTyhjyys]

I really hope D&D Next doesn't go back to the Perception Skill-tax that plagued 3.5 and Pathfinder.

I'd agree. I don't like perception (or spot/listen/search or whatever) as skills and I don't really think Wisdom ought to govern them; aside from the OotS joke about senses getting better as one grows older, there's always been something off about the fact that an pudgy Cloistered Cleric who's never taken his nose out of a book will have better senses than a hardened mercenary Fighter who's spent the whole of her adult life wary of the dangers that beset her on all sides.

If they have to be skills, I'd prefer "Perception" split into at least Spot and Listen for the added depth; it seems easier and more sensible to fix the class skill lists and the amount of skill points available than to remove nuance without really fixing the overarching problem.

[Moreb Benhk]

I'd agree. I don't like perception (or spot/listen/search or whatever) as skills and I don't really think Wisdom ought to govern them; aside from the OotS joke about senses getting better as one grows older, there's always been something off about the fact that an pudgy Cloistered Cleric who's never taken his nose out of a book will have better senses than a hardened mercenary Fighter who's spent the whole of her adult life wary of the dangers that beset her on all sides.

If they have to be skills, I'd prefer "Perception" split into at least Spot and Listen for the added depth; it seems easier and more sensible to fix the class skill lists and the amount of skill points available than to remove nuance without really fixing the overarching problem.

That's an interesting point. If you are assigned skills points (or whatever) on the assumption that you are going to max out persception (and thus are awarded extra skill pointness to cover this mandatory investments), should you then decide to flub persception you have a nice little bit of bonus flexibility on another skill of your choosing.

Whatever they do they need to have enough skill points (or whatever) available so that your standard fighter (for example) can be at least competent in the things you expect all standard fighters to be competent in. That was one of the big fails of 3.5 skillz.

[TuggyNE]

On second thought, it's too clumsy. Stealth just really doesn't work on the battlegrid very well. One of the complaints I've seen in 3.5 is "The need for Hide In Plain Sight to be stealthy" - because "You can't sneak between hiding places because guards have 360* Line of Sight".

For what it's worth, that was actually fixed eventually: you can make Hide checks between cover at a -5 penalty per 5' moved without cover.


I really love some of the implications of Flickerdart's scheme with the target and the.... hitpoints (for forgetting whatever else it could be called), as it works within the current bonusy limits to amplify the effectiveness of skill investment. But is there even a way to please two seemingly intractable seemingly mutually exclusive preferences?

The best thing about Flickerdart's scheme is that it introduces a middle ground between "you succeed" and "you fail", one where you've made progress but haven't completely finished yet. This, in turn, allows lower base DCs, so the threshold for eventual success is lowered (but the time it might take for a really marginal skill-user to finish something might be astonishingly long).

In other words, it's a compromise that makes more sense than either of the alternatives.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Idea: what if we have something between 3e and 4e's skill systems? All skills get a bonus equal to... some fraction of your level.... say, 1/2... representing general experience. Then you add in 3e style skill points that you can invest any which way. Trained-only skills require skill point investment to function. Thus, all characters have at least a minimum level of competence, but there's still plenty of room for customization.

[Moreb Benhk]

I think a lot would depend on the general balancing. In 4e I despised that skills at higher level were ~25% ability mod, ~25% level bonus, ~45% d20 and ~5% skill training.

[VeisuItaTyhjyys]

Whatever they do they need to have enough skill points (or whatever) available so that your standard fighter (for example) can be at least competent in the things you expect all standard fighters to be competent in. That was one of the big fails of 3.5 skillz.

Yeah, exactly. Consolidating the skill list was, at best, a band-aid; the problem wasn't that Spot and Listen were separate skills, it was that the fighter gets 2+int skill points per level. Spending a half of your skill points on perception may be better than spending all of your skill points on perception, but it's still terrible.

On a more general note, I really like the concept of Flickerdart's idea, although my pessimistic gut tells me that the math could end up super wonky for some skills.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Idea: what if we have something between 3e and 4e's skill systems? All skills get a bonus equal to... some fraction of your level.... say, 1/2... representing general experience. Then you add in 3e style skill points that you can invest any which way. Trained-only skills require skill point investment to function. Thus, all characters have at least a minimum level of competence, but there's still plenty of room for customization.

We probably don't want the full fiddliness of 3e skill points, just one or two levels of training for skills, and those levels of training don't need to give numerical bonuses, just extra skill uses like 3e skill tricks or 4e utility powers.

Random proposal along these lines: 5e already has a scaling attack bonus for some classes and a scaling spellcasting bonus for others, so let's add a base skill bonus to go with the base attack bonus and base magic bonus and just standardize the whole scaling bonus thing already. Martial classes get up to +10 BAB, casting classes get up to +10 BMB, skillmonkey classes get up to +10 BSB, and then each class either gets up to +7 in one secondary area or up to +4 in both other areas.

Everyone can put ranks in skills somehow for some benefit (maybe 1 rank lets you use trained-only uses and 2 ranks something something constant advantage). Then instead of just giving skillmonkey classes more ranks or higher bonuses, they get fancy skill uses the same way martial classes get maneuvers and casting classes get spells.

[MukkTB]

Perception or spot/listen don't really sit right with the other skills. Its never felt very good to have a fighter be unable to watch his own ass in 3.5. In Pathfinder perception feels like a skill tax more than anything else. Maybe its time to make it count as something else. Instead of being the most rolled skill it can be something else.

[SiuiS]

Except it's pretty easy to counter in 5e and 4e :smallconfused: You can only be effective when invisible against things that matter if you're already trained in stealth.

Not in 5e. It's still useful, but unless the point is to be utterly, perfectly unnoticeable, you don't want the invisible guy having good stealth.

"Target boss, then hit him" is a good fun game. "**** this, nuke from orbit" is not.
I hate the (supposedly tippyverse generated) idea of "you must succeed all the time whenever possible". I hate IP proofing. It's an arms race.


90% of my tabletop RPG experience has been with 1st/2nd/3rd/3.5/3.P and Whitewolf Games. And my dislike of Invisibility rules comes from those experiences. I've played and I'm familiar with 4E and 5E playtests, but haven't used the Invisibility rules in them.

So I guess this is something they fixed?

Somewhat.
In most games we only have a few people with maxed perception, because that's all we need. Invisibility lets you hide without blocking line of effect/sight, and adds +20/+40 if stationary, in 3.5. By the time we have invisible foes, it's a fun gamble to spot and relay targeting data. Especially because an exact description is a +13 to allies' spot!

It's not fun when no one can ever break stealth, or when everyone does.
Next is... Lateral. It's easier to pinpoint them, and easy to deal with when you find the right "square", but otherwise it's a hassle. I'll test it.


Except that its an action to detect which square to target...which leaves you no action to actually try to make them visible...and then they move before you act again.

Is it?


You can get some mileage out of having a separate spotter and kill-machine, but even that is highly initiative order dependent. Spotter needs to go before the killer, who needs to go before the invisible baddie.
My druid has awesome spot abilities, so I often spot something, move next to it and tell the fighter to attack the square right in front of me.

Feature, not bug. "You must have this much teamwork to ride" is okay in moderation.


4e Invisibility does not automatically obscure your position, you still need a stealth check to become "hidden", meaning the enemy doesn't know which square you're in.

Also, invisibility provides total concealment, which is a -5 to an attacker's roll with melee and ranged attacks. Not the 50% miss chance of 3.5.

So, YMMV, but these rules do a few things. One, it's not another roll to determine a hit or miss. Two, even while invisible, you may have to make a stealth check, so it doesn't completely negate the stealth skill.

Yeah. It's less buggy in practice at low levels, before all the fail safes come in on both sides.


I think tying disadvantage into invisibility mechanics is simple and easy and approximately mimics what 4e did. But they'd have to tidy up the advantage mechanics something fierce first and figure out how stacking works. Because it really has to in some way. Because the broad number of things that apply advantage/disadvantage means that it's not uncommon at all to be running into multiple of them at the same time.

For example. I'm a rogue. I want to sneak-attack ze wizard. I'm at disadvantage because that's the thing. He goes invisible... and is completely as easy to hit, because I'm already at disadvantage.

That's fine. Either you have no idea where Togo, or you square up behind the footprints, Gauge the right area from remembered height and build, and stab where a kidney should be.


There aren't obscene cross-class penalties, no, but it's still an effective -3 on the roll, which is pretty significant on a d20. The only reason people can get away with discounting it is because D&D3.X's math is even more horribly broken even worse than D&D Next's when it comes to skills. The fighter only has 2+INT skill points per level (And usually low Intelligence due to lack of class-ability synergy with the stats), and he's usually more interested in grabbing Intimidate and/or mobility-increasing skills instead of Cross-class ones.

Cross-class skills are still discouraged due to opportunity costs.

Opportunity cost! Ha!
That's a problem with player mindset, not the rules. Why do you require 100% maximum perception ability in all cases and all builds? That's what bounded accuracy handles. "It's okay to have 80% Max".


Except when you're using bounded accuracy and then -3 is about as much a penalty as being forced to roll with your off hand

Not true, though. -3 is a sizable portion of your possible bonus, which shifts your success ratio (if not the static odds) and has an interesting effect with advantage. On an easy roll it's a minor issue, on a normal one, it negates advantage, on a hard roll, it's a big penalty.

That's good.


I think I can provide the answer to what happened. One of the paid consultants for D&D Next is the RPG Pundit who sent Mike Mearls the following e-mail and then published it online (http://rpgpundit.xanga.com/759157548/item/):

"Seriously dude, you need to put a muzzle on Monte Cook. Every time the guy opens his mouth about 5e he scares the living **** out of the majority of regular old-school gamers.

First his "feats are core" comment; and now his comment that he/you/WoTC wants 5e to be a "simulationist" game. Both have basically helped to undo any good PR work you might have been doing with a huge number of gamers at theRPGsite, never mind the REALLY old school sites.

You realize that you might as well be telling old school gamers that it will glorify nazi atrocities, right? It seems to me like Monte can't possibly realize what loaded ****ing terms both of those words (but especially the Forgetalk of the latter) really are, and how they are essentially saying (whatever he may have thought or intended to say) to old school gamers: "5e will be a game that will **** all over the things that you value, and we feel proud of telling you that and using the language of your Enemies, of the people that despise the type of D&D you love, to say it".

So seriously, get the man some kind of sensitivity counseling, or just disconnect his ****ing vocal cords."

RPGPundit

Now personally I'd have dropped the RPGPundit on the spot for that (not that I'd have let him anywhere near D&D Next in the first place - I can't think of someone I'd less like to see on the development team - possibly not even Byron Hall (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14567.phtml)). But the D&D Next team didn't. Which more or less meant that Monte Cook had to go - you can't have e-mails like that flying around, published for all to read, and both people remaining. From everything I've read he's probably too much of a gentleman to actually bring that up but I would be very surprised if that wasn't the main cause and wonder what could have been worse.

Wow.


Couldn't disagree more. Copying Pathfinder would be vastly better than what they've got now.

Currently in Next, a basic character has 4 skill slots and Listen, Spot, and Search are all separate skills. That means that to get the equivalent of Perception, a D&D Next character has to use up 75% of their skill allowance – all to copy what in Pathfinder would be one skill. Ugh.

Skill-wise, going from PF to the current version of Next feels like going from playing James Bond to playing Homer Simpson.

Why do you [i]need[/b] all three skills?
Are you good T seeing targets? Hearing things? Or finding details in a crowded visual space? Why all three?

I think perception and search are all we need (along with just stealth and thievery), but search functions as an investigation skill, too. It's not unnecessary.

[Moreb Benhk]

It's not fun when no one can ever break stealth, or when everyone does.
Agreed



That's fine. Either you have no idea where Togo, or you square up behind the footprints, Gauge the right area from remembered height and build, and stab where a kidney should be.
My brain doesn't compute what you are replying to. I assume the problem is at my end. Are you saying its fine that lack of stacking disadvantages means that when the enemy goes stealthy he is still just as easy to hit?


I think perception and search are all we need (along with just stealth and thievery), but search functions as an investigation skill, too. It's not unnecessary.

Agreed.

[Saph]

I think perception and search are all we need (along with just stealth and thievery), but search functions as an investigation skill, too. It's not unnecessary.

It's not unnecessary, but there are too many edge cases where it's not obvious whether you should be rolling Search or Spot. It's also irritating when you only have enough skill points to max out one or the other, meaning that you go from eagle-eyed to blind and back again depending on whether the DM thinks this is more a passive kind of active roll or a more active kind of passive roll.

Having one skill for Perception might be more abstract, but it really does make everything so much easier.

[Totally Guy]

Now personally I'd have dropped the RPGPundit on the spot for that (not that I'd have let him anywhere near D&D Next in the first place - I can't think of someone I'd less like to see on the development team - possibly not even Byron Hall (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14567.phtml)). But the D&D Next team didn't.

Whoa. That is a shocking story! I've never read any games he's been involved in because from his articles I've read, I probably wouldn't like them.

[SiuiS]

Yeah, exactly. Consolidating the skill list was, at best, a band-aid; the problem wasn't that Spot and Listen were separate skills, it was that the fighter gets 2+int skill points per level. Spending a half of your skill points on perception may be better than spending all of your skill points on perception, but it's still terrible.

On a more general note, I really like the concept of Flickerdart's idea, although my pessimistic gut tells me that the math could end up super wonky for some skills.

See, that's a builder issue. skills don't need maxing! Most groups who I've seen eventually settle into a pattern even without contact or any way to share ideas (I'm good at not cross pollinating because i want different groups for a reason); full, half and partial skills.

A fighter gets 2 skill points a level. At first level, that's 8; 1 rank in class, attribute supported skills nets you +4. More with support.

A fighter can have one rank in eight skills and be perfectly fine, functioning as well as a fighter with four ranks in two skills.

"But what about later in life? When he levels up?"
Add one rank each to a skill you want higher. You never need to improve some skills. Others you do – so do it. Half skills (half maximum rank) means you've got a shot and can keep them pretty neck and neck as you advance.

It's the idea that maximum capacity is mandatory that's the problem.




My brain doesn't compute what you are replying to. I assume the problem is at my end. Are you saying its fine that lack of stacking disadvantages means that when the enemy goes stealthy he is still just as easy to hit?

The two points are;
- -5 to hit, disadvantage
- -5 to hit, sneak attack

And only for rogues. That's fine, because the precision is made harder but still doable. He's not just as easy to hit; the rogue, HP specializes in accuracy, has a lower chance compared to himself. Everyone else also has a Lower chance compared to themselves. Their internal accuracy is reduced. That is rogue benefit working as intended.


It's not unnecessary, but there are too many edge cases where it's not obvious whether you should be rolling Search or Spot. It's also irritating when you only have enough skill points to max out one or the other, meaning that you go from eagle-eyed to blind and back again depending on whether the DM thinks this is more a passive kind of active roll or a more active kind of passive roll.

Having one skill for Perception might be more abstract, but it really does make everything so much easier.

Yes. Completely agree.
Perception and investigation would work better.

[Ashdate]

I would hope that under a context where attributes (str, wis, cha) are more generally important that individual skills (such as spot, listen, and search) that a character with a decent score would be reliably good at things such as spot/listen/search, and that would allow skills (such as spot/listen/search) to have that much narrower context.

Unfortunately, ain't no way that's going to work right when the bonus from a stat is going to only rarely be higher than +3, and your baseline DC for an easy task is a DC 10, and especially unlikely when your baseline DC for a hard task is a DC 20.

[SiuiS]

I would hope that under a context where attributes (str, wis, cha) are more generally important that individual skills (such as spot, listen, and search) that a character with a decent score would be reliably good at things such as spot/listen/search, and that would allow skills (such as spot/listen/search) to have that much narrower context.

Unfortunately, ain't no way that's going to work right when the bonus from a stat is going to only rarely be higher than +3, and your baseline DC for an easy task is a DC 10, and especially unlikely when your baseline DC for a hard task is a DC 20.

Well, +3 means you're hitting easy DC 13/20, or 7/10 with any training at all (or 3/4 with rogue training).

If we had clear language on when to roll (something declarative about an "easy" task being a easy task relative to adventuring but still something failable) and we would be set.

[Kurald Galain]

If we had clear language on when to roll (something declarative about an "easy" task being a easy task relative to adventuring but still something failable) and we would be set.

I believe that by the current rules an "easy" task is anything the DM decides is easy, except if he decides to make it easy by giving advantage instead of modifying the DC. Right?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Yes. Completely agree.
Perception and investigation would work better.
Agreed. Mutants and Masterminds breaks it down exactly like that, and it works pretty well. Investigation (http://www.d20herosrd.com/4-skills#TOC-INVESTIGATION)covers "searching for clues, hidden items, traps, and other details," gathering evidence, analyzing evidence (forensics), gathering information, and surveillance.

[Giegue]

I have a quick question regarding where I can find some of the playtest materials. I have the most recent playtest, yet I find articles saying that there is advance rules and such, as well as a Necromancer wizard specialty. I would like to know if the Necromancer wizard specialty has been released yet and, if so, where I can locate the documents that have them on wizard's site? If somebody could help me with this I'd be grateful.

[Scow2]

Here we have a definite conflict on preference, because I do not agree. They all aren't equally necessary (perception based stuff is almost so necessary I'd advocate it not being a skill). Frankly I want there to be SOME situations where someone who has not invested anything in a skill simply cannot expect to contribute with that particular skill while the person who has invested heavily in it can. If the only thing that changes in the mechanics is your chance of success at X goes from 15% to 85% (absolute minimum to absolute maximum), with most being inside that... I find it very unappealing indeed.
But what skills would those be?! I can find VERY few instances of skills in D&D Next that need stratification. Mobility, breaking stuff, awareness, recognizing spells and magic items, negotiation, stealth, first aid, trap-bypassing, and door-opening are all skills that every adventurer needs basic proficiency in and hones over time, though some adventurers are more prone to specializing in certain areas than others. And it's something 3.5e failed horrifically at.

The only skills that I'd imagine really need stratification might be the rogue's skills (Stealth, Disable Device, Open Lock,Trapfinding) and knowledge checks - but only for VERY uncommon information. Not so much for mere monster identification.

[Moreb Benhk]

The two points are;
- -5 to hit, disadvantage
- -5 to hit, sneak attack

And only for rogues. That's fine, because the precision is made harder but still doable. He's not just as easy to hit; the rogue, HP specializes in accuracy, has a lower chance compared to himself. Everyone else also has a Lower chance compared to themselves. Their internal accuracy is reduced. That is rogue benefit working as intended.

Wait... what? What's this -5 to hit? So you are saying it's fine that a sneak attack is as difficult against an invisible opponent as a fully visible one? But that means the precision is in fact not made any harder... internal accuracy is not reduced, because sneak attack is always made at disadvantage. And maybe everyone else also has lower chance than normal... or maybe not. There are a reasonable number of ways to be at disadvantage against an opponent. Once you are at disadvantage the rest is irrelevant.



But what skills would those be?! I can find VERY few instances of skills in D&D Next that need stratification. Mobility, breaking stuff, awareness, recognizing spells and magic items, negotiation, stealth, first aid, trap-bypassing, and door-opening are all skills that every adventurer needs basic proficiency in and hones over time, though some adventurers are more prone to specializing in certain areas than others. And it's something 3.5e failed horrifically at.

The only skills that I'd imagine really need stratification might be the rogue's skills (Stealth, Disable Device, Open Lock,Trapfinding) and knowledge checks - but only for VERY uncommon information. Not so much for mere monster identification.

See here I'd disagree. I can easily see a wizard adventuring all his life and never really picking up much by way of mobility skills. For one he is likely to attributally suck at it, meaning he will compensate by magic, or by getting help from more competent team mates. Same with recognising spells, if they are complicated and the gestures/words dont differ completely for each one, a fighter really might not recognise many even later in his career, because he hasn't spent the many hours necessary studying the books to actually learn them. Door opening, trap bypassing, first aid, negotiation... same again. Yes they are all useful for pretty much all adventurers, but no not all adventurers are going to use them often (sometimes never). Usually there is someone else in the party who does an excellent job at that. So why waste your time and brainpower trying to become them? The fighter is much more likely to be looking out for enemies while the rogue does his lock-picky thing, than staring at what the rogue is doing. The barbarian may never get the knack of this 'diplomacy' business, which is all pussyfooting around instead of saying what's what. The list goes on.

[Scow2]

See here I'd disagree. I can easily see a wizard adventuring all his life and never really picking up much by way of mobility skills. For one he is likely to attributally suck at it, meaning he will compensate by magic, or by getting help from more competent team mates. Same with recognising spells, if they are complicated and the gestures/words dont differ completely for each one, a fighter really might not recognise many even later in his career, because he hasn't spent the many hours necessary studying the books to actually learn them. Door opening, trap bypassing, first aid, negotiation... same again. Yes they are all useful for pretty much all adventurers, but no not all adventurers are going to use them often (sometimes never). Usually there is someone else in the party who does an excellent job at that. So why waste your time and brainpower trying to become them? The fighter is much more likely to be looking out for enemies while the rogue does his lock-picky thing, than staring at what the rogue is doing. The barbarian may never get the knack of this 'diplomacy' business, which is all pussyfooting around instead of saying what's what. The list goes on.
Again - the rogue skills probably need the greater stratification (Which they also have in D&D Next). The other cases are already accounted for.

[Raineh Daze]

Again - the rogue skills probably need the greater stratification (Which they also have in D&D Next). The other cases are already accounted for.

I honestly think there needs to be more stratification, because 'you're an adventurer and these are essential adventurer skills' seems kind of... well, stupid. Unless you're some sort of nigh-omnicompetent madman who only ever works alone, there is no reason that you should be capable of every type of skill on virtue of profession alone. It only works for people whose life story is exclusively 'lone adventurer' :smallsigh:

[Scow2]

I honestly think there needs to be more stratification, because 'you're an adventurer and these are essential adventurer skills' seems kind of... well, stupid. Unless you're some sort of nigh-omnicompetent madman who only ever works alone, there is no reason that you should be capable of every type of skill on virtue of profession alone. It only works for people whose life story is exclusively 'lone adventurer' :smallsigh:Except that doesn't really describe any of the available skills. Even in a group, you don't have a hive mind. While only the rogue's needed to find difficult traps and disarm them, the rogue needs everyone to at least make an attempt at being sneaky. Perception is also one of those skillsets everyone in the party needs. Most of what were skills in 3.5 are now Backgrounds/Traits in D&D Next, especially the most stratified skills.

[Kurald Galain]

Mobility, breaking stuff, awareness, recognizing spells and magic items, negotiation, stealth, first aid, trap-bypassing, and door-opening are all skills that every adventurer needs basic proficiency in and hones over time,

I completely disagree with that. If everybody can do everything, then there's no point in having a team game any more.

[Scow2]

I completely disagree with that. If everybody can do everything, then there's no point in having a team game any more.They can do everything competently (Unless their associated attributes are bad). They can't do everything well. Unlike in D&D 3.5, where the lack of many of these skills made you dead weight if you lacked the skill.

[navar100]

Except that doesn't really describe any of the available skills. Even in a group, you don't have a hive mind. While only the rogue's needed to find difficult traps and disarm them, the rogue needs everyone to at least make an attempt at being sneaky. Perception is also one of those skillsets everyone in the party needs. Most of what were skills in 3.5 are now Backgrounds/Traits in D&D Next, especially the most stratified skills.

The solution could instead expand what classes can do with skills rather than give everyone all the skills. More than Aid Another, give the rogue a class ability to provide a +5 to another character's stealth roll. At higher levels he can give the +5 to another character at the same time and/or the +# increases. Alternatively, give the rogue a pool of pluses he can divide. For example, if he has a pool of +10 he can give one other character +10, two characters +5, two characters +3 and another +4, and so on. The pool increases as levels increase.

[Kurald Galain]

They can do everything competently (Unless their associated attributes are bad). They can't do everything well.

That's only a semantic difference. The point is that this approach robs both classes and characters of their uniqueness. It sounds really bland and boring to me, with all characters being more-or-less the same (skill-wise) and I would have zero interest in playing a game like this.

[Raineh Daze]

They can do everything competently (Unless their associated attributes are bad). They can't do everything well. Unlike in D&D 3.5, where the lack of many of these skills made you dead weight if you lacked the skill.

'Doing everything competently' is the problem. It places too much emphasis on 'these are adventuring skills, therefore you are all good at them', which makes no sense and requires that the games strongly revolve around adventuring in order to even get that far. Being an adventurer does not mean that you will be good at all forms of mobility, perception, stealth, spell identification, and whatever else is on the list. :smallsigh:

... also, most skills aren't exactly essential in 3.5. I don't get where the 'dead weight' thing comes from, unless you're assuming many, many, many social encounters requiring social rolls. :smallconfused:

[Moreb Benhk]

They can do everything competently (Unless their associated attributes are bad). They can't do everything well. Unlike in D&D 3.5, where the lack of many of these skills made you dead weight if you lacked the skill.

I strongly disagree. As others point out this homogenizes every character in an unfun way, but even more importantly it's not logical. People don't generally learn stuff that takes effort that they don't need to, especially if it doesn't interest them. The wizard can be generally happy to leave all the survival skills to the rogue/ranger/whatever. Stuff gets done, everyone stays warm and dry and fed, all without his attention or input. He can better spend his time enriching his arcane knowledge (which from a wizard's point of view is probably far more interesting and useful). Appraise, disguise, spellcraft... the list goes on. All stuff requiring a decent amount of training/direct, focussed experience to really be competent in. This stuff doesn't just happen by osmosis.

[DeltaEmil]

Does D&D 5th edition have BAB back? If yes, then that's a competency that improves all the time.

[Scow2]

I strongly disagree. As others point out this homogenizes every character in an unfun way, but even more importantly it's not logical. People don't generally learn stuff that takes effort that they don't need to, especially if it doesn't interest them. The wizard can be generally happy to leave all the survival skills to the rogue/ranger/whatever. Stuff gets done, everyone stays warm and dry and fed, all without his attention or input. He can better spend his time enriching his arcane knowledge (which from a wizard's point of view is probably far more interesting and useful). Appraise, disguise, spellcraft... the list goes on. All stuff requiring a decent amount of training/direct, focussed experience to really be competent in. This stuff doesn't just happen by osmosis.
Actually, Appraise and Spellcraft are acquired through osmisis as well as study - the fighter will eventually start to catch on when a mage is casting a spell and what type after he's been hit by enough of them. You'd start picking up on the value of wealth as you trade it in. If you're not an adventurer of some caliber, you're not a D&D Character. D&D uses a leveling mechanic instead of a "Get better at things you do frequently" mechanic, and it's better to have a broad range of auto-scaling things (Or not scaling at all) than require investment just to play catch-up.

Many of 3.5's skills are traits or [expert] feats in Next, instead, giving a similar level of stratification where it's needed, without the "Lockout" of performing basic-but-scaling activities. Training in a skill gives a signficant edge in a skill, but it doesn't leave those that don't have the skill "trained".

[Raineh Daze]

Actually, Appraise and Spellcraft are acquired through osmisis as well as study - the fighter will eventually start to catch on when a mage is casting a spell and what type after he's been hit by enough of them. You'd start picking up on the value of wealth as you trade it in. If you're not an adventurer of some caliber, you're not a D&D Character. D&D uses a leveling mechanic instead of a "Get better at things you do frequently" mechanic, and it's better to have a broad range of auto-scaling things (Or not scaling at all) than require investment just to play catch-up.

The ability to deal with complex locks and traps, needing extensive mechanical know-how. Knowledge of creatures and situations you've never met. Physical abilities that you never use and have no interest in. These are all things that you aren't going to learn just by random osmosis, and therefore need investing in. When they scale anyway, you have issues. :|

Especially if the 8-Str wizard inexplicably gets better at scaling cliffs despite never going near one in ten levels.

[Moreb Benhk]

Actually, Appraise and Spellcraft are acquired through osmisis as well as study - the fighter will eventually start to catch on when a mage is casting a spell and what type after he's been hit by enough of them. You'd start picking up on the value of wealth as you trade it in. If you're not an adventurer of some caliber, you're not a D&D Character. D&D uses a leveling mechanic instead of a "Get better at things you do frequently" mechanic, and it's better to have a broad range of auto-scaling things (Or not scaling at all) than require investment just to play catch-up.
Well I guess we occupy two very different positions then. I think that magic is sufficiently complicated that a fighter could quite easily never get much skill in identifying spells before they come flying at him, in the heat of battle especially. And for appraisals - sure he'd know what they sold stuff that seems pretty similar for last time, but he wouldn't necessarily know why, or what apparently minor differences change the value significantly. Especially if there is a trusted fence/party member who does know and ensures he gets his fair share. To me its kinda similar to other stuff. A fighter doesn't get access to some low level spells for free just because he's been around wizards for 20 levels. I mean you can get him to (via feats possibly, or multiclassing or whatnot) if you want to spend the investment.

I would say that you shouldn't need to invest maximally to reap benefits. Someone should be able to be decently competent at a broad range of skills if they so desire to, which as I've said previously, is not something 3.5 tends to do well.



Many of 3.5's skills are traits or [expert] feats in Next, instead, giving a similar level of stratification where it's needed, without the "Lockout" of performing basic-but-scaling activities. Training in a skill gives a signficant edge in a skill, but it doesn't leave those that don't have the skill "trained".

I don't find that training in a skill gives a significant edge. +1d6 is not really a whole lot against a d20, even if it is 'significant' compared to the other bonuses available

[PairO'Dice Lost]

If you're not an adventurer of some caliber, you're not a D&D Character. D&D uses a leveling mechanic instead of a "Get better at things you do frequently" mechanic, and it's better to have a broad range of auto-scaling things (Or not scaling at all) than require investment just to play catch-up.


Well I guess we occupy two very different positions then. I think that magic is sufficiently complicated that a fighter could quite easily never get much skill in identifying spells before they come flying at him, in the heat of battle especially.

The issue at hand, I think, is what people consider "basic uses" of a skill. It's like how some people think having 0 ranks in a skill in 3e makes you completely incompetent in that skill, but actually 0 ranks is just the baseline average for non-experts and you can still climb trees, fix a door, guesstimate an item's value, and do other everyday activities easily without any ranks by taking 10, as the DMG explains. What some people think should be a trained-only use shouldn't necessarily be so restricted, and what some people think should be automatic shouldn't necessarily come free.

Same problem here. Scow2 thinks that the fighter being able to roll Spellcraft and say "Gee, that's a fire-based AoE comin' at me, all right!" shouldn't require much training and should be something the fighter can pick up after clearing out the Flaming Temple of Fire Elementals, while Moreb Benhk thinks that a fighter being able to roll Spellcraft and judge an oncoming fireball's point of detonation (after distinguishing it from a flaming sphere, orb of fire, or fire burst) should require research and training the fighter can't just pick up on the fly.

Those aren't mutually exclusive: make it so an untrained Spellcraft roll tells you that that spell flying at your head is a nasty evil energy blast that can wreck your day if you don't dodge it, while a trained Spellcraft roll tells you that the enemy wizard is currently casting an uttercold fell drain cone of cold which deals a lot of negative energy and cold damage or half on a successful Reflex save, and ta-da, both the "my fighter has picked up a few tricks without formal training" and the "your fighter hasn't studied the theory" crowds can be happy.

[Scow2]

In D&D Next, someone who's not proficient with Thieves Tools is at disadvantage when trying to make a Dexterity Check to open a lock, and he lacks the +1-+6 bonus for being trained (Or +2-+12 bonus for being a trained Rogue). He can still get lucky if he's desperate and starts fiddling with a lock, getting it open or disabling the device - but it's all luck there. While someone who's proficient and trained, such as a rogue, gets a much larger bonus to his check and is capable of opening VERY difficult locks given enough time.

[Moreb Benhk]

In D&D Next, someone who's not proficient with Thieves Tools is at disadvantage when trying to make a Dexterity Check to open a lock, and he lacks the +1-+6 bonus for being trained (Or +2-+12 bonus for being a trained Rogue). He can still get lucky if he's desperate and starts fiddling with a lock, getting it open or disabling the device - but it's all luck there. While someone who's proficient and trained, such as a rogue, gets a much larger bonus to his check and is capable of opening VERY difficult locks given enough time.

Not as I read it. My version says if you are not proficient you cannot open locks. Have I missed an update? Also where do people find this bonus +d6 rogues supposedly get in skills? I can't seem to locate it.

[SiuiS]

I believe that by the current rules an "easy" task is anything the DM decides is easy, except if he decides to make it easy by giving advantage instead of modifying the DC. Right?

Not sure. I don't know if it actually says "pick easy based on what should be easy" anymore, and I forgot to check.


Agreed. Mutants and Masterminds breaks it down exactly like that, and it works pretty well. Investigation (http://www.d20herosrd.com/4-skills#TOC-INVESTIGATION)covers "searching for clues, hidden items, traps, and other details," gathering evidence, analyzing evidence (forensics), gathering information, and surveillance.

Neat!


I have a quick question regarding where I can find some of the playtest materials. I have the most recent playtest, yet I find articles saying that there is advance rules and such, as well as a Necromancer wizard specialty. I would like to know if the Necromancer wizard specialty has been released yet and, if so, where I can locate the documents that have them on wizard's site? If somebody could help me with this I'd be grateful.

I have not actually seen a necromancer. I remember an article using the term as a suggestion for how the system would pan out, but I believe it's just an example and there is no actual ruleset for advanced rules vs. normal.


Wait... what? What's this -5 to hit? So you are saying it's fine that a sneak attack is as difficult against an invisible opponent as a fully visible one?

Sneak attack is less accurate against an invisible target. I don't know where you're getting this "just as accurate" from.


Except that doesn't really describe any of the available skills. Even in a group, you don't have a hive mind. While only the rogue's needed to find difficult traps and disarm them, the rogue needs everyone to at least make an attempt at being sneaky. Perception is also one of those skillsets everyone in the party needs. Most of what were skills in 3.5 are now Backgrounds/Traits in D&D Next, especially the most stratified skills.

Nuh-uh! It's tradition that the normals stay in a cluster and the sneaks orbit that cluster. There even used to be rules on how far away from the party minimum you had to be, for a rogue.


They can do everything competently (Unless their associated attributes are bad). They can't do everything well. Unlike in D&D 3.5, where the lack of many of these skills made you dead weight if you lacked the skill.

3.5 did this; see my prior post.


Not as I read it. My version says if you are not proficient you cannot open locks. Have I missed an update? Also where do people find this bonus +d6 rogues supposedly get in skills? I can't seem to locate it.

A rogue get training based on his scheme and additionally rolls an extra 1d6 for certain skills.

[Moreb Benhk]

Sneak attack is less accurate against an invisible target. I don't know where you're getting this "just as accurate" from.


How? Sneak attack = disadvantage.
Invisibility = disadvantage.

Disadvantage doesn't stack... ergo...

[SiuiS]

How? Sneak attack = disadvantage.
Invisibility = disadvantage.

Disadvantage doesn't stack... ergo...

Invisibility equals disadvantage, -5 penalty(?) and cannot guarantee target acquisition.

Once the target is acquired the hard work is done, and hitting someone with a precision attack who is invisible isn't hard. Tell me exactly where to point in a pitch black room; tell me how tall the target is and how far apart their feet are; I can punch them in the throat with alarming accuracy.

[TinyHippo]

I think the best real life comparison to the average DnD group is a small Special Forces team. In dangerous territory, limited support, exploring, gathering info, and fighting battles often against great odds. And in such teams (and in the military in general) there is a very very heavy emphasis on everyone knowing how to do each others jobs well. If not as well as the primary person tasked with it, then at least enough to get by. Why is this? Because casualties happen. Folks get knocked out, incapacitated, or killed all the time. And if Bob is the only one who knows how to call in close air support or a medevac order on the radio and he goes down you're all dead.

I think that there are basically three types of skills.

Things everyone should be able to do well, with rare exceptions. These are mostly the perception type skills, spot and listen etc. If you bumble along oblivious to the world then you'd better be incredibly powerful to make up for it or there's no reason to have you as part of the team. It's nice that Joey the point man can see the invisible man sneaking up on you at midnight and hear an owl fart three towns over, but when he's a pile of ashes in your bag of holding there better be some other folks on the team who can tell that the orcs are sneaking up on you. Especially important for watches through the night.

Things everyone should be at least minimally competent at. I think of this as stuff like use magic device and heal skills. It's awesome that Joey can use that Wand of cure light Wounds after everyone gets ripped up in battle, but when he's been turned into a statue and everyone else is bleeding and in the single digits there better be some other folks on the team who can turn that sucker on.

And things that most likely are only in the specialists realm, like picking locks and disassembling traps. High bar of entry, non-intuitive, and not an every day thing. Joey can pick the locks, a d if he isn't around we can usually smash it open or blow it down or or or...

[Moreb Benhk]

Invisibility equals disadvantage, -5 penalty(?) and cannot guarantee target acquisition.

Once the target is acquired the hard work is done, and hitting someone with a precision attack who is invisible isn't hard. Tell me exactly where to point in a pitch black room; tell me how tall the target is and how far apart their feet are; I can punch them in the throat with alarming accuracy.

You keep busting out this -5 penalty. I challenge it's existence.

And you are correct about needing to ID the rough location of the target.

But if you are really trying to argue that it is just as easy to precisely strike a target which is going to be moving at least a bit (if not ducking and weaving like crazy... you're in a fight after all) with full vision versus not being able to see them at all... well, I question the point in continued discussion on the topic, because your position appears to be more than a little silly to me.


On a related but unrelated note to the invisibility thing. If you have both advantage and disadvantage on a roll, they cancel. Always. Even if you have 10 sources of advantage and 1 source of disadvantage, you still get neither because the 1 cancels the 10. Does anyone else think this is extremely dumb?

You can set up all the bonuses and stuff you like, but one source of disadvantage makes it all meaningless. Conversely, a single source of advantage on a roll protects you from all the negative circumstances in the world. If this is going to be the central mechanic around which Next bonuses/penalties revolve... they have to make it a heck of a lot more workable than this... Or at least that's how I see it. Anyone else's thoughts?

[Raineh Daze]

*snip*

Not really. 'To be an adventurer you must be good at everything' is stupid. It makes no sense in character backgrounds unless there's some 'school of adventuring' somewhere that everyone goes to.

With different backgrounds why, exactly, should the first level fighter that's never seen combat spells in their life have a chance to work out what they're being attacked with? The city-raised wizard who spent their whole youth in libraries wouldn't be any good at swimming or climbing.

It homogenises things and assumes Generic Adventurers™, which is possibly not the most brilliant thing to build into the ruleset*. :smallannoyed:

*The genericness and 'characters must be this omnicomptent to exist' part. :|

[Kurald Galain]

It homogenises things and assumes Generic Adventurers™, which is possibly not the most brilliant thing to build into the ruleset*. :smallannoyed:
Yes. If the assumption is that "everybody can do everything" then you don't need a ruleset, you can just ignore stats and skills entirely and say you have to roll 4+ on 1d6 to succeed at something, done. While this is an exaggeration, the current implementation of 5E is leaning way too far in this direction: it looks like a very complicated system that gives very simple results.



On a related but unrelated note to the invisibility thing. If you have both advantage and disadvantage on a roll, they cancel. Always. Even if you have 10 sources of advantage and 1 source of disadvantage, you still get neither because the 1 cancels the 10. Does anyone else think this is extremely dumb?
Well, yes. I pointed that out several playtests ago.

[SiuiS]

I think the best real life comparison to the average DnD group is a small Special Forces team. In dangerous territory, limited support, exploring, gathering info, and fighting battles often against great odds. And in such teams (and in the military in general) there is a very very heavy emphasis on everyone knowing how to do each others jobs well. If not as well as the primary person tasked with it, then at least enough to get by. Why is this? Because casualties happen. Folks get knocked out, incapacitated, or killed all the time. And if Bob is the only one who knows how to call in close air support or a medevac order on the radio and he goes down you're all dead.


I disagree completely.

Military forces nowadays are trained this way, because insividual soldiers aren't heroes. And adventuring party isn't two riflemen, a radio man and a sniper though; it's the barbarian lord who swore to come back with the crowns of eight men by three summers hence, a wizard in the world to findandexploit mystic sites and flows, the greatest cut purse in the meerlik woods, and a priest so devout he channels divinity on a whim; none of whom have drilled together, have no cultural background in common, have no training in common, have no infrastructure to support that level of rigor, have no benchmarks to make sure theydo it right, have no controlled conditions in which to practice, have no drilling which emphasizes that heroics are bad, have no backup to call in and don't have any reason not to be selfish and expect everyone to support them in combat.

Remember, special forces training is designed to make normal folks work as well as an adventurer. It takes four to six soldiers to case a building, busy in and subdue everyone. It only takes one PC to do that.


You keep busting out this -5 penalty. I challenge it's existence.

Earlier in the conversation.



But if you are really trying to argue that it is just as easy to precisely strike a target which is going to be moving at least a bit (if not ducking and weaving like crazy... you're in a fight after all) with full vision versus not being able to see them at all... well, I question the point in continued discussion on the topic, because your position appears to be more than a little silly to me.


You can't locate someone's vitals based on knowing their height and seeing just their feet? That's fine. I don't think you can do a backstab, either.

But yes, if you are a rogue, who specializes in striking small moving targets at opportune moments, I don't see a problem with hitting "where the kidney should be", once you've ascertained where "where the kidney should be" is.



You can set up all the bonuses and stuff you like, but one source of disadvantage makes it all meaningless. Conversely, a single source of advantage on a roll protects you from all the negative circumstances in the world. If this is going to be the central mechanic around which Next bonuses/penalties revolve... they have to make it a heck of a lot more workable than this... Or at least that's how I see it. Anyone else's thoughts?

I don't have a problem with it. It prevents unnecessary delays. You don't wait for triple advantage, you attack now. In play, it works out pretty smooth.

[TinyHippo]

Not really. 'To be an adventurer you must be good at everything' is stupid. It makes no sense in character backgrounds unless there's some 'school of adventuring' somewhere that everyone goes to.

With different backgrounds why, exactly, should the first level fighter that's never seen combat spells in their life have a chance to work out what they're being attacked with? The city-raised wizard who spent their whole youth in libraries wouldn't be any good at swimming or climbing.

It homogenises things and assumes Generic Adventurers™, which is possibly not the most brilliant thing to build into the ruleset*. :smallannoyed:

*The genericness and 'characters must be this omnicomptent to exist' part. :|

That is a complete mischaracterization of what I said.

And why should all adventurers be good at certain things? Because if they aren't, they would die if they were actual people in an actual world. Unless protected by the strictures of the game, and I find it terribly distracting when plot armor is all that's keeping folks going.

[TinyHippo]

Just so I'm clear here, multiple people are asserting that everyone in a group gaining skills in things such as noticing they are about to be attacked is bland, homogenized, and no fun. And that a party being made up of people who have many levels of experience but never bothered to learn basic, vital life skills because someone else around them can usually do them is absolutely essential to your enjoyment of a game? You can't have fun unless your character is willfully incompetent at being able to notice that they are about to get attacked? Really?

Edit: I assume you all also find auto scaling BAB, saves, and HP to be horrific homogenization that utterly ruins the game right? Cause if "I've been living in constant danger so my senses are sharpened and I'm more alert" is so bad, I'm pretty sure "I've been adventuring so no I can take a great axe to the face and shrug off a blow that would've decapitated me before" would inflict sanity damage.

[Raineh Daze]

Just so I'm clear here, multiple people are asserting that everyone in a group gaining skills in things such as noticing they are about to be attacked is bland, homogenized, and no fun. And that a party being made up of people who have many levels of experience but never bothered to learn basic, vital life skills because someone else around them can usually do them is absolutely essential to your enjoyment of a game? You can't have fun unless your character is willfully incompetent at being able to notice that they are about to get attacked? Really?

Perception rolls shouldn't be skills. Investigation--looking for fine details and spotting the tell-tale clues that if you step here, you're barbecue--would be. Simple awareness of your situation? There's not much reason it should be in the skill framework.

Hell, I still don't know why they didn't take it out and make it something like Initiative...

Anyway, the thing is: that's a case that is fixed by removing the offending capability from an inappropriate framework. Not by making adventurers good at a dozen tasks.


Edit: I assume you all also find auto scaling BAB, saves, and HP to be horrific homogenization that utterly ruins the game right? Cause if "I've been living in constant danger so my senses are sharpened and I'm more alert" is so bad, I'm pretty sure "I've been adventuring so no I can take a great axe to the face and shrug off a blow that would've decapitated me before" would inflict sanity damage.

Err, no. It would be a complaint if every class basically got the same 'good enough' progression for all of them, leaving every class with a mechanically identical chassis. The complaint here is that every adventurer is at least 'good enough' with every skill.

[Water_Bear]

And why should all adventurers be good at certain things? Because if they aren't, they would die if they were actual people in an actual world. Unless protected by the strictures of the game, and I find it terribly distracting when plot armor is all that's keeping folks going.

Or alternatively, adventurers die. A lot.

If your bookish Wizard doesn't identify the trap and there isn't a Rogue there to tell them where not to step... that Wizard eats a facefull of trap.
If your uncouth Barbarian is trying to talk the Lord of the Manor into letting him live after hunting in the King's Forrest and there isn't a Bard there to coach them on what not to say... that Barbarian is about to face the headsman.
If your Druid is facing a half-dozen formidable enemies and there isn't a Fighter there to tank and take some of the heat off of them... that Druid is about to be in a lot of pain, or at least they ought to be.

Adventurers form parties in the first place because they are specialists and couldn't hope to succeed without other people around to cover their weakspots. When any one class or build is too widely competent like the Wizard in 3.5, or the classes get too homogenous like in some other editions, you have a problem with the core assumption of the game.

[TinyHippo]

Err, no. It would be a complaint if every class basically got the same 'good enough' progression for all of them, leaving every class with a mechanically identical chassis. The complaint here is that every adventurer is at least 'good enough' with every skill.

Well it's a good thing I didn't say that then isn't it?

[Raineh Daze]

Well it's a good thing I didn't say that then isn't it?

But that is what you're saying. This is a discussion about the skill system, you're saying every adventurer has to be Good At These Skills To Adventure. Consequently, you're supporting the idea that every adventurer must have 'just enough' ability in these skills.

Specialising on top of that doesn't suddenly make the 'oh, you're competent at everything' issue go away.

[SiuiS]

That is a complete mischaracterization of what I said.

And why should all adventurers be good at certain things? Because if they aren't, they would die if they were actual people in an actual world. Unless protected by the strictures of the game, and I find it terribly distracting when plot armor is all that's keeping folks going.

Adventurers are the people who apply specialties through persistence. Te guy who succeeds at diplomacy because he's so good with an axe. The lady who overcomes a stealth challenge with fireball application because piles if ashes aren't sentries (or walls or policemen, either!).

The premise "an adventuring troupe is a special forces team" takes the game's feel and requirements in the wrong direction. It's a viable option. It should not be the standard.


Just so I'm clear here, multiple people are asserting that everyone in a group gaining skills in things such as noticing they are about to be attacked is bland, homogenized, and no fun. And that a party being made up of people who have many levels of experience but never bothered to learn basic, vital life skills because someone else around them can usually do them is absolutely essential to your enjoyment of a game? You can't have fun unless your character is willfully incompetent at being able to notice that they are about to get attacked? Really?

Edit: I assume you all also find auto scaling BAB, saves, and HP to be horrific homogenization that utterly ruins the game right? Cause if "I've been living in constant danger so my senses are sharpened and I'm more alert" is so bad, I'm pretty sure "I've been adventuring so no I can take a great axe to the face and shrug off a blow that would've decapitated me before" would inflict sanity damage.

I'll let you look at your own example and find what's wrong with it. It's pretty obvious and not worth the segue.

But seriously mate, you've made a point, but pouting and throwing crass accusations of "well, your idea is stupider-er!" Doesn't help.

[neonchameleon]

'Doing everything competently' is the problem. It places too much emphasis on 'these are adventuring skills, therefore you are all good at them'

Competent isn't the same as good. It's a baseline proficiency.


Being an adventurer does not mean that you will be good at all forms of mobility, perception, stealth, spell identification, and whatever else is on the list. :smallsigh:

No it doesn't. Adventurers who aren't good at perception tend to end up dead. Adventurers who fail stealth checks end up dead. A fighter who can't tell what spell is being cast at them is a much worse fighter than one who can.


The ability to deal with complex locks and traps, needing extensive mechanical know-how.

Or just enough knowledge of the laws of physics to know where to hit to disable it. In the earliest days of D&D there was no disarm traps skill - instead the DM simply described the trap in as much detail as the players asked for, and the players figured out how to handle it. There was no disarm traps skill (the Thief didn't turn up until Supplement 1: Greyhawk and have you seen how terrible the AD&D thief is at disarming traps at low level?)


Knowledge of creatures and situations you've never met.

But the people you have met have met them after you've been adventuring a while. And you have been in a much wider set of situations from which to extrapolate.


Physical abilities that you never use and have no interest in.

You might not use the physical abilities directly. But if you show no interest in what the people you depend on to save your life can do then you aren't likely to have that long a life.


These are all things that you aren't going to learn just by random osmosis, and therefore need investing in.

Being part of an adventuring party, pushed to the brink is not random osmosis. It is being someone who has seen things few have seen, has been in life threatening situations few have been in, and has seen experts at work. You do not learn by random osmosis. You learn by travelling around with experts, watching them, and


When they scale anyway, you have issues. :|

Only if you assume that PCs are blindly incurious about the abilities of those on their team and the environments they wander through.


Especially if the 8-Str wizard inexplicably gets better at scaling cliffs despite never going near one in ten levels.

It's hardly inexplicable that a wizard gets better with minor magics to help them scale a cliff as they level up.

A level 20 fighter with an Int of 10 in 4e is as good as a first level wizard with an Int of 20 at history. In reaching level 20, how much of that history do you think our fighter made?

Who do you think the Extreme Explorers Society is going to invite to be their keynote speaker and hang on every word of? Bob the thief prodigy, or Sir Cadogan, last surviving member of the group that conquered the Tomb of Horrors and vanquished Acecerak. Sure Cadogan himself will tell you that Tim the Enchanter and Mack the Knife did most of the heavy lifting on the traps and he was there for ... well, the heavy lifting. But compared to the Tomb of Horrors, most of the traps Bob has ever seen might as well be childrens' toys.

Who do you think is going to be the keynote speaker at the Comparative Religion summit? Paul, a first level wizard working on his dissertation? Or Sir Cadogan who has been right down into the demonweb pits, and literally spat in Lolth's eye and forced her to discorporate. He's also been resurrected by both Bahamut and Moradin, broken the back of a Pit Fiend, held the line while Tim the Enchanter banished Orcus, and communed with five separate gods.

This is the sort of thing a 20th level character will have done. They won't have the background theory - but will have a hell of a lot of practical experience in a wide range of fields.

[Raineh Daze]

Competent isn't the same as good. It's a baseline proficiency.

No it doesn't. Adventurers who aren't good at perception tend to end up dead. Adventurers who fail stealth checks end up dead. A fighter who can't tell what spell is being cast at them is a much worse fighter than one who can.

Perception shouldn't be a skill. There is no reason for basic perception, as opposed to putting together tiny clues to locate traps, work out who was there, or whatever (basically, investigation) to be a skill.

'You must be able to sneak around and identify spells and disarm traps and identify every type of creature you will ever meet and have a knowledge of history in order to adventure' is just plain stupid. It makes no narrative sense for every character to have all these skills. it makes no real-life sense for a character to have all these skills. It doesn't even make that much gameplay sense unless you're adopting a videogame approach that every character must be able to complete every challenge on their own.


But the people you have met have met them after you've been adventuring a while. And you have been in a much wider set of situations from which to extrapolate.

That doesn't automatically mean that you're going to have knowledge of, say, obscure eldritch horrors, or detailed knowledge on ancient magical theories. This is the end result of autoscaling abilities, where you always have a chance of achieving things. The whole fact you're travelling with someone who knows these things is a reason to not know them and focus on your own abilities. Extrapolating from situations also really doesn't help if you meet something obscure, and the useful information you come up with is some sort of special ability you've never met before. :smallsigh:


You might not use the physical abilities directly. But if you show no interest in what the people you depend on to save your life can do then you aren't likely to have that long a life.

... take a bookish wizard. Why the hell would someone interested in magic, mystical creatures, and intellectual pursuits in general care about how to climb a cliff? Or how to jump best? :smallconfused:


Being part of an adventuring party, pushed to the brink is not random osmosis. It is being someone who has seen things few have seen, has been in life threatening situations few have been in, and has seen experts at work. You do not learn by random osmosis. You learn by travelling around with experts, watching them, and

and...?

You're generalising all characters to acting one way. This is part of the problem. You're saying that every character watches and picks up skills from other people (which gets even more stupid if nobody in the party has that one skill, and it's an intellectual pursuit) and in general learns everything that they are confronted with 'because that's necessary to survive' or some rubbish. You don't need to be good at everything to survive. You need to be able to work as a team where other people can compensate. That's it.


Only if you assume that PCs are blindly incurious about the abilities of those on their team and the environments they wander through.

It only works if you assume PC's are knowledge and skill collecting maniacs. Autoscaling either forces a failure of logic or forces characters to all have the same type of personality. I do not like the idea of rules systems telling me what personality I should give a character.

It also completely fails if a PC is unobservant and none too bright (low Int, low Wis), because they still get the same automatic scaling with the mechanics set against the only way they could learn it. And they're even less likely to have the right personality, to boot.


It's hardly inexplicable that a wizard gets better with minor magics to help them scale a cliff as they level up.

I don't buy that explanation at all. 'Oh, you've gotten better at magic, so you can automatically climb cliffs better, swim better, jump better, hide better, and notice things better'. Completely unrelated abilities, and I'm supposed to swallow a half-assed explanation about 'minor magics'? That's the whole point of cantrips. :smallannoyed:


A level 20 fighter with an Int of 10 in 4e is as good as a first level wizard with an Int of 20 at history. In reaching level 20, how much of that history do you think our fighter made?

None. The fighter's life is pretty much current affairs. They have no business knowing large amounts of history without investing in it. :|


-Analogy about a guy that's done a lot of stuff.-

I can tell you what they won't be inviting the guy to talk about: how you do it. Yes, he's seen a lot of things. That does not mean that he's GOOD at them. But first-hand accounts of the sort of things these people are interested in? That's good, because it allows them to work out how to use this information.

Being resurrected twice, fighting a god, and having some chats is not going to make you an expert on religion and all its attendant paraphernalia, rituals, structures, and values.

See, if I watched a thousand musicians play instruments, and a thousand soldiers fight, and a thousand mechanics repair cars, and a thousand builders build, will I be any good at those things? No, not really. I might be able to differentiate good from bad, and tell when someone's about to do something catastrophically wrong, but that doesn't mean I will be able to play music, fight a war, repair a car, and build a house.

[TuggyNE]

Earlier in the conversation.

So, this?
4e Invisibility does not automatically obscure your position, you still need a stealth check to become "hidden", meaning the enemy doesn't know which square you're in.

Also, invisibility provides total concealment, which is a -5 to an attacker's roll with melee and ranged attacks. Not the 50% miss chance of 3.5.

The problem is that you were silently borrowing from 4e under the assumption that Next does or should have the same mechanics. It doesn't. Neither the invisibility description, the definition of Invisible, nor Sneak Attack make any mention of -5 penalties. (Nor is there any mention of total concealment, or even concealment, that I could find.)

Technically, I think the Rogue would need advantage to be able to make the sneak attack, since they need to cancel out invisibility's disadvantage. However, they only need one source of same.

[Moreb Benhk]

Competent isn't the same as good. It's a baseline proficiency.

Could you provide some detail as to what you mean? Maybe with numerical examples? Because to me there isn't a lot of difference between competent and good, and I'm thinking I'm not the only one who finds your distinction hard to fathom.


No it doesn't. Adventurers who aren't good at perception tend to end up dead. Adventurers who fail stealth checks end up dead. A fighter who can't tell what spell is being cast at them is a much worse fighter than one who can.

As has been said before, perception makes a fine argument for not being a skill at all, as it IS pretty universal. Stealth is something I'm sortof on the fence on, simply because it's often 'the whole party succeeds or the whole party fails' kind of a jobbie. But I disagree with the last one. Why is he a much worse fighter. Magic be complicated, things be happening fast, and there are a lot of spells in existence.



Or just enough knowledge of the laws of physics to know where to hit to disable it. In the earliest days of D&D there was no disarm traps skill - instead the DM simply described the trap in as much detail as the players asked for, and the players figured out how to handle it. There was no disarm traps skill (the Thief didn't turn up until Supplement 1: Greyhawk and have you seen how terrible the AD&D thief is at disarming traps at low level?)

The disadvantage of the old system is similar to that of removing diplomacy mechanics - you put it all onto the player. The master thief you are playing is simply going to have a better knowledge of traps and physics than the player. Forcing people to be limited to who they are in real life is somewhat defeating of the point. And in all the games I've played, the fighter doesn't crowd around the rogue while he is picking the traps apart, for good reasons. Sometimes there might be baddies around that need to be kept from sneaking up to them. And sometimes the rogue fails badly and the damn thing explodes.



You might not use the physical abilities directly. But if you show no interest in what the people you depend on to save your life can do then you aren't likely to have that long a life.

But you've already said these are things you never use. So yes IN THEORY it would be beneficial for your character to be competent at everything, it's true. That just cuts against the grain of human(oid) nature and fun at the table. I'd love a skill system that allows you to be decently competent at everything if that is your wish though. It totally makes for a decent character concept. But I'd hate all characters to be squeezed into the mould.


Only if you assume that PCs are blindly incurious about the abilities of those on their team and the environments they wander through.


It's hardly inexplicable that a wizard gets better with minor magics to help them scale a cliff as they level up.
What minor magics? To me this explanation falls flat when these minor magics don't appear in other forms except as a handwave for situations like that.


A level 20 fighter with an Int of 10 in 4e is as good as a first level wizard with an Int of 20 at history. In reaching level 20, how much of that history do you think our fighter made?

Who do you think the Extreme Explorers Society is going to invite to be their keynote speaker and hang on every word of? Bob the thief prodigy, or Sir Cadogan, last surviving member of the group that conquered the Tomb of Horrors and vanquished Acecerak. Sure Cadogan himself will tell you that Tim the Enchanter and Mack the Knife did most of the heavy lifting on the traps and he was there for ... well, the heavy lifting. But compared to the Tomb of Horrors, most of the traps Bob has ever seen might as well be childrens' toys.

Who do you think is going to be the keynote speaker at the Comparative Religion summit? Paul, a first level wizard working on his dissertation? Or Sir Cadogan who has been right down into the demonweb pits, and literally spat in Lolth's eye and forced her to discorporate. He's also been resurrected by both Bahamut and Moradin, broken the back of a Pit Fiend, held the line while Tim the Enchanter banished Orcus, and communed with five separate gods.

This is the sort of thing a 20th level character will have done. They won't have the background theory - but will have a hell of a lot of practical experience in a wide range of fields.

But it's not about who has the most interesting work stories... Or who gets the best invites (though I realise that's not your intended point either). Undoubtably characters must learn things but they often might not go integrated beyond 'that's what happened'.

But mechanically, if you want to follow this line of reasoning through logically, you'd pretty much have to argue that after several levels of the fighter going toe-to-toe with badguys who use fightingstyle X that the fighter should get access to that fightingstyle X for free. I mean he has been on the receiving end of it. He knows how it works. Or a wizard should get access to a spell that he has seen being cast at him enough times... because he's seen the gestures, heard the words, noted the other components... is it willful ignorance that means the wizard doesn't get the spell for free just like that?

[Raineh Daze]

Follow the logic all the way through, and classes should cease to exist after some level because everyone has learned everyone else's abilities.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I'm actually with neonchameleon on this one, mostly. He's right that "competent" isn't the same as "good," and expecting adventurers to be able to do adventurer-type things at some minimum baseline competency isn't too out there. That's basically what untrained skill tricks are for, after all.

Here's the start of this whole tangent:

Frankly I want there to be SOME situations where someone who has not invested anything in a skill simply cannot expect to contribute with that particular skill while the person who has invested heavily in it can.

I can find VERY few instances of skills in D&D Next that need stratification. Mobility, breaking stuff, awareness, recognizing spells and magic items, negotiation, stealth, first aid, trap-bypassing, and door-opening are all skills that every adventurer needs basic proficiency in and hones over time

So the basic question is "Should there be skill uses in Next that can only be attempted with training, or not?" People joke all the time about how 3e commoners can't identify their dogs or their children because the Knowledge check to ID a creature is equal to 10+HD and an untrained Knowledge check doesn't let you learn information above DC 10. Other trained-only skills have the same issue: Either you're trained in a skill and can make checks with it or you're untrained and can't make checks at all (or you can make checks but only in limited circumstances).

It's that big gap between trained and untrained that he's getting at, I think. Knowledge (Religion) is trained-only, yet someone who takes out lots of evil cults can probably absorb some information on religious iconography and hierarchies and such and thus should be able to make Knowledge (Religion) checks to remember them untrained. Decipher Script is trained-only, yet someone who solves lots of writing-dependent puzzles and survives lots of glyphs of warding can probably start noticing patterns in strange writings and thus should be able to make Decipher Script checks to identify them untrained.

Making certain skill uses trained-only as per Moreb's wishes only really works if those trained-only uses are actually deserving of being so restricted: running up walls, seeing invisible things, activating artifacts with no prior knowledge of their functions, charming the Sultan of the Efreet, hiding in plain sight, healing someone back from near death, jimmying a lock with a quick swat, and the like are all things that should require investment in skills and be impossible to attempt without that investment...but none of those are things Next allows characters to do with skills.

Everything the 5e skill system allows you to do currently is well within the bounds of realistic human achievement. The hardest possible tasks given sample DCs in the DM Guidelines are things like climbing an oiled rope, breaking open a barred door, taming an animal, tracking a creature through dirt after a rain, and hearing well-hidden gossip, all of which are things low-level 3e characters can easily accomplish and none of which are things that are trained-only in 3e or that we'd bother making trained-only in any skill revision. If skills could actually accomplish impressive tasks that don't really make sense to have been picked up "on the job" like running on walls or hiding in plain sight, I might support adding trained-only uses to Next skills, but as it stands introducing arbitrary barriers like that doesn't make much sense.

I disagree with neonchameleon in that I don't think it's necessary to let characters untrained at a given skill be particularly good at accomplishing tasks related to that skill without investment--it's not a bad thing, it's just not required, particularly given bounded accuracy--but I can't think of a single skill whose uses characters should be prohibited from even attempting. Such amazing skill uses might make good class features/skill tricks/maneuvers/whatever for skill-focused classes, but as a general part of the skill system? I don't think so.

[Raineh Daze]

Prohibited from attempting? No. Automatically scaling to the point it doesn't matter whether you've paid the skill any attention or not, it makes pretty much no difference? Eh, no thanks. :smallsigh:

They really ought to build the amazing tricks into the skill system already rather than try and tack on bits and pieces afterwards again...

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Prohibited from attempting? No. Automatically scaling to the point it doesn't matter whether you've paid the skill any attention or not, it makes pretty much no difference? Eh, no thanks. :smallsigh:

They really ought to build the amazing tricks into the skill system already rather than try and tack on bits and pieces afterwards again...

Ought to, yes. <Obligatory "of course 5e doesn't do that" remark> :smallwink:

[Moreb Benhk]

Everything the 5e skill system allows you to do currently is well within the bounds of realistic human achievement. The hardest possible tasks given sample DCs in the DM Guidelines are things like climbing an oiled rope, breaking open a barred door, taming an animal, tracking a creature through dirt after a rain, and hearing well-hidden gossip, all of which are things low-level 3e characters can easily accomplish and none of which are things that are trained-only in 3e or that we'd bother making trained-only in any skill revision. If skills could actually accomplish impressive tasks that don't really make sense to have been picked up "on the job" like running on walls or hiding in plain sight, I might support adding trained-only uses to Next skills, but as it stands introducing arbitrary barriers like that doesn't make much sense.


You raise some excellent points PairO'Dice Lost, although my main focus isn't the trained/untrained dichotomy, which as you points out often makes all kinds of no sense. I think if something requires training it's DC should be such that you'd need training to reliably hit it, or something similar, though I'm open to other ways of doing things.

I think you point out a major flaw in the current Next paradigm. The skills cap at the regular maximum for modern-day human achievement (and sometimes actually beneath it). It makes no allowances for characters who become living legends quite without the use of magics. Frankly in a system with powerful magic that overlaps with most of the areas skills apply to, a skill system that is so limited is pointless beyond the first few levels, because later on who really gives a crap if the fighter makes his unlikely roll to climb the oiled rope... magic is levitating the whole party up anyway. The skill system is an excellent area to promote the awesome of non-magical characters (in a way that doesn't automatically exclude magic peoples either). But it can't do that if there is no awesome to be found within it.

[Kornaki]

Frankly in a system with powerful magic that overlaps with most of the areas skills apply to, a skill system that is so limited is pointless beyond the first few levels, because later on who really gives a crap if the fighter makes his unlikely roll to climb the oiled rope... magic is levitating the whole party up anyway.

This is just the game balance. By the time they get to a fight the wizard is out of spells and it's the fighter's time to shine

[Ashdate]

The problem with 5e's skill system is that it appears to take the tact that everyone will roll, and "someone" will hit the target DC. Given how high the DCs are currently, and given how low the bonuses characters have to a roll, it's extremely likely that a given DC will be accomplished by characters who have no real training in the skill (i.e. a simple straight d20 roll), while characters who theoretically have real training in the skill (i.e. d20 + stat + skill die) fail the same task.

Some players do enjoy a high degree of failure, and if so, 5e skill system will be great for them. And I do enjoy failure sometimes, because failure can be really interesting. But as is, the 5e system doesn't 'reward' failure. It merely creates a lot of it.

[Scow2]

I'd say perception DOES need to be a "skill". An untrained spotter should have a roughly 25-50% chance of seeing an untrained ambush set up, while a trained one has a 50- 75% chance of seeing a lurker (THe untrained have ~25-5% chance of seeing the lurker).

The difference between someone "Good Enough" at a skill they are unspecialized in means they have a nonzero chance to do something outside their specialty - Either 10+ on a d20 for an easy task, or 13+ on a d20 for a moderate one. Hard tasks are 17-20+ on the d20. People who shore up a weak attribute with a skill should have a 15-25% greater chance to succeed, and specialists are beating that thing an untrained guy needs to roll a 17 for on an 8 or 10.

[Moreb Benhk]

The problem with 5e's skill system is that it appears to take the tact that everyone will roll, and "someone" will hit the target DC. Given how high the DCs are currently, and given how low the bonuses characters have to a roll, it's extremely likely that a given DC will be accomplished by characters who have no real training in the skill (i.e. a simple straight d20 roll), while characters who theoretically have real training in the skill (i.e. d20 + stat + skill die) fail the same task.

Some players do enjoy a high degree of failure, and if so, 5e skill system will be great for them. And I do enjoy failure sometimes, because failure can be really interesting. But as is, the 5e system doesn't 'reward' failure. It merely creates a lot of it.

The insult to the injury, is that the tasks you can fail at at level 20 aren't really all that spectacular anyway. Even success isn't really a big deal.


I'd say perception DOES need to be a "skill". An untrained spotter should have a roughly 25-50% chance of seeing an untrained ambush set up, while a trained one has a 50- 75% chance of seeing a lurker (THe untrained have ~25-5% chance of seeing the lurker).

I agree there needs to be ways of improving your perception, but I'd perhaps liken it to initiative more than to skills, due to its near-universal application.


The difference between someone "Good Enough" at a skill they are unspecialized in means they have a nonzero chance to do something outside their specialty - Either 10+ on a d20 for an easy task, or 13+ on a d20 for a moderate one. Hard tasks are 17-20+ on the d20. People who shore up a weak attribute with a skill should have a 15-25% greater chance to succeed, and specialists are beating that thing an untrained guy needs to roll a 17 for on an 8 or 10.

But even 3.5 generally gives you a non-zero chance to succeed at things outside of your speciality (heaps of DCs are 20 or less), just not a non-zero chance of succeeding at everything outside of your speciality, which seems to be more what you are aiming at, if I am not mistaken, and which I am strongly against.

Personally, I'd like to be more than just ~20% better if I devote significant training to a skill. Next places far too much emphasis on attributes for my liking. At least in 3.5 you can somewhat overcome poor stats to at least be good in a certain skill, even if you might not super shine.

[Conundrum]

That doesn't automatically mean that you're going to have knowledge of, say, obscure eldritch horrors, or detailed knowledge on ancient magical theories. This is the end result of autoscaling abilities, where you always have a chance of achieving things.


I can tell you what they won't be inviting the guy to talk about: how you do it. Yes, he's seen a lot of things. That does not mean that he's GOOD at them.


Being resurrected twice, fighting a god, and having some chats is not going to make you an expert on religion and all its attendant paraphernalia, rituals, structures, and values.


Prohibited from attempting? No. Automatically scaling to the point it doesn't matter whether you've paid the skill any attention or not, it makes pretty much no difference? Eh, no thanks. :smallsigh:

You seem to have a very different understanding of what's being asked for than I do. Noone wants (or has suggested that they want) every character to be an expert - or even good - at these things, and yet that's the language you keep using.


See, if I watched a thousand musicians play instruments, and a thousand soldiers fight, and a thousand mechanics repair cars, and a thousand builders build, will I be any good at those things? No, not really. I might be able to differentiate good from bad, and tell when someone's about to do something catastrophically wrong, but that doesn't mean I will be able to play music, fight a war, repair a car, and build a house.

Exactly. By watching a mechanic long enough you can tell if he's going to do something wrong, and can probably tell what he's trying to achieve. By watching a spellcaster long enough, you can probably tell what she is trying to achieve - in other words, what spell is about to come hurtling at your face.


It only works if you assume PC's are knowledge and skill collecting maniacs. Autoscaling either forces a failure of logic or forces characters to all have the same type of personality. I do not like the idea of rules systems telling me what personality I should give a character.

And many other people do not like the idea of rules systems telling them that their player should be completely ignorant of everything going on around them. That enforces all characters having the same personality as well.

The only way I was able to make an inquisitive character and have him be slightly backed up by the mechanics in 3.5 was to make a Factotum.

[Raineh Daze]

You seem to have a very different understanding of what's being asked for than I do. Noone wants (or has suggested that they want) every character to be an expert - or even good - at these things, and yet that's the language you keep using.

Because with automatic scaling like this, by level 20, you are. This is an issue. You're omincompetent.


Exactly. By watching a mechanic long enough you can tell if he's going to do something wrong, and can probably tell what he's trying to achieve. By watching a spellcaster long enough, you can probably tell what she is trying to achieve - in other words, what spell is about to come hurtling at your face.

More that you can tell if the spellcaster's about to mess up. Also, I wish people would stop saying 'but HAH! this argument might not work for ONE skill, therefore it must all be wrong!' >_>


And many other people do not like the idea of rules systems telling them that their player should be completely ignorant of everything going on around them. That enforces all characters having the same personality as well.

The only way I was able to make an inquisitive character and have him be slightly backed up by the mechanics in 3.5 was to make a Factotum.

Take cross-class ranks and such in as many skills as possible. There. Inquisitive. What's that? You want high ranks in most useful skills? Factotum, Expert, or Rogue. 'Inquisitive' does not equal 'omnidisciplinary genius'.

EDIT: Even worse, you took the example that watching doesn't teach you how to do something and applied it to a skill that isn't about doing something. Seriously? :smallsigh:

[Kurald Galain]

And many other people do not like the idea of rules systems telling them that their player should be completely ignorant of everything going on around them.
Well, it's good then that such systems don't actually exist :smallcool:

[Moreb Benhk]

The way I see it is that 3.5 errs on the side of excessively rewarding extremely focussed competence. Skills tend to be an all in or not type affair. Building a more jack of all trades character can be tricky to get right.

4e responded by simplifying the system and erring on the side of excessively homogenising competence. By higher levels, the mechanics dictate you are pretty darn good at everything, even stuff you aren't trained in. Especially if you have the right attributes.

Next seems to be doing sort of what 4e did but erring on the side of excessively homogenising incompetence. You never really rise above the skill baseline, thus again keeping everyone on a fairly flat playing field. Except now instead of being clustered at the 'I CAN DO ANYTHING' end, everyone finds themselves towards 'EVERYTHING IS DIFFICULT' end.

I think all 3 approaches have fairly fundimental flaws.

[Seerow]

The way I see it is that 3.5 errs on the side of excessively rewarding extremely focussed competence. Skills tend to be an all in or not type affair. Building a more jack of all trades character can be tricky to get right.

4e responded by simplifying the system and erring on the side of excessively homogenising competence. By higher levels, the mechanics dictate you are pretty darn good at everything, even stuff you aren't trained in. Especially if you have the right attributes.

Next seems to be doing sort of what 4e did but erring on the side of excessively homogenising incompetence. You never really rise above the skill baseline, thus again keeping everyone on a fairly flat playing field. Except now instead of being clustered at the 'I CAN DO ANYTHING' end, everyone finds themselves towards 'EVERYTHING IS DIFFICULT' end.

I think all 3 approaches have fairly fundimental flaws.

This is a skill system I've been tinkering with on and off for a while:

All characters gain between 1 and 3 skill ranks per level.
A character's maximum rank in a skill is 1+1/3 level (round up). So a level 1 character can have 2 ranks, a level 4 gets 3, and so on.
Every skill rank provides a +3 bonus to that skill
All characters gain a bonus equal to 1/4th level (round down) to their skill checks, even if they are untrained.
All skill related tasks have a rank associated with them. A character may attempt any task within 2 ranks of himself.

If the task is 1 above your skill rank, you take a -2 penalty. If it is 1 below, you gain a +2 bonus.
If the task is 2 above your skill rank, you take disadvantage on the roll. If it is 2 below, you gain advantage on the roll

Opposed tests work similarly. For every rank separating them, first the higher gains bonuses, then the lower gains penalties. If the two are 5 ranks apart, the higher automatically wins.
Knowledge/Profession/Craft skills are tracked separately from active skills. Each character starts with half his intelligence score in ranks to distribute among these, and gains additional ones as rewards, or through training. A character can choose to put their level up points into these if desired.



So for example, a jack of all trades style character might aim for rank 4-5 so in a whole bunch of skills, so he can make an attempt at just about anything, but at truly legendary tasks, he's probably looking at sub 5% to succeed. A more focused character would have maxed ranks in his focused area, and have fewer skills he could take part with, but using his skills, he can accomplish legendary feats >50% of the time.

I've also considered adding things like feats that reduce the penalties for going over your rank, or let you improve the generic level based bonus, to make the jack of all trades more effective, and cool skill trick style stuff to make the focused specialists feel more different.

Of course the devil's all in the details of figuring out what skills are included in the system, what stats each one uses, what tasks qualify at what rank (especially at higher ranks for some skills. Legendary uses of hide/stealth, or even athletics/acrobatics, not so hard. Legendary uses for something like Gather Information, or Use Rope, much harder. Which comes back to carefully choosing skill selection)


Anyway, sorry for that sidetrack.

[SiuiS]

Dang. Dropped quotes.

Tuggyne, cover (obscured or something?) is covered everywhere but where it should be. Illumination and vision references a condition which is referenced under "how to play" in a weird spot.

There is soft implication that cover and concealment are identical as far as conditional application go, but nothing solid enough to say "-5" for certain, you're right. I didn't notice said person was talking about 4e, since we were discussing invisibility in Next at the time.


I'd say perception DOES need to be a "skill".

Kind of. It is, in truth, something you can get better at, but not without wanting to. You can be more mindful of your situation, but that's a wisdom increase; otherwise you need specific techniques and to try and apply them, and that is skill training. Perception is a skill that must be qualitatively different with effort, not quantitative.


Also, the problem with competency arguments is that they read like IP Proofing arguments. So here is the baseline; Every adventurer IS competent; there are no "trained only" skill tasks. Training gives you an average of 17.5% more success, more with luck and investment.

The solution is to adjust DCs to fit this paradigm, not to jimmy around skills to meet a broken each mark system.

[Conundrum]

Because with automatic scaling like this, by level 20, you are. This is an issue. You're omincompetent.

Depends on the automatic scaling. In 4e, yes. In any given automatic scaling system? Not necessarily.


More that you can tell if the spellcaster's about to mess up. Also, I wish people would stop saying 'but HAH! this argument might not work for ONE skill, therefore it must all be wrong!' >_>

My Dad does a lot of mechanical work, and I've watched him do a lot, but I've never really done any myself. When I'm watching him, I can usually tell what he's trying to achieve, not just whether he's doing it wrong or not. After all, how can you tell if someone's doing something wrong without knowing what it is they're doing?


Take cross-class ranks and such in as many skills as possible. There. Inquisitive. What's that? You want high ranks in most useful skills? Factotum, Expert, or Rogue. 'Inquisitive' does not equal 'omnidisciplinary genius'.

Again with equating "competent" to "genius" and "high ranks". Why do you keep doing that? Fighters should be able to be good at things that Fighters need to be good at. Cross-class skills are too restrictive for them and they don't get enough skill points to invest in all the things that aren't cross class. Saying "roll a Rogue or Factotum" isn't a satisfactory answer.


EDIT: Even worse, you took the example that watching doesn't teach you how to do something and applied it to a skill that isn't about doing something. Seriously? :smallsigh:

We've already determined that any satisfactory solution to skills will require re-evaluating what goes in that list. It just happens that that conversation is going on in parallel, and I didn't put it into my post.


Well, it's good then that such systems don't actually exist :smallcool:

A system with no auto-scaling, such as 3.5 or Next, is such a system, just like 4e is a system that assumes every character is naturally inquisitive and absorbing things by osmosis. Both approaches are flawed.


The way I see it is that 3.5 errs on the side of excessively rewarding extremely focussed competence. Skills tend to be an all in or not type affair. Building a more jack of all trades character can be tricky to get right.

4e responded by simplifying the system and erring on the side of excessively homogenising competence. By higher levels, the mechanics dictate you are pretty darn good at everything, even stuff you aren't trained in. Especially if you have the right attributes.

Next seems to be doing sort of what 4e did but erring on the side of excessively homogenising incompetence. You never really rise above the skill baseline, thus again keeping everyone on a fairly flat playing field. Except now instead of being clustered at the 'I CAN DO ANYTHING' end, everyone finds themselves towards 'EVERYTHING IS DIFFICULT' end.

I think all 3 approaches have fairly fundimental flaws.

^ This man gets it. At least, I think so.

[SiuiS]

Put the Internet peens away, please. It does not matter who is right, or whether your individual idea works or not. Work in abstract, please, because that actually matters. And for the spirits, please stop doing stuff like "one person gets it, so I don't need to explain clearly". If you say something and it gets taken wrong, give a concrete example! Saying "not all auto scaling works that way" or "if everyone is competent then everyone is the same" proves nothing; Demonstrate it. It's obvious to everyone you guys aren't even talking about the same things.

So put out a concrete scale of increase/level, so there's a hard an fast number to calculate instead of generics. It accomplishes things.

[neonchameleon]

Follow the logic all the way through, and classes should cease to exist after some level because everyone has learned everyone else's abilities.

Indeed. Follow the opposite logic all the way through and a wizard should not be able to climb a hill because that involves climbing.


Could you provide some detail as to what you mean? Maybe with numerical examples? Because to me there isn't a lot of difference between competent and good, and I'm thinking I'm not the only one who finds your distinction hard to fathom.

Competent = good enough to not get in the way. Incompetents at stealth for first level characters would do something like sing with catlike tread (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdJg6Duzzf4) (see also Bluff, bluff, bluff the stupid ogre (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0004.html)).

On the other hand if you're at the right sort of level to go to the Demonweb Pits (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_the_Demonweb_Pits) then Lolth has spiderwebs she feels through throughout her kingdom. The ability to stand very very still and not make the spiderwebs vibrate is needed if the rogue's stealth isn't going to come to almost nothing - the party will be spotted in an instant. This sort of ability to stand really still, on the other hand, is going to be a real challenge for a first level rogue - if they could stay that stealthy, no orc would ever find them.

Likewise if the rogue is to be able to bluff and not be as isolated as a Shadowrun decker, the rest of the party needs to get better at bluffing as they level up. At first level, bluffing notably stupid orcs or jailers the "Just stay quiet" gambit is going to be good enough. At higher level, if they are engaging in grander cons the rest of the party needs to be able to engage in smalltalk as one of two or three adopted stock personas (simple ones, mind, Fighter-> Guardsman or Veteran, Cleric -> Priest or Guardsman - that sort of level). And if the rogue ever wants to be able to bluff an Ilithid (or anyone else detecting thoughts) and this isn't a solo scene the rest of the party needs to be able to lock their surface thoughts down well enough to not give the rogue away.

I'd estimate that this is somewhere around a 10 point difference; if the rogue takes 10, someone unskilled is going to need something pretty close to a natural 20 .


But I disagree with the last one. Why is he a much worse fighter. Magic be complicated, things be happening fast, and there are a lot of spells in existence.

He doesn't need to be able to parse the difference between Mordaniken's Lucubrication and Tensors Transcendent Memory, sure. But knowing the difference between Shocking Grasp and Burning Hands or between Fireball, Lightning Bolt, and Evard's Black Tentacles and so which way to jump is a survival skill when people are likely to be able to throw that sort of spell at you. I don't think anyone would complain if the fighter knew the difference between Bernetti's defence, Tybalt, and Cappo Ferra (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC6dgtBU6Gs) even if they themselves specialised in broadswords or polearms because it says what they will have to face. And likewise knowing the difference between various Evocation skills (and some other schools) comes under the same heading of knowing about fighting at higher levels. And a high level fighter might not be able to tell you the complex background of the spells or how to reproduce them - but a high level fighter should be at least as fast as a low level mage at realising someone is casting a fireball at them and knowing to duck.


And in all the games I've played, the fighter doesn't crowd around the rogue while he is picking the traps apart, for good reasons.

This is why at any given level the rogue should be better than the fighter. But except for dealing with rogue-only traps like poisoned needles to prevent lockpicking, the rogue often needs to tell everyone else what not to do (don't step on that pit trap. Don't trip that tripwire there and be on the alert not to trip any others. After 20 levels of this, the fighter will have picked up a lot of practical experience.


But you've already said these are things you never use. So yes IN THEORY it would be beneficial for your character to be competent at everything, it's true.

But these aren't things you never use. They are things you hope not to use. Things you never use, like Craft (Basketweaving) you shouldn't gain skill in. And we have a different view on human nature if you aren't curious about the things going on around you.


What minor magics? To me this explanation falls flat when these minor magics don't appear in other forms except as a handwave for situations like that.

It depends on your magic system and how you think it should work. If you are using a classic A/B/O D&D Vancian system where all the spells are big then I agree.


But mechanically, if you want to follow this line of reasoning through logically, you'd pretty much have to argue that after several levels of the fighter going toe-to-toe with badguys who use fightingstyle X that the fighter should get access to that fightingstyle X for free.

A human can go toe-to-toe all he likes with Thri-keen masters of Four Armed Combat. But he is never going to have the third and fourth arms to do it. And he may know exactly where Red Hand Ninjas are going to throw their shurikens, but that doesn't make him as good with a shuriken as it does with his own sword. He's also not going to get the muscle memory without doing it himself. Repeatedly.


Or a wizard should get access to a spell that he has seen being cast at him enough times... because he's seen the gestures, heard the words, noted the other components... is it willful ignorance that means the wizard doesn't get the spell for free just like that?

That depends how much of the spell being cast is visible. And how much isn't. The verbal, somatic, and material components are definitely visible. The magical component? Anything pre-prepared? I believe that if magic works as it does in Harry Potter then you should be able to (although even there see Harry's attempt to cast Crucio). I don't believe all magic systems work as in Harry Potter.


Prohibited from attempting? No. Automatically scaling to the point it doesn't matter whether you've paid the skill any attention or not, it makes pretty much no difference? Eh, no thanks. :smallsigh:

Good job no one is arguing that it should.


I think you point out a major flaw in the current Next paradigm. The skills cap at the regular maximum for modern-day human achievement (and sometimes actually beneath it). It makes no allowances for characters who become living legends quite without the use of magics.

A thousand times this.


4e responded by simplifying the system and erring on the side of excessively homogenising competence. By higher levels, the mechanics dictate you are pretty darn good at everything, even stuff you aren't trained in. Especially if you have the right attributes.

The 4e approach is that if you take a superbowl winning quarterback and have a knock-around game in which he's playing on the defensive line he's probably going to be as good at it as a star high school player. And if you take a superbowl winning defensive lineman and have a knock around game in which he plays another position then he's going to make a damn good running back by high school standards. Seriously, who's going to be able to tackle him on a high school team?

Which does not mean that he is competent by the standards of his peers. It means that you don't put superbowl-winning players up against high schoolers most of the time (if at all).

This is the same thing as the 3e Wizard's BAB increasing to the point that a 20th level wizard with a staff is better with it than a 1st level fighter.

And next's problem is that so far as I can tell you never get better at skills than you were in high school.

[Moreb Benhk]

Indeed. Follow the opposite logic all the way through and a wizard should not be able to climb a hill because that involves climbing.

This is perhaps a semantics issue. Technically, for purposes of the 'climb' skill, climbing a hill does not actually involve climbing.




Competent = good enough to not get in the way. Incompetents at stealth for first level characters would do something like sing with catlike tread (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdJg6Duzzf4) (see also Bluff, bluff, bluff the stupid ogre (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0004.html)).

On the other hand if you're at the right sort of level to go to the Demonweb Pits (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_the_Demonweb_Pits) then Lolth has spiderwebs she feels through throughout her kingdom. The ability to stand very very still and not make the spiderwebs vibrate is needed if the rogue's stealth isn't going to come to almost nothing - the party will be spotted in an instant. This sort of ability to stand really still, on the other hand, is going to be a real challenge for a first level rogue - if they could stay that stealthy, no orc would ever find them.

Thanks for the indepth reply. I agree that perception and stealth are tricky customers to work with in a party setting. Sometimes the rogue's stealth can be useful even if it just means the bad guys think there are 4 people in the group instead of 5. You could equally argue that unless everyone is equally as good at stealth as the rogue, then the rogue's extra-stealthiness is often wasted. Letting everyone in your group progress on par with the trained rogue is one way of doing things though, it's just a way I strongly dislike.



Likewise if the rogue is to be able to bluff and not be as isolated as a Shadowrun decker, the rest of the party needs to get better at bluffing as they level up. At first level, bluffing notably stupid orcs or jailers the "Just stay quiet" gambit is going to be good enough. At higher level, if they are engaging in grander cons the rest of the party needs to be able to engage in smalltalk as one of two or three adopted stock personas (simple ones, mind, Fighter-> Guardsman or Veteran, Cleric -> Priest or Guardsman - that sort of level). And if the rogue ever wants to be able to bluff an Ilithid (or anyone else detecting thoughts) and this isn't a solo scene the rest of the party needs to be able to lock their surface thoughts down well enough to not give the rogue away.

Again, this is one way to do it (though I'd be dead against something like controlling surface thoughts to be achievable by default to someone without a lot of bluff or some other appropriate ability). Perhaps another way might be to allow some sort of overflow of the rogue's ability in a group situation. The others might not be much better bluffers, but the rogue's ability to work with what they have is greatly increased...


I'd estimate that this is somewhere around a 10 point difference; if the rogue takes 10, someone unskilled is going to need something pretty close to a natural 20 .

I think I could live with a difference of that, for the skill training part. Someone both unskilled and unattributed should be 15 less or something. Numbers along the lines of going up to +10 for skill training, +5 from levels (1 every 4 levels or something) and +5 from ability would be something I could live with. So a level 1 guy with no training and no ability could expect to be 20 points down on a level 20 guy with training and ability. To me that's still capped in a Bounded Accuracy sort of way, but still gives a sense of progression.


He doesn't need to be able to parse the difference between Mordaniken's Lucubrication and Tensors Transcendent Memory, sure. But knowing the difference between Shocking Grasp and Burning Hands or between Fireball, Lightning Bolt, and Evard's Black Tentacles and so which way to jump is a survival skill when people are likely to be able to throw that sort of spell at you. I don't think anyone would complain if the fighter knew the difference between Bernetti's defence, Tybalt, and Cappo Ferra (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC6dgtBU6Gs) even if they themselves specialised in broadswords or polearms because it says what they will have to face. And likewise knowing the difference between various Evocation skills (and some other schools) comes under the same heading of knowing about fighting at higher levels. And a high level fighter might not be able to tell you the complex background of the spells or how to reproduce them - but a high level fighter should be at least as fast as a low level mage at realising someone is casting a fireball at them and knowing to duck.

This whole example you give continues to baffle me. We are talking about spellcasting in a Dnd setting right? Where on the wizard's turn he gestures and the spell already hits you? There is no working out what the spell is to give you bonuses to your defenses or reduce damage. It's simply not a thing. Arcane Knowledge/Spellcraft or whatever doesn't do what you are trying to have it do. Whether I know it's a fireball he casts or not, it affects me just the same. If you want to fluff in this sort of thing, why not just roll it into the 'save' scaling thing (which I'm hoping there will be some being introduced in future updates), which seems to me to better crunch the fluff.


This is why at any given level the rogue should be better than the fighter. But except for dealing with rogue-only traps like poisoned needles to prevent lockpicking, the rogue often needs to tell everyone else what not to do (don't step on that pit trap. Don't trip that tripwire there and be on the alert not to trip any others. After 20 levels of this, the fighter will have picked up a lot of practical experience.

Possibly. Or he might develop a strong reliance on the rogue disarm, mark out, or other ways highlight these traps who's identification goes beyond him. However this example is mostly about perception, which I agree with you, is pretty well mandatory for continued existence and I wouldn't mind if it got removed as a skill and handled in some other way.



But these aren't things you never use. They are things you hope not to use. Things you never use, like Craft (Basketweaving) you shouldn't gain skill in. And we have a different view on human nature if you aren't curious about the things going on around you.

It's not about curiosity versus not. It's about what you are curious about. You go to an ancient temple to an unknown deity and some characters will be fascinated by the carvings and the lore behind them and so on. Others simply won't, it's not relevant to them if it isn't going to attack them. A skill system SHOULD let you model someone who IS curious about pretty much everything though. I just don't think that should be forced onto every character.




A human can go toe-to-toe all he likes with Thri-keen masters of Four Armed Combat. But he is never going to have the third and fourth arms to do it. And he may know exactly where Red Hand Ninjas are going to throw their shurikens, but that doesn't make him as good with a shuriken as it does with his own sword. He's also not going to get the muscle memory without doing it himself. Repeatedly.



That depends how much of the spell being cast is visible. And how much isn't. The verbal, somatic, and material components are definitely visible. The magical component? Anything pre-prepared? I believe that if magic works as it does in Harry Potter then you should be able to (although even there see Harry's attempt to cast Crucio). I don't believe all magic systems work as in Harry Potter.

True, but as we are talking about Vancian type DnD magics, I don't think an unobservable (certainly to the initiated) 'magical component' exists. Though I'm no expert on the relevant lore and am happy to be disproved. Personally I think that DnD does allow you to model this sort of acquisition, but it isn't free. Those new spells you get on leveling up? Yeh, it might be them.



The 4e approach is that if you take a superbowl winning quarterback and have a knock-around game in which he's playing on the defensive line he's probably going to be as good at it as a star high school player. And if you take a superbowl winning defensive lineman and have a knock around game in which he plays another position then he's going to make a damn good running back by high school standards. Seriously, who's going to be able to tackle him on a high school team?

Which does not mean that he is competent by the standards of his peers. It means that you don't put superbowl-winning players up against high schoolers most of the time (if at all).

I'm not from the USA so this illustration may not be as transparent to me as it ideally would. My question, is given the illustration, would the defensive lineman be decent as a highschool running back not because he's actually very quick, but because of his other lineman qualities (being big and tough). As in he's good only in the ways that the new position benefits from his old position stuff. It's not like he's been learning running back skills by being on the field when the running backs do their thing... he's got other things to focus on. As a quarter back he's likely to suck hard, because throwing the ball far and accurate simply has pretty much zero overlap with his schtick.



This is the same thing as the 3e Wizard's BAB increasing to the point that a 20th level wizard with a staff is better with it than a 1st level fighter.

A valid point. Though at least there is some differentiation - not all classes gain BAB at the same rate.


And next's problem is that so far as I can tell you never get better at skills than you were in high school.

That part we definitely agree on. Only spellcasters get to go to college (or university where I'm from...)

[navar100]

In 3E, a PC wizard could roll a spellcraft check and know the bad guy is casting Fireball or Phantasmal Killer or Horrid Wilting. Said wizard has no more a chance of making his saving throw than another PC wizard of equal level who didn't even bother to make the spellcraft check and doesn't know what is being cast. In any D&D incarnation it never mattered whether or not you know what spell the bad guy is casting; your saving throw remained the same. 3E did allow for knowing to matter in terms of wanting to counterspell or sometimes an immediate action casting of a particular protective spell, but the general case of rolling your saving throw didn't rely on knowing the attack spell. If the wizard doesn't benefit from his knowledge, why should the fighter? If anything, a character having his saving throw improve as he levels is his ability "to duck" better than when he was a novice. For knowing a spell being cast to help you duck, what you're really asking for is a successful Spellcraft check to give a bonus to the saving throw. That's a matter of deciding how the skill works, not whatever level a particular character is.

[Ashdate]

In 3E, a PC wizard could roll a spellcraft check and know the bad guy is casting Fireball or Phantasmal Killer or Horrid Wilting. Said wizard has no more a chance of making his saving throw than another PC wizard of equal level who didn't even bother to make the spellcraft check and doesn't know what is being cast.

I don't know if picking at once example really makes a case, other than to say that 3.5 Spellcraft wasn't very useful for PCs who didn't have a way to counter spells.

I think the main points to take away from neonchameleon's post is the following (although I'm admittedly adding a little):

a) characters getting better at skills in general as they level does not eventually make them omni-competent, unless your game is horribly designed.

b) Using 4e as a model, the Barbarian who gets slowly better at Arcana will rarely outshine a wizard at the same level. It's not about creating character who are good at everything, it's about building a level of competence such that what were once difficult tasks for a character slowly become mundane, as the game progresses to bigger and better challenges.

c) The idea that a 20th-level barbarian should't outshine a 1st-level wizard at something like Arcana or Spellcraft is almost as ridiculous as the contrivance that would be required in game for such a pairing to actually come up.

d) giving characters a flat bonus to all skills is simply one way of handling a character becoming more experienced, without introducing skill ranks. It's in many ways, a trade-off between modelling something desirable ("experience") versus game complexity. If you want to argue that characters should only become more experienced in the things they do, fine but then you've got to justify the added complexity. No system - save 3e - has done so, and I'm not entirely convinced that bringing back something akin to skill ranks should be a thing. I DO however, think that some sort of scaling bonus to all skills would really help in the current 5e skill system (then again, a lot of things could help the current 5e skill system).

[Conundrum]

a) characters getting better at skills in general as they level does not eventually make them omni-competent, unless your game is horribly designed.


d) giving characters a flat bonus to all skills is simply one way of handling a character becoming more experienced, without introducing skill ranks.

SiuiS, these are the points I was trying to make earlier. The problem is, any given concrete number for auto scaling (whether that be 1/2 level, 1/4 level, or none) is going to annoy someone - so giving any concrete example is going to result in arguments.


If you want to argue that characters should only become more experienced in the things they do, fine but then you've got to justify the added complexity. No system - save 3e - has done so

To be fair, I don't really think 3e did that either. You could spend an entire adventure killing goblins with a sword, and still put ranks in Spellcraft when you level up, even though you've done nothing to do with Spellcraft for the entire level.

[Moreb Benhk]

a) characters getting better at skills in general as they level does not eventually make them omni-competent, unless your game is horribly designed.

b) Using 4e as a model, the Barbarian who gets slowly better at Arcana will rarely outshine a wizard at the same level. It's not about creating character who are good at everything, it's about building a level of competence such that what were once difficult tasks for a character slowly become mundane, as the game progresses to bigger and better challenges.

I think the answer to both of these points is the same. The barbarian no more 'slowly' gets better than does the Wizard. The difference in competence between the trained and untrained is always and merely +5 (a difference that does not increase with level) which is only 1/4 of the d20 range. A trained person will regularly be outshone by an untrained person, stats being equal.


c) The idea that a 20th-level barbarian should't outshine a 1st-level wizard at something like Arcana or Spellcraft is almost as ridiculous as the contrivance that would be required in game for such a pairing to actually come up.

This is your perception. Mine is that it is quite sensible. Differences in preference, I think, and one that shouldn't be forced by the system. I'm perfectly happy for a level 20 barbarian to outshine a level 1 wizard if that's how he builds his character, but doing so by default rankles me.


d) giving characters a flat bonus to all skills is simply one way of handling a character becoming more experienced, without introducing skill ranks. It's in many ways, a trade-off between modelling something desirable ("experience") versus game complexity. If you want to argue that characters should only become more experienced in the things they do, fine but then you've got to justify the added complexity. No system - save 3e - has done so, and I'm not entirely convinced that bringing back something akin to skill ranks should be a thing. I DO however, think that some sort of scaling bonus to all skills would really help in the current 5e skill system (then again, a lot of things could help the current 5e skill system).

It certainly is one way. I find it's negatives outweigh its positives. Making skill investment a binary thing (you has or you don't has) to be simplifying the system to the point where I feel slightly hamstrung in character development: it's dull and means I make no further decisions in its advancement. I also dislike how my high level paladin trained in charisma is at +23 (ish) to his checks, while the untrained sorcerer is sitting on +18, that +5 starts to feel pretty small. Certainly I think 3.5's system could be improved on in a big way too, and don't advocate that as the answer to all our troubles.

[Amidus Drexel]

The 4e approach is that if you take a superbowl winning quarterback and have a knock-around game in which he's playing on the defensive line he's probably going to be as good at it as a star high school player. And if you take a superbowl winning defensive lineman and have a knock around game in which he plays another position then he's going to make a damn good running back by high school standards. Seriously, who's going to be able to tackle him on a high school team?

This is the same thing as the 3e Wizard's BAB increasing to the point that a 20th level wizard with a staff is better with it than a 1st level fighter.

The argument that some others have made on this is that the hypothetical superbowl-winning football player, due to skill scaling, is not only just as good at a different position on the field as a high school star athlete, but also just as good at say, a genius high school calculus student, despite never having studied that branch of mathematics.

To be fair, though, in 3e a 1st level wizard is also capable of being better than a 1st level fighter. :smallamused:

[neonchameleon]

The argument that some others have made on this is that the hypothetical superbowl-winning football player, due to skill scaling, is not only just as good at a different position on the field as a high school star athlete, but also just as good at say, a genius high school calculus student, despite never having studied that branch of mathematics.

To be fair, though, in 3e a 1st level wizard is also capable of being better than a 1st level fighter. :smallamused:

And my answer to that is that on the previous thread I went through the seventeen 4e skills and checked which of them you'd pick up tricks with and knowledge of as a matter of course in the general course of adventuring. The answer was 16 (the 17th being thievery). If 4e had a Craft (Underwater Basketweaving) or Knowledge (Calculus) skill the argument would be valid.

And @Moreb Benhk, I believe your math is faulty twice over.

The first time is that the wizard won't have just a +5 bonus over most barbarians. In Arcana the difference is likely to be +8-+10. The wizard's primary stat is Int and the barbarian's is not. (As it happens I have played a barbarian who was about as good as our party wizard at arcana and better at history, but he was a seriously special case; the tribe's apprentice loremaster out looking for stories of the outside world to return to his tribe with as a rite of passage). When you hit +9 the difference is pretty stark. Take 10 is only matched 1 time in 20.

The second is that you are very rarely rolling off against each other - in fact I can't think of a single time when you do. What happens in practice is you roll off against a set target number and margin of success doesn't matter by the rules. If the target number is easy, the wizard will pass 100% of the time. Now the difference between a dead certainty and a 75% pass rate is huge. More normally you roll off against a medium DC. Here the wizard again passes 100% of the time.The Barbarian passes 50% of the time. Again the difference is huge. And again it's judged pass/fail - the exact number doesn't matter (unlike the illusionism recommended by Next). Finally we get hard DCs. Which are passed by a wizard about 75% of the time and a barbarian about 25% of the time (with the barbarian's rate of passing falling at higher levels). Not quite as big difference here. And I agree that 3/16 the barbarian passes and the wizard fails. But there's another huge difference here. Skill Challenges work on a 3 strikes and out basis. Your required success rate varies from 2/3 to 6/7. Letting someone with a 1/4 pass rate roll at hard is a mistake.

So at easy and medium difficulties the barbarian literally never gets a better result than the wizard. The only result that matters is pass/fail. At hard if the barbarian is rolling something has gone wrong.

And that +5 might feel pretty small if taken as an abstract and ignoring the rest of the ruleset. But it's the difference between 100% success at medium checks and 75% success. That's huge. And you probably have twice the success rate of the sorceror at hard checks.

Edit 2: I've seen systems (I forget where - I want to say Runequest) where you marked off skills each time you failed them and you got to roll to increase them based on the failures.

[Moreb Benhk]

To be fair, though, in 3e a 1st level wizard is also capable of being better than a 1st level fighter. :smallamused:

To be fair a 20th level wizard is easily capable of being better than a 20th level fighter.

[SiuiS]

On the other hand if you're at the right sort of level to go to the Demonweb Pits (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_the_Demonweb_Pits) then Lolth has spiderwebs she feels through throughout her kingdom. The ability to stand very very still and not make the spiderwebs vibrate is needed if the rogue's stealth isn't going to come to almost nothing - the party will be spotted in an instant. This sort of ability to stand really still, on the other hand, is going to be a real challenge for a first level rogue - if they could stay that stealthy, no orc would ever find them.

Nah. If you're in the demonweb pits - have chosen to go after a god - then you don't get "everyone stand real still, okay?". You have levitate, and you have a scout.

If the fighter ruins the thief's stealth, that is because the thief is stupid.


Likewise if the rogue is to be able to bluff and not be as isolated as a Shadowrun decker, the rest of the party needs to get better at bluffing as they level up. At first level, bluffing notably stupid orcs or jailers the "Just stay quiet" gambit is going to be good enough. At higher level, if they are engaging in grander cons the rest of the party needs to be able to engage in smalltalk as one of two or three adopted stock personas (simple ones, mind, Fighter-> Guardsman or Veteran, Cleric -> Priest or Guardsman - that sort of level). And if the rogue ever wants to be able to bluff an Ilithid (or anyone else detecting thoughts) and this isn't a solo scene the rest of the party needs to be able to lock their surface thoughts down well enough to not give the rogue away.

By the rules, this doesn't really use the same skills. Bluff comes up when you bluff - You could get around that by not lying or not correcting someone when they draw a mistaken belief from somewhere else, with no bluff at all. Fighter = guard? No roll until the con man messes up[ and makes the mark suspicious. This is, I view, an example of where scaling doesn't need to happen. A robust system of application handles all these issues (such as the ability to use Concentration to meditate, and thus potentially avoid mind reading issues) because it allows for lateral approaches to problems.


I'd estimate that this is somewhere around a 10 point difference; if the rogue takes 10, someone unskilled is going to need something pretty close to a natural 20 .

Okay, but is this because of the nature of all the systems involved, or is this because of the nature of the d20? Because wherever possible, we want to work with bounded accuracy.



It depends on your magic system and how you think it should work. If you are using a classic A/B/O D&D Vancian system where all the spells are big then I agree.

I believe this is the direction Next should head, personally.


SiuiS, these are the points I was trying to make earlier. The problem is, any given concrete number for auto scaling (whether that be 1/2 level, 1/4 level, or none) is going to annoy someone - so giving any concrete example is going to result in arguments.


But that doesn't matter. An argument about the application of specific numbers ahs merit, because there is a progression. That is completely different than arguing two equally acidic opinions back and forth at each other, which is what the problem was.


When you hit +9 the difference is pretty stark. Take 10 is only matched 1 time in 20.

The second is that you are very rarely rolling off against each other - in fact I can't think of a single time when you do. What happens in practice is you roll off against a set target number and margin of success doesn't matter by the rules. If the target number is easy, the wizard will pass 100% of the time. Now the difference between a dead certainty and a 75% pass rate is huge. More normally you roll off against a medium DC. Here the wizard again passes 100% of the time.The Barbarian passes 50% of the time. Again the difference is huge. And again it's judged pass/fail - the exact number doesn't matter (unlike the illusionism recommended by Next). Finally we get hard DCs. Which are passed by a wizard about 75% of the time and a barbarian about 25% of the time (with the barbarian's rate of passing falling at higher levels). Not quite as big difference here. And I agree that 3/16 the barbarian passes and the wizard fails. But there's another huge difference here. Skill Challenges work on a 3 strikes and out basis. Your required success rate varies from 2/3 to 6/7. Letting someone with a 1/4 pass rate roll at hard is a mistake.

So at easy and medium difficulties the barbarian literally never gets a better result than the wizard. The only result that matters is pass/fail. At hard if the barbarian is rolling something has gone wrong.

And that +5 might feel pretty small if taken as an abstract and ignoring the rest of the ruleset. But it's the difference between 100% success at medium checks and 75% success. That's huge. And you probably have twice the success rate of the sorceror at hard checks.

This sounds like it is a good system. How would we apply it here? I still think the biggest change would be to alter DCs, not just rolls. I also think it would probably work best with a throw mechanic instead of a roll one.

[Yora]

So, has there been anything really new this year? Anything other than slight changes to fighter bonus damage dice and rogue skills?

Anything regarding a hypothetical release? Something that would be interesting to people who got bored by the whole thing after a year of new playtest versions?

[Conundrum]

So, has there been anything really new this year? Anything other than slight changes to fighter bonus damage dice and rogue skills?

Anything regarding a hypothetical release? Something that would be interesting to people who got bored by the whole thing after a year of new playtest versions?

Well, there's the Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle adventure being released at GenCon this year. Apart from that...

Speaking of which, though, Ghosts is mentioned again in... a new Legends and Lore (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20130624)! As usual, it's full of comments that might have sounded insightful and wise if the internet hadn't been yelling those exact things at WotC for months and years.

[Knaight]

Regarding automatic skill scaling, competence, etc.

D&D 5e currently has a step die system for skills, added to attributes. It also has 3 designated improvement points. As such, we can probably assume that automatic scaling would look like a die being bumped up for everything on those thresholds. It also seems likely that a d4 skill die would be implemented in these cases, which gives us some numbers to work with - a level 20 character will reach +d8, a trained character starts with a +d6. It's probably also safe to assume that a trained character has a stat of 16 to 18, where our hypothetical initial baseline/semi-incompetent is in the 8 to 10 range. On average, that puts the new character at 7, and the veteran at 4. With attribute increase, we can also look at a veteran specialist, assuming a 20 to 22 for the attribute and a +d12, averaging to 13. So: A veteran, even one who isn't very good initially will probably be decent, a new specialist better, and a veteran specialist better than the both of them. This is before considering class abilities, advantage, and disadvantage.

To put this in context, consider the skills currently outlined. We have basic mobility, some object interactions, perception, and some very basic social skills. The closest anything comes to specialized knowledge is in Administer First Aid, Recall Lore, and Sneak. Technical skills and specialized knowledge are currently in Backgrounds, where flat attribute checks at best are being set against basically guaranteed successes - there isn't even a proper Knowledge skill, just Recall Lore.

This seems pretty reasonable to me. I'm actually liking 5e's skill system to some degree here (there are caveats in how exactly things are split up and the paucity of training is a downside), though it is pretty specialized towards adventuring. Still, a specialized game is hardly a problem. I doubt I'd actually end up playing it much, assuming everything else lived up to the skill system, but that's mostly because adventuring style play isn't really a significant part of what I do in gaming and because there are two very strong competitors for the fantasy-adventure genre.

[Moreb Benhk]

And my answer to that is that on the previous thread I went through the seventeen 4e skills and checked which of them you'd pick up tricks with and knowledge of as a matter of course in the general course of adventuring. The answer was 16 (the 17th being thievery). If 4e had a Craft (Underwater Basketweaving) or Knowledge (Calculus) skill the argument would be valid.

That was indeed your perspective. I disagree that you would necessarily gain much expertise in these 16 simply by being an adventurer. Opportunity does not necessarily translate to improvement.


The first time is that the wizard won't have just a +5 bonus over most barbarians. In Arcana the difference is likely to be +8-+10. The wizard's primary stat is Int and the barbarian's is not. (As it happens I have played a barbarian who was about as good as our party wizard at arcana and better at history, but he was a seriously special case; the tribe's apprentice loremaster out looking for stories of the outside world to return to his tribe with as a rite of passage). When you hit +9 the difference is pretty stark. Take 10 is only matched 1 time in 20.

I do think you have missed what I was attempting to say. The difference from skill training is a flat and constant +5. It's the +5 that takes skills away from being simple attribute checks. Compared to level and attribute, the skill bonus itself becomes excessively marginalised.


And that +5 might feel pretty small if taken as an abstract and ignoring the rest of the ruleset. But it's the difference between 100% success at medium checks and 75% success. That's huge. And you probably have twice the success rate of the sorceror at hard checks..

A lot of what you said is fairly true, except you often can't Take 10, and need to roll it. I'm gonna think on it some more when I get time.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Well, there's the Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle adventure being released at GenCon this year. Apart from that...

Speaking of which, though, Ghosts is mentioned again in... a new Legends and Lore (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20130624)! As usual, it's full of comments that might have sounded insightful and wise if the internet hadn't been yelling those exact things at WotC for months and years.


In terms of adventures, you can easily imagine how alignment and its mechanical elements can wreak havoc with adventures heavy on intrigue, roleplay, and mystery. Who murdered the duke? Probably the person who makes the paladin's nose bleed when busting out detect evil. The same goes for spells that allow casters to detect thoughts, learn information, and so on. In designing our spells, we need to take into account a variety of different adventure styles and make sure the game can support them all with its core system and options.

Okay. And how have you been doing this so far?


Gen Con also officially kicks off the Sundering—a huge event that reshapes the face of the Forgotten Realms, involving the whole pantheon of gods, many nations, countless individuals, and the fabric of the cosmos itself. You might remember us announcing this last year during the Gen Con Keynote address. To celebrate the launch, make room on your calendar to spend an evening in Baldur's Gate with the "Night with Dungeons & Dragons" Sundering launch party. Kick back with authors, D&D designers, and other industry luminaries for food, drinks, music and adventure.

Uuuuuuuuuurgh don't remind me this exists

[Kurald Galain]

Whooo, are they going to have a huge cataclysm that reshapes all of the Forgotten Realms again?!

[Saph]

Whooo, are they going to have a huge cataclysm that reshapes all of the Forgotten Realms again?!

What a twist, huh?

I have to admit, I've pretty much stopped caring about FR. Which is a shame, because it was my favourite campaign setting back in the 3.5 days. Then it got hacked apart in the changeover to 4e so badly that I gave up.

Now they're going to . . . hack it apart again, I guess? You do have to wonder if there are any FR fans left by this point . . .

[neonchameleon]

Whooo, are they going to have a huge cataclysm that reshapes all of the Forgotten Realms again?!

Maybe it'll provide the in-setting explanation for all the warlords vanishing, the way a previous one did for the assassins.

[Craft (Cheese)]

What a twist, huh?

I have to admit, I've pretty much stopped caring about FR. Which is a shame, because it was my favourite campaign setting back in the 3.5 days. Then it got hacked apart in the changeover to 4e so badly that I gave up.

Now they're going to . . . hack it apart again, I guess? You do have to wonder if there are any FR fans left by this point . . .

To be completely fair, I actually like the post-spellplague FR more than the 3.5 FR. Granted not enough for me to ever want to actually play in it, but the spellplague made things actually sortof semi-interesting for a bit there.

Of course it'll all get removed now that Mystra's coming back.

[SiuiS]

Regarding automatic skill scaling, competence, etc.

D&D 5e currently has a step die system for skills, added to attributes. It also has 3 designated improvement points. As such, we can probably assume that automatic scaling would look like a die being bumped up for everything on those thresholds. It also seems likely that a d4 skill die would be implemented in these cases, which gives us some numbers to work with - a level 20 character will reach +d8, a trained character starts with a +d6. It's probably also safe to assume that a trained character has a stat of 16 to 18, where our hypothetical initial baseline/semi-incompetent is in the 8 to 10 range. On average, that puts the new character at 7, and the veteran at 4. With attribute increase, we can also look at a veteran specialist, assuming a 20 to 22 for the attribute and a +d12, averaging to 13. So: A veteran, even one who isn't very good initially will probably be decent, a new specialist better, and a veteran specialist better than the both of them. This is before considering class abilities, advantage, and disadvantage.

I still think this is best handled by Reducing difficulty at leek benchmarks and not Increasing competency. Suddenly, that +1d6 accomplishes so much more. You've qualitatively boosted what a skill means.



I do think you have missed what I was attempting to say. The difference from skill training is a flat and constant +5. It's the +5 that takes skills away from being simple attribute checks. Compared to level and attribute, the skill bonus itself becomes excessively marginalised.


Not true!

The nature of the static +1/2 level means there's always a window you can act in, that's appropriate to your level. +attribute and +5 affect your odds wothon that window which is all that is supposed to matter. It is basically bounded accuracy from the other direction.

At level six, your window is supposed to be 5-25. You get +3 to all rolls, so an easy skill succeeds on a 2 and a hard one on a 22. Skill training and attribute affect your odds here; the level 6 with training is better at his job than the level six without. The level 6 with attribute synergy is better than the level 6 without.
This field, this window, is where skill bonuses matter. 4e functionally alters the difficulty of challenges so they become easier to fit within your window. Next should so that, too.


Whooo, are they going to have a huge cataclysm that reshapes all of the Forgotten Realms again?!

I'm hoping all of Greyhawk wakes up from a collective nightmare and then goes about their day, myself.


To be completely fair, I actually like the post-spellplague FR more than the 3.5 FR. Granted not enough for me to ever want to actually play in it, but the spellplague made things actually sortof semi-interesting for a bit there.

Of course it'll all get removed now that Mystra's coming back.

All this nonsense is WotC having a cool new settin idea an wanting to bank on FR press and fan love. It just required shoe-horsing the forgotten realms in, which kills the magic of both fr and the new stuff...

[Totally Guy]

Whooo, are they going to have a huge cataclysm that reshapes all of the Forgotten Realms again?!

It seems to me that the price of saying... "This world you like can come with you to this new game" is also saying, "Oh, this isn't the start, if you really want to see it all go back and find all the old content."

They ought to be making something new for new players to get in on at the ground floor. The shouldn't be lacking for that stuff. Remember the competition that spawned Eberron? They have all the runner up stuff in a vault with their name on it apparently.

[Saph]

To be completely fair, I actually like the post-spellplague FR more than the 3.5 FR. Granted not enough for me to ever want to actually play in it, but the spellplague made things actually sortof semi-interesting for a bit there.

Yeah, from what I remember back when it was announced, pretty much the only people who did like the Spellplague were the ones who didn't like FR anyway (and who still weren't interested in playing in it even after the change).

[Yora]

Now they're going to . . . hack it apart again, I guess? You do have to wonder if there are any FR fans left by this point . . .
Yes. They play with the 1st or 2nd Edition box sets. :smallwink:

[neonchameleon]

Remember the competition that spawned Eberron? They have all the runner up stuff in a vault with their name on it apparently.

I believe most of it made it into Eberron. Or other settings. That vault is empty.


Yeah, from what I remember back when it was announced, pretty much the only people who did like the Spellplague were the ones who didn't like FR anyway (and who still weren't interested in playing in it even after the change).

This. I prefer the post-Spellplague Realms to the pre-Spellplague Realms. But there are half a dozen other settings I'd prefer to use before the Realms and the Realms being the Realms was a good thing. We don't all have to like the same settings and each one needs a draw.

[TuggyNE]

It seems to me that the price of saying... "This world you like can come with you to this new game" is also saying, "Oh, this isn't the start, if you really want to see it all go back and find all the old content."

Huh? Why do they have this burning need to blow up tons of fluff in the process of changing editions, exactly?

Mind you, I'm just about the furthest thing from an FR fan, but it still puzzles me.

[Morty]

Post-Spellplague FR was very much "Forgotten Realms for people who don't like Forgotten Realms". I can only imagine it'll resemble the original FR even less after the Sundering. But hey, at least the brand will remain the same.

[Yora]

I would guess tradition being a major thing. It happened back in 2nd Edition and I think there was something at the start of 3rd Edition as well.

The most important thing is, that either Mystra dies, or is reincarnated, if she is currently dead.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Huh? Why do they have this burning need to blow up tons of fluff in the process of changing editions, exactly?

Mind you, I'm just about the furthest thing from an FR fan, but it still puzzles me.

It's because for some reason they want to give an in-world justification for the mechanical changes between editions instead of just retconning or handwaving them.

Like for example: In 4E casters went way, way down in power level, and one of the things the spellplague was meant to do is explain why suddenly all the wizards were no longer invincible mary sues.

[Raineh Daze]

I remember 3.0 and 3.5 FR. Fun. Probably because I played NWN to death. XD

And this reminds me that I think the highest given level I have seen for an NPC was in FR. Level... 41? Spellcaster. This was a 2nd edition guy. Just... what. @_@

[obryn]

c) The idea that a 20th-level barbarian should't outshine a 1st-level wizard at something like Arcana or Spellcraft is almost as ridiculous as the contrivance that would be required in game for such a pairing to actually come up.
"Oh, you're going to talk at me about your 'theory' of magic? Well, been there done that, kid. I've had more spells cast at me than you can even picture in that bean-shaped head of yours..."

-O

[obryn]

To be completely fair, I actually like the post-spellplague FR more than the 3.5 FR. Granted not enough for me to ever want to actually play in it, but the spellplague made things actually sortof semi-interesting for a bit there.

Yeah, from what I remember back when it was announced, pretty much the only people who did like the Spellplague were the ones who didn't like FR anyway (and who still weren't interested in playing in it even after the change).
For me, I really enjoy the 1e grey box. I think it's a perfectly serviceable D&D setting. Rather bland, but a solid enough skeleton to build a campaign on. I even like a lot of the old FR series, which bridged 1e-2e.

It got way too insane, though. It got to the point where being an FR fan meant that all I could read would be crap FR novels if I wanted to keep up. I gave up somewhere during 2e, and never looked back long. I though it was at its worst and most unbearable during the 3.x days.

The post-spellplague Realms were okay. I liked them better than the 3e Realms, but still not enough to run a game in ... until, that is, the Neverwinter Campaign Setting was released. Neverwinter is outstanding; it makes the post-Spellplague realms more understandable and even gives a lot more mechanical hooks to the setting to make it unique. I'd run a Neverwinter game, even though I mostly hate the Realms.


Huh? Why do they have this burning need to blow up tons of fluff in the process of changing editions, exactly?
They do this every edition. It's because it's somehow seen as necessary that any mechanical changes in the rule set get flipped around within the setting's fiction. It's one of the more obnoxious conceits of the Realms, but seriously it's nothing new.

-O

[Yora]

However, they were perfectly fine with retconning the planes without ever mentioning it again. And I think did it again in 4th Edition.

[DeltaEmil]

A good game setting should not have a novel line that becomes canon. Or if they need to have novels, they should only explain how things came to be until the point where the game setting starts.

[Craft (Cheese)]

A good game setting should not have a novel line that becomes canon. Or if they need to have novels, they should only explain how things came to be until the point where the game setting starts.

My bigger problem with FR's approach is that they went with "Everything that has ever been written by anyone, ever, who got properly licensed, is canon, and you're expected to have read it all. If you haven't read it all, then piss off, this setting is not for you."

You can even see it in the 4E book: The starting pages don't list the 10 things that are important to the Realms as a setting, but instead list the 10 biggest changes that have happened since 3E.

This is by far the most troubling aspect of FR being the new default setting for 5E.

[obryn]

A good game setting should not have a novel line that becomes canon. Or if they need to have novels, they should only explain how things came to be until the point where the game setting starts.
Ahh, if only Forgotten Realms novels weren't ridiculously profitable... I've known several people who ate them up despite never playing D&D.

(I can't imagine many things worse than reading non-Warhammer-related RPG-derived fiction, but hey, whatever floats your boat I guess?)

-O

[Morty]

My bigger problem with FR's approach is that they went with "Everything that has ever been written by anyone, ever, who got properly licensed, is canon, and you're expected to have read it all. If you haven't read it all, then piss off, this setting is not for you."

You can even see it in the 4E book: The starting pages don't list the 10 things that are important to the Realms as a setting, but instead list the 10 biggest changes that have happened since 3E.

This is by far the most troubling aspect of FR being the new default setting for 5E.

It's not going to apply to 5E, though, what with yet another big cataclysmic event to turn things inside out. It'll take them a while to pile up the canon material again.

Myself, I actually like FR. Mostly out of sentiment for the Infinity Engine games, of course, but it has its charm. Sure, it doesn't make a lot of sense and is unoriginal, but hey. If I want internal consistency and originality, D&D's not the good place to look anyway. Of course, it doesn't matter, because I'm reasonably certain that the FR presented in D&D Next will be nothing like the setting I like.

[Yora]

If I were in charge, I think I would take the gamble and update the Grey Box and elaborate on it with what is known about the realms in 1357, before the time of troubles.

[Moreb Benhk]

The nature of the static +1/2 level means there's always a window you can act in, that's appropriate to your level. +attribute and +5 affect your odds wothon that window which is all that is supposed to matter. It is basically bounded accuracy from the other direction.

At level six, your window is supposed to be 5-25. You get +3 to all rolls, so an easy skill succeeds on a 2 and a hard one on a 22. Skill training and attribute affect your odds here; the level 6 with training is better at his job than the level six without. The level 6 with attribute synergy is better than the level 6 without.
This field, this window, is where skill bonuses matter. 4e functionally alters the difficulty of challenges so they become easier to fit within your window. Next should so that, too.

Hmm. I think I understand your analysis (though can't you still end up with a +0 at level six?) Perhaps I can summarise my objections to the things as follows:

1.The window isn't broad enough. While you can improve you don't improve enough. Frankly I don't want everyone everywhere to be significantly inside of 1d20 of variation of each other. A low level dude without the stat or training shouldn't be on the same playingfield as a high level dude who has invested heaps into skills, and has stat synergy. And not just because the dude is higher level, but because his investments are meaningful.

If they simply have to use skill dice for skills, I'd love more granularity, and more opportunities to increase skills.

1d4 - 1d6 - 1d8 - 2d4 - 2d6 - 3d4 - 3d6 -.... or whathave you. (a sensible and consistent progression would be easy to work out). A skill goes up in progression when you choose to advance it specifically and not just advancing all across the board (which is how I read the current Next situation, though I may be wrong on that).

As a skilled character levels and invests further in skills, they should become comparatively more skilled than someone who does not invest in skills.

2. Actual skill advancement is too minor. In 4e it was +5 and that's really all. Sure attributes increase, but only incidentally - the reason you increase attributes in 4e is because you need your A/E/D/U abilities to keep in hitting range (putting up another attribute is hugely sub-optimal). The effect on skills feels to me almost an after thought. And that afterthought is about the only thing seperating you from others of your group as you level.

*Note - these are an attempt to outline my preferences. Please don't construe them as the only way to DnD.

[TuggyNE]

It's because for some reason they want to give an in-world justification for the mechanical changes between editions instead of just retconning or handwaving them.


They do this every edition. It's because it's somehow seen as necessary that any mechanical changes in the rule set get flipped around within the setting's fiction. It's one of the more obnoxious conceits of the Realms, but seriously it's nothing new.

Yeah, I just don't really get their motive for in-world justifications, even though I know they've been doing it forever. :smallsigh:

[Ashdate]

Hmm. I think I understand your analysis (though can't you still end up with a +0 at level six?) Perhaps I can summarise my objections to the things as follows:

1.The window isn't broad enough. While you can improve you don't improve enough. Frankly I don't want everyone everywhere to be significantly inside of 1d20 of variation of each other. A low level dude without the stat or training shouldn't be on the same playingfield as a high level dude who has invested heaps into skills, and has stat synergy. And not just because the dude is higher level, but because his investments are meaningful.

Well, again, you're potentially looking at a difference of +10 or more between a character who is bad at a skill, and a character who is really good. If the objection is that someone without training should never hit a "hard" DC, I guess. In 4e, the low-int Barbarian hits your average hard DC 25% of the time, while the high-int Wizard with training hits your average hard DC 75% of the time. Do these percentages feel off to you? What would you rather they be?


2. Actual skill advancement is too minor. In 4e it was +5 and that's really all. Sure attributes increase, but only incidentally - the reason you increase attributes in 4e is because you need your A/E/D/U abilities to keep in hitting range (putting up another attribute is hugely sub-optimal). The effect on skills feels to me almost an after thought. And that afterthought is about the only thing seperating you from others of your group as you level.

There are other ways to improve your skills; it surprises me that Skill Focus rarely seems to come up here, but there are also magic items, paragon paths, backgrounds, and themes that improve various skills. If the argument is "you always stay +5 ahead of an untrained character in a skill", well, there's no lack of options to put you further ahead.

Bringing this back to DnD Next however, I think if you're looking to 4e for a model you want to figure out where your "break" points are. In 4e, an easy skill is generally 5 + 1/2, a moderate is 10 +1/2 level, and a hard DC is 15 + 1/2 level. You could transpose this into D&D Next without the scaling bonus by cutting the DCs in the current playtest by 5.

I think it'd be a reasonable move to make without either making advantage a bigger part of the system, or without pushing for high bonuses than a skill die is likely to provide.

[Moreb Benhk]

Well, again, you're potentially looking at a difference of +10 or more between a character who is bad at a skill, and a character who is really good. If the objection is that someone without training should never hit a "hard" DC, I guess. In 4e, the low-int Barbarian hits your average hard DC 25% of the time, while the high-int Wizard with training hits your average hard DC 75% of the time. Do these percentages feel off to you? What would you rather they be?

The fact that the percentages are relatively fixed is one major problem. The core skill system should allow someone who invests in the skill to gradually become better at it compared to someone of the same level who is not. I think 3.5 went too far on this, with skills able to contribute atleast +24 at level 20, meaning people who don't invest significantly are no-shows. Progressing to something in the vicinity of ~+10 feels about right (with additional ~+5 from stat opportunities and maybe +5 from levels? or other misc boni opportunities).


There are other ways to improve your skills; it surprises me that Skill Focus rarely seems to come up here, but there are also magic items, paragon paths, backgrounds, and themes that improve various skills. If the argument is "you always stay +5 ahead of an untrained character in a skill", well, there's no lack of options to put you further ahead.

This is true, and I have no problem with these other opportunities. However I note that a lot of them (themes and backgrounds) are pretty much fixed at creation (not really providing advancement). Magic items granting skills.... I'm dubious about, but I'm sure something workable can be done. Feats are all good. However to me they reinforce the tacked-on feel of the central core skill system itself, as the only way to advance my skilledness.... is to go outside of the skill system (into feats, class paths, etc).


Bringing this back to DnD Next however, I think if you're looking to 4e for a model you want to figure out where your "break" points are. In 4e, an easy skill is generally 5 + 1/2, a moderate is 10 +1/2 level, and a hard DC is 15 + 1/2 level. You could transpose this into D&D Next without the scaling bonus by cutting the DCs in the current playtest by 5.

I think it'd be a reasonable move to make without either making advantage a bigger part of the system, or without pushing for high bonuses than a skill die is likely to provide.

I agree about dropping DCs by 5. Current DCs just don't work with the system as it is. But I'd love to add in a few more tiers - like legendary and impossible. Give the skills some more powerful high-end applications. And beef up the skill dice advancement appropriately to make achieving these things possible.

Even if they just did that in one of these semi-mythical modules, giving:

1. Basic core skills. Minimal advancement. Skill usage capped at ordinary.

2. More fleshed skills. Greater advancement. Skill usage goes into greater feats of heroic achievement.

[Kurald Galain]

the low-int Barbarian hits your average hard DC 25% of the time, while the high-int Wizard with training hits your average hard DC 75% of the time. Do these percentages feel off to you?

They do to me. In my view, a character with a poor stat and no training has no business hitting hard DC, and should have at most a 5% chance of doing so. This is a team game! The barbarian doesn't have to be good at spellcraft checks, that's what he brings his cleric/rogue/bard for.

[Scow2]

True, but as we are talking about Vancian type DnD magics, I don't think an unobservable (certainly to the initiated) 'magical component' exists. Though I'm no expert on the relevant lore and am happy to be disproved. Personally I think that DnD does allow you to model this sort of acquisition, but it isn't free. Those new spells you get on leveling up? Yeh, it might be them.I'm gonna step up here and answer this: In D&D-style "Vancian" magic, 90% of any given spell is cast in solitude at the beginning of the day, and all that anyone else sees is the final words and gestures. Spellcraft grants you the ability to recognize spells by that finisher.

And, although they won't benefit directly from the knowledge, after being hit by a fireball or other spell enough times, an intelligent fighter will start picking up on pattern recognition and start recognizing spells as they are cast, even if they can't do anything about it.

As far as I can tell - skills don't and aren't really supposed to be character-defining abilities in D&D Next, which is supposed to be all about the attributes. They don't let you nor need to go into insanely inhuman ability when magic exists to augment it.

On that note - magic is, depending on campaign, a luxury or essential tool. However, the primary source of magic-that-matters should be scrolls, potions, wands, and other items, not the Party Wizard, who has just enough spells prepared and castable to not be completely trivialized by said magic items.

[Ashdate]

They do to me. In my view, a character with a poor stat and no training has no business hitting hard DC, and should have at most a 5% chance of doing so. This is a team game! The barbarian doesn't have to be good at spellcraft checks, that's what he brings his cleric/rogue/bard for.

I don't know if the person who is trained/gifted in a skill having a roughly +10 bonus over the untrained/ungifted person is necessarily preventing a "team" game. Even with a roughly 25% chance of success, I think you're still turning to the Wizard (who has a 75%+ chance of making the hard Arcana DC) rather than the Barbarian for an Arcana check in 4e. I find that simply ensuring that players take a diversity of skills (such that you don't have three people good at Diplomacy, and no people good at Dungeoneering) goes a lot further than worrying about the 25% chance of an untrained, unskilled character making a check. At least, that's been my experience in DMing 4e.

That said...

The numbers could be easily adjusted in 5e to put an insurmountable gap between a PC whose "great" at a skill and one that is "poor" at a skill, as long as the system was willing to give training teeth. But I suppose that begs the other question: about how often should a competent, trained character hit their DCs?

5e currently suggests (using a +3 to the stat, and rolling an average of 3 on the skill die) that a trained character hits easy DCs (10) roughly 85% of the tie, moderate DCs (15) roughly 60% of the time, and hard DCs (20) roughly 35% of the time*. The numbers improve slightly as one levels (increasing the base stat, and bumping up skill dice from d6 -> d8 -> d10 etc.). Do these numbers roughly feel right to you?

If so, I think 5e is accomplishing the gap in skill you desire. If not, then training in a skill needs to be buffed.

*noting that there are higher DCs than "hard' ones.

[Moreb Benhk]

I'm gonna step up here and answer this: In D&D-style "Vancian" magic, 90% of any given spell is cast in solitude at the beginning of the day, and all that anyone else sees is the final words and gestures. Spellcraft grants you the ability to recognize spells by that finisher.

And, although they won't benefit directly from the knowledge, after being hit by a fireball or other spell enough times, an intelligent fighter will start picking up on pattern recognition and start recognizing spells as they are cast, even if they can't do anything about it.

Thanks for the esplaination. I hear your point about the spell experience. I just wonder if it could be better modelled by a scaling save bonus over the years. Either way I guess it's not a perfect fit. If fighters automatically scale up in spellcraft they can identify spells that they've never seen before (or possibly anything similar even) which makes little sense too. I think I wouldn't object too strongly to some sort of small level scaling, so long as that scaling didn't eclipse the effects of actual training (eg - in 4e training = +5 [yeah I know you can get other bonuses, but they are extra, this is skill training itself (and not the feat)], while level dependent bonuses get bigger than +10 eventually).


As far as I can tell - skills don't and aren't really supposed to be character-defining abilities in D&D Next, which is supposed to be all about the attributes. They don't let you nor need to go into insanely inhuman ability when magic exists to augment it.

And I hate that line of reasoning. Good stuff/powerful stuff = magic. There are plenty of fantasy examples from all sorts of sources that don't operate on these principles. And it makes for a bad game experience as mundanes need to magic up or suck at everything. The anemic skill system as currently presented really has little reason to exist, because if you want to do anything beyond the 1-3 level range, it's going to be a (probably magic) class ability or a spell.


On that note - magic is, depending on campaign, a luxury or essential tool. However, the primary source of magic-that-matters should be scrolls, potions, wands, and other items, not the Party Wizard, who has just enough spells prepared and castable to not be completely trivialized by said magic items.

That's certainly one way valid to play. I don't think that has ever been a universal in DnD games, and certainly hasn't been in the ones I've been involved in. Both mundanes and magic guys get access to magic items, so these don't (and I think shouldn't) serve as the methodology of balancing. If mundane classes cannot compete with magical classes without magic items, they won't compete with them either.

[Scow2]

That's certainly one way valid to play. I don't think that has ever been a universal in DnD games, and certainly hasn't been in the ones I've been involved in. Both mundanes and magic guys get access to magic items, so these don't (and I think shouldn't) serve as the methodology of balancing. If mundane classes cannot compete with magical classes without magic items, they won't compete with them either.Nonmagical classes have a better "Chassis" than spellcasters (Or at least are supposed to. 3rd edition really screwed that up), and can get more mileage out of the magic items they have. Or at least ideally can. A flying warrior with a legendary bow is a force to be reckoned with.


And, things that are a threat at level 1 remain a threat all the way to level 20, even though they end up being less so. There's no "Cutoff" at which point you completely stop worrying about 10' deep pits, massive cliffs, or the like. Spells are a limited resource that can bypass one of the many challenges ahead of you: Yes, you can Knock one lock open or levitate up one cliff-face - but what are you going to do about the other locks and traps ahead of you, and multiple levels that need traversing?

[navar100]

They do to me. In my view, a character with a poor stat and no training has no business hitting hard DC, and should have at most a 5% chance of doing so. This is a team game! The barbarian doesn't have to be good at spellcraft checks, that's what he brings his cleric/rogue/bard for.

Perhaps some people are suffering from "Tier 5 Syndrome". They were so upset and bothered in their view Tier 5 and maybe even Tier 4 classes suck donkey that the thought of any class not being good at something in 5E would be continuing the abomination.

[Zeful]

They do to me. In my view, a character with a poor stat and no training has no business hitting hard DC, and should have at most a 5% chance of doing so. This is a team game! The barbarian doesn't have to be good at spellcraft checks, that's what he brings his cleric/rogue/bard for.

Then the wizard should expect to need the barbarian when it comes around to climbing sheer cliff-faces, so no levitation, no fly, no spider climb, nothing of the sort.

I'm going to bet that you're response will be, "that's not the same thing," or, "but that's removing utility capabilities from the wizard; how else will he show he's wizardly?" My preemptive response is that those arguments are irrelevant. If this is a team game, then for the same reason the barbarian can't touch a hard spellcraft DC, the wizard should be incapable of vertical movement. And in your view that requires creating incapacities in order to inform player niches. That means it's the guy with the climb skill who gets you up that cliff, and the wizard should be incapable of doing this without him.

[Moreb Benhk]

Then the wizard should expect to need the barbarian when it comes around to climbing sheer cliff-faces, so no levitation, no fly, no spider climb, nothing of the sort.

I'm going to bet that you're response will be, "that's not the same thing," or, "but that's removing utility capabilities from the wizard; how else will he show he's wizardly?" My preemptive response is that those arguments are irrelevant. If this is a team game, then for the same reason the barbarian can't touch a hard spellcraft DC, the wizard should be incapable of vertical movement. And in your view that requires creating incapacities in order to inform player niches. That means it's the guy with the climb skill who gets you up that cliff, and the wizard should be incapable of doing this without him.

I wouldn't object to a paring back of the utility of some spells, especially where they overlap with skills. Perhaps levitation is really loud (thus climbing wins for stealth missions?). I actually really love magic to be powerful but having drawbacks to prevent them becoming an automatic 'I win' button (drawbacks in excess of.. well you had to use a spell slot). It's not the only answer. Adding more utility to skills at the higher end can also contribute. If skills let you do 'cool things' then team differentiated play can be maintained without removing all utility from spellcasters.


Nonmagical classes have a better "Chassis" than spellcasters (Or at least are supposed to. 3rd edition really screwed that up), and can get more mileage out of the magic items they have. Or at least ideally can. A flying warrior with a legendary bow is a force to be reckoned with.

Well I've not seen mundane classes getting more mileage from items, but I guess it's possible to achieve if you do items carefully



And, things that are a threat at level 1 remain a threat all the way to level 20, even though they end up being less so. There's no "Cutoff" at which point you completely stop worrying about 10' deep pits, massive cliffs, or the like. Spells are a limited resource that can bypass one of the many challenges ahead of you: Yes, you can Knock one lock open or levitate up one cliff-face - but what are you going to do about the other locks and traps ahead of you, and multiple levels that need traversing?

Rest? Which brings us nicely back to the 15-minute workday :P

[Zeful]

I wouldn't object to a paring back of the utility of some spells, especially where they overlap with skills. Perhaps levitation is really loud (thus climbing wins for stealth missions?). I actually really love magic to be powerful but having drawbacks to prevent them becoming an automatic 'I win' button (drawbacks in excess of.. well you had to use a spell slot). It's not the only answer. Adding more utility to skills at the higher end can also contribute. If skills let you do 'cool things' then team differentiated play can be maintained without removing all utility from spellcasters.

Except the point being is that if a character should have a zero or near zero percent chance chance of accomplishing things outside of full investment in the thing, then spells which bypass those things are violating the precept (as they are not "full investment" no matter how you define "investment"), and either need to be rendered ineffective or just removed outright.

In short, there should never be a situation where casting levitate and just floating over a wall should be better than just using the climb skill to scale it. Because anything less will just be circumvented given enough time.

[Moreb Benhk]

Except the point being is that if a character should have a zero or near zero percent chance chance of accomplishing things outside of full investment in the thing, then spells which bypass those things are violating the precept (as they are not "full investment" no matter how you define "investment"), and either need to be rendered ineffective or just removed outright.

In short, there should never be a situation where casting levitate and just floating over a wall should be better than just using the climb skill to scale it. Because anything less will just be circumvented given enough time.

Except I don't think anyone has been talking about "full investment" to be able to do anything. Just that zero investment + zero natural ability should make hard things pretty much impossible.

Additionally, if the utility of skills gets expanded and allows you to do stuff that isn't directly covered by spells (some sort of skill trick or something similar) then the spells no longer bypass skills quite so badly. Side note - Personally I think 'climb' is a bit to niche, same with swim. To me they are the equivalent of hypothetical Knowledge: Ancient Arcane Symbols and Knowledge: Magic Rituals. Giving skills more wide application can help to ensure their utility.

[SiuiS]

Hmm. I think I understand your analysis (though can't you still end up with a +0 at level six?) Perhaps I can summarise my objections to the things as follows:

1.The window isn't broad enough. While you can improve you don't improve enough. Frankly I don't want everyone everywhere to be significantly inside of 1d20 of variation of each other. A low level dude without the stat or training shouldn't be on the same playingfield as a high level dude who has invested heaps into skills, and has stat synergy. And not just because the dude is higher level, but because his investments are meaningful.

If they simply have to use skill dice for skills, I'd love more granularity, and more opportunities to increase skills.

Keeping everyone within the 20 point spread is the easiest way to solve the "I cannot contribute problem". Like it or hate it, skills being designed to primarily care about attributes DOES solve the issue of people being unable to do anything. They just made a crappy system wherein attributes barely accomplish this.

It's possible to have as low as -2 in a skill, I think. But then you would avoid it like the plague. I suspect that skill spread goes from 2-10, mostly.

I think the current granularity can be made fine. Leave as is, reduce difficulty at set benchmarks, like I said. Using the tired jump example; say at first trough fifth level (STR+1d6, avg. +5) a DC 15 jump check clears ten feet and DC 20 clears twenty feet; that's a 50% avg. chance of making a ten foot jump, and only a 25% chance of making a twenty foot one.
At levels six through ten, shift; a DC 15 jump clears twenty feet, a DC 20 jump clears forty (or basically, double the distance). Now making the previous hard jump is a 50% shot (or slightly more with skill investment) and a newer, harder leap has a 25-30% chance of success On Average – and importantly, the 10 foot jump is still a threat (DC 15, remember?)

This... Works. Technically. A superior system is smaller dice at more frequent intervals; d4, then 2d4, then 2d6, then 3d4, then 3d6, etc. so the average doesn't climb so fast but the minimum does; the big, #1 complaint so far is that a novice and a master can both roll a +1 on their skill die. So fix that!


A skill goes up in progression when you choose to advance it specifically and not just advancing all across the board (which is how I read the current Next situation, though I may be wrong on that).

I advocate both. You're not "getting better at skills you don't practice", you're getting better at reality! You are approaching Übermensch status. It's weird to say "this guy is a veteran of war campaigns, give him more Knowledge ranks". It's perfect to say "this guy is a divine champion, give him more knowledge ranks". You must codify what advancement is. With a tier system, where you advance from gritty mortal to heroic legend, that's done for you. No one can say "you aren't super epic at level 20, you're just a guy" because it says right there "epic high fantasy, levels 17-20".



Bringing this back to DnD Next however, I think if you're looking to 4e for a model you want to figure out where your "break" points are. In 4e, an easy skill is generally 5 + 1/2, a moderate is 10 +1/2 level, and a hard DC is 15 + 1/2 level. You could transpose this into D&D Next without the scaling bonus by cutting the DCs in the current playtest by 5.

I think it'd be a reasonable move to make without either making advantage a bigger part of the system, or without pushing for high bonuses than a skill die is likely to provide.

Yes. Reduce the DCs! For goodness sake.


I agree about dropping DCs by 5. Current DCs just don't work with the system as it is. But I'd love to add in a few more tiers - like legendary and impossible. Give the skills some more powerful high-end applications. And beef up the skill dice advancement appropriately to make achieving these things possible.

Yes! Actually, tie difficulty tiers to character tiers. Solves some minor issues, makes delineation smoother.


I'm gonna step up here and answer this: In D&D-style "Vancian" magic, 90% of any given spell is cast in solitude at the beginning of the day, and all that anyone else sees is the final words and gestures. Spellcraft grants you the ability to recognize spells by that finisher.

Not so much anymore. I wish they would codify this; I think making something like the Pattern Hanging magic from the Merlin Cycle would be awesome, flavorful, and fix a lot of minor issues.



And, things that are a threat at level 1 remain a threat all the way to level 20, even though they end up being less so. There's no "Cutoff" at which point you completely stop worrying about 10' deep pits, massive cliffs, or the like. Spells are a limited resource that can bypass one of the many challenges ahead of you: Yes, you can Knock one lock open or levitate up one cliff-face - but what are you going to do about the other locks and traps ahead of you, and multiple levels that need traversing?

Yes. It is supposed to be a choice between combat or utility effectiveness by the day. That's a campaign design issue if this choice is not utilized.


Perhaps some people are suffering from "Tier 5 Syndrome". They were so upset and bothered in their view Tier 5 and maybe even Tier 4 classes suck donkey that the thought of any class not being good at something in 5E would be continuing the abomination.

Seems like it.


Then the wizard should expect to need the barbarian when it comes around to climbing sheer cliff-faces, so no levitation, no fly, no spider climb, nothing of the sort.

Not quite. The wizard is making a choice to be less useful down the road. That's fine; it's actually ideal. They both get over the wall, but the barbarian isn't out of combat effectiveness to do it.


Except I don't think anyone has been talking about "full investment" to be able to do anything. Just that zero investment + zero natural ability should make hard things pretty much impossible.

Additionally, if the utility of skills gets expanded and allows you to do stuff that isn't directly covered by spells (some sort of skill trick or something similar) then the spells no longer bypass skills quite so badly. Side note - Personally I think 'climb' is a bit to niche, same with swim. To me they are the equivalent of hypothetical Knowledge: Ancient Arcane Symbols and Knowledge: Magic Rituals. Giving skills more wide application can help to ensure their utility.

I've been a big fan of makin skill tricks part of skills (no special investment needed).

I've also been a big fan of murdering feat bloat by making most useless action feats into skill tricks though, so...

[Zeful]

Not quite. The wizard is making a choice to be less useful down the road. That's fine; it's actually ideal. They both get over the wall, but the barbarian isn't out of combat effectiveness to do it.
Only when he has 4-7 spell slots per day, and never learns more than 10-15 spells, at the absolute maximum. Part of the problem with spells in table top RPGs is availability of effect against the effort needed to overcome obstacles. In a game where a spellcaster has a lot of uses of magic, any obstacle that does not take a meaningful percentage of those uses has become trivial. I mean what does it matter if you prepare a couple uses of levitate or fly, when you have over 30 spell slots? You can't possibly use them all of them before you can memorize more so what's the point?

This results in scaling issues, as a caster's spells are generally designed to act in a relatively small time scale (round by round), but are contrasted against a powerset that replenishes daily. This coupled with the sheer power of many spells fit much better in a game where they are very restrictive in how many they have available, but the prevailing trend is "a caster should be casting, not plinking away with a crossbow", which necessitates spells being more on the scale of other effects; which means cutting down on the power of utility.

Either way, no matter how you slice it, holding the axiom that an unskilled character should have no chance at succeeding at a hard task means that you have to castrate spell utility in order to make the skilled/specialized character mean something, otherwise magic is still explicitly better than non-magic, and nothing has changed. After all, why bother specializing in climbing, or sneaking or anything when a wizard has something in their bag of tricks that is even competitive with your specialization at next to no cost to him?

[Moreb Benhk]

Keeping everyone within the 20 point spread is the easiest way to solve the "I cannot contribute problem". Like it or hate it, skills being designed to primarily care about attributes DOES solve the issue of people being unable to do anything. They just made a crappy system wherein attributes barely accomplish this.

It's possible to have as low as -2 in a skill, I think. But then you would avoid it like the plague. I suspect that skill spread goes from 2-10, mostly.

I think its the wrong solution to the wrong problem. Why do people think that characters not being able to contribute in things they have no expertise is bad? The answer is facilitation the tangential participation of characters with things they CAN actually do, not flattening the playingfield to keep everyone 'in the game' in every single skill. If everyone 'shines' no one does. This is one of the things that frustrated me so much when dealing with the 4e skill system.


I think the current granularity can be made fine. Leave as is, reduce difficulty at set benchmarks, like I said. Using the tired jump example; say at first trough fifth level (STR+1d6, avg. +5) a DC 15 jump check clears ten feet and DC 20 clears twenty feet; that's a 50% avg. chance of making a ten foot jump, and only a 25% chance of making a twenty foot one.
At levels six through ten, shift; a DC 15 jump clears twenty feet, a DC 20 jump clears forty (or basically, double the distance). Now making the previous hard jump is a 50% shot (or slightly more with skill investment) and a newer, harder leap has a 25-30% chance of success On Average – and importantly, the 10 foot jump is still a threat (DC 15, remember?)

Ugg... Shifting DCs... Please no. This is smuggling in a clunkier form of scaling while trying to pretend that Next doesn't include scaling. Surely the more elegant solution is simply to have a more sensible system of scaling?


This... Works. Technically. A superior system is smaller dice at more frequent intervals; d4, then 2d4, then 2d6, then 3d4, then 3d6, etc. so the average doesn't climb so fast but the minimum does; the big, #1 complaint so far is that a novice and a master can both roll a +1 on their skill die. So fix that!

Fully agreed.



I advocate both. You're not "getting better at skills you don't practice", you're getting better at reality! You are approaching Übermensch status. It's weird to say "this guy is a veteran of war campaigns, give him more Knowledge ranks". It's perfect to say "this guy is a divine champion, give him more knowledge ranks". You must codify what advancement is. With a tier system, where you advance from gritty mortal to heroic legend, that's done for you. No one can say "you aren't super epic at level 20, you're just a guy" because it says right there "epic high fantasy, levels 17-20".

I don't follow. Why is it perfect to say "This guy is a divine champion, give him more knowledge ranks" when you can't say "this guy is a veteran of war campaigns, give him more Knowledge ranks"? If it's appropriate that a character should have knowledge ranks... have them take the darn knowledge ranks... that's why they exist!

I don't know that a tier system innately solves all the problems, and can introduce others if clunkily implemented (see above jumping DC's). I love tiers as a description of how the game naturally plays, rather than a rigid shift of rules and abilities that arbitrarily shake things up (rather like Forgotten Realms every edition change)




I've been a big fan of makin skill tricks part of skills (no special investment needed).

I've also been a big fan of murdering feat bloat by making most useless action feats into skill tricks though, so...

Agreed


Either way, no matter how you slice it, holding the axiom that an unskilled character should have no chance at succeeding at a hard task means that you have to castrate spell utility in order to make the skilled/specialized character mean something, otherwise magic is still explicitly better than non-magic, and nothing has changed. After all, why bother specializing in climbing, or sneaking or anything when a wizard has something in their bag of tricks that is even competitive with your specialization at next to no cost to him?

I think the skilled/unskilled dynamic is something of a tangent to the spellcasting/skills one. Excessively easy spell-trumping results in a skill system that is pointless. There's only a point in asking the skilled/unskilled question if spells can't act as SKILLZ++. If everyone in the world can fly like superman, trying to work out how much faster you can train yourself to run (compared to joe schmoe) is basically a 'who cares' question.

[SiuiS]

This results in scaling issues, as a caster's spells are generally designed to act in a relatively small time scale (round by round), but are contrasted against a powerset that replenishes daily. This coupled with the sheer power of many spells fit much better in a game where they are very restrictive in how many they have available, but the prevailing trend is "a caster should be casting, not plinking away with a crossbow", which necessitates spells being more on the scale of other effects; which means cutting down on the power of utility.


This is predicated on the idea that a Spell is a Spell, period. This is false. We have cantrips which are useful but sorta meh (spells all day forever) and spells which are combat efficient or scene efficient (spells are a rare resource but balanced) and long, possibly dangerous rituals (magic should be super powerful but also super limited). The framework may need tweaking but if the execution lacks and the framework does not, I cannot see advocating against the framework having traction.


I think its the wrong solution to the wrong problem. Why do people think that characters not being able to contribute in things they have no expertise is bad?.

Game wise, it is bad.
Story wise, it is not bad.



Ugg... Shifting DCs... Please no. This is smuggling in a clunkier form of scaling while trying to pretend that Next doesn't include scaling. Surely the more elegant solution is simply to have a more sensible system of scaling?


Sorry mate, but it works, it's easy, it's elegant, it is simple and it solves a lot of problems without causing new ones. You'll have to give an actual reason for objection, not bank on "shifting DCs = Bad" for this one.



I don't follow. Why is it perfect to say "This guy is a divine champion, give him more knowledge ranks" when you can't say "this guy is a veteran of war campaigns, give him more Knowledge ranks"? If it's appropriate that a character should have knowledge ranks... have them take the darn knowledge ranks... that's why they exist!

Being a war vet from 1-20 is a quantitative change; you're at a plateau and just get more comfortable there.
Being a divine champion for half that time is a qualitative change; you're movin up to a new plateau. It satisfies visceral impulse. There is no "humans cannot do that!" Because each qualitative shift removes human limitation. You go from professional but human, to pinnacle of human, to heroic myth archetype, to pinnacle of divine emissary, to superarchonic, to divine. With each shift, expectations also shift; this is what happens naturally in a high power game. Making it explicit just means no one can deny it.

D&D is "super heroes after X level; Gods after X+Y". Being up front about it removes "that's not always true" from the argument slot while allowing an easy fix (tier caps) to make it true again. In fact it could go both ways! Tiered capacity could either be an optional module or a core one.


I don't know that a tier system innately solves all the problems, and can introduce others if clunkily implemented (see above jumping DC's).

Not really an argument; I'm talking now about a specific implementation. Hypothetical alternate implementations needn't be a concern.


I love tiers as a description of how the game naturally plays, rather than a rigid shift of rules and abilities that arbitrarily shake things up (rather like Forgotten Realms every edition change)

It should come across as organic as the heroic/paragon/epic shift, so I don't see the problem?

[Moreb Benhk]

Game wise, it is bad.
Story wise, it is not bad.

I think it's bad for both. It doesn't make sense for the characters (story).

*EDIT: Whoops. Misread you there initially. I think it's great for both. Nothing makes character investment less powerful than having characters who haven't invested at all being up there too. Gamewise - it's great to let characters shine. To shine, the diamond has to stand out from the 'rough'



Sorry mate, but it works, it's easy, it's elegant, it is simple and it solves a lot of problems without causing new ones. You'll have to give an actual reason for objection, not bank on "shifting DCs = Bad" for this one.

Disagree. It sortof works, and is easy. It strikes me as extremely inelegant and causes all sorts of silliness, especially if every character is not at the exactly the same level. "This jump is DC 20 for you and DC 15 for you... just cause your level"... It's an explicit "you need to be this level to do this" that's baked onto the system. The jump between tiers feels very artificial. An elegant solution provides a nice smooth transition in mechanics to produce the results you want. If you want characters to be able to do grander things with skills... let them have access to higher bonuses to their rolls. It's ten kinds of more elegant, allows you to not have to use a different set of rules with each tier, and doesn't make for weird leapfrogging where at each teir interval EVERYTHING changes, then not a lot, until the next tier change.




Being a war vet from 1-20 is a quantitative change; you're at a plateau and just get more comfortable there.
Being a divine champion for half that time is a qualitative change; you're movin up to a new plateau. It satisfies visceral impulse. There is no "humans cannot do that!" Because each qualitative shift removes human limitation. You go from professional but human, to pinnacle of human, to heroic myth archetype, to pinnacle of divine emissary, to superarchonic, to divine. With each shift, expectations also shift; this is what happens naturally in a high power game. Making it explicit just means no one can deny it.

D&D is "super heroes after X level; Gods after X+Y". Being up front about it removes "that's not always true" from the argument slot while allowing an easy fix (tier caps) to make it true again. In fact it could go both ways! Tiered capacity could either be an optional module or a core one.

I think I agree with your central point here. It's good to make explicit what sort of game is involved at the various levels. Though how you can simply be a 'war vet' from 1-20 is beyond me. If you've 'plateaued' then you aren't levelling... What is leveling if not moving up to a new 'plateau' in a way that is fairly fluff independent? I think that baked in, sweeping changes at each (somewhat arbitrarily defined) tier, is not at all neccessary to achieve well set-out expectations for each 'tier'.



Not really an argument; I'm talking now about a specific implementation. Hypothetical alternate implementations needn't be a concern.

Perhaps I was being excessively circumspect. Your proposal was what I was referring to.

[Kurald Galain]

Game wise, it is bad.
Story wise, it is not bad.

Game wise, it is great. It encourages teamwork, increases character diversification, and gives a meaningful reward for character investment.

[neonchameleon]

Keeping everyone within the 20 point spread is the easiest way to solve the "I cannot contribute problem". Like it or hate it, skills being designed to primarily care about attributes DOES solve the issue of people being unable to do anything. They just made a crappy system wherein attributes barely accomplish this.

As with everything else, implementation is key. A bad plan well executed is almost always better than a good plan half-assed.


You must codify what advancement is. With a tier system, where you advance from gritty mortal to heroic legend, that's done for you. No one can say "you aren't super epic at level 20, you're just a guy" because it says right there "epic high fantasy, levels 17-20".

This. With any level-based system. I would not advocate the same thing in GURPS as I do to a system that is already level based.


Yes. Reduce the DCs! For goodness sake.

Hear, hear! DC 25 to walk a tightrope. DC 15 to loose a cotting pin from a wagon wheel.


Not quite. The wizard is making a choice to be less useful down the road. That's fine; it's actually ideal. They both get over the wall, but the barbarian isn't out of combat effectiveness to do it.

That depends how many other spells the wizard has. And whether they are expecting many combats.


Game wise, it is great. It encourages teamwork, increases character diversification, and gives a meaningful reward for character investment.

Game wise in many implementations it stinks.

First, it leads to enforced roles so people don't get to play what they want to.

Second it commonly leads to the Shadowrun "Decker Problem" (although that's pretty much the limit case) by which when the Decker is playing their game everyone else stops playing. This is why I was saying everyone else should be competent at what they were doing.

Thirdly it cripples most non-caster concepts because of enforced niche protection.

The way to encourage teamwork is encourage synergies and allow everyone to help everyone else. Not have the rest of the party stand around like a group of pot-plants.

[SiuiS]

Disagree. It sortof works, and is easy. It strikes me as extremely inelegant and causes all sorts of silliness, especially if every character is not at the exactly the same level. "This jump is DC 20 for you and DC 15 for you... just cause your level"... It's an explicit "you need to be this level to do this" that's baked onto the system. The jump between tiers feels very artificial. An elegant solution provides a nice smooth transition in mechanics to produce the results you want. If you want characters to be able to do grander things with skills... let them have access to higher bonuses to their rolls. It's ten kinds of more elegant, allows you to not have to use a different set of rules with each tier, and doesn't make for weird leapfrogging where at each teir interval EVERYTHING changes, then not a lot, until the next tier change.

1) there is no "I'm higher level than you". The party should be about the same; the game is designed along these principles. This is part of why they said give people XP in 4e even if they don't show for a few sessions. Level difference is bad; a small-town plucky upstart should not be trying to make the same challenge as a divinely imbued high fantasy champion. That's a DM screw up, not a rules one.
2) adding more bonuses leads to a lack of a window leads to 3e problems where DCs always always always scale and skill never does... For vital things, not just secondary stuff.
3) the way XP is handled, you should never level up between Jump a and Jump B. they should be packaged separately or it should be a plot point.
4) it maintains the easy/medium/hard rubric while still letting lower tier characters try.



Perhaps I was being excessively circumspect. Your proposal was what I was referring to.

Then be more critical, because vague expressions of implementation not working for apply when I can point out how the implementation works swimmingly. I need specific dislikes.


Game wise, it is great. It encourages teamwork, increases character diversification, and gives a meaningful reward for character investment.

I may have it backwards depending on what I quoted.
Story wise, everyone being able to participate smacks of fiat and stinks.
Game wise, you'll always be relevant and that's good for visceral gameplay enjoyment.

[QUOTE=neonchameleon;15497341]

[Raineh Daze]

Thirdly it cripples most non-caster concepts because of enforced niche protection.

The way to encourage teamwork is encourage synergies and allow everyone to help everyone else. Not have the rest of the party stand around like a group of pot-plants.

Firstly: I think that only applies to opening doors, because having everyone be able to open one door is kind of overkill.

Secondly: 'everyone is able to help' is an extremely different scenario from just cycling through every member of the party when the supposedly highly-skilled master of the skill flubs a hard roll, leading to complete novices accomplishing it. Again.

I think the skill system should just be entirely removed if it's going to be left like this, and just use attribute rolls or OOC thinking. Because, as it is, there's not really any point to it other thank making simple tasks stupidly hard.


Sorry mate, but it works, it's easy, it's elegant, it is simple and it solves a lot of problems without causing new ones. You'll have to give an actual reason for objection, not bank on "shifting DCs = Bad" for this one.

I don't see how it's simple. I'm not sure what you're saying--either that the progression of achievement within skill DC's is exponential or quadratic, which is definitely not simple compared to a linear progression OR that the DC for a task changes as you level, which adds many, many more things to keep track of where skills are involved and hugely complicates things.

I'm not seeing it solving more problems than it creates.


Being a war vet from 1-20 is a quantitative change; you're at a plateau and just get more comfortable there.
Being a divine champion for half that time is a qualitative change; you're movin up to a new plateau. It satisfies visceral impulse. There is no "humans cannot do that!" Because each qualitative shift removes human limitation. You go from professional but human, to pinnacle of human, to heroic myth archetype, to pinnacle of divine emissary, to superarchonic, to divine. With each shift, expectations also shift; this is what happens naturally in a high power game. Making it explicit just means no one can deny it.

D&D is "super heroes after X level; Gods after X+Y". Being up front about it removes "that's not always true" from the argument slot while allowing an easy fix (tier caps) to make it true again. In fact it could go both ways! Tiered capacity could either be an optional module or a core one.

Don't like it. I hate the 'you have reached this level--now your character must experience a sudden power jump and/or change in concept'. I am quite happy to stick to 'war veteran' from level one through to twenty without a qualitative change telling me that suddenly they can do superhuman things.

... oh, and sudden power spikes every five levels or whatever that say 'change how you're playing and the nature of enemies because else the system breaks' are just messy.

Honestly? That's way too much fluff getting into character building for my tastes. Yes, that might be how it works in some default generic setting, but if I decide to run a game from level 1-20 in Ancient Greece with characters as demigods (well, probably from level 5-ish), I can without having to refluff half the character building chapter and work out how to deal with an annoying power spike. :smallsigh:


I may have it backwards depending on what I quoted.
Story wise, everyone being able to participate smacks of fiat and stinks.
Game wise, you'll always be relevant and that's good for visceral gameplay enjoyment.

I'd be enjoying it less. If I invest in a skill, and because I don't keep rolling well someone else with no or minimal investment keeps succeeding at that skill check? I'll just get frustrated.

... probably stop even trying to use the skill at all because it's obviously not needed for me to do that.

[Kurald Galain]

I may have it backwards depending on what I quoted.
Story wise, everyone being able to participate smacks of fiat and stinks.
Game wise, you'll always be relevant and that's good for visceral gameplay enjoyment.

Game wise, you're never able to "shine" (except as the result of lucky rolls) because you're never allowed to be really better than your teammates at anything, and that's bad for visceral gameplay enjoyment.

Really. Most people find it more exciting and memorable if they can be high-power in some of the scenes and low-power in others, than if they can be moderate-power in all of them. The DM just needs to ensure the spotlight doesn't stay entirely on one player (but he has to do that anyway).

[Raineh Daze]

I find it rather hard to enjoy a game if my input is essentially meaningless because scenarios resolve the exact same way whether I'm they're or not. That's what the skill system for Next looks like; a rank novice is just as useful as a master of the skill.

Long bouts of skill rolls sound like a great time to go get snacks, honestly. :smallbiggrin:

More or less: I don't want to always contribute to skills*, because that just makes contributing tedious and makes specialising in any of them essentially a waste of time because my specialisation is, at best, about as good as having the rest of the party roll... and that's with static bonuses. With these dice? Skills are very dull and there's no real way to shine. :smallsigh:

*or every situation. I can deal with not being in focus all the time. >_>

[SiuiS]

Firstly:
Secondly: 'everyone is able to help' is an extremely different scenario from just cycling through every member of the party when the supposedly highly-skilled master of the skill flubs a hard roll, leading to complete novices accomplishing it. Again.

Shouldn't happen. Skilled guy should get 15+3+3 bell curve, unskilled guy should get 10+2. Maybe 15+2.


just use attribute rolls

Yeah.



I don't see how it's simple.

Your "or" displays why. Simply put;
-Skill dice proceed as written.
-DC reduces to match as you progress.

+1 skill and -1 DC are identical. This is identical to "gain +X every Y levels" without obsoleting older, earlier task difficulties because of the nature of the downgrade.

None of the expressions of difficulty you suggest ever appear, and no problem has yet been found. It's just "I don't like it".



Don't like it. I hate the 'you have reached this level--now your character must experience a sudden power jump and/or change in concept'. I am quite happy to stick to 'war veteran' from level one through to twenty without a qualitative change telling me that suddenly they can do superhuman things.


Not a problem. Play e6. That is, don't use the module add-on. There, you're happy. Your skills still stay relevant and there's no qualitative difference between you now and you then.



... oh, and sudden power spikes every five levels or whatever that say 'change how you're playing and the nature of enemies because else the system breaks' are just messy.

Good thing that does not occur.


Honestly? That's way too much fluff getting into character building for my tastes. Yes, that might be how it works in some default generic setting, but if I decide to run a game from level 1-20 in Ancient Greece with characters as demigods (well, probably from level 5-ish), I can without having to refluff half the character building chapter and work out how to deal with an annoying power spike. :smallsigh:

Greek demigods? Epic tier at level five, mythic hero at levels 1-4. Done. No fluff bending, no hassle, none of the problems you're predicting.



I'd be enjoying it less. If I invest in a skill, and because I don't keep rolling well someone else with no or minimal investment keeps succeeding at that skill check? I'll just get frustrated.

... probably stop even trying to use the skill at all because it's obviously not needed for me to do that.

That ignores the curve stacked in your favor. If you have to not only be awesome to feel good about your build, but also have team mates who suck, that's not a rules problem.


Game wise, you're never able to "shine" (except as the result of lucky rolls) because you're never allowed to be really better than your teammates at anything, and that's bad for visceral gameplay enjoyment.

Fallacy. See prior from... Scow2? Neon?
Pro with 80% success and friend with 40% success. Quantifiable different. Later, qualitatively different. False comparison no lack of shining.

[Raineh Daze]

Not a problem. Play e6. That is, don't use the module add-on. There, you're happy. Your skills still stay relevant and there's no qualitative difference between you now and you then.

Greek demigods? Epic tier at level five, mythic hero at levels 1-4. Done. No fluff bending, no hassle, none of the problems you're predicting.

Quite simply: no. Screw that; I'm not ignoring three quarters of the game because it's been set up so that the sort of setting I want has been written into the first five levels. THIS is the exact thing I don't like about tiers--want to play some sort of game? Oh, obviously I should fit int--to hell with that, I didn't even bring up limited power levels. :smallannoyed:

... also, if you run any Greek mythological creatures halfway decently, the first five levels is not the time to face them.


That ignores the curve stacked in your favor. If you have to not only be awesome to feel good about your build, but also have team mates who suck, that's not a rules problem.

I'm not awesome if the rules are built around the idea everyone must always contribute to everything, and my specialisation is therefore worth three people with no investment in the skill. My specialisation doesn't help by existing. i.e., there is nothing that I can achieve that they can't. :smallsigh:

Also, haven't replied to any of the scaling DC stuff because I have no idea what you're actually saying it is. I think that proves the 'simple' part wrong. >_>

[Saph]

I have to say, I find the "everyone must have a chance of succeeding at a skill" way of designing skills a bit weird, because it's a massive disconnect from how things work in reality.

Take a basic skill like climbing. In the current version of Next, a climb might be DC 15 to 20. We'll say 18 for a "difficult" climb. A specialised climber might have +3+1d6 to their Climb skill (+3 from Strength, +1d6 from skill). An average person might have +0.

So the skilled, strong climber has around a 45% chance of hitting the DC 18 (can't be bothered to do the math) while the untrained and not-very-strong climber has a 15%.

Now the thing is, I actually go climbing regularly, and I know that that isn't at all how climbing works. A skilled climber will effortlessly zip up a wall that an untrained person can't handle at all. The actual percentages of "expert vs novice attempting difficult climb" are more like 90% and 0%. The same wall that an expert handles in two tries max is just impossible for a novice. They won't make it up no matter how many tries you give them.

[neonchameleon]

Secondly: 'everyone is able to help' is an extremely different scenario from just cycling through every member of the party when the supposedly highly-skilled master of the skill flubs a hard roll, leading to complete novices accomplishing it. Again.

And this only happens if there is no consequence for failure. If you are running a task resolution system rather than a conflict resolution system (http://web.archive.org/web/20130425050904/http://lumpley.com/hardcore.html#4), or you have something like the 4e "Three strikes" system for major events then this doesn't happen.

The simple rule is that if anyone might be able to do something successfully and there is no penalty for re-trying assume they succeeded and move on. There's no point to the roll in the first place. And if there's no point to the roll then it doesn't matter how you do it, you are rolling effectively for the sake of it and it slows the game down to no good purpose. This, and not the gap between skills, is the problem.


Don't like it. I hate the 'you have reached this level--now your character must experience a sudden power jump and/or change in concept'.

For once I agree - although I would point out that this is the problem with levels in the first place writ slightly larger. This is why I'd have a bonus per level rather than a stepwise bonus.


... oh, and sudden power spikes every five levels or whatever that say 'change how you're playing and the nature of enemies because else the system breaks' are just messy.

I see little difference between this and every one level.


Game wise, you're never able to "shine" (except as the result of lucky rolls) because you're never allowed to be really better than your teammates at anything

You seem to be running the same sort of task resolution system Raineh Daze is. One of my favourite RPGs is Leverage (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/85727/Leverage-Roleplaying-Game) and in that the difference between the best and the worst at something is the difference between one of your dice being a d10 and it being a d4 (http://www.onesevendesign.com/leverage/leverage_sheets_oneseven.pdf) when the system is a dice pool in which you will normally be rolling 3 dice and picking the best 2.

But Leverage uses an explicit challenge resolution system. Whenever you roll, passing or failing matters. You don't bother to roll for the easy stuff anyone can do, and you don't bother to roll for the stuff you can do if you have the time just by keeping rolling. You (a) only bother to roll when there is tension in the scene and (b) can create a nasty complication even on a successful roll. (Any dice in the dice pool that rolls a 1 creates a complication to be handled later.)


I find it rather hard to enjoy a game if my input is essentially meaningless because scenarios resolve the exact same way whether I'm they're or not. That's what the skill system for Next looks like; a rank novice is just as useful as a master of the skill.

Long bouts of skill rolls sound like a great time to go get snacks, honestly. :smallbiggrin:

It sounds like one to me as well. This is why I don't like task resolution systems.

Edit: @Saph, that is an argument for four things.

The first is that d6 is both too low and too variable a margin for skill training. No argument there.

The second is that d20 has too wide a range. No argument there either (there's a reason Fate uses 4dF (or effectively 4d3-8).

The third is that the DCs are very badly set up (if you were setting that climbing wall to be DC 15 and training to be +10 then our trained climber would be rolling d20+13 and only failing on a 1 - or almost right, whereas our untrained but physically active climber would be failing around three quarters of the time; even +5 and DC 10 would have a simmilar effect). No argument.

The implicit consequence is where I disagree. Splitting the party is a bad thing - as is a "You must be this tall to ride" barrier. And to prevent this I'm prepared to have the rest of the party able to follow where the expert leads and to compress the effect of training further than is realistic..

[Totally Guy]

What is the current rule for failing a skill roll?

[Raineh Daze]

And this only happens if there is no consequence for failure. If you are running a task resolution system rather than a conflict resolution system (http://web.archive.org/web/20130425050904/http://lumpley.com/hardcore.html#4), or you have something like the 4e "Three strikes" system for major events then this doesn't happen.

The simple rule is that if anyone might be able to do something successfully and there is no penalty for re-trying assume they succeeded and move on. There's no point to the roll in the first place. And if there's no point to the roll then it doesn't matter how you do it, you are rolling effectively for the sake of it and it slows the game down to no good purpose. This, and not the gap between skills, is the problem.

That's definitely a contributor, but sometimes the task can be accomplished several ways (let's take getting past a door), and it's just that skills are an option. Now, if the most skilled character fails, you'd think that's time to try Plan B (smash it, or find the key). With this system, everyone else has a go first. This is ridiculous. :smallsigh:


I see little difference between this and every one level.

Levels tend not to have a huge jump in the scale of tasks. Going from level 9 to level 10 doesn't inherently mean going from answering to a king to, say, a god. Tiers? Tiers write vast jumps in plot scale into the ruleset. Messy.



But Leverage uses an explicit challenge resolution system. Whenever you roll, passing or failing matters. You don't bother to roll for the easy stuff anyone can do, and you don't bother to roll for the stuff you can do if you have the time just by keeping rolling. You (a) only bother to roll when there is tension in the scene and (b) can create a nasty complication even on a successful roll. (Any dice in the dice pool that rolls a 1 creates a complication to be handled later.)

I don't think 'succeeding causes problems' is a particularly good tactic to adopt. Especially if you're still rolling two d4's in addition to a d10. :smallconfused:

... I like dice pools for skill resolution. Not sure why.

[neonchameleon]

With this system, everyone else has a go first. This is ridiculous. :smallsigh:

Cumulative -5 for repeated attempts at the same thing is the other way that works. If the best person has already tried something then the odds are that they have tried everything relatively practical. So the odds that someone else can see a way should be adjusted accordingly.


I don't think 'succeeding causes problems' is a particularly good tactic to adopt. Especially if you're still rolling two d4's in addition to a d10. :smallconfused:

Succeeding doesn't cause problems. Trying something risky can cause unintended consequences even if you succeed. If you fail you still take the complications as well as the consequence for failure.


... I like dice pools for skill resolution. Not sure why.

Because (unless you are playing Classic Cortex which manages to combine the worst of a dice pool and a classic resolution system) they are visceral, easy to tweak (just throw a dice at the player) and very fast to resolve. And rolling a bucket full of dice just feels good.

[Kurald Galain]

Now the thing is, I actually go climbing regularly, and I know that that isn't at all how climbing works. A skilled climber will effortlessly zip up a wall that an untrained person can't handle at all. The actual percentages of "expert vs novice attempting difficult climb" are more like 90% and 0%. The same wall that an expert handles in two tries max is just impossible for a novice. They won't make it up no matter how many tries you give them.

That's a good point.

This is not even about simulationism. See, I'm not a badass warrior in real life; so if I play one in D&D, I do expect my character to be clearly better at running/climbing/swimming than my IRL self.

[SiuiS]

Quite simply: no. Screw that; I'm not ignoring three quarters of the game because it's been set up so that the sort of setting I want has been written into the first five levels. THIS is the exact thing I don't like about tiers--want to play some sort of game? Oh, obviously I should fit int--to hell with that, I didn't even bring up limited power levels. :smallannoyed:

Why is "don't use tiers" registering as "stay at low level"? You're puttin words in my mouth then beig sarcastic about their efficacy.



I'm not awesome if the rules are built around the idea everyone must always contribute to everything, and my specialisation is therefore worth three people with no investment in the skill. My specialisation doesn't help by existing. i.e., there is nothing that I can achieve that they can't. :smallsigh:

Qualitative difference. There should be more to skillful than +X.


Also, haven't replied to any of the scaling DC stuff because I have no idea what you're actually saying it is. I think that proves the 'simple' part wrong. >_>

Then I can't help you. "Reduce DC as you level" is as easy as it gets.


I have to say, I find the "everyone must have a chance of succeeding at a skill" way of designing skills a bit weird, because it's a massive disconnect from how things work in reality.

D&D next has two principles.
1) a challenge at level 1, must still be a challenge at level 20.
2) a character should always be able to contribute, from level 1 to level 20.

It doesn't matter if you like them (I mostly don't) or if you can do better (most of us think we can). This is Next. For purposes of discussing improving Next, we need to work with these two principles.
Any idea that doesn't adhere to both, no matter how good, fails. Hence working on an idea that does stick to both.


And this only happens if there is no consequence for failure. If you are running a task resolution system rather than a conflict resolution system (http://web.archive.org/web/20130425050904/http://lumpley.com/hardcore.html#4), or you have something like the 4e "Three strikes" system for major events then this doesn't happen.

The simple rule is that if anyone might be able to do something successfully and there is no penalty for re-trying assume they succeeded and move on. There's no point to the roll in the first place. And if there's no point to the roll then it doesn't matter how you do it, you are rolling effectively for the sake of it and it slows the game down to no good purpose. This, and not the gap between skills, is the problem.


Yes.


That's definitely a contributor, but sometimes the task can be accomplished several ways (let's take getting past a door), and it's just that skills are an option. Now, if the most skilled character fails, you'd think that's time to try Plan B (smash it, or find the key). With this system, everyone else has a go first. This is ridiculous. :smallsigh:


You're making assumptions and declaring them rules. Why does everyone else have to go first? Do we have "20 always succeeds, even on skills" now?



Levels tend not to have a huge jump in the scale of tasks. Going from level 9 to level 10 doesn't inherently mean going from answering to a king to, say, a god. Tiers? Tiers write vast jumps in plot scale into the ruleset. Messy.

Level 4->5; fighter damage output increases drastically. Every odd level; caster output and function increases drastically. PrC or Paragon Path; increase drastically in function. I'm not seeing this lack of huge jump.

"Tiers write vast jumps in plot scale into the ruleset" and "messy" are both baseless assumptions. "You can jump farther" is not a problem. You're worried about shadows.



... I like dice pools for skill resolution. Not sure why.

Yes.

[Kurald Galain]

D&D next has two principles.
1) a challenge at level 1, must still be a challenge at level 20.
2) a character should always be able to contribute, from level 1 to level 20.


The point is that if every character should be able to contribute to a challenge, you shouldn't define a challenge as "climbing a wall" and then conclude that every character therefore needs decent skill checks on climbing. Rather, define a challenge as "enter the orc fortress", and note that some classes do that by climbing the wall, and other classes do it differently (e.g. with bluff or stealth checks, or dimension door, or whatever).

The goal is that every character can do something, not that everybody does the exact same thing (which would be bland and boring).

[Raineh Daze]

Why is "don't use tiers" registering as "stay at low level"? You're puttin words in my mouth then beig sarcastic about their efficacy.

Qualitative difference. There should be more to skillful than +X.

Then I can't help you. "Reduce DC as you level" is as easy as it gets.

I think all this proves is that I cannot understand most things you say for some reason. No clue why. Don't seem to have this problem with other people. I... am really confused. :smallconfused:


You're making assumptions and declaring them rules. Why does everyone else have to go first? Do we have "20 always succeeds, even on skills" now?'

If there is a static task that you only need one person to do, and everyone has a chance to do it, is there any actual reason why you wouldn't give everyone a chance before trying something else? It's basic probability: more times you roll, the higher the chance you're going to get at least one success.


Level 4->5; fighter damage output increases drastically. Every odd level; caster output and function increases drastically. PrC or Paragon Path; increase drastically in function. I'm not seeing this lack of huge jump.

"Tiers write vast jumps in plot scale into the ruleset" and "messy" are both baseless assumptions. "You can jump farther" is not a problem. You're worried about shadows.

The bit about these capabilities that I don't like? Too much fluff. I hate that part of tiers. Yes, things might be functionally equivalent to superheroes and high-powered demigods at level 15+, but that doesn't mean that the crunch has to beat people over the head with this idea. A few paragraphs pointing out that D&D scales towards the humanly impossible far faster than it might look like should be enough. You don't need to hardcode it into the rules and reinforce it even further by adding new powers just because.

... not really a fan of epic levels in 3E, either.

[Seerow]

The bit about these capabilities that I don't like? Too much fluff. I hate that part of tiers. Yes, things might be functionally equivalent to superheroes and high-powered demigods at level 15+, but that doesn't mean that the crunch has to beat people over the head with this idea. A few paragraphs pointing out that D&D scales towards the humanly impossible far faster than it might look like should be enough. You don't need to hardcode it into the rules and reinforce it even further by adding new powers just because.

... not really a fan of epic levels in 3E, either.

The epic tier is more like level 13+ in 3E. 3E epic was an aberration of horrible design that is better to just pretend like it never happened.

As for the rest, making characters as powerful as gods and then failing to mention the power levels anywhere doesn't make them not gods. All it does is trick some DMs into believing they can run the same adventures at level 20 as they did at level 1, which is a disservice to the game. The characters get much better. Tiers exist to acknowledge that and let players and DMs alike know what they're getting into at those levels, rather than suddenly waking up one day when caught by surprise at one player completely invalidating weeks worth of planning with a single ability. Making it clear what each level range represents means that people who don't like that level range can stick with the power level they are more comfortable with, rather than pushing forward into something that will make them unhappy in the long run.

[Scow2]

I think its the wrong solution to the wrong problem. Why do people think that characters not being able to contribute in things they have no expertise is bad? The answer is facilitation the tangential participation of characters with things they CAN actually do, not flattening the playingfield to keep everyone 'in the game' in every single skill. If everyone 'shines' no one does. This is one of the things that frustrated me so much when dealing with the 4e skill system.

Do you really think being able to succeed on a DC 15 where a trained guy can succeed on a DC 5 means you both "Shine"?! The d20 has a range of 20 points. If you want more than a 20 point disparity in skills, you need to change your resolution mechanic so that it increases the range, instead of increasing the bar. It's something I like about D&D Next: as you increase your skills, you increase your range of ability, not just the bar.

The big problem I'm seeing with D&D Next is the poor feat progression and lack of said feats. Most higher functionality in skills is handled by feats, not improved skill ranks - Want to be a better Jumper? Take the Mighty Leaper feat. D&D 4e had a better feat progression: 1 at 1, 11, and 21, and the rest at every even number. 4e's feats were also better designed, giving a nice blend of flavor abilities, combat advantages, and new utilities, with enough slots to not sweat grabbing one you like, not enough to trivialize feat choices, and tier-locking to ensure the feats were balanced with each other.

After playing several CRPGs, I don't really see a need for all skills to increase with level. The wizard can cast Levitate to get over a wall? The barbarian can drink a potion and do the same damn thing. And Levitate is useless against a tapered surface - the Barbarian or Rogue can expertly scale the wall, while the levetating wizard's crying out of arm's reach from the edge: "Help! I can't reach the edge to get over the wall!"

For any non-rogue, the skills are a very trivial part of the character - Attribute+d6 should be more than enough, or you can grab a feat to excel at jumping/climbing. (That said, I think Deadly Blow should give extra Break an Object skill dice, or something like that. But mostly because I really like fighter-types breaking stuff, particularly in the Quest for Glory Games)

Personally, the bigger problem of normal/magician balance is how melee characters get pidgeon-holed into Ranged or Melee, with Melee usually being trivial. Barbarians should get their rage bonus and Reckless Strike to every attack, not just Melee Attacks, and I've already said Fighters shouldn't have to choose their Expertise Dice abilities at level-up. Let them remain Multiweapon Masters. Paladin evil-smiting should likewise be/remain neutral on whether you're shooting or stabbing someone. And, attack bonus should apply to saves.

That way, it makes it clear that "Mages can do Lots of Cool Stuff. Honey Badger Fighters and Barbarians don't care", offering a more than significant chance of countering/resisting the a spellcaster's Cool Stuffs, particularly if augmented with the right tools

[Raineh Daze]

As for the rest, making characters as powerful as gods and then failing to mention the power levels anywhere doesn't make them not gods. All it does is trick some DMs into believing they can run the same adventures at level 20 as they did at level 1, which is a disservice to the game. The characters get much better. Tiers exist to acknowledge that and let players and DMs alike know what they're getting into at those levels, rather than suddenly waking up one day when caught by surprise at one player completely invalidating weeks worth of planning with a single ability. Making it clear what each level range represents means that people who don't like that level range can stick with the power level they are more comfortable with, rather than pushing forward into something that will make them unhappy in the long run.

I have nothing against making it clear. I have nothing against spelling out what sort of things are normally appropriate. I have something against adding in extra abilities on top of these tiers and fluffing it all based on the assumption that the scope of PC and plot activity has increased.

The tiers are already there, you don't need to reinforce them. :smallsigh:


And, attack bonus should apply to saves.

That way, it makes it clear that "Mages can do Lots of Cool Stuff. Honey Badger Fighters and Barbarians don't care", offering a more than significant chance of countering/resisting the a spellcaster's Cool Stuffs, particularly if augmented with the right tools

Too far to the other extreme. Straight-up adding the attack bonus to saves makes anything offering a save, ever, nigh-on worthless at high levels once you stack in every other source of bonuses.

[Scow2]

Too far to the other extreme. Straight-up adding the attack bonus to saves makes anything offering a save, ever, nigh-on worthless at high levels once you stack in every other source of bonuses.
What other sources of bonuses? Right now, all I've seen are Spell saves being Good Attribute+Fast-scaling bonus, while defenders are +Poor Attribute (With Fast- or Medium-scaling bonus applied to attack). It keeps equal-level characters at ~50%, unless a character uses a limited-use resource to boost their save temporarily, such as a Barbarian's Rage or Fighter's Expertise Dice.

[Raineh Daze]

What other sources of bonuses? Right now, all I've seen are Spell saves being Good Attribute+Fast-scaling bonus, while defenders are +Poor Attribute (With Fast- or Medium-scaling bonus applied to attack). It keeps equal-level characters at ~50%, unless a character uses a limited-use resource to boost their save temporarily, such as a Barbarian's Rage or Fighter's Expertise Dice.

What's the chance they won't add on some way of getting bonuses by the time they release the final thing?

[Person_Man]

I think that a lot of our debates would be cleared up if there was a stronger distinction between mundane actions and extraordinary actions.

Skills, Proficiencies, Traits, Backgrounds, etc, should all fall within the realm of mundane actions. If I'm a hero in a story, I should have some reasonable chance of doing any mundane action which a heroic humanoid could do. I don't need to be bogged down with a difficult subsystem for resolve such things, or prevented from doing them (or doomed to failure) because I did not invest in the proper bit of crunch. This is particularly important for new players, who may not fully understand their choices during character creation. They should just be able to announce, "I look for traps" or "I jump over the ravine" and have some reasonable chance of doing it.

Extraordinary actions are actions beyond the mundane. Magic, psionics, stunts, super powers, specialized attacks and maneuvers, Feats, etc. Stuff that goes above and beyond the mundane. Each of these actions can have it's own subsystem, and can be as simple or complicated as you want, because a player only needs to learn the small number of Extraordinary things that their character can do. (And not the huge range of different Skills/etc that they might want to do).

[Scow2]

What's the chance they won't add on some way of getting bonuses by the time they release the final thing?
About the same as them not adding some way of getting bonuses to increase the DCs of spells by a comparable amount.
Magic Item and Feat-based Arms race, go!

[Raineh Daze]

About the same as them not adding some way of getting bonuses to increase the DCs of spells by a comparable amount.
Magic Item and Feat-based Arms race, go!

And the poor ol' monsters get left by the wayside. Except dragons and their casting abilities. :smalltongue:

[SiuiS]

The point is that if every character should be able to contribute to a challenge, you shouldn't define a challenge as "climbing a wall" and then conclude that every character therefore needs decent skill checks on climbing. Rather, define a challenge as "enter the orc fortress", and note that some classes do that by climbing the wall, and other classes do it differently (e.g. with bluff or stealth checks, or dimension door, or whatever).

The goal is that every character can do something, not that everybody does the exact same thing (which would be bland and boring).

Yes. I am perfectly on board with more effective application of DM-side rules too. I'm using shorthand for now, but I'm all over better understanding of what skills are used for.


I think all this proves is that I cannot understand most things you say for some reason. No clue why. Don't seem to have this problem with other people. I... am really confused. :smallconfused:


I do that to some people. It doesn't help I'm being brusque to avoid getting catty.

It really sounds like you just don't like the word "tier", honestly. The idea may work for you under a different name.

[Scow2]

And the poor ol' monsters get left by the wayside. Except dragons and their casting abilities. :smalltongue:
Well, monsters play by their own DC, AC, and Attack Bonus rules anyway. "Make a DC 15 Constitution Save" at level 3.

[Raineh Daze]

It really sounds like you just don't like the word "tier", honestly. The idea may work for you under a different name.

Not really. The idea of adding extra abilities in at predetermined levels because the game already has a power level shift at that point just seems silly to me. :|

[Scow2]

Not really. The idea of adding extra abilities in at predetermined levels because the game already has a power level shift at that point just seems silly to me. :|

Except not every class gains advantages from that power level shift (*cough*Non-casters*cough*)

[Raineh Daze]

Except not every class gains advantages from that power level shift (*cough*Non-casters*cough*)

I think the solution there is to work on giving them nice things from the start, not consolation prizes the casters also get. :smalltongue:

As for getting across that there is a power-level shift... well, there's a reason the DMG exists.

[SiuiS]

Not really. The idea of adding extra abilities in at predetermined levels because the game already has a power level shift at that point just seems silly to me. :|

Quote where anything I have said about this tier system in any way adds extra abilities.

[Raineh Daze]

Quote where anything I have said about this tier system in any way adds extra abilities.

It happened last time WotC did tiers. And the time before that (if you count Epic levels, though that's more 'extra abilities are now available'... including 'break the game even more'). So, it's not so much that you've said it, as it's exactly what will happen if they put tiers in. :smallsigh:

[Scow2]

I think the solution there is to work on giving them nice things from the start, not consolation prizes the casters also get. :smalltongue:

As for getting across that there is a power-level shift... well, there's a reason the DMG exists.There isn't a power-shift for non-casters. Giving Mundane characters extra oomph for their utility abilities such as skill usages allows them to not be trivialized by spells - Now the rogue can pick locks that not even Knock can open (Unless cast from, say, a 5th or 6th-level spell slot), and detect traps that defy many divinations, and a low-level rogue would have no hope against. And so on.

As long as we don't end up with the stupidity that I've seen earnestly argued that "When a Wizard can teleport, a Fighter should be able to pull off an amazing jump that lets them cover the same distance!"

[Raineh Daze]

There isn't a power-shift for non-casters. Giving Mundane characters extra oomph for their utility abilities such as skill usages allows them to not be trivialized by spells - Now the rogue can pick locks that not even Knock can open (Unless cast from, say, a 5th or 6th-level spell slot), and detect traps that defy many divinations, and a low-level rogue would have no hope against. And so on.

As long as we don't end up with the stupidity that I've seen earnestly argued that "When a Wizard can teleport, a Fighter should be able to pull off an amazing jump that lets them cover the same distance!"

D&D is most definitely not Wuxia, so I can understand the logic. Now, giving melee characters no means of effective long distance travel, not even just running really fast? That's just cruel.

... also one of the more stupid things in 3.5. A 20th level character still can't run for more than an hour? Really?