mer.c
2017-11-24, 02:48 PM
One thing I really like about 3.x is how high-impact it is to invest heavily in a skill. While I love that 5e's system is a lot simpler, too much of the impact of skill proficiency gets lost in the d20 for my tastes. This is especially true at low levels, with the low proficiency bonus. (Don't worry; I realize that a +2 bonus is a bigger deal than you'd think because it can do things like halve your chance of failure at a lower-difficulty task, or make a very difficult task possible.)
Over my years of DMing 5e, I've tossed some ideas around in my head aimed at making proficiency have more "oomph." Giving double the bonus for proficiency (and 3x proficiency bonus for expertise), and adjusting the DC of checks up to compensate. Free take 10s on proficient skills while not under pressure. Disadvantage on non-proficient skill checks. But I haven't been happy with any of these.
I just though of another now, and I thought I'd see what people think. Players get a mini-Lucky for each skill they're proficient in. So, for each skill they have proficiency with, they can make one check with advantage per long rest. (This is of course in addition to adding their proficiency bonus to their checks.)
What I like about this is that it feels high-impact, without (I think) breaking things. I think seeing the mini-lucky marks next to their skills could also encourage players to look for opportunities to use proficient skills that may come up less often. And it should scale just fine.
Of course, there are a few problems here too. First is what do you do with the regular Lucky feat? Leaving it as-is is probably fine, but it could be overloaded for instances where skill checks are a big deal. The bigger issue is probably the overlap with the Help action. Personally, my play group pretty much hates the Help action and almost never uses it, and I actually devised a new functionality for it that doesn't give advantage. So for my group, it's not a big deal, but if your players are constantly taking the Help action, it's heavy feature overlap. Then again, there are times where Help isn't an option, so this would still be useful in those instances.
What do you think? Fun? Dumb? OP? Useless? Redundant? I'm all ears! :smallsmile:
Over my years of DMing 5e, I've tossed some ideas around in my head aimed at making proficiency have more "oomph." Giving double the bonus for proficiency (and 3x proficiency bonus for expertise), and adjusting the DC of checks up to compensate. Free take 10s on proficient skills while not under pressure. Disadvantage on non-proficient skill checks. But I haven't been happy with any of these.
I just though of another now, and I thought I'd see what people think. Players get a mini-Lucky for each skill they're proficient in. So, for each skill they have proficiency with, they can make one check with advantage per long rest. (This is of course in addition to adding their proficiency bonus to their checks.)
What I like about this is that it feels high-impact, without (I think) breaking things. I think seeing the mini-lucky marks next to their skills could also encourage players to look for opportunities to use proficient skills that may come up less often. And it should scale just fine.
Of course, there are a few problems here too. First is what do you do with the regular Lucky feat? Leaving it as-is is probably fine, but it could be overloaded for instances where skill checks are a big deal. The bigger issue is probably the overlap with the Help action. Personally, my play group pretty much hates the Help action and almost never uses it, and I actually devised a new functionality for it that doesn't give advantage. So for my group, it's not a big deal, but if your players are constantly taking the Help action, it's heavy feature overlap. Then again, there are times where Help isn't an option, so this would still be useful in those instances.
What do you think? Fun? Dumb? OP? Useless? Redundant? I'm all ears! :smallsmile: