sayaijin
2020-07-06, 12:11 PM
Not to add to the noise too much, but with all the talk recently of things we'd like to see in future editions as well as ways to make skills matter more, I got to thinking about a way to improve skill usage and bring more realism to being an expert at something.
I'd like to see more characters with expertise, and I'd like to see expertise change the way we handle ability checks altogether.
Something like this:
Whenever you make an ability check that lets you add double your proficiency bonus, you can treat a d20 roll lower than your character level as equal to your character level.
So this is scaling the rogue's reliable talent ability with character level for everybody, but only on double proficiency skills. We can discuss what sorts of changes would need to happen to buff the rogue to compensate, but that's not the purpose of this discussion.
What if we put expertise with one skill in backgrounds, so that your character has become an expert at something. This revision would also mean that critical fails would be impossible on a skill you are an expert at, which I think is closer to verisimilitude than what we currently have.
I'd like to see more characters with expertise, and I'd like to see expertise change the way we handle ability checks altogether.
Something like this:
Whenever you make an ability check that lets you add double your proficiency bonus, you can treat a d20 roll lower than your character level as equal to your character level.
So this is scaling the rogue's reliable talent ability with character level for everybody, but only on double proficiency skills. We can discuss what sorts of changes would need to happen to buff the rogue to compensate, but that's not the purpose of this discussion.
What if we put expertise with one skill in backgrounds, so that your character has become an expert at something. This revision would also mean that critical fails would be impossible on a skill you are an expert at, which I think is closer to verisimilitude than what we currently have.