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Zhorn
2020-07-09, 12:51 AM
To start with, as a system I like the 5e chassis. It's the system that really got me into D&D.
My introduction was under 3rd or 3.5 (I was too green to know at the time) but I didn't play enough to really get any serious experience with that system (external factors, nothing to do with the system itself).

Now while playing 5e (and enjoying it) I read a lot of folks talking about mechanical limitations with the system, imbalances, over-simplifications and problems arising from compressing components under single umbrella scores.

Then when going back to read 3.5 and Pathfinder rules, I'm reading about all these alternate skill sets, advancement systems, different takes on saves or applying modifiers, and I'm feeling a tingle of inspiration... But I still don't have the firsthand experience with the system to know enough about what does or doesn't work in play

So here I am, looking to gather information for a workshop idea to fiddle about in my spare/idle time.
I don't know if this will eventually morph into a full system on its own, or just be something to wear over the 5e chassis for my own games and just stay in my houserule folder as an experiment.
I expect a lot of this will just spiralling out of control into a complex mess, but at this stage it's just as a thought experiment to play around with.

Things I want to do:
Break up the dominant ability scores. Dexterity being the king of martial stats and Charisma being the king of caster stats, and maybe shuffle about some other aspects while at it.
(Re)Introduce the wider skill selection from other editions
Peel back proficiency bonus from non-combat. Maybe even remove outright, still unsure. Bounded accuracy has a place in to-hit rolls and saving throws, but I'm not too sure outside of that.

As for advice I'm looking for: not whole systems, just things you like/want or existing problem you see fixes for.
Complexity level I'm aiming to keep things close to what 5e has (die roll + main attribute + 3rd number), mostly just spread things out a little.
Some sacred cows may be slaughtered, identities and stat pairing would be turn on their head

Thinking so far (all is work in progress and incomplete ideas):

Attributes:
Add 2 attributes to the list and redefine the purposes a little of the ones that exist.
Dexterity is now just hand-eye coordination and legerdemain. Agility (AGI) takes over as the acrobatics/dodge stat.
For mental stats, Willpower (WIL) takes over as the mental fortitude stat, governing concentration, sanity, self-control/disciple, also becomes the warlock stat instead of CHA (possibly one other CHA caster).

Modifying saving throws with the addition of AGI and WIL (using DMG p238 as the base):



Attribute
Used for …


Strength (STR)
Opposing a force that would physically move or bind you


Dexterity (DEX)
Reflexes for catching, deflecting, parrying


Agility (AGI)
Dodging out of harm's way


Constitution (CON)
Enduring a disease, poison, or other hazard that saps vitality


Intelligence (INT)
Disbelieving illusions and resisting mental assaults that can be refuted with logic, sharp memory, or both


Wisdom (WIS)
Resisting effects that frighten or evoke an altered instinctual reaction


Charisma (CHA)
Withstanding effects that would alter your personality or memories


Willpower (WIL)
Withstanding effects such as possession or similar that would supplant control over your being



Not sure if "effects that would hurl you to another plane of existence" should be kept on CHA or moved to another stat

A bit of a double up here for clarification, but for mental stats I'm trying to go with:
INT is mostly unaltered
WIS is shifted to holding control over primal reactions, failure is removing higher level thinking, such as fleeing in terror or attacking in a berserker frenzy.
CHA is the force of your real personality, failing saves is being convinced enemies are friends and allies are hostiles.
WIL is as the name suggests, with failures being played like an unwilling puppet.


Next up, skills.
I like the larger skill list presented in 3.5 and the like, and skill points purchasing ranks during level ups.
So the question would be what to port in, what to break apart out of the existing skills, and how to divide up the skills throughout the attributes to not have any one attribute weighted too heavily compared to the others.
Maybe rename them from being skills into just ranks as some are less of active skills and just secondary attributes? Still thinking it over.
Maybe even roll saving throws into this part? This comes from the idea of taking blanket proficiency bonuses out

Strength
First up is the idea to break up Athletics into base components so it can allow builds to have specialisations without blanket boosting everything together.
- Run
- Jump
- Climb
- Swim
Then would Grapple have its own ranks? Or a Stability type stat for holding ground as a saving throw representation?

Dexterity
Sleight of Hand as a blanket skill would split up
- Legerdemain
- Pick Locks
- Disarm Traps
- Use Rope
If there was a saving throw stat here; maybe Reflex?

Agility
Makes sense Acrobatics would shift, but possibly break it up?
- Balance
- Tumble
Saving throw stat: Dodge?
Stealth would be more an Agility stat than a Dexterity on, but as base components, I'm unsure
- Hiding
- Move Silently

Constitution
A big part of Constitution is it dominates a few different areas as a single number, but there are a few aspects that could be broken out of it, hitpoints, endurance, vitality, resistance to poisons, and resistance to diseases. Could use some help breaking these up.

Intelligence
This one I'm having a little trouble on. Defining distinct categories of knowledge vs knowledge groups, purposes and specialisations… I can see this spiralling out of control very fast if things are not left in all-encompassing groups.
Arcana for starters could be in
- Decipher Script
- Spell Craft
History could have specific groups based on cultures/languages
Investigation
Nature
Religion… how many different areas this could split depends on how many divisions of religious knowledge pools you want

Wisdom
Animal Handling
Insight could have to distinct avenues
- Sense Motive
- Sense Lie
Medicine I can see three divisions
- Treat Wounds
- Treat Poisons
- Treat Disease
Perception already has a division based on the keen sense features
- Sight
- Hearing
- Smell
Survival is something I'd really want split up
- Dungeoneering
- Streetwise
- Wilderness

Charisma
Mostly unchanged
Deception
Intimidation
Performance
Persuasion
Maybe an Ego stat for saving throws?

Willpower
The big new mover and shaker.
- Concentration
- Sanity
Not too sure about an additional name to have as a saving throw inside Willpower when its name is already the ideal for the type. Maybe Dominance? Self-Control? Resolve? Determination?

gijoemike
2020-07-09, 11:09 AM
Removing bounded limits from just skills would be a bit trickier than I think you expect. Stats are bounded, magic assistance is bounded/limited. Skill DCs still have to be pseudo bounded in order of the PC's to still make them. The cap raises but not by much


By removing expertise at the early level all DC's would need to be lowed otherwise failure is rampant. But at the same time high level play would need higher DCs on all checks to still be a challenge ( but still pseudo bounded by Stats/magic). Thus requiring PC's to still ultra specialize. How many times in 3.5 did the fighter get to roll open lock with his 3 pts compared to the ranger or rogue?

If PCs ultra specialize you wind up with the same PC being good at the 5 skills which would have been the same 3 skills in the current system.

My suggestion is separate the skills away from the ability. I am skilled at blah skill should actually mean something as compared to I am wise therefore I am better than the skilled person.

Take your breakup of Athletics as an example
Strength
First up is the idea to break up Athletics into base components so it can allow builds to have specialisations without blanket boosting everything together.
- Run
- Jump
- Climb
- Swim
Then would Grapple have its own ranks? Or a Stability type stat for holding ground as a saving throw representation?

Don't tie it to strength only. Tie it to all the physical states
Run + Dex > running across very uneven terrain, running through a crowd
Run + Con > sprinting for 3+ rounds, distance running
Run + Str > running faster and catching someone quickly

Make it so someone good at running is actually good at running instead of a super strong person is better at running.


Either way you slice this, it is a major overhaul of the base system and expectations therein.

Zhorn
2020-07-09, 08:09 PM
Either way you slice this, it is a major overhaul of the base system and expectations therein.Yes... that would be the point.
Don't get me wrong, I love playing 5e. This whole thing isn't going to become my default taking over my rule set. Just having this as a background number-fiddle.


Removing bounded limits from just skills would be a bit trickier than I think you expect.I do expect. I expect a great many more things would be changed beyond what was already listed. This isn't some small modular houserule to plug and unplug, and once I have a good idea of the extent it is going I will have to go over all classes, monsters, and spells. If I take something out or change a core interaction and something falls over elsewhere, then that just tells me to look at how to change that other thing too.
Expertise for example. I'm trying to take Proficiency Bonus out of skills, said nothing about expertise yet, but that is now on the list. It will still be there, but the math will change. To what? don't know yet, still have to set up the bones before I can start layering on the meat.


Skill DCs still have to be pseudo bounded in order of the PC's to still make them.Only having challenges that the PCs are intended to find winnable is a sacred cow that is already slaughtered under many DMs in many systems already. PCs coming across challenges being too great for the party doesn't concern me. Sometimes you have to run away from the dragon, some times you have to skip the locked door and find an alternative way.


My suggestion is separate the skills away from the ability. I am skilled at blah skill should actually mean something as compared to I am wise therefore I am better than the skilled person.
It will. Still juggling the idea about as far as advancement rate, method, and caps, but the ranks a PC puts into a skill would be intended to be more important that the stat it is tied to in the long run.

Run, heh. Lets use that as an example. I was thinking of using that as a flat out movement modifier, not a check. So a PC with 20 STR would get from that +5 ft of movement ontop of their base race (usually 30). Classes that are known to be a little speedy would get an opportunity each level to invest in a rank. So a Barbarian over their career could have a Run modifier anywhere from (ignoring the STR mod) +0 to +20 depending on how they invest. A monk on the other hand, maybe their class feature is rejigged so they are getting a free rank every level that they could still invest ontop of, so even while not being a STR class, their Run modifier is in a +20 to +40 range.

Again though, this is getting ahead of ourselves. Bones first, then meat.

The bones I'm looking for are what divisions of stats/abilities/skills/ranks is useful/fun/desirable.

Anonymouswizard
2020-07-10, 09:24 AM
Beware the needless subdivision. Especially with Skills, eight Attributes isn't a major problem and I originally made a lot of game designs around it, although the only game that's come anywhere near to reaching completion is based on four Attributes.

I will note that I've seen similar spreads time and time again and all I'll say is that the main problem is keeping everything balanced, especially Agility and Dexterity. generally one or the other tends to get the short end of the stick, mainly because depending on skill divisions one tends to get the lion's share of useful skills.

Which goes into subdivision of skills a bit. I have a problem with 5e, in that it feels somewhat difficult to make a skill monkey because of the relatively small number of skill picks. This might be an issue with me and having played a lot of games where everybody has points in at least 12 skills, with skill monkeys having 18-30, and it's better than it was in 3.5, but it's still an issue for me.

Anyway, 3.5 had an issue we'll call the Stupid Unskilled Fighter problem. Basically normal Fighters cared about two stats a lot, Strength and Constitution, and two other stats that they'd rather like to see boosted, Dexterity and Wisdom, leaving their Intelligence (and Charisma) to fall behind. For the Fighter's intended role, a meat shield who could throw out reliable round-by-round damage, this wasn't a problem, but as soon as combat ended the Fighter began to run into issues. Because it wasn't a magician it didn't have access to magic-based ways to solve noncombat problems, and because it's job was fightin' it didn't have any class features that would let it solve problems. But that's okay, because we have a new skill system that let's nonmagical characters contribute! The Fighter can be really good at physical challenges! Right?

Well the Fighter got 2+int modifier skill points a level. If you rolled you might have had an 11 or 12 left over you could stick in INT, but it likely got one of your lowest two rolls, and was left at 8 for point buy. This meant that the Fighter got two, or often only one, skill points per level, and as published skill DCs tended to increase by 1 point per recommended level this meant that while the Fighter began off quite good at athletic activities, by mid levels they had to decide if they wanted to be able to run or jump or climb or know heraldic lore, but not all of them at once.

Now this was less of a problem in homebrew adventures, where the level appropriate lock was less likely to appear, but it still remains that a pretty standard fighter build gets to raise one skill to the maximum, or two to half maximum, whereas a standard wizard build gets five or six and a standard rogue build ten out of a set of thirty six skills (closer to thirty in Pathfinder). Which isn't really reasonable, one class gets decent combat abilities and is able to assign points to nearly a third of the skill list, one gets magic spells and a sixth, and a third is good in combat (but not massively better than any other class) and gets about an eighteenth.

That's not bringing in the idea of 'running is never used, Spot is used a lot, both cost as much to invest in, so only those with a lot of skill points would even consider investing in Running'.

Zhorn
2020-07-10, 10:12 AM
-snip-
So main takeaways from this:
Don't tie point availability to a stat's modifier
Have enough points to allow for diversified builds
Make skills spread enough between attributes

Composer99
2020-07-10, 10:49 AM
One thing to think about is what levels of specialisation are actually needed in a game of fantastic adventuring.

Do you really need to break out Athletics? Is it actually meaningful or impactful in typical gameplay that someone could be a world-class sprinter at the expense of their general athleticism? Does that kind of tradeoff make sense for someone who wants to navigate a variety of challenges while dungeon crawling, navigating a subterranean environment, and the like? Is it really realistic to have that kind of tradeoff in the first place? Could your goal be met by some sort of "skill trick" that makes you a better runner/swimmer/climber available to people trained in Athletics that players can choose to acquire or not?

If, after some consideration, you decide the answers are yes, yes, yes, yes, and no, then by all means carry on.

It's worth going through a similar process for any 5e skill you want to break out.

Zhorn
2020-07-10, 11:27 AM
I don't really follow this strong negative reaction to just wanting to gather opinions on what people like or want to see fixes for?
I'm using 5e's chassis as a starting point purely because it's what I know and so I'm not starting from zero, but in practice I'm looking at any system that has something interesting to draw from.
This isn't in the 5e forum because under the surface it's not FOR 5e, that's just the starting block.
This isn't in homebrew because I'm not presenting a system to test/review. This is just for gathering information.

As for breaking up athletics, that just seems like the logical way to break up a nebulous skill group.
A race has a swim speed? what if they were to make that faster? change it from a movement score to a stat.
If they were to get faster at swimming, why should that mean they are now a faster runner, better jumper, or more able climber? What about the reverse? Does jumping translate into swim speed?
All of those I'm looking at as movement speeds (of distance modifiers for jumps), not check scores. But as stated earlier, that's getting ahead of what I'm looking at.
Take it to another skill: medicine. knowing how to manage poisons does not equate to knowing how to suture a wound, and splinting a bond isn't the same as curing a disease.
I'm just wanting to gather information on what things would make for good definable stats, be it skills, ranks, or whatever else. Build a list first, then work out how to fit them into a mechanical framework. As said earlier, it could very well morph into being a whole unique system and cease any similarity to 5e.

Silly Name
2020-07-10, 03:18 PM
Re: the breaking up of skills

It really depends on how much granularity you want this system to have. "Skill consolidation" was a thing in PF and 5e as a way to address the bloated skill list of 3.5, because such a large list ended up being quite ridiculous (and penalised characters with few skill points even further). It's why, for example, Move Silently and Hide were joined together into a more all-encompassing Stealth skill, and same goes for Spot and Listen into perception: the system didn't really need those distinctions nine times out of ten, and they instead worked towards spreading skill points thin rather than truly helping shape specific characters - because "good at moving without making sound, but awful at not being seen" is an extremely unlikely character concept an actual person would come up with.

Now, I actually like the d20 System's skill system, but I would too err on the side of caution and ask myself "how likely it is that the game will reward players that invest in this specific thing? Would it be better if I grouped a few skills up, to make it more relevant?"

It's true that knowledge on how to treat poison doesn't equate with knowledge on how to suture wounds, but most characters that would want to pick the "Medic" role are reasonably expect to become skilled in both situations, so a generic Heal/Medicine skill makes sense for them, especially in a game where on their own those two things would be too small niches, but when together they are more relevant.

I overall like what you're proposing, and the idea of making skill ranks in climb/swim/jump into flat bonuses to those special modes of movement is interesting. I think it can work, but then you have to create situations where this difference is meaningful, stuff that justify the extra investment if I want to build a genetically athletic guy.

Anonymouswizard
2020-07-10, 05:40 PM
I don't really follow this strong negative reaction to just wanting to gather opinions on what people like or want to see fixes for?

What strong negative reaction? The most I see is unease at splitting skills, and that's for a simple reason:

D&D is not GURPS (yes, I will explain this).


As for breaking up athletics, that just seems like the logical way to break up a nebulous skill group.
A race has a swim speed? what if they were to make that faster? change it from a movement score to a stat.
If they were to get faster at swimming, why should that mean they are now a faster runner, better jumper, or more able climber? What about the reverse? Does jumping translate into swim speed?
All of those I'm looking at as movement speeds (of distance modifiers for jumps), not check scores. But as stated earlier, that's getting ahead of what I'm looking at.
Take it to another skill: medicine. knowing how to manage poisons does not equate to knowing how to suture a wound, and splinting a bond isn't the same as curing a disease.
I'm just wanting to gather information on what things would make for good definable stats, be it skills, ranks, or whatever else. Build a list first, then work out how to fit them into a mechanical framework. As said earlier, it could very well morph into being a whole unique system and cease any similarity to 5e.

Because each of those skills is unlikely to see much use. Why should I put points into Swim when a) water features rarely appear and b) never go in the water there is always a monster in the water. Especially when I could spend my points on something more worthwhile, like Spot (which is rolled in almost every room in some games) or Craft (Underwater Forging).

Now there are ways around this. GURPS has a running skill, but GURPS also has an incredibly subdivided skill list, skill defaults, and four different levels of skills, with Running as the second most expensive (average, costing twice as much as Easy and a quarter of Very Hard for the same rank). In GURPS you can be skilled in both First Aid and Physician, with the former costing less and only covering emergency aid and the latter costing more and covering 'actual doctoring', but First Aid defaults to Physician at no penalty. GURPS also has a lot of flavour baked into it's skill system, skills are costed based more on how hard they are to learn than usefulness, some skills are redundant and a lot overlap (leading to a lot of defaults, many skills have three or more), and there's a ton of skills that don't add a lot to games but are highly useful in others or give flavour to a character for only a couple of CP (hello Erotic Art, Sex Appeal*, Carousing, and Farming).

But you see that level of detail everywhere in GURPS, most of it incredibly well researched. This isn't a game where you can just buy a laser rifle, this is one where you get the choice between dazzle lasers, blinding lasers, high energy laser in various colours (the standard red, long ranged slower to fire blue-green, longer ranged less damaging UV, and polychromatic rainbow lasers), x-ray lasers, gamma ray lasers, and laser pulsars, all with slightly varying rules (and let's not get started on the fact you can also get electrolasers, particle beams, and antiparticle beams). It's a very different design, where if you pick up all the basic skills you'll feel halfway competent, making those purchases of minor skills for a CP or two feel legitimate compare to the eight points you might have sunk into Energy Weapons or Civil Engineering.

* Dwarves tend to be the sexiest fantasy race (before Appearance modifiers).

jjordan
2020-07-10, 06:31 PM
My experiences are my experiences and nothing more.

My experience when I tried to break out the skills was that I quickly found I had to make *everything* skill-based. Specialty skills, combat skills, magic. And when I made magic skill-based I had to introduce skill checks for casting magic and that opened up another six-pack of worms. I was looking for a way to supplement D&D but this took me so far away from it that I was in new system territory.

I'll be watching to see how this works for you and hope you'll continue sharing.

Have you looked at the Skill Tree system that one of the posters here shared? It was very interesting and might be closer to what you have in mind. It was definitely an expansion of the skill sets that could be applied to D&D rather than the burn the house down path I was walking.

Zhorn
2020-07-10, 09:29 PM
What strong negative reaction? The most I see is unease at splitting skills
How I'm seeing it from my perspective:
Question: "What are elements you'd like as skills/ranks in a game"
Response: "Designing game systems is bad. Stick to just playing existing thing unchanged."

It's a negative response with very little useful information and comes across as a deterrent from even starting a design process.

What I was hoping for what simple
"Here's a list of things I'd like. Here's a list of things I wish were done differently. These are things which are in another game I like "


Have you looked at the Skill Tree system that one of the posters here shared? It was very interesting and might be closer to what you have in mind. It was definitely an expansion of the skill sets that could be applied to D&D rather than the burn the house down path I was walking.
Link? I'll give it a read when I have the time.

Anonymouswizard
2020-07-11, 09:09 AM
How I'm seeing it from my perspective:
Question: "What are elements you'd like as skills/ranks in a game"
Response: "Designing game systems is bad. Stick to just playing existing thing unchanged."

It's a negative response with very little useful information and comes across as a deterrent from even starting a design process.

What I was hoping for what simple
"Here's a list of things I'd like. Here's a list of things I wish were done differently. These are things which are in another game I like "

First off, nobody ever said that designing gamer systems is bad. I'm currently building my own from the ground up, but I'm not bringing it up because a) it's in alpha (about 70% of the rules are written, and that changes as things get added or removed, it was 80% at the beginning of the week) and b) I went through a period of writing a post about it every day (although only actually submitted a percentage of them).

The second major thing is that you're essentially recreating 'the 3.5 skill list, but more', and there were several reasons that skill system was disliked (some classes essentially locked out of it, trap choices, near universally required choices, some skills being split up enough to make them trap choices, even Class Skills weren't universally liked*).

Okay, you want that I like in a skill system:

I like the ability to differentiate between novice, journeyman, expert, and best in the galaxy. I like a long list of redundant skills and solid defaulting rules in case I don't have a particular skill but have a related one. Unless I decide that skills aren't the defining feature of characters in this system, in which case I'd still rather buy individual ranks but prefer a smaller list of more general skills. I like skills to branch and specialise. I want skills suitable to the genre, for more important ones to be split and for less important ones to be combined. I like the list to work for the game, what works in D&D doesn't work in GURPS. And I like the system to be built around these assumptions so we don't get a fhilarious mash together.

For 5e, I'd honestly rather see skills or attributes ripped out entirely. The former would be easier, the latter would likely give a better system.

* I hate them, although the Pathfinder/Starfinder version is better.

JellyPooga
2020-07-11, 12:19 PM
Some immediate thoughts to, uh, think about...

1) Adding in Ability Scores seems kind of redundant when two of them appear basiclaly to be Physical and Mental Endurance (Constitution and Willpower Respectively). Could you not make these a function of Class or Hit Points or something else, given that you're already having difficulty attributing Skills to them; they don't fit the same theme as your other Ability Scores; namely, Str, Dex, Agi, Int, Wis and Cha are all now "Active" scores, so to speak; they govern things the player is actively doing; running, jumping, talking, picking locks, casting spells, etc. while Con and Will are "Passive" scores that are rolled when the player is acted upon; resisting poison or mental domination, etc.

Hit points and a Class based Save system (like AD&D) that is independent of Ability Scores makes more sense to me than adding in additional Ability Scores.

2) Agility. Adding agility in as opposed to manual Dexterity amkes a lot of sense to me as the third Physical Ability Score. If you're going to go down this path, though, you need to think about what, exactly it will govern. Running and Swimming, for example, could easily be better related to Agility than Strength and likewise, Acrobatics (as related to things you might see at the Olympics; e.g. Rings, Horizontal Bars, etc.) might be better tied to Strength, along with other "Athletic" pursuits like throwing (Shot put, Javelin, etc.), weight lifting (definitely a skill), etc.

Wrestling/Grappling could easily be its own skill and if we're going down this route, you could also make all attack rolls "Skills" in that respect. And why not? What is the benefit of having a separate system to adjudicate the activity of attacking and defending?

3) Specialities. Ok, I'm all for a more granular skill system, but there's being granular and there's going overboard. To take a bit of a leaf out of GURPS' book, why not introduce a system of "Specialities" for things that could seem to be splitting hairs for many people? For example, dividing Medicine into three separate skills is absolutely going too far in my opinion; before you ever learn to be significantly better at any of those subdivisions, you'd learn a basic overview of all of them and the difference between them is not all that significant in actual play. What you end up with is players sinking a whole heap of points into a bunch of skills because they feel like they have to in order to consider their character concept complete. This is not a good thing and is reminiscent of the "Feat Tax" of 3e's Feat system.

By allowing characters to invest skill ranks (or whatever) into a more general skill (e.g. Medicine) and specialise (e.g. Treat Poison), giving them either a static bonus (e.g. +X, or Advantage) or an incremental one (e.g. +proficiency bonus), allows players to feel a bit more special about choosing an option that exemplifies what their character can do, rather than restricting them from things they want to.

When subdividing skills it's important to ask the question; If I'm really good at X and entirely incompetent at Y, does it make sense? In the case of your Medicine subdivisions, we can plug in "If I've got 10 ranks in Treat Poison does it make sense that I know absolutely nothing about Treat Disease when I have 0 ranks in it"? Arguably, the answer could be "yes" because you it's technically possible that a person could learn an awful lot about poisons and nothing about disease BUT if you're building a character for an adventure game, would you ever choose to put ranks in one and not the other? The answer starts looking an awful lot more like "no" at this point, because the kind of character that would put ranks in any of them is likely to want to put ranks in all of them. Does that make sense?

So yeah, granularity has its place, but you have to be careful with how you use it. A "Speciality" system, especially if it's quite freeform ("I want to be really good at identifying rare butterflies!" "Uh, ok, knock yourself out") allows for all the minutiae of character you might want, while preserving the right of players not to want that excrutiating level of detail.

I'll leave things there for now and leave you to absorb/respond before hitting you with anything else.

Anonymouswizard
2020-07-11, 06:09 PM
Going over my game I noticed something interesting: I've assumed that everybody is skilled at First Aid. I've left it out of skills entirely, the rules are that if you're hurt within half an hour somebody can provide first aid, and once a day this gives you back some hit points. no CPR or recover position or the like, although those would be covered by the medicine skill (which is more focused on long term care otherwise).

Now I only added s kill system to the game this week, originally the 'skill system' was 'buy a Talent that gives you rerolls on certain rolls', skill descriptions haven't been written yet and the number of skills each stat has (and skill names) keeps changing. There's also some weird quirks of the system that are getting written into the setting: due to the use of four mental attributes and no physicals the more devout a character is the more physical and mental damage they can sustain, and more traditionally heroic characters (high Courage) are better at melee combat. Also being good with ranged weapons, stealth, and persuasion are all based on the same stat at the moment.

For the record, the attributes I'm using are:
Courage, which is about being direct and forceful.
Grace, which is about being attractive and pleasing.
Wisdom, which is about being crafty and indirect.
Faith, which is about being resolute and unyielding.

The downside is that skills have taken over the system, before there was a lot of attribute rolls, now they're being phased out because they determine base skill values anyway. Even spells has become skills now, which honestly works a lot better (and allows me to make mages more MAD).

I'm going to leave this here for tonight, but maybe I'll talk more about what I'm personally doing with skills tomorrow. It does, however, fall a lot more on the 'broad skills' side, there's currently only one Knowledge skill but that'll probably be broken up into three to five at a later date (History, Mystic Lore, Politics, and a couple of others is my current plan).

jjordan
2020-07-13, 10:18 AM
Link? I'll give it a read when I have the time.Sorry I've been unable to find the link. I think it was Skill Trees or Talent Trees and was available through the DM's Guild.