Venting - Skill Checks and Role Playing vs Roll Playing

[Lord of Shadows]

It is fantastic to see that so many people understand where I am coming from, and also to see all the great ideas. Thank you everyone for the input so far. I have a few specific responses noted below.

But my faith in "role-playing" has been mended a bit.

Again, my problem isn't so much with the Skill system, it is how some seem to regard it as an infinite source of everything for their characters, regardless of the rarity of the information or difficulty of the task. Having precise sample DC's in the material doesn't help, as it gives the player a peg on which to hang their argument on why they should succeed.

For example, you cannot tell 'everything' about an existing spell effect by making a Spellcraft check, but what you can do is give the party a +4 Insight bonus on saves against that effect when someone triggers it. Or get a +4 bonus on CL checks to dispel it.

You cannot tell everything about a monster by making a Knowledge check, but you can decrease its DR with respect to your attacks by 5 points if you hit the usual DC, or 10 points if you beat it by 20. Or (not and) you can decrease its elemental resistance for a specific energy type with respect to your attacks by the same amount.

Or how about this - as a Swift action, make a Knowledge check about a monster with respect to one specific spell/skill/ability/attack. If you succeed, you know whether the monster would: Be particularly vulnerable (as in take more damage or a penalty to saves, not tactical sense), have no particular resistance or vulnerability, be resistant to it, or be immune to it.

These are some GREAT ideas. I think I will be using some (or all) of these. I have tried to Scale the Skill checks before, but usually just by the amount of information gained. These ideas open up lots more possibilities.

Some of the later monster manuals have examples of what information you should give out on a Knowledge check on a monster. It's not a case of DC 10+CR means you know everything; you get one thing and each 5 points (I think) gets you another thing.

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As far as your book example, it is not a magic item they are identifying; it is a spell effect they are examining. Therefore they don't get the command word to the spell effect.

Yes, the scaling example has been used here, but there is one player who seems to think that a Skill Check is the answer to the Universal Question (instead of Forty-two). And they argue that an item with a magic spell cast on it by default makes it a magic item. I have not given too much on this point, and tried to scale the info received, to the howling of some.

Edit: regarding Knowledge (local) I think it's a very poorly worded and defined skill. The only sensible way to interpret it as Knowledge (specific area). I treat it like this: You choose one geographical area and can use it as a generic Knowledge for everything in the area: history, denizens and monsters, etiquette, religion, etc. Thus you can have just about as many Knowledges (local) as you want, each applying to a different area, possibly overlapping in some respects.

The exact DC is dependant on size of area, length of history, importance of formal education, contact with rest of the world, frequency of interactions with monsters etc. Using K. (your city) to know how the city was founded will be possible with a lower DC K. (history) check but can be done with K (your city). Likewise K. (your city) can tell you who the leader is and who the local nobles are probably at a lower DC than K. (nobility).

Yes, I agree and that was how I was trying to rule it. Each character had to declare the area they were from at creation, and I was basing their Knowledge (Local) on that area). The player tried to complain that Knowledge (Local) applied everywhere, as no matter where the character was at it was "local." The character could have heard it in a tavern on the way into the area, or stopped and talked to someone on the road, or whatever. Again, the argument I get tries to ignore how the character obtained the knowledge, just that it has it. Somehow.

To know anything about any monster from a knowledge check someone must have survived and been able to write it down or talk about it and have that knowledge get to you. New monster is an unknown factor in the world and thus there is know way that any character in the world knows anything about it. The knowledge check covers how much of the knowledge available to be learned in the books and stories of your home region (and the regions traveled through adventuring) that you have personally absorbed and have at you fingertips. And nobody can know knowledge that has yet to be discovered. This is logic of how a world works trumping RAW.
And for local knowledge-give it a home region advantage only. Possibly transferable after months or years of living someplace.

And unless the spell specifically states that it can give a command word then it doesn't. . . good grief.

Ahh... this hearkens back to earlier editions, when you actually had to travel and fight stuff (read: adventure) to find out about stuff. <sniff> Those were the days of high adventure...

Oh, sorry, back on topic, yes. Some sort of limit needs to be imposed on Knowledge checks, especially. Other skills are not quite so far reaching, like Climb and Heal. Disable Device gets to be a pain once in a while, when the player demands to know why his Skill roll of a bazillion-something didn't disable the trap.

As for the command word thing, yea, I didn't let that fly, but all they had to do was flip it over and read the runes on the back. I think Skills are also making for some lazy "role-players" who depend on their character's Skills to tell them everything.

At the core issue of #1 is the simple fact that the mid-level wizard -should- know more about magic, having studied it for years both in the lab and the field, than any yutz rolling dice in his or his buddy's basement.

There's also the fact that you can booby trap that book in a way that doesn't endanger its contents or that will destroy it if they're not properly bypassed. At mid-levels you -should- be putting more guards and wards on sensitive information that a simple secret page. At bare minimum you can lay a mystic aura over the secret page, obscuring its aura and making it impossible to even make those checks without first making a successful saving throw. If you know the system it's trivial to make -any- task prohibitively difficult, regardless of level.

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The entire purpose in having such a rules intensive system as D&D 3.X is to free up the DM's creative juices for crafting the world, its characters, and the plots he wants to put the PC's through (without excessive railroading, of course) instead of having to figure out how to structure each mechanical interaction and to allow characters to simulate skills and abilities their players do not or even cannot have and to help separate the game from the metagame.

I agree completely that a mid-level wizard should know more about magic than any yutz rolling dice in his or his buddy's basement. (Eloquently spoken, too, if I may say so )

The problem come from those who think their wizard of any level should know all there is to know if they beat the DC. Period. Like dropping a coin in the slot machine and hitting the jackpot if you roll a 20. The problem with the magic traps is, well, that they are magic and I get hit with the argument again that beating the DC (so it says in the book) should give the player all the knowledge about it. In a world like that, I would begin to wonder what's the point of trying to protect anything, if all it takes to defeat the protection is a few rolls of the dice. In a game like that, I begin to wonder where the role-playing went, since it all seems to depend on rolls of a D20.

As far as the purpose of the rules-intensive system, I can see that, and even agree with it. I can remember when reading the AD&D DMG seemed like trying to decipher rocket science. <sigh> That all seems so simple, now. It does seem, though, like the mechanics are getting in the way of, or even replacing, role-playing.

This is, in my opinion, the reason why these Skill checks exist. They exist to cover knowledge that the players may not know, to fill in the character they're playing.

Again, eloquently said. The Skills are part of a rules system, and as such do seem to fit in nicely. I recall back in AD&D we would sometimes use an "ability check" (D20 plus ability score) to determine something the character might know that the player didn't. Sort of a primitive Skill system. Now it is all standardized, computized, figurized and homogenized... and I sometimes wonder where the mystery went.

Lots to think about, and again, great posts by all, not just the ones I replied to.
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