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2020-08-11, 01:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
I literally did that. I removed the Wizard class completely from my homebrew and turned them into an option for any spellcasting class. Pure Vancian casting, where you have to memorize the specific spell into a specific spell slot. I added Spell Focus options (ala 4th Ed) for each caster class, and added "Tome", which changed your casting stat to Int, gave you a spell book, forced the caster to use Vancian casting, but the big bennie was it increased your spell slots by ~1/3. A couple players (newish to D&D) really liked the idea of being able to have more spells memorized than their partymates could cast. Yeah, they might have to burn one of the extra slots to hold a spell they might not cast, but they could always swap it out at their next rest.
Trollbait extraordinaire
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2020-08-11, 01:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2014
Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
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2020-08-11, 02:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2012
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Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
While I perfectly respect everyone’s right to play however they want to it’s things like this that leave me questioning the worth and reliability of the numbers on the sheet. It’s a disconnect from other parts of the game where you know what you set out to present with your character.
Does a DEX barbarian get the favorable DCs while a STR wizard suffers the hard DCs on “lift boulder”? Do you feel the need to introduce large invisible bonuses to overcome the limited nature of bounded accuracy in enacting a skill system (rhetorical as you clearly have). Why can’t those bonuses be forward facing towards the players?If all rules are suggestions what happens when I pass the save?
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2020-08-11, 02:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2014
Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
I see it as another aspect of choices in character creation mattering. So yes, DEX Barbarian does get the favorable DC but is still worse than STR Barbarian because his numbers are lower. STR Wizard gets the hard DC but is better than the no STR Wizard because his numbers are better. I find this keeps the system simple (no need for random DCs or bonuses, just the 5-30 table) and improves Class Fantasy without completely denying guys like STR Wizard the chance of ever succeeding.
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2020-08-11, 02:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
Thanks, this is a nice, concise set up for any response to the OP and it highlights something about D&D that over the years we have learned: just throw another rule at it does not necessarily 'fix' something.
(Of course, just what we need is another thread about 5e's skill system and those who dislike it ... I'll say away this time.)
Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
Second known member of the Greyview Appreciation Society
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2020-08-11, 02:41 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2012
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- Vacation in Nyalotha
Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
If all rules are suggestions what happens when I pass the save?
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2020-08-11, 02:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2005
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- Virtual Austin
Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
Agreed about too many systems spoiling the broth. (Mixed metaphor there).
In early days of D&D (at least that I experienced), there was no system at all for social interaction or creating a magic item or writing a letter to a king.
You just did the thing, negotiated the method and the outcome with the DM, and went on with the game. The quality of the experience was entirely up to the people at the table.
Same applied to exploration. If you said, "I search under the mantle for any levers or buttons" then you found the concealed button. If you didn't say exactly that - you found nothing. The upshot was that the players interacted much more with the room description and narration of the DM. You miss a key detail, and you might live to regret it.
The current system of "I search the room" followed by a die roll and a yes/no has caused the game to lose a bit of its social and storytelling magic.
I guess what I'm saying is that maybe *no system* is better than what exists now.
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2020-08-11, 02:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2013
Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
Point, so you need to be careful where you place the rule. I still remember for Pathfinder 1 people were screaming bloody murder in one of their last splat books before Pathfinder 2 they made a feat to allow someone to use Diplomacy in combat to get your opponent to stop fighting and parley or surrender depending which outcome you want. Gaming groups have been doing that forever just fine without needing a feat to grant permission. The existence of the feat would mean officially no one could do it anymore unless they had the feat. The feat was universally and rightfully ignored. If Pathfinder really wanted to help (new) DMs with this option of codified rules it should have been an add on to the existing Diplomacy skill use.
Having guidelines in skills is telling players anyone can do these things. Gating something behind a feat or class ability makes it exclusive. One can argue something so gated shouldn't have been and vice versa. While it is prudent to be concerned and careful about this placement when adding rules, that you have to be concerned and careful is not a good reason not to add rules. In this instance of wanting guidelines for skill use, it is intended it's meant for anyone can do. In a previous thread of wanting to improve the warrior's lot through the use of skills, you can gate specific skill uses behind needing to be X class of Y level if you don't want spellcasters to do it too.
No.
No system is where gotcha DMing comes in. The DM asks how you search for traps so you give a lengthy description but then "gotcha" the trap is sprung on you anyway because you didn't specifically mention you check the ceiling.
It also means only those players who are charismatic enough in real life to convince the DM they can do something get to do anything.
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2020-08-11, 03:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2016
Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
Is the wall easy to climb? DC10. Very easy? DC5. Hard? DC20.
Is knowledge about that type of monster easy to find in your setting? DC10. Very easy? DC5. Hard? DC20.
Now...personally I disagree with the guidance given there but you can't claim the rules don't give you guidance on DCs.
Now this certainly doesn't tell me how hard I should make a certain type of wall to climb. But the key question is - is that an important question? Are we playing a game with players or are we trying to simulate a world?
Is 'what should the DC of a cobblestone wall in the rain be' an important question for the rulebook to be answering? Is a better question for the DM to be asking themselves 'how difficult do I want to make climbing this wall?'. The rules as set out discourage DMs from simulationist thinking and encourage a more simplified/practical approach to running the game.
You can certainly do it the other way but the cut off point for stopping including more tables of example DCs is pretty arbitrary. Whats the DC for tying a knot? What about with different types of rope? What about if the get interrupted and have to try and finish a half tied knot? What about if you're trying to do it blindfolded? What about if you're doing it one handed? What about if you're doing it on a swaying ship? Is the DC for untying it the same as the DC for tying it? What if its been left a long time?
5E purposefully set out to simplify the system with adv/disadv in place of situational modifiers. The guidance given in the DC system seems perfectly in line with that design goal.
So - would it be too far? No, there are plenty of good systems which offer much more guidance (and plenty with far less - people seem obsessed with missing DCs for climbing walls but I'm not sure I've ever played in a system where there were clearly defined guidance for difficulty of climbing different types of wall and its never been a problem) - but it would seem to be a step in the opposite direction than they were trying to go.Last edited by Contrast; 2020-08-11 at 03:11 PM.
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2020-08-11, 04:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2005
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Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
Having played with the original 'no system' DM, I'm not seeing the "gotcha" argument. First, a combative DM will ruin a game no matter how many rules there are. Second, being surprised and having bad things happen when you are careless or reckless is more fun, not less, for our table.
We played 'Out of the Abyss' using a very relaxed skill system (rolls only used sometimes for stealth), leaning heavily on descriptive interaction. We started off very cocky, with bad habits gained through several lazy years of 3e/4e/5e skill systems. Eventually we got to be pros at dungeon delving. There were 14 deaths in the campaign (with 5 players) and it was one of the best experiences we have had in many years.
I don't know where you're getting that last bit from. We have an introverted, autistic player who catches more traps and secrets than anyone else. If you have players shouting over others and causing them to be ignored, that is a table problem; not a 'charisma' issue.
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2020-08-11, 04:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
I actually find it harder to make rulings in a vacuum. I have to much more carefully discern where my biases and “what I want to happen” begins and ends, and I have to break down careful mathematical analyses of how hard I think something is, and then remind myself how bad I am at judging such things an rethink it again.
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2020-08-11, 05:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2019
Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
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2020-08-11, 06:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
I really hope you read backstories and talk to the players about how they see their characters. I was in a short lived game that died partially because of what you do. Had a character where the best way to represent them mechanically was fighter1/bard2+, taking a couple mechanically non-optimal choices, and ignoring all the music & song baggage. Wrote a short background, shorter than this post, and talked at the DM about the character.
I say "at" because despite eye contact and actual two way talking happening it turned out that nothing got through. Half way through the session "you know <thing> because you went to bard school" came out of the DM's mouth. That game didn't last past the next session because the DM did that sort of stuff to other characters too.
You're doing the same thing. You jack up the DCs for characters who don't fit your preconceptions. That DM lowered DCs based on what they thought the character class was. It's the same effect. You will cause conflict when you preconceptions of classes comes into conflict with someone's non-stereotype character.
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2020-08-11, 08:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2006
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Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
That's kind of where I'm coming from as well in the OP, just coming at it from a bit different direction. I don't like what I called "vague" and "abstract" rules in the OP because they boil down a lot of things that should be freeform into d20 rolls. HOWEVER, I'd like characters to have some abilities so what I'd prefer would be to strip out the skill system entirely and have the default go back the OSR-style freeform stuff but then ALSO put in some very specific abilities that do one very specific thing that doesn't step on the toes of old school style exploration.
To use other jargon, resolution in games is generally either "task based" (can I do a specific narrow thing, for example hit a dude) or "scene based" (can I resolve this conflict, for example kill a guy). Most D&D abilities are task based but a lot of skills are weirdly scene based, just roll a dice and if you roll well the problem goes away. Which leads to some weird disconnects and drains out a lot of exploration gameplay.
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2020-08-11, 08:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2014
Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
I can understand where you're coming from mathematically, but ultimately i see a reduced DC as different within the context of the fiction and the goals of the 5-30 spectrum. Some things are EASY or HARD depending on your class and background, which makes these choices both more meaningful within the context of skills and strongly aids class fantasy without breaking bounded accuracy as with +10s in potentially unintentional way. Finally, people with expertise like the Rogue can ignore this as they'll succeed just the same either way, preserving their "good at skills" niche.
And no you can't "dip" for this, because it's about the core of the character and the concept they represent rather than the specific spread of multi-class levels. That's another reason it's not just a bonus to pickup, it's a guideline for the DMs to help set DCs in a way i think is more fun and ultimately rewarding in the spirit of 5e. It's essentially adding "when determining DC, take into account the character class and background" to the default of "if a role is required, determine if it is VERY EASY to NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE and set a DC according the difficulty of the task".Last edited by NorthernPhoenix; 2020-08-11 at 08:48 PM.
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2020-08-11, 08:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
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2020-08-11, 08:41 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2014
Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
I'm going to be honest, i haven't once ran a game for someone who wanted to play as a wildly non-conformist character so i can't speak from personal experience in how i'd handle that. I've just never had the opportunity to try this system with those kinds of characters. That said, if you can point to regular class and say "my multi-class combo is actually this" i think it would be easy to accommodate. The Swashbuckler Barbarian is a good example because actual Swashbuckler is already a thing.
Last edited by NorthernPhoenix; 2020-08-11 at 08:41 PM.
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2020-08-11, 09:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2013
Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
We get back to what is easy for one DM is hard for another and my ability to do stuff depends on who is DM that day. Obviously any DM can say plate mail gives AC 20, Bless is +1d6 but only for one person, and a monk's stun DC is CH saving throw DC 14 always. However, such things aren't done because generally people go by the rules. House rules, of course, but house rules are what the DM says they are at Session 0, not during game play you only find out about the first time you try to climb a tree or want to know of any weakness of the monster you're fighting. As a player I get to know the DC of my abilities, how spells work, how to calculate my attack modifier, everything I need to know about combat. However, wanting to climb a tree or swim across a river with a fast current, I'm George of the Jungle or Tarzan totally based on DM whim, not on my choices of what my Athletics number is.
Just this week in two different games.
Playing a cleric, as another PC was taking in game minutes to talk to someone I told the DM I'd like to use Passive Insight for the entire conversation to get a sense of the person's demeanor, whether he's lying or holding back, etc., instead of having to roll each time the NPC said something. You can use Passive for skills besides Perception. The DM could have used the NPC's Passive Deception or roll or any skill I didn't care. I wanted to use my character's known quantity of being good at Insight. The DM denied me and said I had to roll because "it's more fun that way", once, which I did, rolled a 1 for a total of 9, and got nothing when my Passive Insight was 18.
Another game, different DM, playing an Artificer. (Background - The DM told me in Session 0 he's using Investigation to search for traps. He was a player in my game and adopted my house rule that Investigation is always used for Search and Perception for Spot using the 3E reference for ease of deciding which skill to use when.) As we're exploring a cavern dungeon complex I told the DM I would like to use my Passive Investigation (17) to search for traps as we move along. I willingly accept the possibility I miss a trap that is DC 20 as an example. He said no problem, so I get to use my good Investigation score to travel the complex with confidence I know what I'm doing.
Neither DM played the game wrong. The problem is it's DM whim whether a player doesn't need to roll or not. It's not the first time for the first DM I couldn't use my Passive Score. Every time I wanted to use Passive Perception he would deny me, so my perceptive cleric of Passive 18 keeps missing the obvious because I roll low. I should learn by now not bother asking anymore and just accept in his game I can never be good at anything unless luck says I am. I'm George of the Jungle. With the other DM I get to be good at what I chose to be. I'm Tarzan.
This is not fun.
Lucky you. For me it was all gotcha DMing during my 2E years. You had to explain everything you do and hope you say something the DM was thinking.
You could never just search the room. You had to specify exactly what you were searching and how. Even searching a bed meant specifying looking under the sheet, under the mattress, tear open the mattress, under the bed itself, in the pillow case, tear open the pillow so of course you miss the secret compartment in the bed post you didn't mention searching. What ever 3E's issues of skill use, it fixed that and stopped gotcha DMing.
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2020-08-12, 12:01 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2006
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Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
Fair enough. One of my all-time favorite characters was a SotC (pulp FATE) swashbuckler who was just ludicrously hard to kill (high skills in athletics and endurance with aspects to back it up) but hilariously clueless in social situations ("attention span of a gnat" etc. etc.). In most class-based systems, swashbucklers seem to run on charisma and I've had a hard time making this guy in various D&D games, but running him as a barbarian just clicked. Great mobility, atheltics checks through the roof, pretty much impossible to kill, and a lovable goofball in social situations.
But this kind of drives home my original problem with 5e skills. You take class into account, I've had DMs take the raw unmodified roll into account, all kinds of things. When you sit down to a new table with a new DM you don't know WHAT you're getting in terms of skills. I'd rather have stuff that's going to be left that wide open have no actual rules (old school D&D style) rather than rules so wildly up to interpretation. Then make rules for the specific stuff that different tables can agree on.Last edited by Bosh; 2020-08-12 at 12:03 AM.
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2020-08-12, 12:17 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
Oh hey yeah. We got that in OotA. Missed the sun blade because searching the room and fountain wasn't looking in it. Never saw anything like driders on ceilings unless we said look at the ceiling, even if it was only 15' high and lit. Got railroaded when we failed the required checks to advance the current plot bit. I hadn't had that in a couple decades.
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2020-08-12, 01:28 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2017
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2020-08-12, 02:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2019
Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
The stars are calling, but let's come up with a good opening line before we answer
Spoiler: Homebrew of Mine
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2020-08-12, 03:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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2020-08-12, 06:43 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
It was a system thing back then. The adventure modules DMs were given specifically told them things like "there is a gem hidden at the bottom of the fountain if players check it, though even then it takes a Wis of 13 to notice". So many items were hidden in old boots or traps on a corpse with descriptions that specifically mentioned the procedures for finding or noticing them. There were even monsters that acted like objects in the room unless the players specifically interacted with them in a certain way, which would lead to the monster attacking. Otherwise it would wait for them to rest or try to leave and follow them like a stalker to ambush them. So much like how some people hate DMs that don't follow rule conventions, DMs tried their best to follow the adventure's rules too. Anything that carried over to 3.X was likely due to this developer-created training.
Last edited by Kyutaru; 2020-08-12 at 06:46 AM.
Trolls will be blocked. Petrification works far better than fire and acid.
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2020-08-12, 07:51 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2020
Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
I think 5e skill system is decent enough, meaning that when I DM a table, I can do everything I want while mantaining a good level of control over two things I consider the most important ones:
1) PCs are the heroes, they want to be powerful, resourceful and proficient at adventuring.
2) Everyone having fun is the most important thing to preserve, if you care about the campaign to last.
D&D is a game that often spans over long periods, it's not unheard of to have campaigns last years. My longest one lasted 6 years or thereabout (from 1990 to 1996), with attendance dropping as natural during the summer vacations and intensifying during the "dead months" of the year. Keeping people interested in something like that, even if it's like in my case all RL friends that hang out together pretty much all the time, is very challenging and requires thinking more than planning.
I loaded characters with magic items, that made them more versatile rather than more powerful, but I made sure that all of them were able to shine at least every other session, be it during combat, exploration or social situations.
In 5e the occasions to let players shine are plenty as usual. Intimidation checks can auto-succeed sometimes, just like some combat encounters feel more like warmups, whenre I let my players bully enemies during encounters. Sometimes combat becomes difficult, but doable, sometimes it's so deadly that a large amount of preparation is required to turn the odds in the PCs favour.
Currently I gave the throne of DM to my friend, we alternated a lot during the years (he introduced me to D&D sometimes around 1988).
We're trying to survive after a shipwreck, we're on a tropical island 2000 miles from civilization and while my wizard is being useful with the current predicament, with utilities like Mold Earth, Shape Water, Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, it's the martials that are doing the bulk of the work, by foraging, hunting, working leather, sculpting tools, creating containers and so on. We are all level 6 by the way.
The DM left each of us a single item except our clothing: one weapon or the armor. I picked my arcane focus (he told me the spellbook was gone, sigh!) and had to transcribe my spells somewhere, with the rule that I could concentrate and recall one of them per day. I made some ink with coal and water, enchanted it through various means (table-made bull****, no rules applied) and started tattoing myself with spells.
The cleric helped during the first days by creating food and water, but we had no containers to keep the water, so most of it was wasted unless I was there keeping it "shaped" once per hour.
Skills usage was frequent, interesting, based on characters strength and backgrounds. I'm a gnome, 20 kg, 95 cm tall gnome with a strength of 8 and that's what I roleplayed. I didn't help taking down trees with an axe, nor was I useful to help people drag pieces from the wreckage (no Tenser's floating disk), but I made trivial picking up the coconuts with Mage Hand, so there is that for me
So far the group worked pretty well, considering that 2 players are fairly new to D&D, I expected worse, but the excitement each player got from being useful is rewarding by itself. I have been the swiss army knife so far, useful to speed up the work of others and to provide utility, but survival skills were much more useful to us than a couple spells or cantrips (also it took me over 2 weeks to recover my spells completely).
In the end, it doesn't matter what skill system a table uses: freedom of action and imagination are the most rewarding things to promote. You can rest assured that an unexperienced DM will try to follow the book and fail, either because of the "gotcha" mentaility mentioned above or because dice are nasty sometimes.
P.S.: I was reading about Waterdeep: Dragonheist and someone posted that a very important event depends on a single die roll (a charisma check of sorts, I don't know the module enough to go in details), otherwise you get a different ending, which many consider less satisfying. I don't think any good DM would completely let a story take such a turn on a single skill check, but maybe I'm wrong.
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2020-08-12, 08:06 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2017
Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
If it's the instance I'm thinking about (and it's the only fitting event in that adventure that I recall), it's convincing the final treasure's guardian that they were deceived by the jerk who embezzled Waterdeep's gold. Only difference is if the ensuing conflict for the treasure is one large you vs the bad guys who were also searching for the treasure vs the guardian free-for-all, or you + the guardian vs the bad guys.
Descent into Avernus does have a VERY ending-changing moment hinging on one Charisma check, but said check will be influenced by the results of the module's secondary arcs, and if it fails the PCs can have a second chance if they meet the requirement for it (also depending on the module's events). Plus it makes sense it's this dramatic a check in the context. It's far from the only way to succeed the adventure, too.
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2020-08-12, 08:10 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
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2020-08-12, 08:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
The pre-gygax D&D thief is my inspiration for this kind of thing.
Start with a bog-standard spell progression table. Use full caster or half caster or whatever.
Replace "spell level" with "talent level".
Write up talents, by level. These talents are a bit like spells in that they dictate things you can just do. By default, you get to do them whenever you want. At-will, automatic.
For example:
Talent level 1:
Mighty leap (Athletics)
Your jumping distance is doubled.
Swimmer (Athletics)
You gain a swim speed equal to your speed
Climber (Athletics)
You gain a climbing speed equal to your speed
That's it. (Skill in brackets means you need training in that, to attach it to existing 5e skill system)
If you go with half-caster progression in 5e, then talent tiers unlock at:
Talent1: Level 1 (tier 1)
Talent2: Level 5 (tier 2)
Talent3: Level 9 (tier 2-3)
Talent4: Level 13 (tier 3)
Talent5: Level 17 (tier 4)
Level 1 talents are for local heros.
Level 2 talents are for regional heros. They compete with fireball slinging wizards in awesomeness.
Level 3 and 4 talents are for world-renouned heroes. Spellcasters are getting world-spanning teleportation abilities and scrying.
Level 5 talents are for demigods. They should break the game as much as having wish does.
---
Now, one thing I'm thinking about is that we can give such talents to everyone who isn't a spellcaster.
Your Skill Talent Level is equal to your character level minus half your spellcasting and pact magic levels (round down).
You then divide this by 2 (round up) to look up your talent progression.
A Fighter 20 has talent 10 (access to 5th level talents)
An EK 20 has spellcasting 7 skill 9 (access to 5th level talents)
A Paladin 20 has spellcasting 10 skill 8 (access to 4th level talents)
So a Wizard 20 has spellcasting 20 skill 5 (access to 3rd level talents)
I made this generous to spellcasters, because I think even they should be able to have some lower-tier fun here. A wizard can pull off skill tricks at 20 that a fighter could at 10, which I don't think is a horrible nerf to fighters.
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2020-08-12, 09:08 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
I think the 5e skill system needs two things:
1) More explicit opposed checks. For example, "To tell a plausible lie, roll deception Cha vs insight Wis". "To recollect an aspect of an enemy's abilities (one line of its Stat block) roll Int + relevant skill based on type vs a DC equal to the CR + 10"
2) Skill-resolved Obstacles with CR.
Figuring out appropriate, balanced DCs is actually challenging and the presented system honestly sucks, with the core reason being that it doesn't take into account how optional a challenge is, how easily it can be circumvented by other abilities, and the risk of failure.
A DC 10 Acrobatics or athletics check to avoid falling to your death is a serious challenge at low levels, ~CR4 I'd say.
A DC 20 locked chest is not. It's CR0 or 1/8. Anyone with a non-negative Dex mod will succeed at it.
A DC10 lock on the door to the watchtower from which ranged enemies are firing down upon you, on the other hand, should have a higher CR.
The difference between CR-Assigned obstacles and a big huge table of DCs is both that it helps DMs design encounters more, AND it reduces the pressure to feel like you're playing wrong if you don't use the example from the book. If I make a custom NPC orc chieftain that's CR15 as a monster, nobody is going to say that I'm playing wrong. I just did something custom instead of using the examples provided. Similarly, if you have a falling hazard use DC 15 instead of the canonical DC 10 example hazard, you're not breaking any rules - you're just using a custom hazard.Last edited by MinotaurWarrior; 2020-08-12 at 09:11 AM.
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2020-08-12, 09:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2013
Re: The problem with 5e's skill system and how to fix it
Thank you for joining this discussion. I, like many here, favor static DCs and variable PC modifiers. So I have not heard enough about your use case.
Two main things I look to in a skill system is:
1) The previously impossible becoming probable, and the player knowing it.
2) The previously probable becoming guaranteed, and the player knowing it.
How does a variable DC system go about accomplishing these goals?