Quote from: Orphan81;844202Skills.... those things that help outside of combat, and let you do things beyond killing stuff...

In older editions they were called "Proficiency" and fuck me if I remember how they worked, particularly in second edition...

Each proficiency was linked to a stat. d20 roll under that target number (the stat)  to succeed. With some die modifiders tossed in.

QuoteBut what about the rest of you? How do you handle skill use in your games? What's your preference? Do you think skill points are necessary? Should only some classes be able to advance in them? What about how to roll for them? Much as I love 5th edition, I kinda hate it's skill system, as it seems to encourage failing..

So what about you? How do you prefer their handled in level based games?

Last time I ran Dark Sun was with 2nd edition. I did quite a bit of houseruling. One was to make proficiencies a roll-over DC, like in 3rd edition. I also reverse engineered the thief skills to work like these proficiencies.
I'm very likely going to keep using that house rule. It streamlines the proficiency system, and makes the thief abilities better in one swing.

Quote from: Kiero;844285. . . you can easily summarise them in a single line of stats.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;979036You realize you're disagreeing with a necro'd comment made 2 years ago?

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Quote from: Black Vulmea;979057

Oh, clever...

Quote from: Ratman_tf;979058 ...

Yeah, but...that subthread does a good job illustrating a point Clash made ages ago about the utility of "centrally defined" abilities. I think this is also the point about Beyond the Wall (which I haven't read). You can have lots of abilities without fragmenting/pixel-bitching actions, provided you understand that abilities can have overlapping application. So Awareness and Spidey Sense can coexist--they both apply in some cases, but other times only one or the other does.

I guess this does raise questions of stacking, and sometimes of defaulting. Like these two abilities should each enhance a default chance of detecting/anticipating danger. But if you don't have anything related to medicine or surgery, you're not going to be able to remove someone's appendix.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;979057

Awesome.  As in, "I am in awe."

"It is remarkable.  I would remark upon it."

Q: Skills, OSR, D&D, How do you prefer they're handled?

A: I don't remember D&D having any skills when I played it. But I like skills to be handled as in Traveller (die modifiers) or The Fantasy Trip. I also like a limited number of broadly defined skills; I think the original West End Star Wars struck the right balance.

I like my skills broad and no more prominent than the secondary skills in the DMG for 1E; i.e., you have a history of a certain type of non-adventuring occupation, and the DM has wide latitude to interpret that as being applicable to a situation - or not.  It is determined at creation and from that point forward "skills" are not part of leveling up.

I think Earthdawn nailed the balance between skills and classes in the 90s. That's why I have played and ran it for almost 20 years.

It has Attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Toughness, Perception, Willpower, Charisma) as broad abstract skill-like categories (& a set of "default skills" everyone can use at rank 0). Then it has specialist skills (learned slowly) as magical Talents (learned via 8-hour chunks of meditation). The classic example is theivery. The non-adept cut-purse or second-story man with with the pick locks skill must have a set of lockpicks in order to make the attempt, but will add their rank to their Dexterity step to get the final dice pool. The Thief Adept with the Pick Locks Talent can summon a set of blue telekinetic lockpicks out of thin air (& can always "burn a karma point" to add a d6 to their dice-pool result), and if they have an actual set on them it's enchanted or something. Thief Adepts are part of in-game secret societies that teach their magic secrets to their brotherhood. About 10% of the setting's population are Adepts.

I started with TFT:
No classes or levels, but ability is based on attribute levels, combined with talents that give you basic or advanced levels of competence in things, both combat abilities and other abilities.

Now I generally use GURPS, which is basically more detailed TFT, and works about the same way but with more attempted accuracy and detail, mainly by adding a level for every skill, and many more skills.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;979057

Ok, that just won the Internet for July.

I prefer simple attribute checks to skills. However in Low Fantasy Gaming I did want a separate skills/backgrounds system so folks could customise their PCs more. So I made skills/backgrounds grant access to your limited Reroll Pool. So if Barbarian tries to break the door down, rolls (equal or under) Str check and fails, if she is trained in Athletics, player can spend a point from the reroll pool and reroll. So those who have the skill (or background if not a specific skill, like say merchant background if you're trying to appraise something, as their is no LFG appraise skill) will tend to succeed more, and as they level up, your reroll pool gets bigger.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;979101Awesome.  As in, "I am in awe."

"It is remarkable.  I would remark upon it."

Quote from: CRKrueger;979201Ok, that just won the Internet for July.

There is also the Metamorphosis Alpha method a space on the character sheet labeled: "Judge given skills & items" for when you really want to kick it old school.

Quote from: Psikerlord;979401I prefer simple attribute checks to skills. However in Low Fantasy Gaming I did want a separate skills/backgrounds system so folks could customise their PCs more.

I find this is only very occasionally an issue. Normally I'm going to take it that the Barbarian PC certainly is skilled in athletics. For instance GMing White Star OSR sf right now, in the list of optional skills there is exactly one that can't be subsumed into the class competencies of the core & companion classes - that's Medicine. There is a Combat Medic class in a pdf supplement, but no easy way for a standard class to also be a medic. Every other skill listed is already a core skill of one or more classes.