Thought of the game: Skills and how to implement them?

Larsdangly · April 16, 2018, 08:14:55 PM

I've always felt strongly that a game with the level of abstraction of D+D should not have anything like a skill system (or even skill based classes); rather it should base rolls for such activities on attribute scores (perhaps plus level) and that's it. Pick a lock? DX. Run up a hill? Con. Climb a rope? ST. And so forth.

fearsomepirate · April 16, 2018, 09:30:03 PM

I do like "career" better than "skill." It's a great deal broader and allows the DM out of a quandary. "I'm going to scale up the side of that stone wall, hide in the shadow of the sign, and listen on the conversation." Instead of "Oops, you didn't put ranks in Climb," it's "Oh, okay, one of your careers is Thief...that covers all of this."

As for the roll...I lean very strongly toward dice pools for skills these days. Avoids the need to have modifiers of +20 on a d20 roll to separate the men from the boys.

Aglondir · April 16, 2018, 10:08:13 PM

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034635As for the roll...I lean very strongly toward dice pools for skills these days. Avoids the need to have modifiers of +20 on a d20 roll to separate the men from the boys.

What mechanic do you use? I've never heard of 5E using dice pools for skills checks.

fearsomepirate · April 16, 2018, 10:31:43 PM

Quote from: Aglondir;1034643What mechanic do you use? I've never heard of 5E using dice pools for skills checks.

I've been experimenting, have yet to inflict it on anyone.

First method:
1. DC is from 1 to 5 (10->1, 15->2, 20->3, 25->4, 30->5)
2. Roll [skill mod] d6s
3. You must get [DC] successes, where a success is a 5 or 6.

Second method:
1. DC is from 1 to 5 (10->1, 15->2, 20->3, 25->4, 30->5)
2. Roll [skill mod] d6s. Discard all but [Ability mod].
3. You must get [DC] successes, where a success is a 5 or 6.

Third method:
1. DC ranges from 5 to 25.
2. Your modifier is just your ability. If you have expertise, add your proficiency.
3. You get [PROF] tries, minimum one.

I like the first and 3rd best.

Larsdangly · April 16, 2018, 10:49:42 PM

Dice rolling mechanics don't interest me; fixation on that sort of thing almost always results in 20 different and totally inconsistent ways of accomplishing the same thing. How many different ways do we need to figure out whether you did something for which you have a ~1/2 or ~1/4 chance of success? Honestly, D+D would not be very functionally different if they had just treated everything with the 1d6 roll that was the basis of Chainmail standard combat and the surprise, listen, open doors, etc. rolls in early editions.

Aglondir · April 16, 2018, 11:03:30 PM

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034648I've been experimenting, have yet to inflict it on anyone.

First method:
1. DC is from 1 to 5 (10->1, 15->2, 20->3, 25->4, 30->5)
2. Roll [skill mod] d6s
3. You must get [DC] successes, where a success is a 5 or 6.

This one. You are wise with the 5 or 6. it's a nice probability curve.

fearsomepirate · April 17, 2018, 12:13:17 AM

Dice pools allow a greater range of difficulty with a coarse grain. They're nice.

fearsomepirate · April 17, 2018, 10:32:32 AM

For reference:

Maxed out at level 1 (+5 mod)

DC	5e	d6
10/1	80%	87%
15/2	55%	54%
20/3	30%	21%
25/4	5%	4.5%
30/5	0%	0.4%

So it maps pretty closely onto 5e here. But what about somebody with no proficiency and a 12 ability score? Big complaint of 5e players is that my +5 mod to Acrobatics doesn't feel much different than Clumsy McBumblefuck's +1.

DC	5e	d6
10/1	60%	33%
15/2	35%	0%
20/3	15%	0%
25/4	0%	0%
30/5	0%	0%

So there's a pretty big gap between somebody with skill and somebody who doesn't know what the hell they're doing. 3.x tried to capture this, but in the d20 system, this means adjustments are all over the damn place.