D&D 5E Weighing in on 5e

[keterys]

Incredibly intuitive, and there are many games that use it.

However, instead of rating stats from 8-20, they rate them from 1-5 (as an example) because the amount of variance caused by a stat point is so much more.

Sure, but let's say you're using the proposed skill rank bit where no matter how good or bad you are, you can still only go one "step" better, and you're automatic for your skill or lower.

At that point, you could have one guy with a 10 and another with an 18, and training is still the primary deciding factor - if they're equally trained, then one has a 50% chance and the other a 90% chance. Or they could just think up a good idea or put another feat into training, and they automake that level.

But you'd want to have stats not change with level, and not have quite as many things add into the mix. Ie, don't start at 20 and pick up another 10 stat points as you level and pick your epic destiny.

Attacks, just decouple from stats. That way's pretty much already been shown to lead to madness - for example, have people pick a combat style similar to how monsters do, and just be Level + 5 - 7 to hit. Then if you want to keep enhancement on weapons it can just apply to damage, even if I'd rather avoid that.

Then the stat can apply to damage or hit points or healing, plus be a really simple skill check decider.

 

[DracoSuave]

Something you're missing here.

Game systems have evolved to the point where the vast majority of good, easy to run, easy to learn systems, especially the ones that emphasize roleplay, use the same basic system for combat and noncombat based resolution. Rolling a skill and rolling an attack, in really well made games, will use the same basic concept of resolution.

d20 isn't even on the front line of this trend... in fact, it was simply a reaction to the evolution of gaming since 1st edition came out.

No matter how simple each individual system may seem on paper, requiring multiple systems is needless complexity that adds nothing to the game.

What you're doing is trying to make skills into a system similiar to Conspiracy X, while making the combat system fix the 'math problem' that fourth edition has that is not ACTUALLY a problem.

Firstly, having a number of resolution systems greater than 1 is less optimal than having 1. Secondly, a system's goal is to be playable and easy to use; mathematical elegance is something that has nothing to do with roleplaying a wizard.

--------------------------------

To explain the Conspiracy X system: You had attributes which ranked from 1-5, and each rank had a corresponding modifier equal to the rank-3. Tests of the raw attribute, and tests of a skill were based on its raw ranking, where applicable modifying attributes added or subtracted their modifier to the target number on a d12.

The catch here, is that there were only 5 possibilities:

If your skill was two higher than the difficulty or defending number, you autosucceeded.
If your skill was one higher, you tried to roll 11 or below on 2d6. If your attribute modifier was positive, this meant autosuccess.
If your skill was equal, roll 7 or higher on 2d6.
If your skill was one lower, you tried to roll a 2 on 2d6. Obviously, bad attributes meant autofailure.
If your skill was two lower, you failed.

The catch was... this worked in combat too. If someone had a higher skill than your defense... he will kill you. No ifs, ands or buts.


Now, if you're comfortable with a combat system like this, then the skill system should also work like this. However.... I don't believe that it works for D&D. D&D is based on levels... and the ability to take on higher level creatures.

 

[keterys]

Eh, I'm not the one who proposed the skill system - Monte & Mike did

My rebuttal to that suggestion was that if they wanted to do it, I'd rather they just had training and difficulty leap by 10s, so at least we're still in the same, roll a die, add a big #, and if something is two steps away from what you could normally easily make, it's 20 higher so that's leaving the d20 and impossible.

But if they're going with it, eh, there are things you can do with it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

If we take the simplification factor to it's logical extreme, then we'll eventually have no stats anyway. Stats are kind of superfluous. If the game is designed with certain bonuses, just give people those bonuses to whatever they need the bonuses to instead of bothering with stats at all. Then just describe your character however you want.

But there are stats, and it's part of the flavor of the game.

In terms of removing stats entirely from the game and simply letting players pick options and 'describe your character however you want', you've already stated the problem with this. People who advocate this are too focused on mechanics and need to back up and look at the big picture. D&D is an RPG. One of the major jobs of the character construction rules is to allow the player to easily grasp what his character IS, and to provide players with an incentive to give their characters a solid concept. Without stats the player has no signifier for what his character is. Am I strong? Am I wise? Am I smart, quick, tough, or charismatic? Without being able to answer those kinds of questions the player is adrift.

 

[Grydan]

Yeah, one of the things the D20 system kinda fails at is providing people "certainty" as regards their skills and stats.

When your guy at first level has +12 to stealth because he's as dexterous as you could make him, has trained in the skill AND spent a feat to focus in it and another guy has -3 because he's in full plate armour, isn't sneaky at all, and has as low a dexterity as he could possibly have, there's STILL a chance that he can sneak past something better than you.

Same thing for a wizard deciphering a tome - your local meathead barbarian might beat him in the check.

It's not a massive deal though, as someone who really wants to be good at a skill can get magic items that'll push them past the boundary of "being beaten by the worst practitioner of the skill possible" but it still feels a bit like a weakness of the system.

I do wonder if the skills and stats system should work off a smaller dice than a D20 sometimes.

If it's relevant, -3 and +12 aren't the extremes obtainable at level 1 without resorting to magic (or even non-magic) items.

You can go as low as -5* and as high as +17**. At that level of disparity, it is impossible for the low end character to ever surpass the high end one. Even when Stompy McYellsalot lucks out and rolls a 20, he's not as stealthy as Sneaky "The Sneak" Sneakerson is when he's not even trying.

* 8 Dexterity for a -1 ability modifier, plate armour and heavy shield for a combined -4 armour check penalty.

** 20 Dexterity for a +5 ability modifier, +5 for training, +3 for skill focus, +2 for background, +2 for racial bonus.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Beyond that, the idea that a really well-trained expert in Stealth can't ever fail doesn't seem like a totally defensible position anyway. The dice represent all the unforeseeable unplanned random luck and all the little details of the world that simply aren't definable by even the most detail-oriented DM. Sneaky McSneak is indeed super stealthy, but the gig can still be up when one of the orc guards decides he has to relieve himself and picks the bush Sneaky is hiding in to do his business. Stuff happens. Part of the fun is coming up with narration for those once-in-a-blue-moon times when stuff goes a bit wrong. Likewise Clunky McStubby the plate and shield equipped dwarf is ill-advised to try to sneak past someone, but the once-in-a-blue-moon when he tries it and he succeeds, well, that's the sort of story you retell in the tavern over a couple frothy tankards.

So, I just don't really see the whole ranked skill system as being superior. It does a certain thing, but I'm not sure that certain thing is really needed and it seems to me like it also removes some possibilities. It would seem especially problematic in a case where a module author wants to use it and really doesn't know what skills a party might be missing ranks in. At least with the existing system there's almost certainly one PC with some reasonable chance to pull off almost anything.

 

[keterys]

Hmm, just for the fun design talk.

Let's say they're _really_ into this idea, and it can't be ditched. Would the following work as an implementation?

Skill Check: 1d20 + Ability Score + Level + Training (Each level of training adds 20 to your check for a skill)
DCs: 20 per difficulty level

Much (much) bigger numbers, but it's pretty straight forward and gets their results while the rest of us don't have to parse words into what we're used to. It also has the benefit of having level help, but not vastly more than ability or training. Ie, less of the wizard drop kicks through the adamantine door just because he's higher level.

 

[KarinsDad]

Hmm, just for the fun design talk.

Let's say they're _really_ into this idea, and it can't be ditched. Would the following work as an implementation?

Skill Check: 1d20 + Ability Score + Level + Training (Each level of training adds 20 to your check for a skill)
DCs: 20 per difficulty level

Much (much) bigger numbers, but it's pretty straight forward and gets their results while the rest of us don't have to parse words into what we're used to. It also has the benefit of having level help, but not vastly more than ability or training. Ie, less of the wizard drop kicks through the adamantine door just because he's higher level.

Worst idea I've heard so far.

Player of Fighter PC: "What do you mean that the Rogue is the only one who can ever make those types of checks?"

Player of the level 30 Druid PC: "What do you mean that the first level Rogue is better at this than me because he has trained 3 times and I've only trained once?"


One of the best things about 4E (assuming that the DM actually pays attention to the numbers properly) is that a high level Wizard can actually be better at perceiving threats than his lower level counterpart. For years, I needed a house rule for a bonus to Spot, Search, Listen, and Sense Motive based on level and I no longer do. It makes total sense that a Wizard that has been in hundreds of tight spots would know to look up at the ceiling at level 22. That Wizard might not notice the extremely stealthy high level foe, but he'll have at least a chance of noticing other less stealthy hidden foes.

Your system here puts the Wizard back in the dark ages with respect to this because the trained bonuses are too high and the DCs are too high.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yes, but Mike and Monte are gods of game design, and they have apparently decided this system is the cat's thingy. Who are we to point out the obvious flaws KD?

 

[KarinsDad]

Yes, but Mike and Monte are gods of game design, and they have apparently decided this system is the cat's thingy. Who are we to point out the obvious flaws KD?

Yeah, but Mike and Monte didn't suggest +20 for training. keterys did (tongue in cheek of course).

I don't think that Mike and Monte decided that this system is the cat's thingy.

I think Monte doesn't play 4E, is stuck in 3.5, and was talking out of his butt.


"That's the straightforward, active perception issue, but what about what I like to call "passive perception?" You know: when the PCs aren't actually looking for something, but it stands to reason that some one or more of them might just have a chance of noticing the hidden thing. Remember, for example, how in first 1st edition elves had a chance to notice secret doors just by walking by them? Or what about the rogue who always has a wary eye out for traps? You don't want these guys constantly making die rolls every 5 feet. The game will bog down quickly."


Monte is a fairly smart guy. You can tell so by his writing. But, it's pretty obvious to even a noob player that 4E already has a solution for this for two skills and it just happens to be called Passive Perception and Passive Insight.

When Monte has to explain this to 4E players who already know it and he uses the same terminology, but prefaces it with "what I like to call", it means that he's smart, but lacking in knowledge. He just didn't know that 4E already has that.

I suspect that this whole rank thing will be forgotten or only slightly added to the game system in 5E (and of course, keterys' game mechanics parody is just plain silly). At best, they'll add the equivalent of passive xxx to a few other skills like a passive climb for athletics (maybe), the 5E equivalent of take 10, but maybe expanded a bit (for example, a take 10 climb where the DM doesn't think that the climb is especially dangerous). 5E might just formalized this a bit more (hopefully, I hope they don't go all rank thingy in 5E).


Opps. Ignore this. I had only read Monte's perception article, not Mike's class warfare. Mike is actually thinking of this. Good thing he got negative feedback from some of the other designers. I still think that passive xxx works just as good without adding yet another layer and I see some other issues with the Journeyman approach. The game can work with the DM deciding "auto-work" or "auto-fail" without having a bunch of extra skill rules on it. It is a bit annoying to see game elements from other games creeping into D&D in the almighty attempt to simplify. If they want to simplify something, they should tackle the plethora of short term conditions that are constantly being added and subtracted during combat.