Game Designers ASSEMBLE

[Seerow]

Skills don't really do much in 3.5, but that doesn't mean they can't ever do anything. Make extra usages of skills based on skill ranks invested and you can be sure they will remain relevant without worrying about +30 enhancement bonus items killing the balance of the game.

Trust me, I don't mean to say that they can't do anything. Adding extra skill uses based on skill ranks invested is a TON of work. Ask TarkisFlux. It's also a vast increase in not only complexity, but also in character power level. If one of the design goals is to streamline D&D, then I don't know that keeping the skill system and adding more bookkeeping (and power) to it is the best idea.

Well if you get rid of all skills altogether how do you handle:
-Hiding/detection
-Bypassing traps/thievery
-Crafts/Knowledge
-Social Encounters
-Athletic ability (jump distance, swim speed, climbing ability)
-Non-magical healing


You could take some of it to standardized mechanics, but then nobody can be better than anyone else at any of it. Then of what's left, what would you do? Would you want to relegate all of that to magic tea party? Feats? Class features? These are things that you expect most characters to be able to do to some degree or another, it's good to have a relatively cheap and plentiful resource you can invest to get some things, just for that I think it's worth keeping, even if you have to go to the effort of modifying it to better fit design goals.

If you don't like the idea of having extra usages at higher skill ranks, you could say make them into singular ability purchases. Throw the shitty feats nobody really likes to take (like Run and Endurance) into the pile, and let some of the abilities (like hide, spot, jump) be taken multiple times to make you better at it.

[Jackinthegreen]

But can you both acknowledge at least that the vast majority 3.5 skills basically do nothing relevant at any character level?

Without massive splatbook support, a lot of them failed to deliver, yes.

As such, I think I can agree that skills might not make the core basics.  As its own advanced extension, it could certainly work.

[RobbyPants]

I don't know if you were trying to avoid design discussion in this thread or not, but I'd like to see picking skill streamlined. I can go either way on whether or not skills should grant super powers, but if they don't, I don't really want picking something like Use Rope or Craft (Anything) to be an option for a 15th level character.

Personally, I'd like to drop the rank system as it can be a pain for building PCs beyond 1st level (or planning them from 1st). As a DM who makes lots of NPCs, I'd like something faster. I could see replacing ranks with something like skill levels (untrained, trained, expert, master... and if we need, virtuoso, paragon, whatever). If skills aren't granting super powers, there'd be no reason to continue past master, and you should be able to pick that up by level 5.

That being said, if you already have an idea in mind, I'm happy to defer.

[TravelLog]

Can we make Bears with Swordchucks RPG? Because I would play that...

[Ziegander]

Well if you get rid of all skills altogether how do you handle:
-Hiding/detection
-Bypassing traps/thievery
-Crafts/Knowledge
-Social Encounters
-Athletic ability (jump distance, swim speed, climbing ability)
-Non-magical healing

Of the things on your list hiding/detection is the only one that I consider to be all that important. Using skills for bypassing traps/thievery doesn't actually work in 3.5 without shenanigans, crafting is done using spells and feats, knowledge does nothing unless you're talking about the Knowledge Devotion feat, social encounters are basically magical tea party with or without skills, athletic ability matters very little when you can fly, and non-magical healing literally doesn't exist (outside of the Healing Hands skill trick and the Crusader class).

These are things that you expect most characters to be able to do to some degree or another, it's good to have a relatively cheap and plentiful resource you can invest to get some things, just for that I think it's worth keeping, even if you have to go to the effort of modifying it to better fit design goals.

I would think that if we expect most characters to be able to do to some degree or another that converting their usages into features of ability checks would be more desirable since everyone has ability scores. As far as the issue of "my Barbarian with 18 strength can't Jump any better than your Marshal with 18 strength, waaaagh" is concerned, is that really such a big problem that keeping the whole 3.5 skill system is necessary? There are plenty of simpler ways to allow some characters to become better at those things. Those skill feats on the SRD? Make them give the +2 bonus per level on ability checks to perform the associated skill uses. Aside from Magical Aptitude, I still doubt anyone would take those feats.

To be clear, I'm not saying that I think we should eliminate the skills system. I am examining the possibility that it might be a good idea. Maybe reducing D&D's bookkeeping is an undesirable and unrealistic goal. But I'd like at least to try.

I like the idea of having a skill system. I just can't think of a good reason to keep it around. Adding superpowers to skills just adds more complication and bookkeeping, especially at high levels, but not having such powers attached to skills makes them almost entirely irrelevant.

If you don't like the idea of having extra usages at higher skill ranks, you could say make them into singular ability purchases. Throw the shitty feats nobody really likes to take (like Run and Endurance) into the pile, and let some of the abilities (like hide, spot, jump) be taken multiple times to make you better at it.

I can't tell what you're suggesting here exactly.

I could see replacing ranks with something like skill levels (untrained, trained, expert, master... and if we need, virtuoso, paragon, whatever). If skills aren't granting super powers, there'd be no reason to continue past master, and you should be able to pick that up by level 5.

That being said, if you already have an idea in mind, I'm happy to defer.

No, I don't have any ideas for skills, other than to remove them entirely, and relegate their uses to ability checks. That or make the skill system much more robust, but then I feel like class features and feats need to be THOROUGHLY re-examined and re-imagined.

There is also some merit to the idea that magic and magic items be designed so that they don't make skills irrelevant. However, then we still have the issue that many skills are irrelevant on their own.

I have always been at a loss for what to do with skills. I suppose, in the interest of maintaining the play-style and feel of D&D 3.5, I should keep skills, do what I can to mitigate magic and magic items making skills and skill points irrelevant, and then do what I can to make more skills more relevant more of the time. Shrug.

Can we make Bears with Swordchucks RPG? Because I would play that...

Lol, well, at the very least we can continue to use Bears with Swordchucks (or Bw/S for short) as a codename for the game.

[Unbeliever]

Well if you get rid of all skills altogether how do you handle:
-Hiding/detection
-Bypassing traps/thievery
-Crafts/Knowledge
-Social Encounters
-Athletic ability (jump distance, swim speed, climbing ability)
-Non-magical healing

Of the things on your list hiding/detection is the only one that I consider to be all that important. Using skills for bypassing traps/thievery doesn't actually work in 3.5 without shenanigans, crafting is done using spells and feats, knowledge does nothing unless you're talking about the Knowledge Devotion feat, social encounters are basically magical tea party with or without skills, athletic ability matters very little when you can fly, and non-magical healing literally doesn't exist (outside of the Healing Hands skill trick and the Crusader class).

I think you're conflating (and frankly overstating) particular things about 3.5's skill system and the idea of skills in general. 

The fact that there are a bevy of spells that either obviate particular archetypal skills (e.g., athletics, sneaking) or that the mechanics for some skills (e.g., social ones) are not particularly well-implemented or well-described or that the WotC designers lack basic math skills (e.g., the trap DCs relative to the levels you come across them) strikes me as just the sorts of things that would motivate a revision of the 3.5 skill set. 

I have always been at a loss for what to do with skills. I suppose, in the interest of maintaining the play-style and feel of D&D 3.5, I should keep skills, do what I can to mitigate magic and magic items making skills and skill points irrelevant, and then do what I can to make more skills more relevant more of the time. Shrug.

If you ensure skills are not easily obsoleted, or not so without some cost, then I think you're be ok.  Simply allowing things like Athletics to help obviate battlefield control or have a function similar to Tumble, which is admittedly pretty handy, or ensuring that Stealth skills are handier day in day out than Invisibility spells, then you should be fine.  Stealth is halfway there in D&D as it is, depending on how ubiquitous See Invisibility/True Seeing is at a given level (at high levels it is) and how liberally the DM interprets exotic sense types or Darkstalker.

[JohnnyMayHymn]

(Edit. The end of this post gets a little wonky, but my phone wont let me scroll down and fix it)
Castles and Crusades simplified skills immensely and replaced them with ability checks, plus you pick an ability(or 2 iirc) at character creation, and you get a bonus on those checks, skills that don't fit this model became class features

     The part I wasn't keen on was that it is Too easy to make a character, pick race, class and prime stats and do what the dm will let you get away with.  No choices whatsoever afterwards, even when leveling up.

 another feature I liked is that you can take any AD&D monster and convert to C&C by looking at it's HD and calculating all of the saves etc from there, what if we did this for 3.5? Though I think CR may be the defining stat in the case of truly fixing 3.5; however, incorporeal and other abilities throw off the math for a strictly calculated conversion.  Plus, you have to consider the benefits   added value and leaving design space open if you want to continue with splat books.

[Ziegander]

The fact that there are a bevy of spells that either obviate particular archetypal skills (e.g., athletics, sneaking) or that the mechanics for some skills (e.g., social ones) are not particularly well-implemented or well-described or that the WotC designers lack basic math skills (e.g., the trap DCs relative to the levels you come across them) strikes me as just the sorts of things that would motivate a revision of the 3.5 skill set.

Though they could also just as easily be the sorts of things to motivate a removal of the 3.5 Skills Subsystem (note: removing the subsystem is much different from simply removing sneaking or jumping from the game; I have never been advocating an approach that simply says, these things aren't handled by the rules because they're too complicated).

If you ensure skills are not easily obsoleted, or not so without some cost, then I think you're be ok.  Simply allowing things like Athletics to help obviate battlefield control or have a function similar to Tumble, which is admittedly pretty handy, or ensuring that Stealth skills are handier day in day out than Invisibility spells, then you should be fine.  Stealth is halfway there in D&D as it is, depending on how ubiquitous See Invisibility/True Seeing is at a given level (at high levels it is) and how liberally the DM interprets exotic sense types or Darkstalker.

I agree with you here, but you have to remember that keeping the Skills Subsystem means keeping lots more things than mere jumping, tumbling, and sneaking (three things that, honestly, could work really simply as ability checks). Having a handful of skills, or fewer, that produce relevant effects that aren't outdone by magic isn't reason enough to keep the Skill Subsystem. We would have to find ways to make lots of other skills more relevant to the game, and then we would have to prune away magic so that all of these other skills aren't also made irrelevant by spells and/or the supernatural. I think it's doable, it just might require some creative problem solving and some possibly hamfisted magic restrictions.

[kellus]

Posting in response to your GitP PM here since those forums run like molasses dipped in sludge for me these days. I'm totally down for something like this, and I've had a million ideas over the years for this sort of thing.

That being said, design-by-committee doesn't often result in a workable product. But I believe you know the sorts of things I like to write, and I'm definitely interested in the project. In particular, I believe that I could really help you out with a magic system that feels D&D-like without actually bringing in the awful mechanics and legacy shit from actual editions, as well as with character classes that are actually exciting and dynamic to play, and also a social combat system which D&D has desperately needed for a long time.

Obviously a lot of core assumptions need to be made before any design can even be started, but it's a good start to recruit a solid team for this. I have a ton of free time to homebrew right now (and for the next 4 months) with summer break, but I do feel the need to warn you that RL stuff has the potential to drag me away from any project. But I love the homebrew I've seen from you in the past, and if you're interested in having me on your team for this I pledge to do my best to help you make a fun game.

[kellus]

As far the Skill Problem goes, there are essentially two directions to go. You can remove skills entirely, or you can elevate skills to being on par with magic (less of a problem than it would be as a cludge onto 3.5, since you're rewriting magic from first principles).

Removing skills is a workable and simple solution, but it also removes a significant level of complexity and involvement from the system. It makes it much harder to create a variety of character concepts, especially someone who is supposed to be particularly skillful in a narrow focus or a polymath without having an incredible ability score tied to their specialties. For example, let's assume in a hypothetical skill-less system you have swimming and weight-lifting both tied to Strength or Body or Might or whatever you might decide on. Simple enough. But how do you create a character who is a championship swimmer but is otherwise only moderately physically impressive? Easy, you make something like a feat or a perk which is "+5 on Strength checks relating to swimming". But by doing something like that, you've backdoored what is essentially a skill into the game, except that you've done it in a very roundabout way that doesn't interact with other rules in a consistent or reasonable way. This is the kind of over-simplified core ruleset that requires heaps of "exception-based design" which is part of what made 4E so shit. There are ways around this problem, but any way you look at it, when you remove skills or a similar venue from the game you are by necessity reducing the number of options people have to do "stuff", which I think runs counter to the idea of what D&D is.

You're entirely right when you say that skill superpowers bog down the game as people get confused about what all they can actually do, but if you're going to have both a game where you have anything close to resembling a wizard and anything close to resembling a rogue, the rogue 100% needs to have some way of contributing on par with the wizard. This sounds super obvious, but it's no less true. This contribution could be either through class features or through skill superpowers, but because the rogue is by definition a "skillful" character, even if you give them level-appropriate powers from class features, what you're going to inevitably end up with is class features which are themselves essentially skill superpowers, such as "you can hide so well you turn invisible". That's just simply the sort of thing a rogue needs to be doing at moderate-to-high levels to stay competitive. Whether you make this available as a perk from 10 ranks of Hide or a special ability at rogue 7, someone is going to be turning invisible from being super-double-good at hiding. By removing skills you're not taking this skill superpower away, you're just saying that fewer people can do it.

So I guess I'd say I support keeping skills, for a lot of reasons. I think it's a better choice, design-wise, legacy-wise, and theme-wise to take what has always been a defining feature of the game and genre and build it up into something that it always should have been, rather than tear it down because it seems too hard to fix.

[Solo]

As much as I would like to wish you luck, I cannot, for I must destroy you to ensure that Legend succeeds.

[Unbeliever]

I think Kellus nails the case for skills.  Getting rid of them, or even stripping it down too much (which I felt 4E did), means you lose a lot of differentiation between characters.  And, there are numerous fantasy archetypes* that are defined by their skills.  I prefer a less granular system to a more granular one.

Note I also don't think skills have ever been all that useless.  Or, if they are obsoleted they are obsoleted by some quirk of the system.  Or, usually, some quirk of optimization.  Take away Divine Inspiration, for instance, and a cleric can't replace nearly any skilled class.  That tells me more about Divine Inspiration than it does about skills.  I don't want to turn this thread into a debate about skills, unless those seeking to do this homebrew find it valuable and would like to hear another side of it, but I wanted to mention it.

*Note, and this may be valuable to the designers, I mean fantasy archetypes.  Not D&D archetypes.  The guy who disarms traps, which Gygax was for some reason obsessed with, isn't much of a fantasy archetype.  I can't think of a single example in fantasy literature outside of D&D.  The guy who sneaks around, on the other hand, there's a lot of them. 

[RobbyPants]

No, I don't have any ideas for skills, other than to remove them entirely, and relegate their uses to ability checks. That or make the skill system much more robust, but then I feel like class features and feats need to be THOROUGHLY re-examined and re-imagined.

There is also some merit to the idea that magic and magic items be designed so that they don't make skills irrelevant. However, then we still have the issue that many skills are irrelevant on their own.

I have always been at a loss for what to do with skills. I suppose, in the interest of maintaining the play-style and feel of D&D 3.5, I should keep skills, do what I can to mitigate magic and magic items making skills and skill points irrelevant, and then do what I can to make more skills more relevant more of the time. Shrug.

My two suggestions are:

1) Make them scale with level and give out super powers that are on par with magic. Explicitly spell out these effects in the skills. For example: at skill level X, Hide grants you Invisibility.

2) Keep them simple and mundane, and phase them out. In 3E language, they'd be something you use for the first 5 levels or so, and they'd pretty much be flavor after that point. You probably wouldn't even get skill points. This could be bolstered by handing out the super powers as feats and/or class abilities. So, Hide is useful for mundane sneaking, but you need something better to net Invisibility.

Actually, given how 3E's RNG works currently, you can really only count on skills working as advertised for the first five levels or so, anyway. Once you get much past that, you're frequently more than 20 points apart on opposed rolls between specialists and non-specialists.

[sirpercival]

There are a few things we can do to make skills relevant.  Some or all of these together will help.  My examples are all just brainstorms, & will need tweaking.

1) Change spells which directly obviate skills (I'm looking at you, Knock) so that they require training in them for use.  That way Knock (for example) boosts the rogue's OL bonus, and only the rogue since he's the only one with training.
2) Make the difference between being trained in a skill and untrained much more significant.  For example, no matter how high your ability modifier, if you (a) have no ranks in a skill, you can't get more than a +5 bonus to your roll; (b) have a skill as cross-class, you can't get more than a +10 bonus to your roll even if you've taken ranks.
3) Widen the gap between skill points/rank costs for skilled classes vs unskilled classes.  For example, a rogue gets 2 ranks for 1 compared to a wizard or fighter's 1:1, or rogues get 16 skill points per level compared to a wizard's 4.
4) Make the # of skill points you get no longer dependent on Int.  That reduces MAD for skillful characters and no longer boosts non-skillful Int-based casters.


EDIT: This discussion needs to be logistically reorganized.  Let's request a homebrew subforum (or a subforum somewhere) called Bears with Swordchucks.  Then we can discuss skills in the Skills Discussion thread and everything else in their appropriate threads.

[Kajhera]

As much as I would like to wish you luck, I cannot, for I must destroy you to ensure that Legend succeeds.

Legend is worth studying for ideas, even if you're designing something much closer to D&D. They basically take the pseudomagic approach to skills, with a stricter balancing so it's harder to just grab a +5 item and the next tier. If you're attached to arbitrarily high numbers then making abilities based on skill ranks could do something similar while kind of obviating the benefit of arbitrarily high numbers. They also remove getting skills from int.

[RobbyPants]

EDIT: This discussion needs to be logistically reorganized.  Let's request a homebrew subforum (or a subforum somewhere) called Bears with Swordchucks.  Then we can discuss skills in the Skills Discussion thread and everything else in their appropriate threads.

I sent a message to Prime. I'm not sure how to do this on my own.

[Hallack]

On skills I favor having a skill subsystem.  It was one of the things I was pleasantly surprised about regarding 3E initially.  The  (or a) skill system as mentioned is a useful tool for character differentiation as well as handling other aspects of character actions.

That is not to say 3E skill system is great, just that I think a skill system would be good to include.

I would also favor adding pseudomagical or even magical aspects to skills at higher levels.  At the point when skills go beyond the 'normal' scope of daily life approaching supernatural levels why not actually allow for supernatural benefits? Balancing on liquids, running up walls, supernatural jumps, defensive benefits from acrobatics (dodging, gaining miss chances), Charm-like effects from Social skills, and much more.

Basically, give something nice to the mundanes because at some point in the progression of power even mundanes move beyond being mundane.   You don't have to give them world shattering/altering power of high end magics just use it as a means to keep their skills and abilities relevant to dealing with the super-powered threats they face.

Wizards or whatever (if any) fullcaster sort can still have world shattering/altering magics.  It is okay for there to be different types of ultimate power at the high end.  We just need to make sure there is significant and relevant ability to contribute.   

Cheers

[littha]

EDIT: Sorry, my idea for "replacing" the little that skills DO add to the game would be to simply make them ability checks. So Balance is just replaced with a Dex check. Jump is replaced with a Str check. Disable Device is an Int check. Use Magic Device is a Cha check. It would require some fiddling around, but I think the result is much simpler. Any other ideas on skills, how they should work, what should be done with them?

I like this idea, especially if you give a multiplier to it based on class (rogues get x3, bard x2, wizard x1?) it might be easier to emphasise the usefulness of skill based classes.

Also, I'm in if you need me. Might as well put my games design degree to some use...

[Prime32]

What about giving skills abilities along the lines of Tome of Prowess, but only having the thresholds rather than spending ranks to get there?

Eg. Lv1 characters get 4 skill ranks, which they can spend to gain basic access to 4 skills.
At lv6 you gain another 2 skill ranks, which you can spend to gain basic access to 2 skills or advanced access to a skill in which you already have basic access.
At lv11 you gain another 4 skill ranks, which you can spend to gain master access to a skill in which you have advanced access, etc.

Classes like rogue gain bonus skill ranks as class features.

If going this route, some feats/feat chains (like Power Attack) could also become skills, with the status of "feat" reserved for things with strong flavour. Heck, if skills include a level-based bonus then attack rolls could become a form of skill check. Imagine Two-Handed Fighting, Two-Weapon Fighting and Archery as skills.

[Garryl]

I'd rather not imagine them as skills. If you split combat up so much AND tether it to the skill system, you get some combination of skill point bloat for the combat classes (so they can actually use their combat abilities, but also giving them crazy unintended skill access if they choose not to) and an inability to use non-combat skills if their points aren't bloated.