d20 Skills: WTF!?

[Prak]

So, it never occurred to me before, but I was thinking about the arguments I've read here against skill-based magic systems in d20 (skill mods have no correlation to character level), and realized how amazingly true that is:

Level 1:

"I don't care about jumping, but maybe it'll come up"
Human "put 18 in str" Ftr1 with max ranks in jump "I don't care about jumping, but maybe it'll come up"	+8 jump mod (respectable)
"I want to jump really well"
Orc "put 18 in str" Brb1 with max ranks in jump and Skill Focus	+17, +19 while raging (seriously, wtf)

Level 4:

"I don't care about jumping, but maybe it'll come up"
Human "put 18 in str" Ftr4 with max ranks in jump "I don't care about jumping, but maybe it'll come up"	+11 jump mod (respectable)
"I want to jump really well"
Orc "put 18 in str" Brb4 with max ranks in jump and Skill Focus and Acrobatics	+18, +20 while raging (no, really, WTF?)
Monty the Mighty Tumbling Mantis
Non-psionic Thri Kreen "Put 18 in str" Psi1*	+67 (*sound of orc player throttling thri kreen player, Human player says "if we have to get across a chasm, you can just carry me, right?"*)

*Max ranks in jump, 5 ranks tumble, Skill Focus, Acrobatics, Mental Leap, and Burst manifested

Now, granted, that's jump, and it's harder to get such insane bonuses to mental bonus (sort of...) and few if any skill-based spell systems are going to use physical skills, but it's certainly a vivid illustration of what is so fucked about the D&D skill system.

The point of all this is to ask what the fuck can be done about this? I mean, if you wanted to restructure the skill system such that there was some actual clear correlation between level and expected modifiers of characters, and still allow characters to have some variance in their competence in a given skill, what would be a good way to reign in the skill system (aside from not writing races that give +30 to a skill)

[Ancient History]

Well, the skill system is ricockulous. That by itself isn't a game-killer, it just means that if you have enough fiddly bits in there then someone is going to find some combination of feats, synergy, class and racial abilities, magic widgets and whatever to get a ridiculous bonus. Which is fine in a fantasy game; I kinda like the idea that Steve the Climbing Mantis with his boots of climbing has a fair shot at getting up the slippery slope of Mount Olympus.

Where is gets absolutely broken (ha, okay, so broken-beyond-suspension-of-disbelief) is when you alloy it with the already-badly-unbalanced magic system. Frank and I talked about this with Truenaming in the Tome of Magic OSSR, and that system was so half-assed it had to be seen to be believed, because your DCs might go off the charts but your insane bonuses go off the charts faster.

I think you could work up a skill-based magic system for d20, but you'd have to basically discard most/all of the existing magic system to make it workable. It would probably have to look something like Epic Alchemy, where you had a basic DC to achieve an effect, but then you could double the area, duration, or intensity of the effect by adding +20 to the DC or something...and you could stack those. You do that right, you have a relatively flexible little system where every "spell" (or whatever you want to call it) is down to a single roll (which you have every inclination to max out); on the downside, you do it wrong and you've got beginning players that can't squeeze out a cantrip next to mages that spend fifteen minutes at the table carefully crafting each spell effect before rolling the die.

[John Magnum]

It seems like you don't really need that much more granularity in your skill system than a few stages, like "I don't care about this at all", "I don't care about this but maybe it'll come up", "I'd like to be pretty decent at this", "I'd like to be outstanding at this". And then you give each player a pile of points to spend on skills, buying them up to the desired stage of competence. And then some of the design is figuring out what probabilities you want someone of each of the four stages you have, and write an appropriate progression into it so they have it.

[Prak]

John- So maybe just have people pick skills, and how much they care, then each skill they have has a rating somewhere between 0 (I don't care at all) and 3 (I'd like to be outstanding at this) times character level?

That could work, actually. It might even be ok to have a few things people can pick, like Skill Focus, that then give them a bonus.

AH: Yeah, it really seems like the biggest problem with D&D is the spells, in that they cause so many of the other problems, just by existing.

[Wiseman]

It would probably have to be handled by ranks, which would defeat the purpose if done in a level based system.

[Josh_Kablack]

The easy to write, but pain to adjudicate band aid is to place a level or rank based limit on total skill bonus. Sort of like Mutants and Masterminds tried to do with their Power Level concept.
In this sort of framework, you play d20 D&D with the usual stacking rules, but your Jump bonus is never more than like ( your level +20 ). or Your 10+ (your level x4) or your skill ranks squared or some other simple mathematical formula.

The nigh-impossible to write, but easy to adjudicate option is to redesign things from the ground up, either nerfing the hell out of bonus numbers while pruning bonus types down to a tiny fraction of the current ones or implementing a 4e like skill system where ranks in a skill are a flat bonus which adds to your your level-based competence.

[hogarth]

The point of all this is to ask what the fuck can be done about this? I mean, if you wanted to restructure the skill system such that there was some actual clear correlation between level and expected modifiers of characters, and still allow characters to have some variance in their competence in a given skill, what would be a good way to reign in the skill system (aside from not writing races that give +30 to a skill)

As I've noted in other threads, video game RPGs have mostly solved the issue of non-combat skill checks to my satisfaction. Part of that involves setting limits on what skill checks are capable of doing. For instance, if the Jump skill maxed out at 10' jumps, then there would be no difference between a +30 bonus or a +60 bonus or a +600 bonus -- they'd all just equal "I win at jumping". And yes, it's okay to say "I win at jumping" at level 1: why not?

[John Magnum]

I wouldn't necessarily have it be as simple as (0-3) * character level. You'd have to carefully check the skill rank progression and the DC progression and decide, for instance, how far you want the "I'd like to be decent" and "I'd like to be oustanding" characters to diverge, or what your odds of succeeding at lower-level and higher-level tasks are. So no simple formula to turn your number of ranks into a progression, especially not against the DCs already in the book. You wouldn't really be able to keep much of the original, except (some of) the names and domains of the skills themselves and (possibly) the d20 RNG.

[Prak]

Well, yeah, I'm basically looking at a complete rebuild of the skill system, including some form of difficulty tier like

Pedestrian	0
Simple	5
Easy	10
Amateur	15
Professional	20

etc.

And of course there will be conditional modifiers in there, but maybe "trying to achieve more" is a DC increase, and "trying to succeed despite hardship" should be a roll penalty. Ie, "I want to mix up alchemists fire in a 50 gallon barrel" is "Ok, +20 DC" and "Shit, it's a tsunami and I need to balance on a string" is "sorry, -20 on your roll"

Or something. I don't know.

[Dean]

I don't necessarily advocate this but it would be totally possible to make a system where you compared your skill level to the task and got a roll. So all tasks are now Simple, Easy, Moderate, Hard, Masterful, or Extreme. And in any given skill characters are either Amateurs, Professionals, Masters, or Grandmasters.

Amateurs would automatically succeed at simple tasks, need a 5+ for easy tasks, a 10+ for Moderate tasks, and a 15+ for Hard tasks.
Pro's auto complete easy tasks, need a 5+ for moderate tasks, 10+ for hard tasks, 15+ for masterful tasks
Masters auto complete moderate tasks, need a 5+ for hard tasks, 10+ for masterful tasks, 15+ for extreme tasks
Grandmasters auto complete hard tasks, need a 5+ for masterful tasks, 10+ for extreme task

So a simple jump could be 3 feet, an easy jump 6 feet, a moderate jump 10 feet, a hard jump 15 feet, a masterful jump 30ft, and an extreme jump 60 ft. A system like this wouldn't allow unlimited upward gains but I think that would be a positive. To say that jumping and diplomacy can only do so much as skills and after that you need to start buying charm person and flight.

[OgreBattle]

Well, what should the stakes be for a skill test?

What happens if nobody in the party can pass it?
What happens if some fail, some pass?

[Dean]

I don't understand the question. If a 20 foot gorge is in front of a party of 4 Amateurs then none of them could make that jump. At best they could jump 15ft and still fail. In that case they would probably just decide not to jump. If it was a 12ft gap then everyone could pass on a 15+. If one person passed and the other 3 failed then one would make it across and 3 would fall in the gorge.

[Laertes]

What Ogrebattle said.

Also, even more fundamentally, what is the purpose of skills in your game? How do they interact with the Red Queen? Is it desirable that people should be able to spend feats on them, and thus make themselves worse at combat, in order to be better at it? How do class and level interact with them? How much synergy versus how much modularity should there be?

[deaddmwalking]

Among the first things to consider is whether you have a potential infinite power loop.

If I put all my skills into 'jump', we know I'm going to be good at jumping. If I put all my skills into 'magic', can I use magic to emulate every other skill? If every +1 I put into 'magic' nets me a +1 to every other skill, then it doesn't make sense to put ranks into any of those other skills.

This is basically 'why spend ranks on Hide if invisibility gives you everything you get with Hide and more'.

If you don't allow any overlap between skills and magic, you still have to consider relative worth. While depending on the specific implementation, it's hard to imagine that 'magic' isn't more flexible than 'Decipher Script'. If some skills are worth significantly more than other skills, you have an issue. If 'Magic' is better than 'Use Magic Device' (considered one of the better skills) then you're making this problem worse than in 3.x

The next thing to consider - should spells 'just work' or not? If you have the DCs set so that a wizard is 50% likely to be able to cast their highest level spell, but 90% likely to cast their lowest level spell, is that even a good thing? It's really a question of how often your characters can 'miss' and feel good about themselves. The difference here is that there would be a strategic consideration that is usually absent from 'to hit' rolls. Ultimately, if players are comparing a standard 3.x wizard (where everything always works), they'll tend to feel that they're being 'nerfed' (because they are) and there are a lot of players that will object. But if you have the DCs set so everyone always succeeds, there isn't much point to adding this step.

[souran]

The real issue is that the existing d20 skill system has too much granularity.

A skill system that had ranks of "Trained"/"Journeyman"/"Expert"/"Master"/"Grand Master" and each one of those adds a d6 or adds +2/+4/+6/+8/+10 or something that would make it so that people are not routnely getting 40-50 results on their checks. would mean you could be better than another character without the challenge be irrelevant to you.

[Stubbazubba]

I don't necessarily advocate this but it would be totally possible to make a system where you compared your skill level to the task and got a roll. So all tasks are now Simple, Easy, Moderate, Hard, Masterful, or Extreme. And in any given skill characters are either Amateurs, Professionals, Masters, or Grandmasters.

Amateurs would automatically succeed at simple tasks, need a 5+ for easy tasks, a 10+ for Moderate tasks, and a 15+ for Hard tasks.
Pro's auto complete easy tasks, need a 5+ for moderate tasks, 10+ for hard tasks, 15+ for masterful tasks
Masters auto complete moderate tasks, need a 5+ for hard tasks, 10+ for masterful tasks, 15+ for extreme tasks
Grandmasters auto complete hard tasks, need a 5+ for masterful tasks, 10+ for extreme task

So a simple jump could be 3 feet, an easy jump 6 feet, a moderate jump 10 feet, a hard jump 15 feet, a masterful jump 30ft, and an extreme jump 60 ft. A system like this wouldn't allow unlimited upward gains but I think that would be a positive. To say that jumping and diplomacy can only do so much as skills and after that you need to start buying charm person and flight.

Is this functionally different from making each level of training beyond Amateur equal to +5 and each level of difficulty beyond Simple equivalent to 5*the order of increasing difficulty (i.e. Easy = 1*5, Moderate = 2*5, etc.) +1 (to maintain the "auto-fail tasks three degrees too high" feature)?

[Ice9]

Jump is a kind of strange example, in that I actually don't see the huge disparity as problematic. It's a narrow enough niche that I think it's actually desirable for "the frog master" to leap hundreds of feet in a bound while "fairly athletic dude" only jumps a dozen.

Same thing with some other skills - it's fine if one guy can give the vault door a tap in the right spot and make it spring open, and a different guy has no chance to pick the lock even with the right tools. That's no more broken than "the dragon adept can breath fire at will, the samurai can't ever breath fire at all".

It's only for skills that act as a party-wide hazard/gate, and don't have alternate ways to bypass them, that people need to be on the same RNG as each-other. Which means that you might want to put these type of skills in a separate category.

[TarkisFlux]

I don't necessarily advocate this but it would be totally possible to make a system where you compared your skill level to the task and got a roll. So all tasks are now Simple, Easy, Moderate, Hard, Masterful, or Extreme. And in any given skill characters are either Amateurs, Professionals, Masters, or Grandmasters.

Amateurs would automatically succeed at simple tasks, need a 5+ for easy tasks, a 10+ for Moderate tasks, and a 15+ for Hard tasks.
Pro's auto complete easy tasks, need a 5+ for moderate tasks, 10+ for hard tasks, 15+ for masterful tasks
Masters auto complete moderate tasks, need a 5+ for hard tasks, 10+ for masterful tasks, 15+ for extreme tasks
Grandmasters auto complete hard tasks, need a 5+ for masterful tasks, 10+ for extreme task

So a simple jump could be 3 feet, an easy jump 6 feet, a moderate jump 10 feet, a hard jump 15 feet, a masterful jump 30ft, and an extreme jump 60 ft. A system like this wouldn't allow unlimited upward gains but I think that would be a positive. To say that jumping and diplomacy can only do so much as skills and after that you need to start buying charm person and flight.

Is this functionally different from making each level of training beyond Amateur equal to +5 and each level of difficulty beyond Simple equivalent to 5*the order of increasing difficulty (i.e. Easy = 1*5, Moderate = 2*5, etc.) +1 (to maintain the "auto-fail tasks three degrees too high" feature)?

Yes, that is functionally different. Going with a DC system instead of an 'option with associated DC' system adds a new level of success on a 20 that is not present in Dean's suggestion, as well as additional levels everytime you get any non-training bonuses up to a multiple of 5. It prioritizes bonus acquisition over skill acquisition, assuming there are any bonuses to acquire.

[zugschef]

Random thought...

So there's the fundamental discrepancy between fixed DCs and opposed checks. To fix that you could simply base opposed checks on character level and link challenges to skill levels.

There are five steps in skill level with a minimum required character level: 0 untrained, novice (+2; min. level 1), expert (+5; 3), master (+8; 9), grandmaster (+10; 13). Hand out skill points on character creation and every four levels thereafter (1, 5, 9, 13, 17). On leveling up you can remove one skill point from one skill and put it into another skill.

On fixed challenges you succeed on any challenge at or lower than your skill level. But you can't even attempt or hope to succeed on a challenge two steps and more above your skill level. On a challenge below your skill level you automatically get the best possible result. On a skill challenge one step above your skill level you have to roll a d20+skill level+stat mod against the DC.

Base Challenge DCs
Novice: 12
Expert: 15
Master: 18
Grand Master: 20

On opposed checks a character two skill levels above the other character always wins. Otherwise you roll d20+character level+skill level+stat mod and compare.

Thoughts?

[TiaC]

How about a variant on Advantage? If we have 5 skill levels they could look like this:
Untrained: Roll 3d20, take lowest.
Novice: Roll 3d20, take middle.
Expert: Roll 3d20, take highest.
Master: Roll 4d20, take highest.
Grand Master: Roll 5d20, take highest.
Any numerical bonuses would be huge in this system, so perhaps keep them to level-based.

[Prak]

Ok, let's assume for the moment D&D is being tweaked such as to have Attack and Defense become skills (let's say Batter [Str, most melee], Finesse[Dex, ranged and anything finessable], Parry[Str] and Dodge[Dex]), and skills capped at character level.

Then let's say that a character buys skills in discrete sets based on their key abilities, but rather than having six different sets (and having to come up with more for Con to do) the sets are Physical, Social and Mental (roughly divided by key ability, nearly evenly if we fudge the perception skills over to social), so you buy skills in three discrete sets. You also have three discrete sets of skill points, where you add your best Physical stat, the better of Wisdom or Charisma, and better of Int or Wisdom. Because your cap is now your level, you're not multiplying by four at first level, though you might be adding 3 to your class skills like in Pathfinder

Physical
Balance
Batter
Climb
Concentration
Dodge
Escape Artist
Finesse
Hide
Jump
Move Silently
Parry
Ride
Sleight of Hand
Swim
Tumble
Use Rope

Mental
Appraise
Craft
Decipher Script
Disable Device
Forgery
Heal
Knowledge
Profession
Speak Language
Spellcraft
Survival
Use Magic Device

Social
Bluff
Diplomacy
Disguise
Gather Information
Handle Animal
Intimidate
Listen
Perform
Search
Sense Motive
Spot

I know you'd have to tweak the skill points per level, for one thing, no one would have base skill points per level of less than 3, so that there's at least an even split. For another, such a system seems like it'd want to show a class's specialization in a set, you'd actually want something like no less than 4 base per level, and something like:

Barbarian 2 base Physical skill points, 1 base skill points in each of Social and Mental
Bard 1 base Physical, 3 base Social, 2 base Mental
Cleric 1 base skill point in each category
Druid 1 base skill points in each category
Fighter 2 base Physical, 1 base skill points in each of Social and Mental
Monk 2 base Physical, 1 base skill points in each of Social and Mental
Paladin 2 base skill points in each of Physical and Social, 1 base skill point in Mental
Ranger 2 base skill points in each category
Rogue 3 base skill points in each of Physical and Social, 2 base skill points in Mental
Sorcerer 1 base skill point in Physical and Mental, 2 base skill points in Social
Wizard1 base skill point in Physical and Social, 2 base skill points in Mental

And of course you add the relevant modifier to points per level for each category, so a Level 1 barbarian with 16/14/14/10/12/10 has 5 physical, 2 mental and 2 social skill points.

So basically, this barbarian is coming out ahead, since he can max out on nine skills, and they're skills he'd be likely to care about anyway.

A Rog1 with 14/16/10/10/14/12 would have 6 physical, 4 mental, and 5 social skill points, and be able to max out on 15 skills (where as in the normal model he'd need to put a 14 in int, and even then only be able to max out 12 skill points).


How terrible would something like this be? I mean, I know it's a bit more book keeping, but mechanically, is it inferior or unbalancing? I know it means the Wizard gets a boost in the areas of the skill system he cares about, and that the addition of four skills that regulate combat ability screws with things...

[John Magnum]

It's hard to see how massive fiddling with how people allocate skill ranks is going to have any big mechanical ramifications, especially if you keep them capped at their level. After all, the number of skill ranks was never the source of ridiculously vast skill checks or huge discrepancies between characters. So all the bookkeeping probably is a real powerup, but not actually a big deal unless you also rewrite every other source of huge skill boosts and all the DCs.

The big deal is connecting your attack numbers to the skill system, which seems like a really bad idea because then you're decoupling attack and defense from level. Which doesn't seem like it'll have any good effects.

[Prak]

Well, Attack already ranges from half level to equal to level. I suppose making defense a skill will mean that martial guys are neglecting other skills so they can last longer in combat. But then martial guys don't typically have much to care about in skills anyway, and the martial guys with the lowest skills per level are getting a boost here, at least comparatively.

Barring tweaking the bonus sources, this does mean that suddenly most fighters are picking up Skill Focus (Attack), Boxer (+2 Batter, Parry) or Archer (+2 Finesse, Dodge) instead of Weapon Focus (not that that's necessarily a bad thing, if only because now it's a bonus they care about, though it does mean that these feats probably should give a typed bonus that's all the same type. Which also nicely solves a part of skill mod bloat.)

[Laertes]

The purpose of skill points in a game is to enforce opportunity costs. It's a matter of "do I want to be better at X, or would I rather be better at Y?" Therefore, if you turn something into a skill you are giving people the option to say "I don't care about this, let me take the points out of it and put them elsewhere." If that's something you think is acceptable, make it a skill. If players reducing it to 0 makes their characters unplayable, don't make it a skill.

In the case of the Fighter reducing his Batter to 0 because he'd rather be good at Ride, this is clearly a trap option and therefore shouldn't be an option at all.

[Prak]

Hm, good point for vanilla D&D.

On the other hand, if one is just using d20 as a base for a game that isn't about Murderhoboing, and just taking it's core resolution mechanic and conditions and a handful of pieces, saying "I don't give a shit about attack rolls, I'm the party face/mechanic/spellcaster specialized in save or suck" isn't necessarily a gamebreaker. The party heavy tanking Attack in favour of ride is... well, a dumbass. But there are plenty of games where that's an option (Hell, it's even an option in After Sundown).