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Aug 7, 2012 -- 5:17PM, FallingIcicle wrote:

I hate what they're doing with rogues and skills. This is a terrible solution to the problem and does nothing to address the fact that the 20 Wisdom cleric will still be better at finding traps than the rogue.

I'm looking at the rogue (right now actually) and I'm not seeing where this Wis stuff is coming in?  There are no stats tied to the skills so why are whining about something that isn't there?

The solution to skills is straightforward, different races, classes and background are better at different skills. The skill training uses the best of stacked die mechanic of 2d20 and mastery is a 3d20 mechanic, one only need to compensate the recommended DC table knowingly, that if a check needs training use a DC15, if a check needs mastery uses DC18 (assumes base ability is 10 but it could be 8).   Go higher on DC if you want to use ability and training, or stay lower than 15 if you want to only use ability.

The issue with wanting to put a modifier on training is they are afraid of modifier blowout, but the stacked die mechanic does not blowout.  This recent change to use best of training and abiliity is even worse because one substitutes for another, the whole point of having hard tasks was that they required both training and ability.  Thus the DC table increases difficulty assuming no training no ability < training or ability < training and ability, not a new idea as that is a quote directly from 4e manuals (unless of course the mantra for 5e is its specifically not 4e....)  Training should replace ability for moderate or easy tasks, but not for hard tasks, and impossible tasks should require ability.

Like 4e these skills can be trained outside race, class and background by opting into the skill feats open to everyone as there is an opportunity cost to feats.   And of course if feats are an optional module not in core, then the DM has decided he prefers the opportunity costs in not using feats that he does not want class or out of class specialization.

The DM using DMG suggestions decides which is the base ability for the skill being used that is appropriate for the situation, maybe they decide sneaking up a ladder requires stealth, but they make it a strength check as it is a rope instead of a ladder, or a dexterity check because it is a rickity ladder, or they need to have int or wisdom to be smart or wise about being sneaky since climbing the ladder is not the issue, but in all cases the rogue gets a die bump for being sneaky.

The cleric is not trained in stealth so their raw ability will need to be relied upon to get them up the ladder, if they want to be a sneaky cleric then opt into a sneaky feat at the expense of taking healing, mace or shield feats they need to be better at their class.

The  stacked die for training works - I am already using it in 4e without even modifying the DC tables.  It has the 'downside' that ability cannot substitute for training and vice versa when it comes to hard or impossible tasks, they simply are not interchangeable, they are simply just different.  Personally that 'downside' to me is a desirable compromise.

The whole skills are liked to classes which are linked to attributes is one of those sacred cows i think that needs slaughtered.  There's no reason why a mage can't learn to sneak, or a fighter can't learn history. It's just an arbitary strangle hold on concepts like class level limits in AD&D, and remember how happy everyone was when we got rid of those.

Aug 8, 2012 -- 2:52PM, GrandMasterofFlowers wrote:

The whole skills are liked to classes which are linked to attributes is one of those sacred cows i think that needs slaughtered.  There's no reason why a mage can't learn to sneak, or a fighter can't learn history. It's just an arbitary strangle hold on concepts like class level limits in AD&D, and remember how happy everyone was when we got rid of those.

That particular 'cow' of skills linked to classes is not a 4e restriction, quoting directly from the manual

"
Feat: Skill Training
You gain training [+5 modifier] in one skill, which doesn't need to be on your class skills list.   You can take this feat more than once.  Each time you select this feat choose a different skill.

Feat:Skill Focus
Choose a skill in which you have training.  You gain a +3 feat bonus to the chosen skill. You can take this feat more than once.  Each time you select this feat choose a different skill.
"

The manual even suggests choosing your subset of allowed class skills based on your roleplay background, so 5e backgrounds is just adding it to the mechanics that was already suggested in the text.

All that class skill training meant in 4e is you get a 'free' skill training feat at lvl0, an advantage but not one that can't be easily overcome with your very first feat selection in lvl0.   Yes it means opportunity cost of losing out on toughness or something more useful, but that is what D&D chargen is about!   This is an improvement from 3.5e where training was more class restricted.

Indeed your max STR ability fighter can also be smart at history, if they spend their first two feats on History skill even with +0 modifier on INT, they can have a +8 modifier on History exceeding the skill of a Wizard who did not study History despite being maxed INT, but the Wizard of History will always be superior to them both.

What they tried to fix in 5e is that is a +8 modifier blows out their bounded system, but in doing so they broke the inherent flexibility of chargen that already existed in 4e.

If you go with the die stacking idea I proposed that is equivalent odds to +8 modifier for easy moderate tasks.   Die stacking diminishing returns though means if you need to roll a DC20 with both feats (best of 3d20) without ability your odds are slightly worse than 3/20 to get it, better than not being trained but much worse odds than the 4e modifier which meant you only need to roll a 12 with ~8/20 odds.  But that is a good thing in a bounded system, you have to have diminishing returns to implement one.

By decoupling skills from particular abilities and only suggesting the skills to use, you leave it up to the DM to decide which ability modifier to use, which means you do not necessarily need class skill ability alignment to excel.   But if you stack the die you also prevent the min/maxer who aligned class skill ability with a friendly DM from blowing out your system balance.

What I would rather see is perception be split into near and far distances. Something like Search and Awareness. Search is primarily Int, although I could see Dex if a tactile search is being done. Awareness would be for anti-surprise and noticing items of interest in your surroundings.