Comments on: Always Train Your Worst Skills

By: Dragon

Dragon — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 07:17:08 +0000

If you take into account the Essentials products, the Armor Finesse feat in the player books ((I.e. Heroes of the Fallen Lands & Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms)) the armor check penalties no longer apply, ergo you now only take the penalty from your shield, which can be removed by Shield Finesse feat.

By: Nicholas

Nicholas — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 02:26:30 +0000

Regarding the first commenter… if there is a skill to match your backstory, great. But in 4E skills are far more utilitarian than flavorful. I’m more of the mind that the Player and DM can use the character’s backstory for RP flavor when it is appropriate, without having to tie up points on a sheet.

In fact, wasn’t that one of the rationales for really chopping down the skill lists? So people wouldn’t feel they had to choose between an RP thing and a Thing that Helps Me Win Die Rolls?

By: David Argall

David Argall — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 01:17:13 +0000

While you do not get full value from training your best skills, it is still your best strategy.
In the typical skill challenge, the PC has several options he can use, and one of them is likely to be one of his trained skills. So he will use his prime skill instead of the weak one. Improving 90 to 100% may not be a huge gain, but improving 50 to 75 is worthless when you will opt for the 90 anyway.
Now there are the fully social skill challenges or the entirely physical where some pretty common builds are at a major disadvantage, and so making sure you have at least one social and physical skill that does not suck may be worth it, but for most skill challenges you will be using your better skills a lot more than your worst.
For a number of group checks, only the best counts. Everybody rolls a perception check and if nobody beats 20, the party does not discover a piece of treasure. Bringing your 10 up to a 15 won’t help much. Making that 15 a 20 is quite profitable.
Now there are also a number of cases where the individual roll is useful. A roll of 15 on perception avoids the surprise round for you. But then we have to consider that the skills are not of equal value and frequency. Perception may well occupy the top spot and be worth improving in any case. But history is a good candidate for rarely being worth training unless you are already good at it.
Overall, you are best off improving your best abilities.

By: Brian Engard

Brian Engard — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 16:52:03 +0000

The one big (and I think, somewhat faulty) assumption that this article makes is that players are only going to be using their trained skills. In most actual play scenarios, this is generally not the case, unless the DM designed the skill challenge poorly or is deliberately hitting softballs at the players. If you’ve got your big, tough fighter who’s trained in Athletics, Endurance, and Intimidate, sure, he’ll be pretty good at those three things. But if he can rely solely on those three things to get through all of the DM’s skill challenges, then there’s a deeper problem with the game.

As a DM, if you want to make your skill challenges interesting to players who have trained their skills to high values, then you’re going to want to make sure that they have to use their untrained skills from time to time. It may be that the bard has a Diplomacy modifier somewhere in the stratosphere, but what happens when the duke asks the uncharismatic wizard what he thinks of the situation? What happens when the whole party has to sneak past the guards, and not just the sneaky rogue? If you’re worried about your players succeeding too often, then these are the sorts of situations you should be thinking about.
Brian Engard´s last [type] ..Dresden Files Philadelphia: A Plan is Formed

By: Solving the Skill Challenge Problem – Ensuring Everyone Contributes — Dungeon's Master

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 16:41:11 +0000

[...] Always Train Your Worst Skill [...]

By: Kuster Jr

Kuster Jr — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 03:33:18 +0000

I realize I’m more than a bit late to this party, but I thought I would add my two cents. This seems to only really be a problem for power gamers – they’ll be worried about how to get the best skills or combination of skills. If one were to emphasize the story side of things more, then one’s skills should be entirely related to their backgrounds and stories (I do realize it’s almost never this black and white). Yes, the story party may be lacking in skills that could be necessary in some campaigns, but if the shortcomings came up regularly, I would have to ask what the DM is doing – the campaign should really be tailored to the characters. At least, that’s what I feel. (Note, this doesn’t necessarily apply in and LFR or other random event). Great discussion on the topic, though. Keep up the wonderful articles.

Kuster Jr.

By: Character Creation Tips — Dungeon's Master

Character Creation Tips — Dungeon's Master — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:03:18 +0000

[...] skills. They’re likely good enough already to beat a moderate DC more than half of the time. Training your worst skills will often make the biggest difference. And if you find that you’re always failing a check [...]

By: Have You Retrained Today? — Dungeon's Master

Have You Retrained Today? — Dungeon's Master — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 13:15:45 +0000

[...] desire without even rolling. When this happens it’s time to retrain your skills and consider training your worst skills. An area that often gets overlooked are knowledge skills. When you enter into the Epic tier every [...]

By: Ameron

Ameron — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:02:15 +0000

@Philo Pharynx
I often just use the PCs passive skill scores (base +10) with modifiers for good role-playing. This is especially productive during social encounters.

@Franciolli Araújo
I know that most players want to be really, really good at one or two things, but I’ve learned through experience that it’s better to be average at a lot of skills and to shore up your really poor skills.

@Philo Pharynx
Wow. What more can I say. Awesome list. Thank you.

@Dan
If you’re a Fighter with an 18 Strength (+4) and then you wear plate armor and use a heavy shield (total check penalty -4) then your Athletics skill is only +0. It was one of your best skills before you geared up, but now it’s probably among your worst. So in this case I’d agree that you need to train it. But the same Fighter with scale armor (check penalty -1) and a two handed weapon (no shield) has an Athletics skill of +3. In this case I’d say train something else.

This will always be a subjective argument and it’s up to you to create and play the PC you want to play. I’m just trying to help players who may not realize that its often better to have a Fighter with a +3 Athletics and a +4 Streetwise than a +8 Athletics and a -1 Streetwise.

By: Dan

Dan — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 08:26:10 +0000

I didnt read every single comment above, but in reference to maxing skills, I must say that some skills may still require training, even if boosted by a high beginning ability score. Take, for example, any skill that is penilized when wearing heavy armor (i.e. Athletics, Endurance, Stealth, etc..). These skills may begin with a +4 modifier from an 18 on the relevant ability, but if you add hide, chainmail, scale, or plate and throw a light or heavy shield in the mix, you then are including a -1 to -4 modifier that can significantly reduce or even negate any bonuses from a high ability score. So, if your players are concidering rolling a character and they desire to have the ability to succeed on a dificult physical skill check while wearing heavier armor and/or a shield, it might be in their best interest to allocate the skill training to that physical skill.