We’ve written a lot of articles about skills. One thing that we’ve mentioned repeatedly in recent articles is the reluctance of some players to use skills they’re not good at. It’s a common problem and we’re still looking for the best solution. While brainstorming we came up with a proposal that we think will work and today we want to share it with you. We look at what’s worked in the past and used that as our starting point. We’re proposing that we ditch skill training and return to a skill point system.
When 3e hit shelves, one extreme change from previous editions of D&D was the introduction of skills and the ability for all PCs to spend points in those skills. This was a great way to differentiate two nearly identical characters. It allowed anyone to spend points in any skill they wanted their character to excel at. Now Pick Pockets or Moving Silently weren’t just abilities unique to Rogues.
With 4e D&D the list of skills was reduced to a mere 17. You no longer spent points in each skill; rather you selected a few skills based on your class that you were trained in. All other non-trained skills were just an extension of the relevant ability score. This change had its ups and downs.
One of the biggest problems was that each class had a very limited number of skills to choose from and most of the skills were extensions of the ability most closely tied to that class. The result was a tendency for PCs to be really, really good at a few things and horribly bad at all the rest. In circumstances where PCs needed to make skill checks (like during skill challenges, for example) the players would always try to roll on their best skills in order to have a greater likelihood of success.
However, many of those same players would often neglect to roll on any of their other skills because the starting number was so low. The players knew that if they rolled and failed the check that it was a strike against the overall skill challenge. Rather than hurt the party’s chances at victory, they figured it was better to sit back and let those who were good at the task at hand do their thing.
I can understand this kind of reasoning – in some situations. And in those situations that it seems plausible, usually when time isn’t a factor, I’m ok to let this kind of decision prevail. But when there is no in-game reason for the PC not to make the check and the player is just using meta-knowledge to try and avoid failing a roll I have a huge problem.
In order to address this problem we tried to figure out a way to give players more say in which skills they were good at and which ones they were not. We decided to keep the 4e skill list but adjust skill training and go to a system that’s more like the one used in 3e. Your PC would get points based on their class and then you’d assign skill points to the skills you felt were important. This would open up the entire skill list to every character. The poor Fighters could finally spend some points to be good at Perception, Stealth or even Arcana if they wanted to.
Each PC would get skill points every time they hit an even level (which is when they’d usually see their skills improve) and let the player assign the points as needed. The points would remain in a skill point pool until needed. This gives players the choice to spend the points immediately or wait and spend them later. After all, you don’t know if you’re going to need to be good at Endurance, Nature or Thievery over the next couple of levels. With a point pool you could spend a couple of points in the skills you want when you need to use them. This makes more sense to me because it has an in-game rationale for why the skill improved. If you still have points left when you hit the next even level, you’d have to spend any remaining points in your pool before your pool was replenished.
By giving the players the freedom to get better at any skill and to choose how good they wanted to be at it, I truly believe that they would be more likely to participate in skill challenges regardless of the situation. The Fighter can’t complain that he has a low Diplomacy and can’t talk to the Duke. If it’s necessary for him to talk he can always choose to spend his points in Diplomacy and improve his chances of success right there and then. If he chooses not to (for whatever reason) then he’s made his choice and must roll the skill check on the low number.
Of course this kind of mechanic still has potential for abuse. A player might still just load up on a few skills and nothing would have really changed. I think a few guidelines about how to distribute the points could minimize abuse. Something like you can only spend 1 point to improve a specific skill until you get your next point allotment upon hitting an even level.
Introducing this kind of open skill point distribution system will likely make more PCs better at a wider variety of skills. We’d certainly see more generalists and fewer specialists. I think we’d also see less of a gap between a PC’s best skill and his worse skill.
Any change like the one described here would obviously need to be house ruled. Given everyone’s near dependence on Character Builder this would certainly mean more pencil and paper bookkeeping. So the question really becomes is this kind of change going to make a noticeable enough difference (on the plus side) to make the extra work worth it? The Character Builder issue aside, what do you think of this proposal? Do you think it would make a difference? Would you be willing to try it? What kind of specific details do you think are necessary for this to work?
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1 2 3 Next »Is the character builder that common? Nobody in my group uses it, and the ones who have in the past say that it's slow and not worth the cost of subscription. There are 6 of us all using pen and paper, and none of us are considering switching.
First up:
Great to see a really rapid follow up to one of the major issues raised in the discussion of this week's '5 reasons to say no' article. I swear this Blog gets better and better and I love what you guys write.
Secondly:
*Applause*
I like this idea. I don't think my group would go for it but it does seem a far far nicer system in concept. Thanks for proposing this. I completely agree that it could work well to diversify characters by giving classes more out-of-role skills. If presented beneficially (as above) to the game's player-base as a whole I can see a significant portion genuinely considering its uptake.
The major problem with convincing (my) players to run with this is the reliance on the character builder. Laziness and convenience seem to win out with the majority of gamers these days. I also get the feeling that some players won't perceive having a select few power skills as a detriment to the game. I think you really need to have been on the DMs side of the screen to appreciate the problem directly where you get to observe the same players roll the same skills constantly.
Cheers
Blinkey ;)
Apologies for the double-post
@Megan:
At least in my limited experience, a large number of players 'borrowed' their friends' ddi accounts to get the old offline builder. This is probably partially why the switch was made to the online builder. Use of the old offline builder is still widespread within the more computer-literate parts of the community ;) I don't know how much more I can say without causing trouble.
Hmmm... I'm not sure your proposal would solve anything. It seems to me the point system you are proposing just adds unnecessary complexity to the existing system, and be more difficult to keep track of. If the current class limitations bother you, I suggest eliminating the current class limitations instead on training (so a fighter, for instance, can train ANY of his skills using his all allotted 3 choices at first level instead of just athletics, endurance, etc.). Also note that you, as the DM, can allow players to select character backgrounds currently available in 4e that also allow PCs to train in skills not normally available to that class.
By contrast, if skill availability is not the problem for you and instead you are bothered by the fact that PCs are highly trained in some skills and not trained at all in others, you can instead do something like this: add up all training bonuses normally available at first level to that character and allow the player to distribute them amongst all the skills any way desired. That way a fighter at first level would have 15 training "plusses" to divide up between all his skills in any way he wishes.
This sounds like a really cool idea. The way skills are handled was one of my complaints about 4e (and Star Wars SAGA). While I like being able to use any skill I want, I don't like the fact once you have trained certain skills, you can train others without taking a feat and the other skills are obviously weaker. This would really fix it up, and I don't care about the character builder, since I only use it to print out a power sheet. I do my character sheets by hand.
@Megan
My group (we run four different 4e games, around a dozen players and DMs all told) use nothing but the builder. Although when I say "the builder" I mean we're still using the *old* builder; from what we've heard of the new builder we have no reason to subscribe to move over. Now I might have gotten an overly negative view of the new builder from the wrong sources, but at any rate I can only really speak on the old builder from personal experience. The old builder is quite effective at laying out your options (be it feats, powers, magic items) in an effective, easy to find manner; this is (to me) it's strongest point. Besides this it also does the math for you and keeps your creation organized. Now, I've made a few characters with pencil and paper and I don't mind that method, but I find I often don't hunt down the feats, powers, or items that I *really* wanted for my character. It's also an easy way for the GM to check for errors in the player's characters; the Builder says if there's an error, and provides a hyperlink to the section so the GM can give it a once over.
As for the skill system itself suggested in this post, I think this is a great idea. Seems like you should work something in, however, for the skills (or use of skills) that require training so that the character doesn't just have to spend a single point and take the skill. As far as dropping all the points on certain skills... maybe use an escalating point buy system as is done with the ability scores? Just a thought.
About depending on pencil and paper, if the DM or player already wanted to stick with the builder (and by extension, using computer tools) it seems like it'd be fairly simple to create an excel document that'd keep track of it for you, and compute any math needed. Then you could host it on either Skydrive or Google Docs so players who lack Excel could access it easily.
At any rate, I'd be interested in reading over a more fleshed out take on this system, if Dungeon'sMaster.com ever decides to do so.
In my opinion, this is more of a problem with the structure of skill challenges than with the skill system, per se. Does anyone sit out of combat because they will hurt the party's chances?
Very Interesting concept. I am curious if this would affect set DC's for skill checks? or what target DC's would you use per level?
I know I am likely in the minority here, but I just want to voice my feelings. I HATED skill ranks. I loathed them. With a passion. When they disappeared in Star Wars: Saga I house rules my 3.5 game at the time over to a home-brewed version of what we now have in 4.0. Skill ranks leads to some people being mediocre at a lot of things, some people specializing at a few (the same system we had now) but the difference is that now, even things you're not proficient have a chance of succeeding as you level up. I can make a simple athletics or Acrobatic check with my low strength Swordmage as I level thanks to a half level bonus and training. I can't keep up with a fighter, warlord, or Barbarian. But as I level up I pick up some competency, AND manage to focus my knowledge skills that I use more often. I think a skill rank system will just heighten the divide between amazing specialists and people who are blunderingly incompetent when it comes to skill checks.
I basically don't see how this solves anything and in fact may make things worse. The classes are, more or less, designed to give each class a social skill, a physical skill and a knowledge skill. With all the classes around and all the choices available its not perfect but its roughly there. That means that most skill challenge type situations have a reasonably descent chance of needing one of the skills the player is trained in since the things people use skills on can, very roughly, be broken down into challenges dealing with environmental obstacles (where physical skills predominate), social obsticles (i.e. talking with people) and information gathering.
Furthermore not all skills are created equal. Perception is probably the best while Insight and Athletics are also very good. Streetwise and bluff pretty far down the list. So now you have most of the players in the party strongly encouraged to use their skill picks to focus on the 'good' skills and no one in the party has the 'bad skills'. Makes sense in that you never really know what a Skill Challenge will need but you can evaluate which skills will likely do double duty in combat...of course the net result is that the party as a whole has a lot more 'holes' in their skill suite when the skill challenge comes up...while at the same time everyone is making sure their perception skill is up to snuff. Never know when your going to need to try and see a trap or identify an invisible enemy combatant after all.
Players will just focus their choices, broadly, on the skills they have the best stats in anyway - except that they'll choose the 'good' dex based skill and not the 'bad' dex based skill. The end result is more overlap with the party having, as a whole, even more weak skills then they did before this fix was implemented.
I agree that the main issue is Skill Challenge design itself but think it should be clear that the world does not end if some players, some of the time. don't need to contribute to te current Skill Challenge. If you want them to be forced to participate then make more of your skill challenges ones with group checks or at least interweave a group check, or a few, into the design of more open ended Skill Challenges.