Do you find the skill system to be good in 5e?
In PF, it was very easy for a character to become exceptional at a skill. But doing so often meant that if you didn't become exceptional, you wouldn't even be able to pass skill challenges.
In 5e, bounded accuracy means that even without proficiency, you should be able to have a shot at most skill challenges. But the lack of higher bonuses also means that it's difficult to become truly exceptional. I've seen some people take issue with this. Even with that, I often find that those who complain the most about it completely ignore that you only roll a skill check when the outcome is uncertain (meaning that the GM is free to have you auto succeed or auto fail).
What's your opinion of the 5e skill system?
I like it, and find its simplicity of advancement refreshing after the "arms-raciness" of PF. I think tool proficiencies (and the customization they allow for) are an important part of the 5e skill system that gets missed too often.
Anyone who's looking to be exceptional should play a rogue for expertise and reliable talent but, as you point out, being exceptional in 5e is very different from being exceptional in PF.
I always struggle with skills in RPGs. The fact they tend to be binary success/fail (even if the system doesn't treat them that way, DM's tend to interpret them as such) really bothers me, since reality is rarely like that.
Personally, I prefer systems which work on 'degrees of success' rather than an explicit target number.
I like the fact anyone can try (pretty much) anything - but I think that's liking bounded accuracy, rather than the skill system itself.
I like it too, although I was skeptical at first.
I thought I would find the proficiency bonus too irrelevant, but given the bounded accuracy system, even a +2 is actually a meaningful bonus.
I like it because it removes the fiddly skill point distribution of 3.5.
@Steve Geddes
> Personally, I prefer systems which work on 'degrees of success' rather than an explicit target number.
I agree with this. In my games, I sometimes tried to use the target number for success/failure, but also take note of the difference. Success with +8 might be better than success with +1, and failure by -1 might just mean a miss but failure by a large margin could have additional detrimental effects; e.g. picking a lock and failing by -1 just means the rogue didn't succeed to open the door, while a failure by a large number might ruin/block the lock or make a loud noise.
One of the things I do in my games is set auto success for people with proficiencies or degrees of success depending on if you have proficiency.
For example, my players got in a situation where they had to swim up through a hole to the surface of the water after a cave collapse left them suddenly underwater. Those with proficiency and light armor auto succeeded. Those without proficiency and medium/heavy armor auto failed (unless they had help). Everyone else had to roll.
I also remember reading somewhere (DMG?) that if you got close on the fail side, you may succeed with something else bad happening.
Anyone else do this?
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Actually, I love that idea, a conditional success. I think one of the other systems (Savage Worlds? Apocalypse World?) does something like this to where you only get an unconditional success if you exceed the target number (or what have you) by a lot, making every skill check and so on become a potential plot point or complication. That seems to be to be excessive (I haven't played it, so I don't know), but the idea of giving a "near miss" success seems like a way better way to "fail forward"
On the broader topic, I've been doing a lot of conversion from PF to 5e, and skill check DCs tend to vary wildly. 5e definitely seems more streamlined and standardized, while PF skill checks almost seem arbitrary by comparison.
It certainly helps to bring the numbers down and remove extant bonuses so that mastery of a skill is more inherent to a character rather than the focus of resources that could otherwise help you be effective, such as feat selections, trait bonuses, equipment, and so on.
On the broader topic, I've been doing a lot of conversion from PF to 5e, and skill check DCs tend to vary wildly. 5e definitely seems more streamlined and standardized, while PF skill checks almost seem arbitrary by comparison.
One thing I've had a suspicion of is that PF/3.x has level appropriate encounters, meaning that the DC to accomplish goals changes as you level, even for potentially similar tasks. Meanwhile, 5e keeps the DCs more consistent throughout the levels.
Have you seen anything like that, or are my suspicions incorrect?
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That seems to be the case, yes. The skill checks definitely scale, with the odd "here is a high DC to keep a wall around this topic/area/treasure until your players are more seasoned" technique that a lot of people use, especially in AP formats.
But in general, skill checks in PF are meant to be pathways to problem solving, almost a paint by numbers style guide to making it through whatever non-combat problem your players need to resolve.
In 5e, there is some of that too, but largely the check DCs are there to remind you of what is possible and at what DCs. Out of the Abyss especially seems to follow the formula with DCs as well as with combat encounters, letting everything be a hodgepodge of CR and DC ranges that don't scale with your group's level advancement, especially given the sandboxy nature of the adventure.
I imagine that some publishers might fall into the old traps of having everything scale, but 5e was made to go up and down. The game expects you to, at level 10, pay attention to a fight with 15 orcs or a fight with a behir with roughly the same gravitas, where in PF the outcomes of those fights would vary wildly.
That is really fascinating. Has anyone else seen something similar?
I played games from level 1 to 20 where skill DCs where more or less the same (typically somewhere between 13 and 18), and as far as I experienced it worked fairly well.
High level characters succeeded in the field of proficiency reliably, which is what I would expect of high level characters, but failure were still possible in your low-stat abilities or when you weren't proficient with the skill. For characters with expertise and rogues with [can't remember the ability] that gives them a minimum result of 10, checks became auto-successes toward the end.
I can see this (maybe) causing some issues with athletics (for pushing) and stealth (against fixed passive perception DCs) or if player push the DM for knowledge checks all the time.
I really like it
It is easy to write too, easy to make up on the fly
Plus good that you can chop n change stats dependent on how you are doing the skill
Does anyone know any brand new players (new to RPGs in general or just new to D&D/d20)?
How have they worked with the skill system? Have they had trouble with it? Do they understand it intuitively?
The biggest complaint I see of the skill system is that there's no guidelines to what is an easy task (DC 5) or what is a hard task (DC 20) and how to tell the different between. That complaint always seems to coincide with the thought that new players will have difficulty with it. So I'm curious to what new players have thought.
I've got a new player and her most significant problem is remembering which die to roll (common for anyone) but with skills she seems to get a little lost on what bonus to add to her skill check roll. For example, if she is proficient in one skill and not another she will forget about the proficiency bonus. She tends to just want to add her ability score bonus, regardless of what the skill is. I have it all typed up on her character sheet but she's still struggling with the learning curve.
We have a barbarian that missed 3.0, 3.5, PF, and 4th Edition.
He's just really unlucky with Athletics checks.
Good thing he has lots of hit points and Damage Resistance....
;-)
But seriously, they couldn't give us a guide on what kinds of challenges are Easy, Moderate, Hard, Very Hard, etc.?
An option for "exceptional ability" would be to make a feat for it, making double proficiency bonus part of the feat. I'd custom make the feat for the character in question, since I doubt something like this would come up a ton. This way a player who really wanted their PC to be the best at something would have a way of doing that and investing in something to make it happen. You could even include advantage in a very narrow portion of the skill as well.
Making the following feat wouldn't be over powered:
Skill Focus
Select one skill you are proficient in. You add double your proficiency bonus when making ability checks with the selected skill.
When you make an ability check with the selected skill, you can choose to roll the check with advantage after seeing the result of the die roll. You cannot do this again until after you finish a long rest or short rest.
Making the following feat wouldn't be over powered:
Skill Focus
Select one skill you are proficient in. You add double your proficiency bonus when making ability checks with the selected skill.
When you make an ability check with the selected skill, you can choose to roll the check with advantage after seeing the result of the die roll. You cannot do this again until after you finish a long rest or short rest.
I think adding in a +1 ability score associated with the chosen skill would bring it in to appropriate power fairy nicely.
Good call! :-D