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After reading the first Design Focus thread, it made me wonder: Shouldn't we first identify the biggest problems we'd like solved before discussing the alternatives?

Just a thought and a suggestion - maybe the next Design Focus thread should focus on asking people what they liked or didn't like about the previous edition, rather than jumping the gun and immediately asking people what alternative they'd prefer :)

I'm pretty late in entering the discussion, and this may come off as an "obvious" question, but wouldn't it be better to find out what the system needs before choosing between alternatives?

After all, shouldn't we start by defining the problem, before coming up with alternatives?

In an RPG the "Skill System" is basically a subset of the rules that is used to resolve specific actions done by a character that might entail some level of difficulty.

In D&D, these actions are typically limited to non-combat actions (i.e. Craft skill), or actions that supplement combat actions (i.e. Jumping over a ledge to attack an enemy).

Designing such a system is difficult for a variety of reasons. Specifically, the designer of a D20 Skill System must take into consideration the following factors:

1) How "balanced" should the skills be? In 3.X, there were a lot of "bad" skills that were rarely used (i.e. Use Rope), and other very useful skills that were used often (i.e. Spot).

2) How "flexibile" should the skill system be? The 3.X system left a lot of room for flexibility for the player (since they gained a lot of skill points and could put it all over the place), but increased flexibility often makes it harder for players to see the "right" choices for their characters, or leave room open

3) How "compatible" should the new system be compared to 3.X?

4) How much work will the new system be for the DM? Should it be easy for the DM, or is it okay for the DM to do a lot of work?

5) How would skills differentiate themselves from Feats, Spells, or Attack Rolls? Is a strong differentiation even needed, or should skills have a clearly defined role that's not covered by other systems?

6) How "realistic" or "believable" should the skill system be?

7) Should the new system be easy to learn and master?

Now I'm sure there are more challenges/issues when designing a skill system, but these are just some of the things the designers and playtesters should think about before picking one of the alternatives.

Because quite often, it's impossible to have "all of the above" - you need to make trade offs. For instance, "flexible" (challenge 2) and "easy to learn" (challenge 7) aren't compatible goals in design. If you make the system more flexible, it's harder to learn and master due to all the available options.

So, I suggest that instead of picking alternatives, perhaps we should all figure out what we really want before starting on the system design?

Personally, my priorities would be (in order):

1) "Balanced" utility of skills

2) Easy to learn

3) Easy for the DM to use

4) Strong differentiation from Feats, Spells, and Attack Rolls

The other issues aren't as important for me (i.e. Compatibility, realism, and flexibility).

How about the others? What do you want or need out of the new system?

Well duh! Hit me other the head with a battle axe!

If the problem is the Full-Round action limiting movement, how about a feat that allows a Full Attack combined with some movement option, maybe half your Speed, or up to your speed, but each attack must be delivered from a different space.

Both options then become available to suit the situation.

Hey I like that!

Mobile Tank Feat
requirements: Combat Expertise, Dodge, Power Attack
benefit: You can move up to your normal Speed in combat while using the Full-Attack maneuver. Each attack must be delivered from a different space. Movement may still provoke Attacks of Opportunity.

This could be modified to require 2 spaces per attack, or may limit movement to 1 space per available attack.

Beat you to it. See above on the suggestion regarding making a full attack a standard action ;).

Though I must say my implementation is the most extreme form of it.

... Before we debate whether or not to include iterative attacks, let's do a quick run down of the pros and cons of interative attacks:

Pros:

- It's backward compatible
- It reduces swinginess in results because you roll more dice.
- It increases the potential to do more damage for a melee or ranged character when they get lucky (i.e. all attacks land).

Cons:

- The current implementation encourages static combat (i.e. little to no movement).
- Rolling more dice takes more time.
- The "last attack" is often a miss anyway.

Now, rather than deleting iterative attacks, is there a way to create mechanics in order to minimize the Cons of iterative attacks? I believe so. Here are some possible solutions for the above Cons:

1) "Static Combat" can be fixed by allowing full attacks as a standard action for certain martial classes.

Yes, it would make martials more powerful, but given that they're generally weaker than casters this also helps in "balancing" the classes.

2) "Rolling dice takes time" - while 4E makes a big deal about "rolling less dice", let's be honest here - rolling dice doesn't really take that long. It takes only a few seconds.

Thus, while it's a "Con", it's not a BIG problem. A few seconds or minutes more is all it takes to resolve full attacks.

3) "The last attack always misses". - Instead of using the old way of resolving a full attack, I propose a new system as follows:

a) Roll the D20 equal to the number of times you get to attack.

b) Record the results.

c) Assign one result to be the first attack (with the highest attack modifier). The assign another to be the second attack, and so on.

d) Determine which attack hits, and roll the appropriate damage.

So, to make the example more tangible, let's assume we have a fighter with 3 attacks, and his attack bonus is +15/+10/+5. He's trying to hit an AC24 opponent (the player doesn't know the exact AC, but has an estimate based on previous attacks)

a) The player rolls the D20 three times. He gets a result of 11, 9, and 16.

b) He assigns the roll of 9 to the first attack (9+15, for 24 total), the roll of 16 to the second attack (16+10, for 26 total), and the roll of 11 for the last attack (11+5, for 16 total).

c) Two attacks hit the enemy, and the player rolls the appropriate damage dice.

This new system, while a bit more complex, has the following advantages:

1) The "last attack misses" problem is minimized, because against an average opponent you can assign higher than average D20 rolls to it.

2) It rewards players who pay attention to how high the monster's AC is :P.

3) It gives martial classes a bit more firepower to match up with the casters.

Now I'm sure there are more Pros and Cons that could be said about this particular element of the game, but I think rather than simply ditching iteritive attacks we may be able to come up with neat solutions to retain it.