tarkisflux
2013-05-23, 11:29 PM
One of the recurring concerns regarding my skills rewrite is the lack of a real system to handle the removed skills, namely craft, knowledge (sort of), perform, and profession. When I wrote the "just handwave those things" section a few years ago, I wasn't really worried about them. The original audience was already not using those skills as written (if at all), so the section and basic structure worked. But as more people read it and liked the skills part of it, they started asking for something more robust to cover how well characters could craft objects or play the flute and for determining if they had read something or not without resorting to "arguing with the DM". And also something that translates between games and DM styles more easily than "make something up". And really, those are pretty reasonable things to want so I went a wrote a setup that deals with those things in a level and (mostly) skill point independent way.
But the setup doesn't actually need my skills thing at all; it works just fine in regular 3.x, 4e, pathfinder, and any game along those lines. I thought it a cool idea, so I figured I'd drop the basics here for some general commentary and see how it was received. I'm going to skip the details and design premises unless asked though (or you can read the more complete alpha version here (http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/User:Tarkisflux/sandbox/%22profession%22_revision)).
Background Abilities
Each of the previously individual craft, knowledge, perform, and profession skills are now individual background abilities. For example, weaponsmithing, planar knowledge, cooking, and flutist are all individual background abilities. These background abilities may be grouped into types (studies, artisanal, occupational [names intentionally different from old skills to prevent term confusion]) with similar secondary rules, but otherwise follow all the same general rules.
Background abilities that you possess are given a grade from 1 to 4. Grade 1 is about well trained apprentice level and allows you to make checks in the field, grade 2 is roughly journeyman level and gives you a +10 bonus, grade 3 is roughly master level and gives a +20 bonus, and grade 4 is grand master with a +30 bonus. You may take 10 on your checks, so the grades mostly serve to let you auto-succeed at appropriate tasks and attempt higher grade tasks. They are also structured so that a master never loses to an apprentice (or a grand master to a journeyman).
You can acquire a background ability or advance it to a higher grade through the investment of downtime alone and making a successful ability check with the relevant ability score. There are no level or class prereqs, no skill points or other character resources to invest other than time. Each higher grade requires substantially more time than the last and has a higher DC check. If the check is failed you can invest more time and make 1 retry roll, but a second failure means you can't advance the background ability in this fashion. I'm aware that this means that some people won't get to be master cooks or smiths or flutists, but 1) I look on these potential failures as character development opportunities rather than something straightforwardly bad since they don't detract from character power at any given level, and 2) we're about to get to rules on fixing failed checks so it's not a permanent setback.
You can still invest skill points in these abilities in a limited way though. Based on your level, a skill point would allow you to advance a background ability from grade 1 to grade 2 instantly (at level 3), or grade 3 to grade 4 instantly (at level 5), or from not having it to grade 4 instantly (at level 11). There are other advancement bits in there, but we'll skip them since I think the idea is clear. There is a cap on the number of points you can invest in this way at any given time, and any points so invested are refunded to you when the time to acquire it normally has passed or you gain 2 levels (whichever comes first). You can even hold one of your skill points in reserve to drop on a background ability mid adventure ("guys, I should have told you earlier, but I've been working on...").
Expected Game Impact
There are some tweaks that need to be made (racial and feat bonuses to these things need to be tweaked into advancement check bonuses or removed, bardic music needs to be class level instead of perform ranks, some knowledge based builds need tweaks), but nothing that seems unworkable.
This is potentially a lot more fiddly on a character sheet than the skill based version, but I don't think it's problematically so. These background rules allow characters to have fun and interesting hobbies in their downtime without sacrificing character resources to do so, and I'll take that. I also like the worldbuilding fluff and impact of having grand master smiths and sages who are also level 1 and might need your help and protection (or to be kidnapped).
Other stuff... the longer lived races also have time to be better at everything than the shorter lived races, so the fluff there remains supported. The bonuses largely work with the existing DCs in the game, so there's no conversion to worry about.
Additional Options
Languages, proficiencies, and even rituals could be handled with the same rules, where each is given a grade at which it is acquired. So exotic weapon proficiencies or planar languages are all grade 3 things, and require more time and checks than a martial weapon or local language to learn to use properly. Rituals (assuming you had a system where they existed) could be given grades based on their difficulty and work the same way.
The learning time could be reduced for characters who meet certain prerequisites. So BAB could reduce weapon learning time, bard levels reduce instrument learning time, etc. Bonuses to advancement checks could also be added, though both seems unnecessary with the skill point work around.
Feats could be added to break into the fantastic where appropriate. For example, a feat with "grade 4 artisanal background ability, character level 6" as a prereq that let you create magic items at a CL equal to your character level from the things that you craft doesn't seem inappropriate. Similarly, magic music options for grade 4 instrument players or divination options for divining new/obscure knowledge in your grade 4 fields.
----
Anyway, that's what I've been thinking about in brief. If that sounds interesting and you have ideas for expansions or terrible and you have reasons why this is wrongheaded, I'd be interested in hearing them. And if you want to see the larger version with more details, here's the link again (http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/User:Tarkisflux/sandbox/%22profession%22_revision).
But the setup doesn't actually need my skills thing at all; it works just fine in regular 3.x, 4e, pathfinder, and any game along those lines. I thought it a cool idea, so I figured I'd drop the basics here for some general commentary and see how it was received. I'm going to skip the details and design premises unless asked though (or you can read the more complete alpha version here (http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/User:Tarkisflux/sandbox/%22profession%22_revision)).
Background Abilities
Each of the previously individual craft, knowledge, perform, and profession skills are now individual background abilities. For example, weaponsmithing, planar knowledge, cooking, and flutist are all individual background abilities. These background abilities may be grouped into types (studies, artisanal, occupational [names intentionally different from old skills to prevent term confusion]) with similar secondary rules, but otherwise follow all the same general rules.
Background abilities that you possess are given a grade from 1 to 4. Grade 1 is about well trained apprentice level and allows you to make checks in the field, grade 2 is roughly journeyman level and gives you a +10 bonus, grade 3 is roughly master level and gives a +20 bonus, and grade 4 is grand master with a +30 bonus. You may take 10 on your checks, so the grades mostly serve to let you auto-succeed at appropriate tasks and attempt higher grade tasks. They are also structured so that a master never loses to an apprentice (or a grand master to a journeyman).
You can acquire a background ability or advance it to a higher grade through the investment of downtime alone and making a successful ability check with the relevant ability score. There are no level or class prereqs, no skill points or other character resources to invest other than time. Each higher grade requires substantially more time than the last and has a higher DC check. If the check is failed you can invest more time and make 1 retry roll, but a second failure means you can't advance the background ability in this fashion. I'm aware that this means that some people won't get to be master cooks or smiths or flutists, but 1) I look on these potential failures as character development opportunities rather than something straightforwardly bad since they don't detract from character power at any given level, and 2) we're about to get to rules on fixing failed checks so it's not a permanent setback.
You can still invest skill points in these abilities in a limited way though. Based on your level, a skill point would allow you to advance a background ability from grade 1 to grade 2 instantly (at level 3), or grade 3 to grade 4 instantly (at level 5), or from not having it to grade 4 instantly (at level 11). There are other advancement bits in there, but we'll skip them since I think the idea is clear. There is a cap on the number of points you can invest in this way at any given time, and any points so invested are refunded to you when the time to acquire it normally has passed or you gain 2 levels (whichever comes first). You can even hold one of your skill points in reserve to drop on a background ability mid adventure ("guys, I should have told you earlier, but I've been working on...").
Expected Game Impact
There are some tweaks that need to be made (racial and feat bonuses to these things need to be tweaked into advancement check bonuses or removed, bardic music needs to be class level instead of perform ranks, some knowledge based builds need tweaks), but nothing that seems unworkable.
This is potentially a lot more fiddly on a character sheet than the skill based version, but I don't think it's problematically so. These background rules allow characters to have fun and interesting hobbies in their downtime without sacrificing character resources to do so, and I'll take that. I also like the worldbuilding fluff and impact of having grand master smiths and sages who are also level 1 and might need your help and protection (or to be kidnapped).
Other stuff... the longer lived races also have time to be better at everything than the shorter lived races, so the fluff there remains supported. The bonuses largely work with the existing DCs in the game, so there's no conversion to worry about.
Additional Options
Languages, proficiencies, and even rituals could be handled with the same rules, where each is given a grade at which it is acquired. So exotic weapon proficiencies or planar languages are all grade 3 things, and require more time and checks than a martial weapon or local language to learn to use properly. Rituals (assuming you had a system where they existed) could be given grades based on their difficulty and work the same way.
The learning time could be reduced for characters who meet certain prerequisites. So BAB could reduce weapon learning time, bard levels reduce instrument learning time, etc. Bonuses to advancement checks could also be added, though both seems unnecessary with the skill point work around.
Feats could be added to break into the fantastic where appropriate. For example, a feat with "grade 4 artisanal background ability, character level 6" as a prereq that let you create magic items at a CL equal to your character level from the things that you craft doesn't seem inappropriate. Similarly, magic music options for grade 4 instrument players or divination options for divining new/obscure knowledge in your grade 4 fields.
----
Anyway, that's what I've been thinking about in brief. If that sounds interesting and you have ideas for expansions or terrible and you have reasons why this is wrongheaded, I'd be interested in hearing them. And if you want to see the larger version with more details, here's the link again (http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/User:Tarkisflux/sandbox/%22profession%22_revision).