Really? How so? I'm not doubting you or anything, just curious; I didn't really get that impression, but I only ever read the 13th Age rulebook once, and even that was at a hurried pace, so I probably missed the deeper connections.
Saves as DCs, powers as class features, static health growth, no multiclassing, feats everywhere, adventurer/champion/epic tiers, heavily scaled down skills, ongoing saves, healing surges, monster stat blocks are completely ripped from 4e, dealing damage on misses, scaling weapon dice (1d6 damage level 1, 7d6 damage level 7), status effects everywhere, no spell lists. It was also designed by the 4e people.
It's a great game, but limited in a number of ways. If you're not concerned with the things they've scaled back on (skills gone, only 10 levels, powers over spells), it's amazing and all the content is AAA quality.
webguy20 Iterative attacks are the worst and I can't express how ridiculously happy I am that the entire industry has moved past them.
Ehhh
Skills aren't "gone" they're just hidden, and hidden well. Rather, you still do make skill checks, it's just now you add your background bonus, when it applies.
Also 13 True Ways brought in multiclassing rules. Specifically, you can be dual-classed. They don't have a strict system that matches the 4e "crosstraining" style MC stuff, but it could easily be homebrewed in, and some classes already have features that basically give them multiclassing abilities into certain other classes (Paladins can take Cleric domains, for instance, and in so doing become noticeably more cleric-y).
But in general yes 13th Age was an attempt by former designers of both 3.x and 4e to make a game that borrowed what they viewed as the best mechanics from both systems.
Right, but if you look at skills in 3e, 4e, 13th, and pf2, you'll see that 13th age took skills gutted them (like 4e) while pf2e exploded them (like 3e). 13th's hybrid classes are whole-cloth taken from 4e's hybrid classes as well, while pf2e stole the crosstraining feats.
So I really wanted to address this when I saw it this morning but my day became car accident heavy so I didn't and still don't really have time to do it justice but....WHAT?
The possible skills in 13th Age is not smaller than any other edition D&D. It is larger than EVERY other version of D&D combined. The issue is there is no definitive skill list. All skills are bespoke descriptions of that character's past.
Now this means there is no skill chapter with "x DC to tie a square knot with failing by 5 or less meaning you tie a granny knot". So if you want to say it gutted something it would be the exhaustive skill rules, not the skills themselves. They give out generalized DCs that have more to do with appropriate challenge than any sort of effort to maintain verisimilitude.
Also gonna note that this is the exact opposite of what 4e did to skills. 4e narrowed the list and outside of skill challenges made skill descriptions that listed out the allowed actions with them. This was one of the 4e is a video game complaints even!
3e: Here's 30 skills and every class interacts with skills differently and here's a couple of feats for skills, don't forget skill synergies.
PF: Here's 25 skills and every class interacts with skills differently and here's a bunch of feats for skills.
4e: Here's 10 skills and skill challenge rules.
13: Distill your background into two parts. If you can convince your GM your background is relevant, you get a bonus.
P2: Here's 25 skills and every class interacts with skills differently and here's like 50 feats for skills and you can't not take them.
My thought process is that 4e distilled skills down and mostly tried to brush them aside, that's my take from playing 4e ten years ago. 13th continued down the path of making skills a smaller mechanical part of your character, and there's far few mechanics tied to them; if you enjoyed the way skills worked in 3e, you're going to be disappointed with 13th age because they're heavily, heavily gutted in comparison to other editions.
PF2e, on the other hand, has decided that skills are the best ever and every character gets ten dedicated skill feats.
2e: Everyone is defined by being proficient - or not - with weapons. Everyone understands this, this is the natural way of life. However, sometimes people might become proficient in non-weapons! How wild is that?!
Really? How so? I'm not doubting you or anything, just curious; I didn't really get that impression, but I only ever read the 13th Age rulebook once, and even that was at a hurried pace, so I probably missed the deeper connections.
Saves as DCs, powers as class features, static health growth, no multiclassing, feats everywhere, adventurer/champion/epic tiers, heavily scaled down skills, ongoing saves, healing surges, monster stat blocks are completely ripped from 4e, dealing damage on misses, scaling weapon dice (1d6 damage level 1, 7d6 damage level 7), status effects everywhere, no spell lists. It was also designed by the 4e people.
It's a great game, but limited in a number of ways. If you're not concerned with the things they've scaled back on (skills gone, only 10 levels, powers over spells), it's amazing and all the content is AAA quality.
webguy20 Iterative attacks are the worst and I can't express how ridiculously happy I am that the entire industry has moved past them.
Ehhh
Skills aren't "gone" they're just hidden, and hidden well. Rather, you still do make skill checks, it's just now you add your background bonus, when it applies.
Also 13 True Ways brought in multiclassing rules. Specifically, you can be dual-classed. They don't have a strict system that matches the 4e "crosstraining" style MC stuff, but it could easily be homebrewed in, and some classes already have features that basically give them multiclassing abilities into certain other classes (Paladins can take Cleric domains, for instance, and in so doing become noticeably more cleric-y).
But in general yes 13th Age was an attempt by former designers of both 3.x and 4e to make a game that borrowed what they viewed as the best mechanics from both systems.
Right, but if you look at skills in 3e, 4e, 13th, and pf2, you'll see that 13th age took skills gutted them (like 4e) while pf2e exploded them (like 3e). 13th's hybrid classes are whole-cloth taken from 4e's hybrid classes as well, while pf2e stole the crosstraining feats.
So I really wanted to address this when I saw it this morning but my day became car accident heavy so I didn't and still don't really have time to do it justice but....WHAT?
The possible skills in 13th Age is not smaller than any other edition D&D. It is larger than EVERY other version of D&D combined. The issue is there is no definitive skill list. All skills are bespoke descriptions of that character's past.
Now this means there is no skill chapter with "x DC to tie a square knot with failing by 5 or less meaning you tie a granny knot". So if you want to say it gutted something it would be the exhaustive skill rules, not the skills themselves. They give out generalized DCs that have more to do with appropriate challenge than any sort of effort to maintain verisimilitude.
Also gonna note that this is the exact opposite of what 4e did to skills. 4e narrowed the list and outside of skill challenges made skill descriptions that listed out the allowed actions with them. This was one of the 4e is a video game complaints even!
3e: Here's 30 skills and every class interacts with skills differently and here's a couple of feats for skills, don't forget skill synergies.
PF: Here's 25 skills and every class interacts with skills differently and here's a bunch of feats for skills.
4e: Here's 10 skills and skill challenge rules.
13: Distill your background into two parts. If you can convince your GM your background is relevant, you get a bonus.
P2: Here's 25 skills and every class interacts with skills differently and here's like 50 feats for skills and you can't not take them.
My thought process is that 4e distilled skills down and mostly tried to brush them aside, that's my take from playing 4e ten years ago. 13th continued down the path of making skills a smaller mechanical part of your character, and there's far few mechanics tied to them; if you enjoyed the way skills worked in 3e, you're going to be disappointed with 13th age because they're heavily, heavily gutted in comparison to other editions.
PF2e, on the other hand, has decided that skills are the best ever and every character gets ten dedicated skill feats.
Just saw the soft and hardcover playtest books at the nerd store. I know the PDFs are free, but why such a high price point and production value for temporary material this is definitely subject to change? Is that normal?
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Just saw the soft and hardcover playtest books at the nerd store. I know the PDFs are free, but why such a high price point and production value for temporary material this is definitely subject to change? Is that normal?
"Because people want them" is pretty much the beginning and end of it.
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited August 2018
My EotE game came to a close with the end of the summer. Which is fine by me since we had no idea what to do, no direction from us as characters, and Darth Galto’s big thing was “buy a building” and I did that. He would have been better off as an NPC, but now he’s on the run because he was trying to find a jedi master through force sensitives and got afoul of the Imperials and the local cops.
The other thing that brought me down is I wasn’t going full dark side manipulator trying to build an empire out of blackmail, threats, and other untoward methods; but I also wasn’t going hard enough gangster lord because I thought the party wasn’t accepting me as a full on bad guy. It didn’t help these guys were all new and didn’t really know how things worked.
Especially one guy who was insistent on trying to get his way to work and really didn’t understand how the game was supposed to work. Specifically, he always was arguing with the GM because he didn’t understand the authority the GM has in these types of games. He didn’t seem to understand consequences (which to be fair the GM, when I first played something with him, didn’t understand either). He was also always playing something else at the table, making long distracting comments out of game stuff and not just small innocuous things, and not paying attention but also made us explain everything that happened a foot away from him anyway.
Otherwise it was a great time and led to some fun nights during and afterward. Helped a lot during the summer with the job and school.
If we meet again, and that campaign is toast now with everyone on the run, think I want to basically be the Star Wars Punisher. That would give me more direction, let me help the party (as long as they’re not hurting innocents) more, and plus I like to shoot-bang bad dudes. I basically got bored and invented the persona of a vigilante called the Krayt Dragon as an excuse to shoot up slavers and gangsters. That was one of the more fun times I had and that character wasn’t even built for combat at first.
Also at the adventure finale of Dark Heresy. Ended off on a Bolivian Army ending with all of them bunkering down to defend against the onslaught of heretics and daemons coming their way. Hopefully will be able to burn my two vet players, and honestly with the fear and special effects from these daemons one of them might just straight up get a heart attack. They got it really bad in the last combat with basically only two functional fighters, one who was frozen in terror for the first quarter. One of those functional fighters was the techpriest on overwatch with a storm bolter though so I ran weak cultists at him to make him lose ammo before the daemons got through. No PC deaths that time though. Maybe this time.
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MsAnthropyThe Lady of Pain Breaks the Rhythm, Breaks the Rhythm, Breaks the RhythmThe City of FlowersRegistered Userregular
My EotE game came to a close with the end of the summer. Which is fine by me since we had no idea what to do, no direction from us as characters, and Darth Galto’s big thing was “buy a building” and I did that. He would have been better off as an NPC, but now he’s on the run because he was trying to find a jedi master through force sensitives and got afoul of the Imperials and the local cops.
The other thing that brought me down is I wasn’t going full dark side manipulator trying to build an empire out of blackmail, threats, and other untoward methods; but I also wasn’t going hard enough gangster lord because I thought the party wasn’t accepting me as a full on bad guy. It didn’t help these guys were all new and didn’t really know how things worked.
Especially one guy who was insistent on trying to get his way to work and really didn’t understand how the game was supposed to work. Specifically, he always was arguing with the GM because he didn’t understand the authority the GM has in these types of games. He didn’t seem to understand consequences (which to be fair the GM, when I first played something with him, didn’t understand either). He was also always playing something else at the table, making long distracting comments out of game stuff and not just small innocuous things, and not paying attention but also made us explain everything that happened a foot away from him anyway.
Otherwise it was a great time and led to some fun nights during and afterward. Helped a lot during the summer with the job and school.
If we meet again, and that campaign is toast now with everyone on the run, think I want to basically be the Star Wars Punisher. That would give me more direction, let me help the party (as long as they’re not hurting innocents) more, and plus I like to shoot-bang bad dudes. I basically got bored and invented the persona of a vigilante called the Krayt Dragon as an excuse to shoot up slavers and gangsters. That was one of the more fun times I had and that character wasn’t even built for combat at first.
Also at the adventure finale of Dark Heresy. Ended off on a Bolivian Army ending with all of them bunkering down to defend against the onslaught of heretics and daemons coming their way. Hopefully will be able to burn my two vet players, and honestly with the fear and special effects from these daemons one of them might just straight up get a heart attack. They got it really bad in the last combat with basically only two functional fighters, one who was frozen in terror for the first quarter. One of those functional fighters was the techpriest on overwatch with a storm bolter though so I ran weak cultists at him to make him lose ammo before the daemons got through. No PC deaths that time though. Maybe this time.
That one guy? He should have been kicked from the group. As someone who is the GM a lot of the time, I put in the effort to come up with situations, locations, NPCs that should be interesting for the group to interact with, as well as host sessions (which means cleaning), and often provide snackage. All that on top of working full-time. No one who puts in that kind of work for a hobby should tolerate a player who shows up, ignores all the work they’ve put in, and then expects to get their way all the time.
I'm thinking at some point getting my group to run the intro scenario in the core. Later on I'd like to use the rules for my homebrew setting that I'm currently running for the group in 5e.
Symbaroum has that lethal and gritty dark fantasy vibe that I love and have been looking for.
Red Markets is going up against DG in the ENies and though I feared some bullshit from all of the ridiculous memes the two fanbases are throwing at each other, it turns out there's a lot of overlap. Good times.
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
Red Markets is going up against DG in the ENies and though I feared some bullshit from all of the ridiculous memes the two fanbases are throwing at each other, it turns out there's a lot of overlap. Good times.
I would like to know more!
Also, @Kadoken I am sad Darth Galto has been retired. I liked that concept
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
That darth galto was too nice. Plus, “galto” wasn’t that guy’s name, he just assumed it. A new Darth Galto may appear one day. I would love to see other people try it.
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
If anybody likes to play games with kids, I backed Power Outage on kickstarter
That darth galto was too nice. Plus, “galto” wasn’t that guy’s name, he just assumed it. A new Darth Galto may appear one day. I would love to see other people try it.
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited August 2018
Provocation should be a new standard skill in RPGs. Has this ever happened to you?
A couple of goombahs are standing at their bosses door and won’t let you in.
A self-important villain stands at his perfectly defensible perch and won’t come out.
A cop suspects you of being a serial killer (which you are) and you need to discredit him.
What if you could talk to someone, make them real mad, and reap the results?
What you need, is provocation!
A drunkard enraged by your insults and posturing takes a swing that takes one of the mooks out and causes the other to take him to the curb.
That villain in his prideful rage at your psychology 101 bullshit makes a mistake by seeing to your doom personally.
You taunt and jostle the cop which causes him to take a swing at you, suspending him, and later having him suprise a motherfucker and getting locked in your murder hut.
This one weird trick that villains hate is a mastery of insults, passive aggressivenes, and aggravation that is sure to make that misstep to trip your troubles into an early grave!
Call now for provocation!
No seriously, I’m making this a custom skill in my DH campaign and posting a mock version on the blog with pre-requisites and such. I think, while it’s niche, this is kind of a thing that you can’t just use another skill for and is good for talky characters.
If a player doesn't take the provocation skill, then are they not able to make a check to annoy someone in a manner that might be tactically advantageous?
After coming back into port, the party decided against attempting an overly stealthy approach, though they were aware of the pirate crew(s) looking for them in the city. After doing a bit of shopping, they attracted the attention of one Jimmy Nick, pirate bard. After some short chasing into an alley and negotiation, it turned out to be a real Rorschach-in-prison situation, and unfortunately the sea shanties were stopped before they could start. The party had determined that the pirates' objective was to steal some treasure the party had left in a bank in town. They decided to head for their local contact, a reporter with underworld connections. This means I get to steal their stuff yayyyyyy!
Random highlights:
-The falcon companion of a party member causing a scene in the middle of the market when asked to deliver a message: "I'm a queen, not some piegeon! A QUEEEEEEEN"
-A pirate hitting on the party's healer, who was not discouraged by a "You can't handle this," later getting bisected vertically by her paladin blade of light for the last 70% of his HP and being left with a "I told you you couldn't handle this."
-Though Jimmy tried to escape by using a blink charm to teleport through the alley walls into the lobby of the luxury condo next to them, the one who had drawn the attention of the pirates in the first place, Milovan, was able to do the same. He finished him off with his assassin ability to split his shadow, sending it through the wall behind the front desk Jimmy had run through, reappearing with his blade in the fleeing man's chest and saying "I will not be haunted by my past."
I also got complimented on my world-building. The majority of season 1 of this game was spent in a kind of Native American tribal situation. My player told me she was worried at the time that it would be a very hippie wood elf kind of deal, which it was very much not, even though their city was basically Lothlorien.
EDIT: I should mention, for any of my players here reading this, that you do share the same setting with my IRL group, though you're on the other side of the world right now and a couple weeks ahead of them time-wise.
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
If a player doesn't take the provocation skill, then are they not able to make a check to annoy someone in a manner that might be tactically advantageous?
They may annoy someone but it won’t be tactically advantageous. Or it could be a harder test. It’s the difference between using athletics to jump on a thing vs using your strength characteristic alone. It’s a trained skill although it is innate in humans.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
If a player doesn't take the provocation skill, then are they not able to make a check to annoy someone in a manner that might be tactically advantageous?
They may annoy someone but it won’t be tactically advantageous. Or it could be a harder test. It’s the difference between using athletics to jump on a thing vs using your strength characteristic alone. It’s a trained skill although it is innate in humans.
And that is why I hate skill systems. If I need to have taken 5 points in pedantry for "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries" to go from flavor text to psychic attack, that's ridiculous.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
If a player doesn't take the provocation skill, then are they not able to make a check to annoy someone in a manner that might be tactically advantageous?
They may annoy someone but it won’t be tactically advantageous. Or it could be a harder test. It’s the difference between using athletics to jump on a thing vs using your strength characteristic alone. It’s a trained skill although it is innate in humans.
And that is why I hate skill systems. If I need to have taken 5 points in pedantry for "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries" to go from flavor text to psychic attack, that's ridiculous.
That's a good example of why I like skill systems. Maybe I as a player am not particularly good at provoking people, or being sneaky, or jumping long distances, or understanding religious symbols, or using a chain sword, but my character is. Or maybe I'm really good at parkour but my character isn't. I like a good bit of mechanical separation between me and my character.
admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
The funny thing about Provocation is that in cliche D&D games provocation is the default state of all PCs towards all NPCs. As an amateur GM much of your time is spent trying to punish PCs for being assholes to your NPCs (thus the game that never gets out of town and ends with PCs dead or in jail) or steadfastly ignoring them.
That said, I think it's easy to argue that provocation, like all social skills, is something that's harder than you think.
If a player doesn't take the provocation skill, then are they not able to make a check to annoy someone in a manner that might be tactically advantageous?
They may annoy someone but it won’t be tactically advantageous. Or it could be a harder test. It’s the difference between using athletics to jump on a thing vs using your strength characteristic alone. It’s a trained skill although it is innate in humans.
And that is why I hate skill systems. If I need to have taken 5 points in pedantry for "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries" to go from flavor text to psychic attack, that's ridiculous.
That's a good example of why I like skill systems. Maybe I as a player am not particularly good at provoking people, or being sneaky, or jumping long distances, or understanding religious symbols, or using a chain sword, but my character is. Or maybe I'm really good at parkour but my character isn't. I like a good bit of mechanical separation between me and my character.
While I agree with your point I think it is revealing a different issue with delineated skill systems, which is over categorization. This is basically "Just how broad is a skill?" and "How can you know x but not y?" This is how knowing something about all recorded history is equivalent to being able to do some card tricks.
I don't really think D&D needs more social skills. I'd slot this, variably, under Deceive (i.e. manipulation) or Intimidation (i.e. angry manipulation?) with an outside chance of Persuasion depending on circumstance. Which is really freaking weird that your intention matters in which skill you use but, well, D&D.
admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
I think heavily-delineated skill systems and heavily-generic skill systems give a distinct feel to the game and thus each have their place. I really like SWN's generic system (which allows skill+variable stat for Talk to be Persuasion/Intimidation/etc) and also really like Burning Wheel's hyper-specific system.
Dark Heresy is heavily-delineated so it makes sense to add a skill like that, but I would never add it to SWN. D&D, of course, falls somewhere in the awkward middle because D&D has never figured out what kind of game it wants to be.
If a player doesn't take the provocation skill, then are they not able to make a check to annoy someone in a manner that might be tactically advantageous?
They may annoy someone but it won’t be tactically advantageous. Or it could be a harder test. It’s the difference between using athletics to jump on a thing vs using your strength characteristic alone. It’s a trained skill although it is innate in humans.
And that is why I hate skill systems. If I need to have taken 5 points in pedantry for "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries" to go from flavor text to psychic attack, that's ridiculous.
That's a good example of why I like skill systems. Maybe I as a player am not particularly good at provoking people, or being sneaky, or jumping long distances, or understanding religious symbols, or using a chain sword, but my character is. Or maybe I'm really good at parkour but my character isn't. I like a good bit of mechanical separation between me and my character.
While I agree with your point I think it is revealing a different issue with delineated skill systems, which is over categorization. This is basically "Just how broad is a skill?" and "How can you know x but not y?" This is how knowing something about all recorded history is equivalent to being able to do some card tricks.
I don't really think D&D needs more social skills. I'd slot this, variably, under Deceive (i.e. manipulation) or Intimidation (i.e. angry manipulation?) with an outside chance of Persuasion depending on circumstance. Which is really freaking weird that your intention matters in which skill you use but, well, D&D.
I'm totally with you. You often end up with skill lists that are too granular and end up being cumbersome, or skills that are too general and end up feeling weird. Although probably more often you end up with an odd mix of the two where certain things (usually magic) are just like a single skill, but for some reason jumping/running/climbing/lifting/swimming all need to be separate.
Personally I prefer the 13th Age approach of backgrounds instead of skills, even though that can be really easy to game.
If a player doesn't take the provocation skill, then are they not able to make a check to annoy someone in a manner that might be tactically advantageous?
They may annoy someone but it won’t be tactically advantageous. Or it could be a harder test. It’s the difference between using athletics to jump on a thing vs using your strength characteristic alone. It’s a trained skill although it is innate in humans.
And that is why I hate skill systems. If I need to have taken 5 points in pedantry for "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries" to go from flavor text to psychic attack, that's ridiculous.
That's a good example of why I like skill systems. Maybe I as a player am not particularly good at provoking people, or being sneaky, or jumping long distances, or understanding religious symbols, or using a chain sword, but my character is. Or maybe I'm really good at parkour but my character isn't. I like a good bit of mechanical separation between me and my character.
While I agree with your point I think it is revealing a different issue with delineated skill systems, which is over categorization. This is basically "Just how broad is a skill?" and "How can you know x but not y?" This is how knowing something about all recorded history is equivalent to being able to do some card tricks.
I don't really think D&D needs more social skills. I'd slot this, variably, under Deceive (i.e. manipulation) or Intimidation (i.e. angry manipulation?) with an outside chance of Persuasion depending on circumstance. Which is really freaking weird that your intention matters in which skill you use but, well, D&D.
I'm totally with you. You often end up with skill lists that are too granular and end up being cumbersome, or skills that are too general and end up feeling weird. Although probably more often you end up with an odd mix of the two where certain things (usually magic) are just like a single skill, but for some reason jumping/running/climbing/lifting/swimming all need to be separate.
Personally I prefer the 13th Age approach of backgrounds instead of skills, even though that can be really easy to game.
This translates as "Tell a brief cool bit about your character and why they know a thing" so I'm pretty okay with that. I suppose some sense of shame is assumed which, yes, can be an issue for some rpg geeks.
If a player doesn't take the provocation skill, then are they not able to make a check to annoy someone in a manner that might be tactically advantageous?
They may annoy someone but it won’t be tactically advantageous. Or it could be a harder test. It’s the difference between using athletics to jump on a thing vs using your strength characteristic alone. It’s a trained skill although it is innate in humans.
And that is why I hate skill systems. If I need to have taken 5 points in pedantry for "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries" to go from flavor text to psychic attack, that's ridiculous.
That's a good example of why I like skill systems. Maybe I as a player am not particularly good at provoking people, or being sneaky, or jumping long distances, or understanding religious symbols, or using a chain sword, but my character is. Or maybe I'm really good at parkour but my character isn't. I like a good bit of mechanical separation between me and my character.
While I agree with your point I think it is revealing a different issue with delineated skill systems, which is over categorization. This is basically "Just how broad is a skill?" and "How can you know x but not y?" This is how knowing something about all recorded history is equivalent to being able to do some card tricks.
I don't really think D&D needs more social skills. I'd slot this, variably, under Deceive (i.e. manipulation) or Intimidation (i.e. angry manipulation?) with an outside chance of Persuasion depending on circumstance. Which is really freaking weird that your intention matters in which skill you use but, well, D&D.
I'm totally with you. You often end up with skill lists that are too granular and end up being cumbersome, or skills that are too general and end up feeling weird. Although probably more often you end up with an odd mix of the two where certain things (usually magic) are just like a single skill, but for some reason jumping/running/climbing/lifting/swimming all need to be separate.
Personally I prefer the 13th Age approach of backgrounds instead of skills, even though that can be really easy to game.
Arbitrating is why we have GMs in the first place. Someone's background explicitly cannot cover all the bases.
Posts
3e: Here's 30 skills and every class interacts with skills differently and here's a couple of feats for skills, don't forget skill synergies.
PF: Here's 25 skills and every class interacts with skills differently and here's a bunch of feats for skills.
4e: Here's 10 skills and skill challenge rules.
13: Distill your background into two parts. If you can convince your GM your background is relevant, you get a bonus.
P2: Here's 25 skills and every class interacts with skills differently and here's like 50 feats for skills and you can't not take them.
My thought process is that 4e distilled skills down and mostly tried to brush them aside, that's my take from playing 4e ten years ago. 13th continued down the path of making skills a smaller mechanical part of your character, and there's far few mechanics tied to them; if you enjoyed the way skills worked in 3e, you're going to be disappointed with 13th age because they're heavily, heavily gutted in comparison to other editions.
PF2e, on the other hand, has decided that skills are the best ever and every character gets ten dedicated skill feats.
Rogues get twenty.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
"Because people want them" is pretty much the beginning and end of it.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I'm intrigued by the setting and picked up the core book at a FLGS re-opening sale
I had it but sold it - looked cool but the setting was v specific and not something my group would easily buy into
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Symbaroum
The other thing that brought me down is I wasn’t going full dark side manipulator trying to build an empire out of blackmail, threats, and other untoward methods; but I also wasn’t going hard enough gangster lord because I thought the party wasn’t accepting me as a full on bad guy. It didn’t help these guys were all new and didn’t really know how things worked.
Especially one guy who was insistent on trying to get his way to work and really didn’t understand how the game was supposed to work. Specifically, he always was arguing with the GM because he didn’t understand the authority the GM has in these types of games. He didn’t seem to understand consequences (which to be fair the GM, when I first played something with him, didn’t understand either). He was also always playing something else at the table, making long distracting comments out of game stuff and not just small innocuous things, and not paying attention but also made us explain everything that happened a foot away from him anyway.
Otherwise it was a great time and led to some fun nights during and afterward. Helped a lot during the summer with the job and school.
If we meet again, and that campaign is toast now with everyone on the run, think I want to basically be the Star Wars Punisher. That would give me more direction, let me help the party (as long as they’re not hurting innocents) more, and plus I like to shoot-bang bad dudes. I basically got bored and invented the persona of a vigilante called the Krayt Dragon as an excuse to shoot up slavers and gangsters. That was one of the more fun times I had and that character wasn’t even built for combat at first.
Also at the adventure finale of Dark Heresy. Ended off on a Bolivian Army ending with all of them bunkering down to defend against the onslaught of heretics and daemons coming their way. Hopefully will be able to burn my two vet players, and honestly with the fear and special effects from these daemons one of them might just straight up get a heart attack. They got it really bad in the last combat with basically only two functional fighters, one who was frozen in terror for the first quarter. One of those functional fighters was the techpriest on overwatch with a storm bolter though so I ran weak cultists at him to make him lose ammo before the daemons got through. No PC deaths that time though. Maybe this time.
That one guy? He should have been kicked from the group. As someone who is the GM a lot of the time, I put in the effort to come up with situations, locations, NPCs that should be interesting for the group to interact with, as well as host sessions (which means cleaning), and often provide snackage. All that on top of working full-time. No one who puts in that kind of work for a hobby should tolerate a player who shows up, ignores all the work they’ve put in, and then expects to get their way all the time.
"The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I’d beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it." -- Jack Kirby
Ah cool!
I already have the core rulebook, but I've never heard of Bundle of Holding.
Symbaroum has that lethal and gritty dark fantasy vibe that I love and have been looking for.
I would like to know more!
Also, @Kadoken I am sad Darth Galto has been retired. I liked that concept
It's even designed by PA peeps!
https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/203849/power-outage-tabletop-rpg-for-adults-and-kids#latest
You might say that's your new... objective?
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
A couple of goombahs are standing at their bosses door and won’t let you in.
A self-important villain stands at his perfectly defensible perch and won’t come out.
A cop suspects you of being a serial killer (which you are) and you need to discredit him.
What if you could talk to someone, make them real mad, and reap the results?
What you need, is provocation!
A drunkard enraged by your insults and posturing takes a swing that takes one of the mooks out and causes the other to take him to the curb.
That villain in his prideful rage at your psychology 101 bullshit makes a mistake by seeing to your doom personally.
You taunt and jostle the cop which causes him to take a swing at you, suspending him, and later having him suprise a motherfucker and getting locked in your murder hut.
This one weird trick that villains hate is a mastery of insults, passive aggressivenes, and aggravation that is sure to make that misstep to trip your troubles into an early grave!
Call now for provocation!
No seriously, I’m making this a custom skill in my DH campaign and posting a mock version on the blog with pre-requisites and such. I think, while it’s niche, this is kind of a thing that you can’t just use another skill for and is good for talky characters.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
After coming back into port, the party decided against attempting an overly stealthy approach, though they were aware of the pirate crew(s) looking for them in the city. After doing a bit of shopping, they attracted the attention of one Jimmy Nick, pirate bard. After some short chasing into an alley and negotiation, it turned out to be a real Rorschach-in-prison situation, and unfortunately the sea shanties were stopped before they could start. The party had determined that the pirates' objective was to steal some treasure the party had left in a bank in town. They decided to head for their local contact, a reporter with underworld connections. This means I get to steal their stuff yayyyyyy!
Random highlights:
-The falcon companion of a party member causing a scene in the middle of the market when asked to deliver a message: "I'm a queen, not some piegeon! A QUEEEEEEEN"
-A pirate hitting on the party's healer, who was not discouraged by a "You can't handle this," later getting bisected vertically by her paladin blade of light for the last 70% of his HP and being left with a "I told you you couldn't handle this."
-Though Jimmy tried to escape by using a blink charm to teleport through the alley walls into the lobby of the luxury condo next to them, the one who had drawn the attention of the pirates in the first place, Milovan, was able to do the same. He finished him off with his assassin ability to split his shadow, sending it through the wall behind the front desk Jimmy had run through, reappearing with his blade in the fleeing man's chest and saying "I will not be haunted by my past."
I also got complimented on my world-building. The majority of season 1 of this game was spent in a kind of Native American tribal situation. My player told me she was worried at the time that it would be a very hippie wood elf kind of deal, which it was very much not, even though their city was basically Lothlorien.
EDIT: I should mention, for any of my players here reading this, that you do share the same setting with my IRL group, though you're on the other side of the world right now and a couple weeks ahead of them time-wise.
They may annoy someone but it won’t be tactically advantageous. Or it could be a harder test. It’s the difference between using athletics to jump on a thing vs using your strength characteristic alone. It’s a trained skill although it is innate in humans.
And that is why I hate skill systems. If I need to have taken 5 points in pedantry for "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries" to go from flavor text to psychic attack, that's ridiculous.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
In DnD style games, it would be linked to Charisma or Wisdom.
In D&D I'd probably link it to Charisma.
In better other games that still use D&D stats but allow flexible stats for skill rolls I'd allow any of CHA/WIS/INT depending on context.
That's a good example of why I like skill systems. Maybe I as a player am not particularly good at provoking people, or being sneaky, or jumping long distances, or understanding religious symbols, or using a chain sword, but my character is. Or maybe I'm really good at parkour but my character isn't. I like a good bit of mechanical separation between me and my character.
That said, I think it's easy to argue that provocation, like all social skills, is something that's harder than you think.
While I agree with your point I think it is revealing a different issue with delineated skill systems, which is over categorization. This is basically "Just how broad is a skill?" and "How can you know x but not y?" This is how knowing something about all recorded history is equivalent to being able to do some card tricks.
I don't really think D&D needs more social skills. I'd slot this, variably, under Deceive (i.e. manipulation) or Intimidation (i.e. angry manipulation?) with an outside chance of Persuasion depending on circumstance. Which is really freaking weird that your intention matters in which skill you use but, well, D&D.
Dark Heresy is heavily-delineated so it makes sense to add a skill like that, but I would never add it to SWN. D&D, of course, falls somewhere in the awkward middle because D&D has never figured out what kind of game it wants to be.
Yeah. If a player said they wanted to get a person to attack them using verbals, I'd just have them roll persuasion.
Checks out.
I'm totally with you. You often end up with skill lists that are too granular and end up being cumbersome, or skills that are too general and end up feeling weird. Although probably more often you end up with an odd mix of the two where certain things (usually magic) are just like a single skill, but for some reason jumping/running/climbing/lifting/swimming all need to be separate.
Personally I prefer the 13th Age approach of backgrounds instead of skills, even though that can be really easy to game.
This translates as "Tell a brief cool bit about your character and why they know a thing" so I'm pretty okay with that. I suppose some sense of shame is assumed which, yes, can be an issue for some rpg geeks.