Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

mostly because people will they got railroaded, I think it would be awesome if an outcome was based on a roll of two opposing sides, where they dont got any skill points in.

people do min/max rp skills as well

so who is justified

player that min/max martial prowress
player that min/max in rp skills

to me they are about the same except one cannot go solo bosses, thats about the only difference

I have notice the min/max rp skills players always take the moral high ground, but they are just as bad as powerbuild in my opinion

I was like the idea of hard cap on social skills that way dm's could have standard they can guage off them

say a hard cap of 10 on dipolmacy
Player a has 10 diplomancy
player b has 0 diplomancy

player a rolls 10 + 5 roll = 15
player b rolls 0 +20 = 20

player a better chance of rolling then b, but b still has the option to win in dm events

instead of player a rolls 80 +20 = 100
player be rolls 0 +20 = 20

if the dm's could institue a policy in dm events only* that would be accepted universally i think that would help.

its a d20 system but with players at level 30 it all falls apart

and a good way to implement it would be juts making a dmfi roll system for dm events only that cap skill points this would help the dm's instead of throwing out crazy dc's that sometimes can be plan by the dm, though i do hope that doesn't happen, but it can.

also you make it only count base skills and ignore modifiers

any other thoughts

People do min/max rp skills but i don't think that should really be discounted, Using diplomacy as an example. I have a pretty well known cleric with a relatively high diplomacy, I invested my skill points, epic feat and absurd gold to achieve this. They hold a number of diplomatic positions and the RP fits.

Now in doing so i have given up combat prowess in both the gear i wear and the epic feat, And a more jack of all trades approach to skill points. They will never win the knowledge roll, Or have a secondary approach in intimidate. There is no mechanical skill in healing or tumble. But when it comes time to roll diplomacy i will always win, Because my character has focused in one skill and approach with minimal in other areas.

You say that's not fair, But it is. It is the reward of my investment, You won't see me complaining when the DM asks for an intimidate or a knowledge roll. This just strikes me as you wanting a jack of all trades, Able to win at everything. That's just not how DnD works nor real life for that matter.

You could remove social skills from the class tables, thus everyone is capped at 15.

no the system would give you an edge in diplomacy, but there is still a chance you could lose and that irks players to no end a possiblity of losing but it is a roll system after all.

though epic skill focus should possible be taking into account.

I system that rewards player for invest but still leaves random chance as an option

Should learn to be okay with losing.

This is DnD. the DC to convince someone hostile to be friendly is 35, To be helpful its 50. Diplomacy requires a serious investment for to never fail. But that's just earlier levels in the epic handbook diplomacy DC's actually go much higher up to 150 but that's including fanatics.

I think the biggest issue with opposed rolls is that people try to force them on others, I'll use intimidate as an example. Let's say that a lvl 30 character who has focused on combat skills like parry (for example) meets a level 10 character who has spent all their skill points on things like intimidate. Now, we all know our lvl 30 won't be intimidated easily, heck, he's probably faced a dragon and made it out alive. He's not intimidated by someone far less experienced. Now, I know the response to that statement will be something about meta-knowledge of the level..no, not really. The problem is opposed rolls. In PNP, the DM would make a call about how to manage this particular issue. For my desktop games, I've asked my players to make their skill roll and the other player makes a modified saving throw to avoid the effects. This of course requires everyone to understand and stick to the result, which I see as the main problem with this sort of thing on a game server. A standard list of DCs, if someone wished to compile and get approved by the staff, would be very helpful for this too.

I like the fact that social skills have impact but what I never liked was that you could get to 60+ by wearing certain equipment/items. I always thought that skills/feats should be limited to character building rather than putting on or wielding certain gear. Seems that it would normalize a lot of things. I suppose it is impossible to change at this point but one can dream.

Wyatt wrote:I like the fact that social skills have impact but what I never liked was that you could get to 60+ by wearing certain equipment/items. I always thought that skills/feats should be limited to character building rather than putting on or wielding certain gear. Seems that it would normalize a lot of things. I suppose it is impossible to change at this point but one can dream.

I agree, but the issue would be all the areas built against stealth based on items, the enemies with stealth, the need for high bluff for feint to work, etc... definitely not as simple as just removing gear, unfortunately.

It should also be noted that this would just further put casters ahead as well (greater heroism, spiderskin, clairvoyance, etc...) Having points on items helps normalize non-casters.

chad878262 wrote:
I agree, but the issue would be all the areas built against stealth based on items, the enemies with stealth, the need for high bluff for feint to work, etc... definitely not as simple as just removing gear, unfortunately.

It should also be noted that this would just further put casters ahead as well (greater heroism, spiderskin, clairvoyance, etc...) Having points on items helps normalize non-casters.

It doesn't really help normalize though because casters can still use those same items. In fact, they even sacrifice less to use them b/c item combat properties (AC, +abilities, etc) mean less to casters since they can buff most of them through spells. I know the removal of skills from items will never happen as they are too ingrained. I merely mentioned it to reinforce statements about the need for DM's to take that into consideration when they set DC's.

A pretty quick way to solve that is to use a system like MoA, Only one bonus to a skill can be active at a time. Just like stat buffs, It would overall be more accurate to pnp.

While this wouldn't have important consequences for skills like diplomacy or intimidate such a change can't be applied to stealth, detection and bluff skills without a good deal of thinking and work as a ton of monsters would need to be adjusted.

Valefort wrote:While this wouldn't have important consequences for skills like diplomacy or intimidate such a change can't be applied to stealth, detection and bluff skills without a good deal of thinking and work as a ton of monsters would need to be adjusted.

Not only enemies, but think of environmental concerns as well... Some areas have severe penalties to stealth, which is based on players reaching ~70-80 Hide/Move Silently. If suddenly that number dropped to ~40-50 the skill would become completely worthless. Also consider Bluff/Feint and the DC against the enemy BAB+Spot skill.

There would be some really nice benefits to having a system where only one bonus applies to a skill at a time with regard to especially the custom skills like Sense Motive and the like. However, it would take a lot less work to introduce more ways to increase custom skills than it would to reduce/remove the bonuses to existing skills.

7threalm wrote:
I have notice the min/max rp skills players always take the moral high ground, but they are just as bad as powerbuild in my opinion

Shouldn't having low "rp skills" or none, also be role-played? I think it is disingenuous to negatively accuse Players that choose a build that reflects their preferred type of RP, and then that as worthy of criticism in order to change the game mechanics.

It should not be a critique made on whether a Player chooses a build, but HOW they portray those sheet statistics via Role-play.

Now, if the environment provides ZERO opportunity for the skill-focused builds to manifest as much as mechanical "power builds" do, then let's talk about that lack, specifically.

Steve wrote:

7threalm wrote:
I have notice the min/max rp skills players always take the moral high ground, but they are just as bad as powerbuild in my opinion

Shouldn't having low "rp skills" or none, also be role-played? I think it is disingenuous to negatively accuse Players that choose a build that reflects their preferred type of RP, and then that as worthy of criticism in order to change the game mechanics.

It should not be a critique made on whether a Player chooses a build, but HOW they portray those sheet statistics via Role-play.

Now, if the environment provides ZERO opportunity for the skill-focused builds to manifest as much as mechanical "power builds" do, then let's talk about that lack, specifically.

IMO one should ALWAYS play your sheet. if you do not put points into conversation skills then you would be very hard to deal with. RP it as you see fit, but do not portrait yourself as Theodore Roosevelt with a diplo score of 3 and lore local, history, nobility at 0. this is TOO common and bad form. you want theo roosevelt. invest the points there. sorry that your mechanical advantage tumble and spellcraft skills cannot get maxed.