Skills, part 2: House Rules

A continuing talk about skills (part 1 here). Here's what I've come up with for myself:

So there's the ability scores ranging from 3 to 18, with modifiers in the 3rd-4th Ed model ranging from -4 to +4. Simple, no-prep-required skill system for campaigns that didn't use skills before or are looking to gut a lot of character sheet clutter: pick whatever ability is most relevant to the skill. Strength for climbing, Wisdom for searching, etc. Apply that modifier when you roll a d6.

Just like that. Most of the problems with 3rd ed ability checks come from using the wrong damn die. A +4 to -4 spread on a d20 means not only can Stephen Hawking beat Lou Ferrigno at arm wrestling, if they try 10 times, it's likely. With a d6 you'll still get some underdog victories but nothing quite so impossible, and certainly not very often - Median Joe* (Str 10) can out-muscle Biff Meatslab (Str 18) one time in 36 ("He tripped! He fell in a ditch! The ditch had a gun!"), but assuming tied results go to the higher bonus, his kid brother (Str 8) is shit out of luck.

Another example: bashing down a locked door. If Joe is in a world that rolls d20s, the Strength DC to break that door is probably around 18-22. Maybe he has a chance but it's gonna take a lot of time and/or luck. For Biff to break down that door...   it's certainly possible, but only marginally more likely. The d20 itself is a much larger factor than the +4 bonus. Now let's say the door has a d6-based difficulty. A DC of 7 means Joe (d6+0) is left looking for a convenient air duct, but Biff (d6+4)  has even odds to break through on the first try.

Now: skills.

Each class gets a certain number of skill points (more for rogues, less for paladins), with more added when leveling up. Pretty much like 3rd Edition. But here's the big difference: there are only 5 levels of skill mastery. Few enough that each rank means something, in real world terms:

1. You’re familiar with this topic. It’s a hobby, or something you learned growing up, or studied briefly. (Medicine example: a certified lifeguard.)
2. Professional grade. The equivalent of a full degree or completed apprenticeship. (Medicine example: a nurse or general/family practitioner.)
3. Renowned. One of the best in a given field, combining natural talent with years of experience. (Medicine example: Any number of television superdoctors. I'll go with Simon Tam from Firefly.)
4. Singular genius. Only a handful of people have been this good at something, ever, and people are still talking about it. (Medicine example: Hippocrates.)
5. A literally superhuman level of skill – the craft of Weyland, the guile of Anansi, the strength of Heracles. (Medicine example: Dian Cecht, Irish god of healing, who made a fully functional arm out of silver, or his son Miach, who did the same thing out of actual flesh and bone and got killed by his dad for being a smartass. Gods are like that.)

You can add your mastery level to a d6 roll, like with ability checks - the results are a little more random, since the biggest difference is between +0 and +5 rather than -4 to +4, but sometimes that's not a bad thing (Stealth vs Perception). Maybe you also apply the relevant ability modifier, maybe you count skill ranks double (if you really want to emphasize the importance of different training levels). I use just the mastery level as a bonus, and if mastery levels are equal I let different ability scores settle ties.

But here's the rub: since the mastery levels have comprehensible, descriptive names, they're also handy for figuring out what your character just knows or can do without rolling dice at all. Intimidate +9 could be great (at level 1) or pathetic (at level 20). But Intimidate 4 under this system always means you are the scariest motherfucker who has ever lived, almost as frightening as a full-on god, and even without rolling that's damn handy when describing how the goblin flunky defenestrated himself when he heard who his master pissed off. If you're rolling Perception +5 you're probably not having much fun. If you're poking around a crime scene and say "I've got Perception 3, what do I find?", you're telling the DM "I want my description in CSI terms - not quite Sherlock Holmes terms yet, but maybe someday..."

Here're some numbers. As always feel free to tinker:

Low skill classes (fighters, clerics) get 4 skill points, plus 1 per level.

Medium skill classes (monks, rangers) get 6 skill points, plus 1 per odd level and 2 per even level.

High skill classes (bards just rogues, unless you have some variant rogues like ninja or something) get 8 skill points plus 2 per level.

Your maximum mastery level equals your level/4, rounded up. Add 1 to the maximum if it's a favored skill, one appropriate to your class (Stealth for the rogue) or race (Acrobatics for the halfling). A skill is either favored or not; doubling up doesn't keep increasing the cap. If you have feats or traits or whatever in your house rules those can give favored skills too. Maybe add another if you can come up with a cool backstory, or just because your character is a special snowflake.

The skill mastery cap means you'll see professionals up to level 4, world-renowned experts at levels 5-8, semi-mythical geniuses at levels 9-12, and demigods at level 13+. Everyone has a different idea how D&D levels translate to the real world or fiction (see this old chestnut, for example) but that feels about right to me. And it's easy to adjust the values by a few levels to taste.

When I talked about expectations for a skill system, I mentioned wanting a way to handle different degrees of success. Descriptive skill levels help with some of that ("You're an expert, and it's a simple task, so it only takes you half as long"), but rolling a smaller die (with skill mattering more than the random result) helps too because small modifiers make a bigger deal. Let's say each adjective you append to a skill  - sneaking quickly, finding rumors anonymously, etc. - gives you a -1 penalty to the roll, or -2 if it's particularly demanding. Every 3 points you roll over the required difficulty (or over your opponent) give you a free adjective after the fact (defaulting to "effortlessly" or "badassfully" if extra effects don't matter and you want to look cool).

You can also add one to your roll after seeing the result if you let your opponent/the DM pick a negative adjective - "barely", "temporarily", "destructively", etc. So if you're one short on your Athletics check to leap the pit you can let the DM say you made it, but painfully, breaking your kneecap when it smashes against the far wall.

Up next: the skill list.

*Median Joe. For when your average Joe is too mean, and Joe Mode is too common. Median Joe. The man in the middle.