There doesn't seem to be any way to increase your skills. You get +5 in a trained skill and you can use other skills untrained based on your abilities, and your abilities increase all skills. But in 3rd edition as you leveled you gained points to spread through your skills. It was an overly complex system (like most systems in 3e lol,) and I really like the new skill system. But don't you ever improve them? I mean considering the difficulty of skill checks increases in Paragon and then Epic Tiers, it'd make even trained skills exponentially more difficult to succeed at.
Maybe I'm missing something. I've only just read the skills section today.
So those trained in a skill will have 20 + ability mods and possible miscelanious mods at 30th lvl.
GotchaBut in 3rd edition as you leveled you gained points to spread through your skills. It was an overly complex system (like most systems in 3e lol,)
Care to explain this? I really don't see how skill points was that complicated. You want to be good at X? max it out. You want to be okay at X? put a few points in it, then leave it alone. You don't care about X? Don't put anything in it.
I'm also interested in these other "complex systems" in 3e, since the only one I can think of is turn undead. All the others are either roll vs. DC or a contested roll.
Care to explain this? I really don't see how skill points was that complicated. You want to be good at X? max it out. You want to be okay at X? put a few points in it, then leave it alone. You don't care about X? Don't put anything in it.
I'm also interested in these other "complex systems" in 3e, since the only one I can think of is turn undead. All the others are either roll vs. DC or a contested roll.
3e skills was definitely overly complex. As a rising DM, I've statted up enough NPCs and homebrew monsters to find it really painful to get right. Part of the problem is class skill versus non-class skill, how that changes when you multiclass/take a PrC that offers different skills, and accounting for synergy bonuses (not as bad as the first).Care to explain this? I really don't see how skill points was that complicated. You want to be good at X? max it out. You want to be okay at X? put a few points in it, then leave it alone. You don't care about X? Don't put anything in it.
I'm also interested in these other "complex systems" in 3e, since the only one I can think of is turn undead. All the others are either roll vs. DC or a contested roll.
Exactly. Just kitting out a first level PC with skills was certainly not hard. But reverse engineering a 20th level character with 4 classes to see if his skill points are correct was nigh impossible.
It was a crappy system, lacking in elegance, and the end result was that high level characters either had just a handful of skills that they almost never failed in or a whole bunch of skills that they almost never succeeded in, due to escalating DCs. It was just one of the ways in which the high-level game was pretty broken.
Other needlessly complex systems? How about the whole CR system? A cumbersome system designed ostensibly to ensure balance, and yet using CR to balance encounters was broken beyond belief. An experienced DM in 2nd edition could control balance much better simply by using good judgement. In the end, all the CR system did was make calculating experience a huge PITA. If anything, it hurt balance more than helped it.
Just kitting out a first level PC with skills was certainly not hard. But reverse engineering a 20th level character with 4 classes to see if his skill points are correct was nigh impossible.
It was a crappy system, lacking in elegance, and the end result was that high level characters either had just a handful of skills that they almost never failed in or a whole bunch of skills that they almost never succeeded in, due to escalating DCs. It was just one of the ways in which the high-level game was pretty broken.
Other needlessly complex systems? How about the whole CR system? A cumbersome system designed ostensibly to ensure balance, and yet using CR to balance encounters was broken beyond belief. An experienced DM in 2nd edition could control balance much better simply by using good judgement. In the end, all the CR system did was make calculating experience a huge PITA. If anything, it hurt balance more than helped it.
And CR was never meant to be a "balance" thing any more than having WBL was. It's a yardstick and nothing more. If you have a level 6 party, then most CR 6 things will be a decent challenge. a CR 8 thing with likely be harder, etc. CR was never meant to replace DM judgement and if you think otherwise then you are exactly the kind of "person" that 4e is designed for.
So don't reverse engineer a 20th level character! Build it up from level 1. Start with lv1, do skills. Then make a progression and go. Or you could do what most people do and figure out what skills you want to max, and max them. Then spend the other points you have around as you want.
And CR was never meant to be a "balance" thing any more than having WBL was. It's a yardstick and nothing more. If you have a level 6 party, then most CR 6 things will be a decent challenge. a CR 8 thing with likely be harder, etc. CR was never meant to replace DM judgement and if you think otherwise then you are exactly the kind of "person" that 4e is designed for.
I just don't understand why people think that an easier system somehow makes a game and the person that plays it somehow inferior, or at least that is what I think your trying to imply in your statement.
The fact that you spend more time designing an encounter in 3rd edition, trying to make sure everything is an exceptable challenge doesnt make you a superior gm, it just means you spent more time on it, because you had to make sure to use your best judgement because the CR is a yardstick and not a metric ruler.
I'm not saying that 3.5 is bad, and i'm not saying 4.0 is better. I'm just saying that you come off as an
So don't reverse engineer a 20th level character! Build it up from level 1. Start with lv1, do skills. Then make a progression and go. Or you could do what most people do and figure out what skills you want to max, and max them. Then spend the other points you have around as you want.
I was speaking from the perspective of a DM who wants to verify that a player has spent the proper amount of skill points, not as a player creating a character.
And CR was never meant to be a "balance" thing any more than having WBL was. It's a yardstick and nothing more. If you have a level 6 party, then most CR 6 things will be a decent challenge. a CR 8 thing with likely be harder, etc.
Um, huh??? XP rewards in 3E are based, almost exclusively, on CR. That's not a yardstick - that's an integral balance system that is at the very heart of the XP mechanics. CR was ABSOLUTELY designed to be a 'balance thing'.
CR was never meant to replace DM judgement and if you think otherwise then you are exactly the kind of "person" that 4e is designed for.
I think you don't have a good enough grasp of what the CR system was designed to do to be making sweeping pronouncements like that. I think your thinly veiled insult fails on that basis.
Um, huh??? XP rewards in 3E are based, almost exclusively, on CR. That's not a yardstick - that's an integral balance system that is at the very heart of the XP mechanics. CR was ABSOLUTELY designed to be a 'balance thing'.
Yes but it didn't need to be exact.
Hence yardstick. A way of measuring but not exact because it doesn't have to be.
And along those lines, note that 4th edition gives characters many more feats than 3rd edition. You get feats in 4th edition every even level and also at 11th level and 21st level. This means your character has a choice. He can stick to just training in the skills he gets at 1st level and have a bunch of non-skill related feats, or he can use some of his feats to gain additional skill training.
I think of it like this. 3rd edition pretty much compartmentalized skills and feats, treating them as separate entities as you leveled up. You'd get skill points to spend on skills and feat slots to spend on feats. But in 4th edition, you only get one resource, feat slots, which can be spent on either feats OR on training your skills.
So looking at it that way, 4th edition has lost some flexibility in allocating skill points but has gained some flexibility in that you can now choose between having better skills and less feats or better feats and less skill training.