Skills: Mastery Versus Uncertainty

Skills have been my buggaboo for nearly as long as I’ve been writing about RPGs. Every time I look at a skill system I see some new problems that I want to fix. I don’t know whether I’m working towards some platonic ideal, or if I’m just fickle. Either way I can’t help myself. There’s always something that can be done better.

For the last few years, most of the referees I play with and learn from have been using some variation on Skills: The Middle Road. If you’re unfamiliar, the breakdown is pretty simple. When you check a skill, a roll of 5 or greater indicates success. For untrained characters, each skill check is rolled with a d6. As a character advances in a given skill (either through class features or training), the die they’re allowed to roll increases from 1d6, to 1d8, to 1d10, and ultimately to 1d12. The elegance of the system has always appealed to me. As recently as last year I was planning to integrate it into my games, and a variation of the system was originally going to be described in my LotFP house rules. But then I sat down and did something I almost never do: math.

I love math, but I’m shockingly bad at it. It was never my strong suit to begin with, and being homeschooled from the 3rd grade up didn’t help. As such, obvious mathematical realities sometimes escape me. Using AnyDice, I tried to work out the functional difference between The Middle Road, and the way skills work in Rules-As-Written LotFP. (Skills start at a 1-in-6 chance of success, improving to 2-in-6, then 3-in-6, etc).

While The Middle Road gives players a higher success rate at lower levels, RAW LotFP quickly outpaces it. The very highest level of ability in Middle Road only gives a 7-in-12 chance of success, or 66.67%. In RAW LotFP, a character with a 6-in-6 skill rolls 2d6, and the check fails only in the event of double sixes. That’s a 35 in 36 chance of success, or 97.22%.

Now when I first figured this out, it convinced me that I wanted to stick with RAW LotFP. At the time, my reasoning was that players ought to be able to truly master a skill if they choose to devote themselves to it. After all, choosing to master a skill completely leaves other skills underdeveloped. There’s a natural balance there.

More recently, my thinking has changed. A system which allows total mastery of a skill is a system which allows certain challenges to become completely trivialized. If the players can always unlock a locked door, why even place locked doors at all? As a means of justifying the player’s investment? Even players seem unenthusiastic about rolling dice when they feel certain of success. And in the rare events that they fail one of these nearly-certain rolls, they seem more upset by it than usual. As if the dice just told them they’d failed a “walking” check.

When failure doesn’t seem like a possibility, it’s a lot more frustrating when it happens. It might be better to allow players to reach a level of mastery that no longer called for a roll at all. One where locked doors simply no longer existed for a master locksmith. It’s not the sort of system I want, but I think it would be better than a 2.78% chance of failure.

It could be argued that if players have reached such a high level of mastery, they ought to be adventuring in areas with locks that require checks made at -1 or -2. This is a possibility described in the LotFP rules, and is entirely legitimate. But I don’t like it.

Part of the reason oldschool skill systems appeal to me is the lack of any need for the referee to determine the difficulty of a task. Getting rid of Difficulty Checks was one of the best things about quitting Pathfinder. DCs are the fuckin’ worst. They add a ton of boring, yet necessary preparatory work to the referee’s job. They encourage the referee to reduce player agency by saying “Well, this door allows the players to skip half the dungeon. So it’ll have a REALLY high DC.” Furthermore, when a DC has to be improvised, it’s difficult to choose a good DC off the top of your head. And finally, if the referee is placing ever-increasing DCs in the game, at the same pace that the player’s ability to surpass those DCs is growing, then why have any advancement at all?

If I place a lock that requires a check at -2 in my adventure because of the fact that my players are really good at opening locks, then why did I allow them to waste skill points that I was just going to invalidate through future dungeon design?

The Middle Road has none of these problems. Furthermore, it has two great benefits.

First, it enables the referee to include weirder skills in the game. Consider the problem of the Law skill that I mentioned when I drafted the Lawyer class a few months ago. I think the law skill is super neat and fun, but it’s also powerful. If a player were able to master it, they’d be unstoppable. But so long as they still have a decent chance to fail any given check, they won’t be able to push their luck too far.

Second, and more importantly, it preserves the low level experience. It’s almost universally agreed, at least within the OSR, that low level play is the best play. The most challenging, the most engaging, the most fun. People prefer low level play so much that many campaigns (much to my frustration) are terminated just as the PCs start to reach mid levels.

The reason low level play is so treasured is that the game fundamentally changes as it goes on. As PCs reach higher levels, more and more challenges become trivial for them. They don’t need to worry about torches once the magic user learns Light, they don’t need to worry about rations once the cleric learns Create Food and Water, and they don’t need to worry about locked doors once the thief has an almost certain chance of opening them easily.

Keeping skill checks uncertain, even at the highest levels of mastery, maintains that low level play that we all enjoy.

And as an aside, Skills: The Middle Road could easily be expanded using a d14 and d16. Not all Zocchi dice are reliably random, but those two are. I’d love to see them come into more common usage, since they so nicely fill in a lot of the gap between the d12 and the d20. And even with a d16, a player would only have a 75% chance of hitting 5 or higher. Which is still a respectable failure rate.

Crafting Weapons & Armor in Pathfinder

Building on what I determined last week, I’d like to move on to actually producing a working craft skill for Pathfinder. I have a lot of ideas for how to proceed, but for this particular system, I’m working within two important design constraints.

The the resulting craft skill must use the Pathfinder skill system, without circumventing or subverting it. Regardless of how far this system strays from the game’s original design, it must involve rolling a d20, modifying the roll with the character’s skill level, and comparing the results against a DC to determine success or failure.
Feats should not be necessary to craft an item. If a character invests skill points in a crafting skill, they should receive the benefits of that skill without needing a feat to turn it into a useful ability.

Unfortunately, due to the titanic level disparity between moderately invested, and focused characters, I’ve needed to abandon the third of my original criteria; that the difficulty of crafting an item would be determined by the DC, cost, and crafting time alone. Unfortunately that’s simply not feasible when a focused character at level 10 has the same crafting ability as a moderately invested character at level 20.

Were I to insist that the number rolled represent the absolute quality of the item being crafted, then either:

The 26-45 range allows characters to craft the highest level weapons, in which case everyone should focus on crafting, because it allows you to make a +5 Vorpal Sword at level 10.
The 26-45 range allows characters to craft weapons appropriate for level 10, in which case no one should ever bother with crafting, because it requires a lot of investment, and stops being useful at mid level.
A middle ground is attempted, which would only mitigate the problem slightly; not fix it.

None of these alternatives are acceptable to me. Which is why I think the system should also take the character’s level into account. By limiting the power of crafted magic items based on level, I keep the focused character from leaping too far ahead of the game, without simultaneously forcing the moderately invested character to fall miles behind. Both heavily focused characters and moderately invested character will always be able to make the same items as one another (assuming they are the same level). But while a focused character will almost always succeed in making a magic item on their first try, a moderately invested character will likely fail a few times first, perhaps creating cursed items.

In Pathfinder, weapons and armor can have two different kinds of magical properties. There is the common numerical bonus, which ranges from +1 to +5; and the special ability, which can take many forms. Perhaps it’s a “Flaming Burst” weapon, or “Shadowskin” armor. These special bonuses each have a numerical equivalent listed in the book, to help determine the item’s pricing and the maximum power of the weapon. For example, “Arrow Catching” armor is equivalent to +1, while “Spell Resistance 19” is equivalent to +5. Each item can have a maximum of +10 effective bonus (only five of which may take the form of a numerical bonus). This is all standard Pathfinder stuff, which can be found in chapter 15 of the core rulebook.

Using this method of determining weapon and armor ability values, a craftsperson can create an item with an effective item bonus equal to 1/2 their character level. But only 1/4 of their character level may be numerical bonuses.

So at level. 1, a character can craft masterwork armor. At level 2, one half of their level is 1, allowing them to create Arrow Catching armor. However, since 1/4 of 2 is still less than 1, the character could not create +1 armor. They can’t do that until they reach level 4, at which point they can create armor with an effective bonus of +2, so they could create +1 Arrow Catching armor if they so chose.

(Note: For those familiar with Pathfinder’s item creation rules, you will notice that I’ve removed the requirement that all magic items must be at least magically +1. I don’t think that’s necessary)

The base DC for crafting a masterwork item is 20. The DC for the crafting check increases by 2 for each effective item bonus added to the item. So a set of +1 Arrow Catching armor (an effective item bonus of 2) thus has a DC of 24.

Here’s a chart of how this would break down over the course of the game. Under bonuses, the numerical bonus is listed on the left, while the special ability bonus is listed on the right. Though, of course, there’s nothing to stop characters from ignoring the numerical bonus entirely, and simply using all of their available effective item bonuses to add special abilities to the weapon.

I think a week of crafting time for most items should be sufficient, though I’d rather leave that up to GM discretion. Gold pieces required to craft the item should be equal to 1/2 the items value. And any special materials would need to be acquired separately from that. If a spell is called for, a scroll will be sufficient, though if the character wishes to avoid that route, then they can seek out a special reagent at the GM’s discretion. (“Want to skip the scroll of Darkseeing? Then you better bring me a Drow’s eye!”)

If a roll is failed, then the character has a 10% chance to create a cursed item. Otherwise, they’ll simply create the best item their roll would have allowed for. So if they’re trying to create a +3/+4 sword, but they roll a 31, then the GM should roll first to determine if the sword will become a cursed item. If not, then the player has successfully created a +2/+3 sword.

I’m not convinced that this is the best way to handle crafting, but it’s the best way that I can come up with which still uses the Pathfinder skills system.

Designing a Pathfinder Skill

I’ve long intended to redesign the Craft and Knowledge skills from the ground up. I’ve even taken a shot at it a few times in the past. I’ve got a completed, but unpublished post from mid Summer where I went on a rather vitriolic rant about the failings of the skills system, based on one of those unsuccessful attempts. Regardless of the system’s failings, though, I do think that both of these skills are beneficial to the game and could be improved from their RAW state without fundamentally changing the way the skills system works. So with some new ideas in hand, I’d like to give it another try. This time moving more slowly, and “showing my work.”

It seems logical to me that any skill must be created with at least two different types of characters in mind. The Moderately Invested Character, and the Focused Character.

The focused character is one who has made this skill their top priority. Whether the skill is a crafting or knowledge skill, or any other skill for that matter, this character is determined to be the best at what they do. Through luck or point-buy, they start the game with an 18 in the associated ability score, and they select a race which grants them a +2 bonus to that ability score. Every four levels, they improve that ability score by 1 point, culminating in a +6 modifier at level 8, and a +7 modifier at level 16. The focused character also takes Skill Focus at first level. And, obviously, this character has selected a class for which this skill is a class skill, and places new points into the skill at each level.

Now, it wouldn’t be hard to take this further. Their are races with better than a +2 ability score bonus. There are magical items and spells which–temporarily or permanently–increase a character’s ability scores. Some races receive bonuses for specific skills, such as the gnomish +2 racial bonus to craft. Often, masterwork tools give characters a functionally permanent circumstance bonus to their checks. There are even magical items which increase competency with a skill, though in my opinion these should be almost entirely ruled out of the game for reasons which will become obvious in a moment.

If a person really wanted to max out their skill, and the GM was willing to humor them, then I think the skills system is so fundamentally, mathematically flawed that it would be impossible to create a well balanced skill. But when attempting to craft these skills, I will assume that the players are not quite so obsessive, and the GM is not so foolish to indulge them if they are.

The other type of character which the system must be balanced for, the Moderately Invested Character, is much simpler. They do not make this skill a priority, but it is a class skill, and they do put skill points into it at each level. Their associated ability score is a +2, which is above average, but not great. That, I think, is a sufficient level of involvement that a player should expect to see solid, level appropriate returns on their decision to invest in this skill, whatever it may be.

For all of these characters; the focused, the moderately invested, and every character who falls between; the skill ought to work ‘right.’ Certainly, within this gradation, there will be players who are more or less skilled than others. That’s fine, and in fact it is one of the benefits of the Pathfinder skills system. However, a moderately invested character should never feel as though the skill isn’t useful to them, nor should a focused character receive such significant rewards that they become overpowered. Players with less skill than a moderately invested character can be legitimately viewed as handicapped in the skill, and should not expect full at-level rewards from it. And characters with greater skill than a focused character can be considered overpowered already.

So how do the numbers work out?

Not great.

At first level, there’s already a variance of 6 between the moderately invested and the focused characters. By level 20 that variance has widened to 11. Those may not sound like very large numbers, but notice that a 10th level focused character has reached the same level of expertise that a 20th level moderately invested character can.

Forging ahead, now that we know which ranges the two character types will have available to them at each level, the question becomes: what acts should a character be able to perform at a given level? For example, according to the Pathfinder Core Rulebook, +1 swords cost 2,000 gold pieces. They’re also available for sale in large cities, so in the assumed Pathfinder campaign setting, +1 swords should be available to a character who has sufficient gold. According to the wealth by level guidelines, a level 4 character should have 6,000 gold, so I think it’s safe to say that a character is meant to have +1 weapons by level 4. If characters are to be able to craft magic items using the crafting system (as is my goal), then what should be the DC of crafting a +1 sword? 25? That gives the moderately invested character a 25% chance of success at level 4, and the focused character a 40% chance of success at level 1.

Clearly an additional layer of complexity is required here. Materials cost will obviously help limit this crafting, but it’s important to me that I avoid requiring feats in this system.

Further work on my part is required, but at this juncture I’m eager to hear what others think. Perhaps one of my betters can save me some time?

Moving with Subtlety, and How to Roll Dice for it

I’ve been pondering how stealthy action could be handled better at the table. When I assessed Pathfinder’s stealth skill earlier this year, I came to the conclusion that while the rules were dangerously unclear on specifics, they could still be interpreted as a pretty solid stealth mechanic. To refresh: Pathfinder’s stealth skill is rolled as an opposed check. The character wishing to be subtle makes their check, and any characters they wish to avoid the detection of rolls a perception check. Highest result wins. If the GM only calls for the check under the proper conditions, and the D&D 3.5 optional facing rules are used, then the skill as written works respectably well, all things considered.

Nevertheless I’ve recently found myself attracted to a ternary stealth system. I hesitate to call it simpler, because in some ways it is more complicated, but ultimately I believe it is more enjoyable and more streamlined than Pathfinder’s raw ruleset. In many ways, it is similar to the Streamlined Skills System I wrote about back in September. It would function thusly:

Characters are either “Subtle,” or “Unsubtle.” If the game is a retroclone, then characters like the thief or assassin will obviously be the subtle ones, whilst all other classes would be unsubtle. In Pathfinder, a subtle character is one who has a bonus in stealth not less than their HD + 1. (So a level 6 rogue must have a +7 or more in her stealth skill if she wishes to be a subtle character.) -OR- if you are concerned about stealth becoming a skill tax, a subtle character is any who has 10 ranks or more in the Stealth skill. (I would discourage my fellow GMs from having subtle characters be those of a class for whom stealth is a class skill. While it is reasonable, the entire benefit of the skill system is that any character can use it to excel at a given task).

Anytime any character wishes to go unseen, and that character has a reasonable chance of failure (more on this below), they must make a stealth check. In a retroclone, the check would likely be defined by the subtle character’s class abilities. In Pathfinder, the DC will be based on the environment. A field of grass would be the baseline of 10, a stone floor would be DC of 15, creaky wood a DC of 20, crunchy leaves or a floor filled with trash a DC of 25. Darkness would reduce the DC, while something like a large mirror would increase it. Obviously, armor check penalties would apply. GMs of both type of game are encouraged to grant circumstance bonuses to characters who take extra precautions like camouflage, and impose penalties on characters who fail to observe common sense precautions like moving at a slow pace.

Attempts at stealth should be rejected by the GM outright in any circumstance where moving undetected would be completely unreasonable. For example, moving in plain sight of the creature you wish to hide from.

If an unsubtle character fails their stealth check, then something has happened which alerts those around them. Perhaps they kicked a stone or scraped their foot on the floor. Perhaps something out of their control occurred, like the door they were opening being poorly maintained, and causing a loud squeaking sound when it opened. If an unsubtle character succeeds on their check, then they are moving pretty quietly. However, nearby creatures may be entitled to a perception check to detect the character anyway. In a retroclone, this perception check is a 1d6 roll, and could have a range of 1, 2, or 3, depending on how likely it is that the nearby creatures heard the player. In Pathfinder, this perception check is a skill check, directly opposed to the result of the player’s stealth roll.

If a subtle character fails their check, they receive the same result that an unsubtle character would on a successful check. If a subtle character succeeds on their check, then they are (within reason) moving with absolute stealth. Their victims are not entitled to any perception checks at all.

A single successful check is only good for so long, however. It would be ridiculous for a rogue to succeed on a stealth check, then move all the way down to bottommost level of the dungeon, retrieve the treasure, and walk back without requiring any further checks. A new check must be rolled any time the situation changes. Some examples of when a new check must be rolled include:

Anytime the character enters a new area, such as moving into a new room.
Anytime the character abandons something which aided them in their stealth, such as moving out of an area of darkness, or moving into an area where their camouflage would no longer be effective.
Anytime they attempt a maneuver which might get them caught, such as making a quick dash from one hiding place to another, or when they open a door.

As mentioned above, checks should only be called for if there is a reasonable chance the character will be detected. Checks should not be called for if the player is crawling on their belly to glance over a hill at an enemy fortress in the valley below. Nor should checks be called for if the character is merely attempting to use some form of cover to hide themselves, without moving. Anybody can crawl inside of a barrel and be essentially undetectable. Exceptions may be made if the character needs to remain in their hiding place for an extremely long time (perhaps an hour or more), or if their hiding space is ill suited to them (such as hiding behind a pole barely large enough to conceal your body while standing sideways).

Ultimately, I hope this system will turn sneaking into a more active process, where players must discuss their actions in detail with the GM. I’m quite happy with this, and plan to implement it in all of my games so I can work out any bugs there may be. I’m eager to hear what others think as well.

Identifying Magic Items in Pathfinder

All the way back in April, I declared that I was fed up with the way magic items are identified in Pathfinder. Furthermore, I said that I was going to fix it. I’ve been lazy, but I’m going to work on not being lazy anymore. So lets get to work. Forgive me if this post is a little more brusk than my writing normally is.

There are two steps to identifying a magical item. The first step is to determine whether the item is magical at all. In some cases this may be obvious, such as in the case of a glowing sword. But not every magical item will be obviously magical. And some items which seem as though they should be magical might not be. A jewel encrusted shield might just be a fragile display piece, good for selling, but not for using. Once it has been determined that an item is magical, the second step is to figure out what the item actually does, and how a character can make the item do that thing. Depending on how the game works, a +1 mace might always be a little more accurate and deal a little more damage, but something less obvious could require some know-how in order to use. Such as an activation word for a wand.

Before I go further, I’d like to review precisely how Pathfinder’s item identification works according to the core rule book. That way we’re clear on where we’re starting from. Relevant parts of the system are described in a number of places. First, from the “Spellcraft” skill description.

“This skill is also used to identify the properties of magic items in your possession through the use of spells such as detect magic and identify.“, “Attempting to ascertain the properties of a magic item takes 3 rounds per item to be identified and you must be able to thoroughly examine the object”, “When using detect magic or Identify to learn the properties of magic items, you can only attempt to ascertain the properties of an individual item once per day. Additional attempts reveal the same result.”, “Identify the properties of a magic item using detect magic: 15 + item’s caster level.”

The spell description for Detect Magiccan be found on page 267 of the PFCRB, but essentially all the spell allows you to do is identify that magic auras are present, and help you determine the school of said aura, and which specific items or persons they are emanating from. The spellcraft skill can then be used as described above (DC 15 + item’s caster level) to determine the item’s specific use and activation word, etc. The spell description for Identify can be found on page 299 of the PFCRB, but it pretty much only says “+10 to spellcraft checks made to identify magic items.”

I don’t like this system because:

I hate it when spells are neutered so that they can fit within the broken skills system. Identify should not be a +10 to your identification ability.
I don’t see the point in having a failure chance for identifying magical items. At least not a completely random failure chance. It could be interesting to construct the rules so that players could miss magical items through poor play.
I’ve recorded game sessions in the past. I like to listen to them and judge what works and what doesn’t as an outside observer. Here’s what the discovery of a magic item sounds like:

ME: You find 100 gold pieces and a sword with a silver blade and a dragon’s head carved into the wooden handle.
Players: Check to see if it’s magical.
Sorcerer/Wizard/Whatever: I roll to see if it’s magical.
[Success]Me: It is a +2 sword.
[Success]Players: Yay! Who needs it?
[Failure]Me: It does not appear to be magical to you.
[Failure]Players: It was a low roll. Lets keep it and try again tomorrow!

This conversation is boring. It is pointless. And it is a waste of everyone’s time.

Here is my proposal for Pathfinder magic item identification. I haven’t playtested this yet, but I’ll implementing it in my game, and hopefully it will be an improvement over the way the system currently works.
Magic Users–Wizards, Sorcerers, Clerics, etc.–can identify whether an item is or is not magical by focusing on it for about five minutes. Characters who cannot cast spells are unable to do this. If the party does not wish to spend the time necessary to determine whether an item is magical, the spell Detect Magic can be used to immediately identify all magical items within the caster’s field of vision. When using this spell, the items will glow a particular color, corresponding to the school of magic which the item is most strongly associated with. Only the caster is able to see these auras, and they do not provide any more information than the fact that the item is magical, and what school it is associated with.
Each magical item in Pathfinder has a “Caster Level.” If the caster level of an item is equal to or lower than the caster level of a magic user, then that magic user may determine the item’s function and method of activation by studying it for 5 minutes. If the players do not wish to spend this amount of time, or if the items in question are too high level to be identified, then the caster may use the Identify spell. This spell must be cast individually for each item which needs to be identified, but works instantaneously. Also, using the Identify spell, a caster may determine the properties of a magic item up to 3 caster levels above their own.
If no magic user is available, or if an item is too high level to be identified by the party’s magic user, then the party may seek out and consult a sage. Sages are very learned, and often have magical powers of their own to call upon. For a fee (200gp * Item’s Caster Level) the Sage will identify it for the party. It will require at least one week’s worth of time. For particularly powerful magic items, or artifacts, the sage may require additional funds and time, or may be entirely unable to identify the item at all. In that case, the sage would likely know of another sage which the party could consult, and offer them at least a partial refund.
What do you think? I’m open to criticism here.

Streamlined Skill Rolls

I have a really bad habit.

I have numerous little creative projects I’m working on at any given time. I enjoy it, but I always overestimate the time I have available to work on them. I tend to stress a lot about devoting enough time to each project, and I end up forgetting to make time to rest. More importantly, I don’t make time to play games, or read stories, because it takes time away from creating them. But working without pausing to recharge my creative energies quickly reduces me to a withered husk. Seriously, it’s gross.

The worst part of it is that I don’t even get any more work done when I push myself beyond my limits like this. I just procrastinate a lot at my desk, re-watching JonTron videos for the billionth time (Bro, seriously? Seriously bro? Make more videos) or bothering my ladyfriend while she’s trying to study or draw. And since I spend the whole time feeling guilty about not working, these deviations from my work don’t actually rejuvenate me at all. They just wear me down more. It’s a stupid thing to do, and I somehow never realize I’m doing it until its been going on for at least a few days.

I recently realized I’d been at it again, so the other day I closed all my browser windows, cleared all my notes off of my desk, and sat down on the floor to read the Dungeon Crawl Classic RPG core rulebook, which I’ve been wanting to do for quite a while. Shortly after I started reading, I got to the chapter on skills, which opens with this excerpt:

”A character’s 0-level occupation determines the basic skills he can use. If the player can logically role-play the connection between his occupation and a skill in a way that the character’s background supports the skill in question, then his character can make what is called a trained skill check.”

Without reading another word, I slammed the book closed, and grabbed my notebook, because I knew how I would build a skill system based on that starting point. Once I had written mine down, I finished reading the skills chapter in DCC to confirm that I hadn’t just come up with the same thing they had. I think it’s different enough that I can legitimately call it “mine” without feeling unethical. Particularly considering I used something similar to the basic concept when I made Twittertop RPG. And that was months before I had a copy of DCC.

At character creation, each player should choose a profession. This is what they did in their life before they became an adventurer. A list of examples might include farmer, merchant, school teacher, sailor, scribe, or blacksmith. The profession is not limited to those, but it should be something similar. “King” would not be an acceptable choice. A good rule would be that if a profession cannot be easily found in a small town, it is probably too specialized to be selected.

During play, if a player would like to attempt something which would not be covered by the skill-set they have from their class (such as navigate a ship by the stars, accurately evaluate the price of a painting, or repair a broken sword) , they may argue that they know how to perform this task based on their profession. If the GM agrees, then the character may attempt the task with a “trained” skill check. If the task being attempted is not covered by the character’s profession, then they can still attempt an “untrained” skill check.

Both trained and untrained attempts have four levels of difficulty, which are determined by the GM. They are Easy, Challenging, Difficult, and Impossible. Note that these four levels are not necessarily the same between trained and untrained characters. If a farmer wants to plant a field, that would be an easy task, while for an untrained character it would be a challenging one. While navigating by the stars would be a challenging task for a sailor, but an impossible one for—say–a baker.

If a task is easy, it can be completed without any roll. If a task is impossible, it is failed automatically. For challenging or difficult tasks, a D20 is rolled against the appropriate difficulty number, which is determined by the character’s level.

This chart would be universal, and used by any character regardless of their class. So each character would have a total of three numbers associated with their skills, which only need to be updated according to the chart’s progression as the character levels. No bonuses or ability scores need be factored in, though circumstance bonuses & penalties may apply.

What do you think?

Overview of Pathfinder's Skills: Conclusion

As a GM, I’ve always gravitated towards using some skills, and away from using others. In my limited experience, I’ve found that most GMs do something similar. There are skill checks which they call for, and checks which they don’t. Beneficial as those decisions may be, players are often harmed by this practice. Because, in my experience, GMs don’t communicate which skills they will be using for and which they will not. They may not have even noticed that they ignore certain skills. In my own experience, when a player says “I swim into the river,” I’ve never even considered asking for a swim check. I’ve always simply allowed players to do so. But what I’ve come to realize is that I have been, in effect, lying to my players because of that.

When a new player is joining my games, I’ve never told them not to put any ranks in swim, or climb, or disguise, or escape artist. I let them make their own decisions, not realizing that in doing so I am implying that any skill they put points into is a skill which will potentially be useful to them. How many of my players have wasted skill points on skills which would never be rolled even a single time? I have been at fault in this, which is why I set out to correct that oversight with this series. Over two weeks of posts here on Papers & Pencils have been devoted to overviewing Pathfinder’s skills. I’ve approached each one in turn with as clear a mind as I could manage, analyzing its strengths and its flaws in the hopes of cutting the fat from the system.

What has been the result? Well, the original game of Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 had an amusingly appropriate 35 skills. Pathfinder combined a number of these skills together, bringing the total number of skills down to 26. With the additional cuts I’ve made, the total number of skills is down to 14 total.You can see the breakdown of the skills on this chart:

My reduction in the number of skills is pretty drastic. It is legitimate to be concerned that it may be too drastic. If a human rogue rolls 18 for their intelligence, then they can add two to that, and start the game with an Intelligence modifier of +5. If that character also selects rogue as their favored class, then at each level they can receive a total of 15 skill points (Rogue is 8 + Intelligence Modifier, +1 for the human racial trait, +1 for leveling in a character’s favored class.) Considering that both Craft and Knowledge represent multiple skills, this doesn’t mean that the character would end up with excess skill points at each level. However, such a rogue would almost certainly be forced to put skill points into a number of abilities they had little to no interest in actually using. Such a character does not even imply any attempt to manipulate the system on the player’s part. All it would require is a lucky roll for ability scores, followed by common-sense choices.We could reduce the number of skill points each class receives. However, for now, I will be allowing characters to maintain their current speed of skill point acquisition, to see if this is actually a problem or not. After all, no class gains skill at the same pace that the rogue does, and rogues are supposed to have a wide variety of talents.

I hope I have been somewhat successful in streamlining, and improving Pathfinder’s skill system with these posts. But there’s only so much that can be done. The D20 system’s skill mechanic is fundamentally flawed, and from what I’ve seen, so is the way design decisions have been made. If not by Paizo, then at least by Wizards of the Coast.

First, there’s the issue of linear probability. Rolling a single twenty sided die for a skill check means that none of the potential results are even slightly more likely than any other possible result. A character can roll a 1, or a 20, or anything in between with equal probability. With some rolls, like attack rolls in combat, it makes good sense. Combat is chaotic, and unpredictable. Your skill at thrusting a sword is mitigated by the quality of your opponent’s armor, and their skill at parrying, or blocking, or dodging your attack. This is not true with something like a ride check or a acrobatics check. Take the instance of a jump: in Pathfinder, a level 1 commoner who attempts to jump as far as she can is just as likely to make it 1ft as she is to make it 20ft. Can you imagine anyone in the world with that kind of variance in their ability? A much better system would be one which used multiple dice for skill checks. Something like 2d10, or 3d6, which would have a bell curve of probability, where the numbers in the middle of the possible range (right around 10-11) will appear much more frequently than the numbers at either extreme of the number range.

I’ve also found that there has apparently been no real attempt to balance the skill’s usefulness against one another. It would seem to me as though any sufficient amount of play testing would reveal that skills such as escape artist are used much less frequently (and to much less effect) than skills such as perception or acrobatics. Given this wide disparity in the frequency and effectiveness of usage, a skill point put into escape artist is significantly less valuable to a player than a point spent in acrobatics. Now, I would not suggest that each skill needs to be precisely equal in value to every other skill. A game which offers as many choices for character building as Pathfinder does will always have more and less ideal ‘builds.’ But there is a limit to the disparity of balance which is acceptable. Some of Pathfinder’s core skills are more valuable than others by an order of magnitude, and that’s unacceptable.

For many of these skills, I can only imagine that they were kept in the game because the game needed to be compatible with D&D 3.5 products.

I would like to thank all of my readers who stuck with this series throughout. I know it has been a rather dry read. Truth be told, I’ve been itching to be done writing it myself. There have been a number of topics I’ve been greatly interested in writing about, but I did not want to interrupt the flow of these skill posts. Now that they’re done, I look forward to covering a variety of topics which have been on my mind these past few weeks. As mentioned earlier in this series, I am intending to re-write the Knowledge and Craft skills, as well as the process of identifying magic items. You can expect those posts in the coming weeks, but not before I’ve had some time to touch on some other subjects first.

Overview of Pathfinder's Skills: Stealth to Use Magic Device

Stealth (Full Description on PFSRD)(-C’s Post): The stealth skill is not quite so broken as I thought it was before I sat down to do my analysis. It can be easy for those of us who played Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition for years to not notice, or forget, some of the changes which Pathfinder has made. Pathfinder’s stealth skill doesn’t include any information on hiding whatsoever: hiding is left up to the GM and players to work out on their own. Which is good and proper. If my players tell me they would like to hide behind a statue, then I see no reason to make them roll for it. Simply using commonsense rules about line of sight is enough. Though I would appreciate it if the stealth skill included information about hiding in shadows, or using camouflage in the woods.

In my games, I assume that all characters standing in darkness and not moving are effectively hidden and cannot be perceived unless a creature has darkvision. Moving half your speed in darkness requires a stealth check (for moving silently) made with a +4 bonus. Characters standing in dim light make stealth checks directly opposed to perception checks so long as they are not moving. If they do move, they make their check at a -4 penalty. In areas of normal or bright light, hiding in shadows is done at a -2 penalty when standing still, and a -6 penalty when moving.

I also use facing in my games, as presented under the OGL for D&D 3.5. Note that the rules include a -5 penalty for perception checks made to the “flanking” (left and right) areas, and -10 penalty for perception checks made towards the “rear” area. So characters standing to the side or the rear of a creature can attempt to use stealth checks to move silently into an area where they can hide, which allows them to hide during combat.

Judgement: As written, the skill is not clear on several key points. And, without facing, the skill’s use in combat becomes a little ridiculous. By polishing these aspects of the skill, it can be made acceptable.

Survival (Full Description on PFSRD)(-C’s Post): I like survival. When attempting to subsist in the wilderness, there are some tasks which shouldn’t be ignored, but which are none the less not interesting or easy enough to actually model at the table. Finding food and water, for example. While this may be a simple task in a forest, scrounging up the necessities of life might be significantly more difficult on a rocky mountain, or in a desert, or a poison-filled swamp. The skill also helps players avoid becoming lost, which is good when world travel is handled by a hex crawl rather than the much less entertaining “fade to black” style travel. The skill is also essential when attempting to find, and follow tracks, which is a time honored ability in D&D, and functions effectively under the Pathfinder rules.

Judgement: I would like it if this skill had more utility, but some of the utility it already has (determining weather a day in advance, for example) is pretty useless. A better mechanic for these tasks could probably be worked out for future editions of the game, but as it stands survival is adequate.

Swim (Full Description on PFSRD)(-C’s Post): If you read my entry on climb, then you already know why I hate the swim skill. It is utterly without merit for a game which takes place largely on land to treat the ability to swim as anything more than a binary function. Either yes, a character can swim, or no, they cannot swim. I suppose that if a specific adventure called for the characters to spend significant amounts of time in the water, then a “water maneuverability classes” similar to the ones traditionally used to gauge flight ability might be useful. But that’s about it.

The rules offer a number of examples of when a swim check should be asked for, such as when the water is rough, or stormy. But how often is this really an issue? In all my years, I’ve only ever played through a single underwater dungeon, and a handful of water-environment combats. Even in those instances, I never felt the need to roll dice to determine how well players could move. I understand, of course, that my personal experience can’t be extrapolated to everyone who plays the game. But the game is clearly not designed around adventuring through watery environments, and if it was, I doubt you would need to roll dice to determine whether or not you could move at all.

In my games I allow players to simply swim if they feel as though it’s an ability their character would have. If you need a mechanic, then have players who wish to swim spend a single skill point to gain the ability to do so. It makes more sense than learning languages by spending a single skill point.

Judgement: Purge this skill from your game, and let its name never be spoken again.

Use Magic Device (Full Description on PFSRD)(-C’s Post): This is another example of a well constructed skill, like Sleight of Hand. It allows any character to use items, such as wands and scrolls, which would typically only be usable by casters. This allows characters greater flexibility in their planning. My players, and myself when I am a player, often come up with elaborate plans which require the use of a specific spell cast in a specific place at a specific time, where there might be no caster present. But since a fighter is not fully capable of understanding the complexities of a scroll of fireball, it’s only logical for there to be a chance for failure.

Judgement: Keep this skill in the game as-is.

And there you have it. All of the skills. The conclusion will go up over the Weekend, after which we will return to our regularly scheduled writings.

Overview of Pathfinder's Skills: Sense Motive To Spellcraft

Sense Motive (Full Description on PFSRD)(-C’s Post): By now, I’ve gone over every skill pretty thoroughly, and I have a good idea of what I want to say about each one. I’ve even run a game using the reduced skills list, and it went quite well. I’m sure that some of my changes are breaking other minor rules. No doubt there are a number of spells and feats which have been rendered useless by the way I’ve changed and removed skills. But I believe the reduced list has been an overall improvement. My players spent a little less time looking at their sheets and asking if they could make skill checks, and a little more time engaged with the game world, asking whether they could perform certain tasks.

The one skill I left in the game at the time, which I am now pretty certain I will remove, is sense motive. I’ve spent a lot of time wrestling with whether this skill has value to the game. On the one hand, I agree with -C’s basic assessment. If you break it down, it seems clear:

In an good game, players are able to succeed by making meaningful, intelligent choices.
In order to make intelligent choices, players must be able to access relevant information to base their decisions upon.
If players must roll a die to access information, then there is a chance they will fail that roll.
If they fail that roll, they will not be able to access to the information they require in order to make intelligent decisions.
If players cannot access the information they require to make intelligent decisions, then they will not be able to succeed by making meaningful, intelligent choices.
Ergo, if players must roll a die to access relevant information, then a game is not good.

There are other skills, however, such as knowledge and perception, which also require a roll in order for a player to receive information. -C’s posts decry these skills on much the same grounds as he decries sense motive, but I have chosen to keep them in my game. Albeit in modified forms. So am I a hypocrite, or is there a difference between the types of information players gain from knowledge and perception, and the type of kind of information players gain from sense motive?

Somewhat.

Knowledge is a different beast altogether, but sense motive and perception have a number of commonalities between them. Both are most commonly rolled against an NPCs, both can be used to give players advance warning of danger, and both can potentially produce interesting results regardless of success or failure. With perception, it is interesting both when players are ambushed, and when they detect an ambush before it occurs. With sense motive, it can be interesting both when a players are fooled, and when the players manage to see through a deception. On those grounds alone, sense motive would seem to be a legitimate and useful skill.

However, sense motive isn’t perfectly analogous to perception. Perception is used to determine whether characters can notice things they are not looking for, such as an orc sneaking through the trees. Sense motive, on the other hand, is most commonly rolled to gauge an NPC which players are intently engaged with, such as a back-alley informant who may be lying to them. That alone is reason to cast serious doubt on the value of sense motive.

I don’t think it’s always wrong for a GM to use NPCs to lie to the players. I think untrustworthy NPCs who lie to, or even betray, the players adds an element of social danger to the game which is valuable. But there must be a better way to do it than with the sense motive check. An untrustworthy NPC surely gives some signs that they aren’t being entirely straight with the player characters. Shifty eyes, oddly emphasized words, inconsistent stories about who they are and what they want, there are dozens of ways to give the players a chance to figure out that they’re being had. And once the players have an inkling, the desire to confirm that inkling gives the GM a good opportunity to challenge them. A street thug’s reputation for lying might be easy enough to find out if you know who to ask, but finding out that the duke is planning to frame the PCs for his crime might be a little trickier.

Judgement: After much deliberation, this skill should be house-ruled out of the game. In a pinch, perception checks can be used to fill-in for it. Bluff checks should only be used by the PCs against NPCs, so a DC is adequate. If you prefer, it can be rolled v. another bluff roll.

Sleight of Hand (Full Description on PFSRD)(-C’s Post): There is very little to say about sleight of hand. It is just about the perfect skill. It comes up decently often in play, success and failure are almost always both interesting results. And since I can’t think of a way to handle it which would be more fun than a dice roll, it doesn’t circumvent any potential fun. If anything, having this skill in the game encourages players to use it in creative ways. I once had spell caster put points into it so he could attempt to hide his magical hand gestures.

Judgement: I cannot think of anything wrong about this skill.

Spellcraft (Full Description on PFSRD): The spellcraft skill has five officially listed functions in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook. It is used to identify a spell which is being cast, copy a spell from a borrowed spellbook, prepare a spell from a borrowed spellbook, and as part of crafting and identifying magic items. The book also indicates that spellcraft “is used whenever your knowledge and skill of the technical art of casting a spell […] comes into question.”

Spellcraft functions well for the most part. I don’t really like the way in which it interacts with the craft skill, but as I’ve already mentioned in this series, I have plans to entirely re-write the Pathfinder crafting rules in the near future. I’m also dubious of the value of needing to roll a check in order to copy a spell from a borrowed spellbook. It strikes me as an unnecessary and ultimately ineffective attempt to control a wizard’s power through drawing out the amount of time it can potentially take to gain new spells. However, requiring a roll to actually prepare as spell from a borrowed spell book functions as a minor but effective throttle on a wizard’s power, since it has a more immediate effect on gameplay. Plus, on the fluff side of things, the failure chance meshes with the way Vancian magic is described in the rulebook.

My only real problem with the skill is the way it is used to identify magic items. I’ve tried a number of things over the years, and never really been happy with any of them. As of late I’ve simply been allowing any spellcaster to identify the purpose of an item she believes is magical, so long as she has 10 minutes to examine it. I would also like for some items to be un-identifyable to a spellcaster, because this can create interesting scenarios where characters must seek aid in identifying their items.

I don’t think the spellcraft skill can reasonably be involved in this process, though. A level 1 elven wizard with 18 Intelligence has a +10 to their spellcraft check. That goes up to +12 if the the magical properties for the item they’re attempting to identify are from their specialist school. So you can’t simply allow casters to automatically identify items with a caster level equal to or lesser than the caster’s spellcraft check bonus, because a level 1 elf could identify items on the high-end of mid-level. The typical solution would be to add 10 to the item’s caster level, and call for a roll, but then you’re back to asking the caster for a dozen rolls every time the party encounters a decent sized treasure horde. Checking an item’s caster level against a character’s caster level is also a possibility, but I would like non-casters to be able to identify magic items by investing in the spellcraft skill.

The process of identifying magic items is one I plan to cover more thoroughly in a future post.

In the past, I’ve also allowed casters to use spellcraft to spontaneously craft new spells. If a caster is in combat, and they would like to modify one of their spells in an unusual way, or would like to combine it with another spell, then I’ll allow them to do so. They must first provide a good explanation of how the spell will work (“I want to cast acid orb on my crossbow bolt, and fire it into the ogre!” or “I’d like to cast Cone of Cold and Fireball simultaneously to create a blast of steam.”) They must succeed on a DC 15 + [level of any spells involved, added together] spellcraft check, and expend one of their highest level spells slots available, which is lost whether the spell succeeds or not.

Overview of Pathfinder's Skills: Perform to Ride

Perform (Full Description on PFSRD)(-C’s Post): A skill is a mechanic. It is not a character trait, nor is it a role playing device. Role playing and character development are handled by the player. The player can choose to build their character’s personality off of the character’s mechanics if they wish. It is fun, and even recommended. However, the fact that character mechanics can serve as the basis for role playing traits, does not imply that role playing traits must be represented mechanically. Why, then, does the perform skill exist? Can’t players simply write down that they know how to play the fiddle without requiring a number to keep track of how good they are at it?

As a mechanic, it simply seems silly. If a character is not a bard, then the skill breaks down to “roll the dice, get some money!” Even if treasure is not the central focus of your game, rolling a twenty sided die to determine the effectiveness of your busking has got to be the least entertaining way to earn money that I can imagine. It’s not even a worthwhile amount of money! The most you can possibly earn in a day is 18 gold. The book goes on to hint at some potential plot hooks for characters who frequently succeed at DC 30 performance checks (“In time, you may draw attention from distant patrons, or even from extraplanar beings.”) but that hardly seems to make it worthy of being a skill in my view.

Bards, of course, are the exception. For them, the performance skill is integral. Many of their bardic performance abilities depend on making a perform roll, and then allowing the bard’s companions to use that roll’s result in place of some other type of die roll. This can be an extremely potent ability, and an effective use of the skills system. For example, consider a level 1 bard with 16 Charisma, 1 rank in performance, and the skill focus(performance) feat. That’s a total of +10 to a performance roll, which the bard can roll in place of his companions will saves (which will probably be +4 or less for most characters). On the other hand, a number of the bardic performance abilities (Inspire Courage, Inspire Competence, etc) don’t use a perform roll at all. Instead, their effects increase in strength based solely on the bard’s level.

Judgement: For non-bard players, this skill should be house-ruled out of the game. For bards, I see two possible options. First, you could make Performance a bard-only skill, and edit the bardic performance abilities to make the skill check more relevant. Alternatively, you could house-rule the performance check out of the game for bards as well, and edit all of their performance abilities to be level based, rather than roll based.

Profession (Full Description on PFSRD)(-C’s Post): The problems with the profession skill are so similar to the problems with the perform skill that it hardly seems worth it to write a separate entry for each one. Mechanically, both skills essentially boil down to exactly the same thing: roll dice to see how much money you make. There are some subtle differences, (such as the fact that a profession check takes a week, and a perform check only takes a day), but they are largely inconsequential. The profession skill doesn’t even have the dubious benefit of having a class built upon it. As it exists in the game, profession may be the single most useless skill of all. Purge it.

Useless as the profession skill may be, however, there might be some benefit to a character having a listed profession. In my Twittertop RPG, a character’s profession was used as a substitute for an entire skills system. The idea is that if a player can justify their character possessing a certain skill on the basis of their profession, then the character will be able to use that skill effectively. For example, a character whose profession was sailor would obviously be able to swim, tie ropes, and avoid sea sickness. Whereas a player whose profession was miner would be particularly effective at noticing details and dangers underground.

There’s no reason that the same thing couldn’t exist in Pathfinder as a supplement to the skills system, rather than a replacement. Nothing which a player would need to roll for, mind you. Just an extremely simple, rules-light way of determining whether a player has minor knowledge or abilities which won’t come up frequently.

Judgement: House rule this out of the game as a skill. If you are so inclined, make it a stand, alone trait for each character.

Ride (Full Description on PFSRD)(-C’s Post): I like the idea behind this skill, but I feel it lacks solid implementation. It takes some steps in the right direction, though. Unlike many skills, you can actually do most of what you might imagine is “easy,” without ever spending a point. Characters with 0 ranks in ride are able to saddle, mount, ride, and dismount from a mount without a problem. Even a character with a dexterity modifier of 0 has a 75% chance to avoid falling off their mount when hit. For most players, this should be plenty. It allows them to make use of the standard benefits of riding: moving quickly, and increasing encumbrance limits. A character only needs to put points into the skill if they want to perform more difficult tasks with their mount.

That’s what I like about the skill. What I don’t like is how limiting it is. For example, it would be fair to say that horses can jump further than humans, right? Yet if a human character has 1 rank in jump, and 1 rank in ride, then if he rolls the same on both a long jump check, and a leap check with his horse, then the distance covered will be exactly the same. That’s flat-out ridiculous. I think the game would benefit from advanced riding techniques, and mounted combat, being given a little more spotlight. I’m not certain how it should be done at this point. Perhaps it is something I will direct my attention towards in the future.

Judgement: This skill is fine to leave as-is for now, but it would benefit from some polish, and expansion.