# Profession/Crafting skills: Why?



## Rechan (Oct 5, 2008)

There are still requests for Crafting and profession-related skills, now that 4e has taken them out, and as I try to think about them... I can't come up with why they should be there. 

And I mean that for any rpg. 

Unless you're playing Hammer and Chisel: Craftsman Adventures, I can't see a purpose for having any sort of profession or craft skill.

Why would you spend the time to make mundane items? Even if you are getting half, or even a fifth of market prices, after at what, 3rd level, those prices don't matter. You're swimming in gold or counting every copper because you want/need +2 armor, +3 sword, and a few misc items. 

"But my character should repair his own items!" Seeing as I've never seen a mechanic for wear and tear of items, then you don't need a mechanical representation of repairing your items. 

"But it's part of my background/personality!" Still doesn't explain the necessity for a mechanic. I don't need to take a "Orphan" to designate my family was killed by x. Nor do I need "Lady's Man" to designate my charismatic character as being a woman chaser. Or even "Drunkard" to designate that I immediately go for the alehouse as soon as we roll into town with our swag. (Exceptions made for HERO and SotC, where these have actual impact on the system).

You must be thinking, "But Rechan! What if my players want to make magical items!" Okay, let me ask you something. Your party has spent the last three sessions hunting down the necessary materials to make a magical widget. They put everything together, and ... roll a 1. Do you honestly plan to say "Sorry, your efforts were in vain. No item." The same question applies if you journey far and wide to the greatest swordsmith in the world, do you expect to have him roll a craft skill to make the weapon? 

I take it back that I see _no_ reason to have crafting/profession skills. In a naval campaign, profession (sailor) would be taken, but then you'd be using that stat so often it just becomes a god-stat compared to the others. If during downtime your PC wanted to do some smithing to make extra cash from some locals, that's a distinct possibility. But then, that opens the door for the wizard to just go around casting his spells for a fee and raking in a ton of dough. 

The answer may be "To make traps/poisons!" Although there has never been adequate rules for either (1,000GP for a pit!?), unless you scrounge around the 3rd party materials in the first place, so that can't be the answer. 

Perhaps there's just a disconnect between those that like the craft/profession skills and my taste in games. I know people who enjoy accounting for every goldpiece, take a level of Aristocrat for the starting gold bump. Meanwhile I was frustrated with the notion of spending days of downtime (something of a rarity) rolling for the potential to put spells in a spellbook. But if you're going to go that far, why not just roll every day to make sure you don't step into a gopher hole or catch some horribly common disease? 

My ultimate point is, if the purpose is story and fleshing out your character, then why shouldn't the DM just say, "Okay, what you just wanted, you do it." The wear and tear of items is a good example. Most DMs I would say would just hand-wave the fighter fixing his stuff because he brought it up. ("Well, that fight tore my armor, I'm going to fix it." "Hold on there champ, until you do, you get a -2 to AC.")

We don't have rules for repairing the wear and tear of items, or what happens when the cleric shows up at church (does he tithe? Where's his paycheck? Why isn't he helping heal the sick and such? Oh, he's an adventurer? Guess we'll just handwave all that minutia) so why not just handwave the stuff with some description? If you the player are so hell-bent on it, then why can't the DM just let you describe what you do? Because ultimately that's what you _want_, isn't it? 

Unlike conflicts needing to resolve, the background, fleshy stuff is just that. Unless your DM is one in a million, and makes Concentration, Endurance, Profession (Carpenter) have a front-row seat for the adventure, then it's not going to effect the adventure, let alone a pivotal role in the story. Because unless it does, unless it gets you closer to the goal, then it's no different than having a mechanical subsystem to find out if you picked up the barmaid at the tavern or not.

Finally, I ask another question. I am willing to hypothesize that only a small subset of players and DMs would emphasize or strongly use the craft/profession skills. If that is the case (and remember, the question hinges on IF it is), then should they be in the core rules of an RPG?


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## Victim (Oct 5, 2008)

Concentration was never a critical skill?  It was basically essentially for spellcasting in combat.

Craft skills work pretty well for characters who expect to juryrig things as part of the adventure.  For example, MacGuyver.


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## Hammerhead (Oct 5, 2008)

Crafting is gone from D&D, and I don't think I'll miss it. 

But in some worlds and games, Crafting does come in handy; for example, in Unknown Armies, one of our group was an expert in making homemade explosives. Very handy, and I'd think that cooking up C4 from stuff you get at the hardware store is skill check-worthy.


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## Rechan (Oct 5, 2008)

Victim said:


> Concentration was never a critical skill?  It was basically essentially for spellcasting in combat.



A critical skill for non-spellcasters, then, that the adventure or goal hinges on. C'mon, forest for trees, man.  



> Craft skills work pretty well for characters who expect to juryrig things as part of the adventure.  For example, MacGuyver.



Except that there aren't really rules for juryrigging things. And again, if 1) It's part of their character concept, and 2) they're going to be spending the time and effort to do it, then why make them roll to even be able to _make_ it in the first place? There was never a question of "Can MacGuyver put it together, or will he fail?" No, it's "Once he has it together, does his plan succeed?". 

There's no difference between "I have it in my inventory at the start of the adventure" and "I make it on the spot with available equipment."


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## Delta (Oct 5, 2008)

Mostly for NPCs. So the DM has a quick way of denoting who does what, and some guidelines on how long it takes them.


Now, for PCs I really do want (as OP says) Profession (sailor), Craft (poison), and Craft (traps). And yes, we do need better and more robust rules for those than have been presented before. But the Craft/Profession skills provide a basis to complete that work.


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## Rechan (Oct 5, 2008)

Delta said:


> Mostly for NPCs. So the DM has a quick way of denoting who does what, and some guidelines on how long it takes them.



Really? There needs to be a subsystem for that? 

Because if that's the case, it's woefully under-developed. How long does it take to build a house? A raft? A rowboat? A fort? A castle? Those things are just as likely to come up as (looking at the craft skill) making a high quality item like a bell.

What happened to 1) Speed of plot, or 2) What sounds reasonable.


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## Masada (Oct 5, 2008)

I think a mechanic is handy for creating magic items that are a bit more mundane... like healing potions, buff spells, and other temporary effects.  These basically become extra abilities and you'd want to have a mechanic to make it easy to calculate without making arbitrary judgement calls.

It could be that 4e doesn't need it anymore.  I have not read the rules.  But as far as "any RPG" needing it... yeah it's handy for somethings.  No I would not use crafting skills for items created as part of a quest.  No I would not make the Master Swordsman fail a check.  But I might add some bonues to a really good success check.

And of course... just because there is a mechanic, doesn't mean you have to use it.  It is just the "easy" way of answering the player question "how many healing potions can I have?"


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## Allister (Oct 5, 2008)

Actually, they don't.

I hate to say this Delta, but you're using them wrong. The problem with Profession and Craft is that they're overly too broad with a relatively specific skill system.

Ex: Profession (sailor) -Um, read the skill description closely. What a Profession DC check tells you is how much money a person can make in a week. NOT how well they can do the job.

More importantly, it interacts very weirdly with specific skills like Balance, Climb. 

If the system didn't have relatively specific skills like Balance and Climb, then I could see Profession being a nice skill system but as it exists?

Seriously, having Profession (Sailor) is akin to having Profession (Adventurer) and I doubt anyone here thinks the latter is a good skill.


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## Rechan (Oct 5, 2008)

Masada said:


> I think a mechanic is handy for creating magic items that are a bit more mundane... like healing potions, buff spells, and other temporary effects.  These basically become extra abilities and you'd want to have a mechanic to make it easy to calculate without making arbitrary judgement calls.
> 
> ...
> 
> And of course... just because there is a mechanic, doesn't mean you have to use it.  It is just the "easy" way of answering the player question "how many healing potions can I have?"



Honestly, I thought that was the role of GP. 

It doesn't really reflect the actual economy. There's no talk of buying castles, raising armies, how much money it costs to feed x number of people, taxes tolls or tithes. Nor what happens when adventurers show up and dump 10,00gp into the little hamlet's economy.

The system assumes that your money is being spent on equipment. It designates what is within your means to have. One can easily just say that GP = magical item budget. So you could take out gold completely, call it "Magical Item Points" and see little difference beyond immersion. 

Otherwise you end up with a situation like Conan RPG; your loot at the end of the adventure is gone at the beginning of the next, because you are assumed to have spent it on ale and whores.


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## Boddynock (Oct 5, 2008)

I want Craft skills which are more detailed, not less.  I want to be able to run my dwarven smith cleric as a smith first and a cleric second. I want the satisfaction of building up a character who is more than an NPC but is outside the regular cliche of "find it, kill it, take its treasure".

Sure, he adventures - but adventuring is a distraction to his real calling, which is to become the greatest Mastersmith in the world. Now that doesn't mean that I want everything handed to me on a plate. A mechanic which allows my character to meet progressively greater challenges, as he devotes his time and energy to improving in his chosen field - and to *fail* from time to time, because that's the way life is - that's what would get my vote!

Sure, it's not for everyone - and I'm perfectly happy to play my wizard, or my rogue, or my paladin, as well - but I certainly welcome the fact that we have at least some mechanic for dealing with non-adventuring skills like Craft, and Profession. I just wish there was a lot more of it!


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## Nahat Anoj (Oct 5, 2008)

While I'm not upset that Craft got the boot, I could see a place for it.  *If* it was kind of a "mundane Arcana."  That is, you could use it to detect the value of an item, appraise the soundness/weakness of a structure, jury-rig something, disarm mechanical devices, know stuff about contructs or vehicles, and so on.  Craft "rituals" could be used as the basis of learning "recipes" for mundane items - although items made with Epic Craft "rituals" would be truly badass.    Classes that would get Craft as a Class skill might be Rogues, Wizards, Artificers, and Fighters.

So I definitely think an adventure-focused version of Craft can be made, and I think it would dovetail nicely into 4e, particularly for more steampunk-y games.  Just about the only "problem" is that dwarves should really get a +2 bonus to Craft - should they give up their +2 to Endurance or their +2 to Dungeoneering to get it?  (I'm tempted to say Endurance, because they already get a little boost from their +2 Con, but it still sticks in my craw!  ).


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## Masada (Oct 5, 2008)

Well one aspect of most RPG games is control of items.  I suppose a really good DM knows exactly how many healing potions and other misc magic items to allow in his/her game.  But what if you're not a good DM yet, a mechanic helps you understand how rare an item should be.  You don't see similar issues about castles because you can't haul them in to a dungeon and most RPG's assume the characters are going to be fairly mobile.

Part of this stems from the idea that someone should be able to make kickbutt gear.  If you've got a hot shot Wizard, it seems weird that he can't make anything... or that there are no bounds on what he can make.  It begs the question of "who's making all this stuff?"

Next issue is about buying goods... Do you always want every town to have a "Majics R Us" store of fully stocked goods?  As soon as you tell the players they can't buy Healing Potions here, the next question is going to be, "Can I make one?"  So, again, handy to have a mechanic as a guide for allowing some player benefits without unbalancing the game or just saying No.  Even if you do have a lot of stores around... I've always found the notion of toting around 10,000 gold coins fairly far fetched as well.

To answer your question directly... Do you *need* a mechanic? Well, no you don't.  You just have to be keenly aware of what power you're introducing.  But the better question is... Could anyone benefit from having a mechanic? The answer is still, "Yes, newer DM's/players might benefit from a guide to help adjust what level of power to introduce."

It's just a game... I suppose you could hand wave and say items made at the magic factory can be bought anywhere and purchased with an international standard currency.  I mean it is just stuff... but I dunno... makes the world seem sorta flat and unbelievable.  Yeah, I know it's a fantasy game.

Of course, knowing players, the next question will be, "When does the magic delivery wagon arrive? What route does it take? Any good spots for ambush?"


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## Rechan (Oct 5, 2008)

Masada said:


> Part of this stems from the idea that someone should be able to make kickbutt gear.  If you've got a hot shot Wizard, it seems weird that he can't make anything... or that there are no bounds on what he can make.  It begs the question of "who's making all this stuff?"



Well I put forward that there's no need to have a mechanic to determine if he rolled a 1 or not when trying to put it together.

I say just announce "Okay, you make it. Pay x gold." X may be 1/2 market price or whatever you want. 

There's no need to have a "Roll to see if you do it. Oh, sorry, all your gold and time is forfeit." 

He either does (because you want him to) or he doesn't.



> Could anyone benefit from having a mechanic?



There are a million mechanics you could benefit from, depending on your tastes/flavor in gaming. So should they all be included, considering the potential that someone might benefit from them?



> The answer is still, "Yes, newer DM's/players might benefit from a guide to help adjust what level of power to introduce."



Again, level of power = GP. That's really its purpose, as far as I can understand. Besides, a new DM is likely not going to grok the craft rules.

I confess I don't know how GURPS/Ars Magica handle magical items, but I know that at least in HERO, all you do is spend xp to get an item, and now you are just assumed to always have it, no GP required.. 



> I mean it is just stuff... but I dunno... makes the world seem sorta flat and unbelievable.



You mean like how Common is a universal language, and the only distinction is based on Race, instead of geo-political location?  

I personally don't see "Craft" making the world any less flat.



> Of course, knowing players, the next question will be, "When does the magic delivery wagon arrive? What route does it take? Any good spots for ambush?"



Well, I personally don't believe in BUYING magical items _period_, but the magic shop is sort've a tride and true trope.


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## ProfessorCirno (Oct 5, 2008)

Some crafting skills gave you a lot more (very useful) versatility.  I personally house ruled that you'd get a small bonus if using a weapon or armor you made, and craft: alchemy was awesome when more and more items that could be crafted came out.  Profession I can grant you, but, at the risk of sounding mean, if you never saw the purpose in craft, then you're doing it wrong, and I would hate to play your games.

As was stated above, I want crafting to be cooler and more detailed, not less.

As for "You rolled one, guess it doesn't count," I'm going to assume that you don't play D&D at all, but instead play Amber.  And hopefully I'm right, because otherwise you're a hypocrite.


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## Runestar (Oct 5, 2008)

> "But it's part of my background/personality!" Still doesn't explain the necessity for a mechanic. I don't need to take a "Orphan" to designate my family was killed by x. Nor do I need "Lady's Man" to designate my charismatic character as being a woman chaser. Or even "Drunkard" to designate that I immediately go for the alehouse as soon as we roll into town with our swag. (Exceptions made for HERO and SotC, where these have actual impact on the system).




Your rationale does not justify your premise.

A lady's man would be characterized by a male PC with high cha and good ranks in the associated skills, such as diplomacy, bluff, sense motive etc (plus the appropriate roleplaying), and less so of some sort of "lady's man" background feat. 

Orphan is less of a trait, and more of fluff (in that it has no specific connotations/roleplaying burdens of its own, but can be used to justify why your character is the way he/she is). You don't so much take ranks in orphan, but rather, take ranks in skills which you ought to have as a result of being an orphan (eg: thievery because you are forced to learn how to survive on the streets?). 

Same for craft skills. If your PC is supposed to be good at basketweaving for some reason, then he should have the requisite skill points to reflect this. Some DMs may be more accodomating and hand-wave this over, others may prefer that their character's stats mirror exactly/precisely what the player feels his PC ought to be capable of. It is more a matter of preference.


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## Fallen Seraph (Oct 5, 2008)

What I personally find odd with the idea of separate Professions and Crafts skills is the concept that it is some imaginary skill in something that makes you good at it not the actual tangible abilities.

For example, say a person gets Profession basket-weaving and gets high skills in it, but is extremely low in Thievery. Yet he can basket-weave like a master, this doesn't make sense too me. Since Thievery includes one's ability with their hands so if it is low how can the actual physical skill that enables him to basket-weave suddenly not matter since he has the Profession???

I much prefer the method like the Corsair PP from FRPG. It gives specific bonuses to skills, since your bettered trained to use those skills in that specific circumstance BUT! you still need those original skills to perform well.


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## Runestar (Oct 5, 2008)

Well, profession is int-based. So the interesting thing (as pointed out) is that dex is irrelevant in basket weaving. The 30-dex elf makes the same quality basket (and consequently, the same income) as the 8-dex human!


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## Fallen Seraph (Oct 5, 2008)

Runestar said:


> Well, profession is int-based. So the interesting thing (as pointed out) is that dex is irrelevant in basket weaving. The 30-dex elf makes the same quality basket (and consequently, the same income) as the 8-dex human!



Which is why I find Professions and Craft to be very silly and glad they are gone. If they do what they did with the Corsair as say a feat (for just the skills-part) I think that be more then adequate for those that want some reinforcement of Profession/Craft in the rules, while actually making common sense, unlike before.

Or they do specific Profession/Craft backgrounds like they have already done for other things.


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## Herremann the Wise (Oct 5, 2008)

Rechan said:


> Well I put forward that there's no need to have a mechanic to determine if he rolled a 1 or not when trying to put it together.
> 
> I say just announce "Okay, you make it. Pay x gold." X may be 1/2 market price or whatever you want.
> 
> There's no need to have a "Roll to see if you do it. Oh, sorry, all your gold and time is forfeit."



In which game system did this happen?



			
				Rechan said:
			
		

> He either does (because you want him to) or he doesn't.



This is what happened in 3.x. A craftsman would "take 10" knowing the quality of goods they could produce and fairly precisely how long it would take them. The gp/sp system wasn't that good in specific instances but I suppose as a single system to cover all manner of mundane items, it was good enough - a starting point for the DM nevertheless.

As for your assertion that craft/profession are unnecessary, for certain games it would be. Why bother when you can kill things and take their stuff (normally cheaper than paying a craftsman - but the quality varies). As for others, I can see how it is an important cog in either developing one's character or alternatively as a means to earn some coin or even prestige in a character's downtime. For certain games, such elements are not only important but enjoyed by the players who play this gamestyle. To each their own.

The fact that such things are not in 4E is one of many indicators of which direction the designers have wanted to take the game.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## airwalkrr (Oct 5, 2008)

I wasn't opposed to WotC removing Craft/Profession from the game. They were cutting back skills that were underused and overemphasized. While Craft/Profession weren't really taking up a lot of space, they didn't demand a presence in the game. They weren't really necessary and a simple subsystem like an Intelligence or Wisdom check suffices just fine if you want to implement it back in.


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## Mark Hope (Oct 5, 2008)

Not every setting has the characters swimming in gold by 3rd level, and nor is their ability to craft their own gear irrelevant.  In my Dark Sun games, for example, the ability to make your own weapons and armour is highly useful.  Vital even.  When the angry braxat sunders your prized obsidian longsword, and you're a week from the nearest settlement, you better be able to make a new one (unless you're planning to handle your next battle relying only on harsh language and a smack on the bum).  For bards, the ability to craft poison (see _Complete Adventurer_) or make alchemical items is also a core need of the class.  And, given the harsh nature of the setting, I don't want these efforts to be hand-waved away.  I want the possibility of failure to be real and present.  It's part of the setting flavour, after all.  And I'm sure Dark Sun is not the only gameworld where such things are a part of regular adventuring life.


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## Altamont Ravenard (Oct 5, 2008)

Maybe we have difficulty seeing the point of Craft/Profession skills because it's never been well implemented in the past. If someone had made up a good way of making those skills useful, maybe we wouldn't feel like dumping them was a good idea.

Personally, I don't mind that they were dropped, because they didn't bring much to the game (except maybe in very specific circumstances that other posters have identified).

In my house rules, I'm trying to make Craft useful again. I don't plan on using it as a skill to make mundane items, or rather, that the capacity to make mundane items comes automatically when you attain a certain level of expertise (for example, as soon as you have a +8 bonus or more in Craft, you can make a sword if you have the materials and a place to work). What I'd like for Craft to do, is become a useful skill for certain classes, and by making it "useful", maybe by making it relevant in combat somehow (indirectly). Perhaps for a Mage class specialized in making Constructs, the constructs' stats being based on the Crafter's roll.

Truth is, I'm trying to make skills more "relevant" in combat for a few skills (kind of like Intimidate is made relevant in combat by making it possible to use it against a target's Will). I'm implementing Perform as a skill again that will be usable by a Bard in some of his attacks.

AR


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## Cadfan (Oct 5, 2008)

I'm with you, Rechan.

You don't need a 3e style skill system unless success and failure are both options, those two outcomes are reasonably definable, and unless you need a fine gradient of 5% increments to differentiate between various levels of skill.

I wouldn't mind some semblance of a skill or profession system, even if all it read was, "Non Adventuring Skills and Professions- Discuss these with your DM.  With your DMs permission, you can know how to craft certain types of items, or how to perform certain professions.  It is recommended that no character have more than one of these abilities."


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## Delta (Oct 5, 2008)

Rechan said:


> What happened to 1) Speed of plot, or 2) What sounds reasonable.




Those are new-school concerns and I don't recognize them. I told you what I use the skills for in 3E, and I see what you really want is an argument. Enjoy your 4E, I can tell that you prefer it.



Allister said:


> Ex: Profession (sailor) -Um, read the skill description closely. What a Profession DC check tells you is how much money a person can make in a week. NOT how well they can do the job.




3E PHB says there are two kinds of Profession checks: (a) earn income (cannot be retried), and (b) accomplish specific tasks (which can be retried). Quote: "For example, a sailor knows how to tie several basic knots, how to tend and repair sails, and how to stand a deck watch at sea. The DM sets DCs for specialized tasks." Read closely to remember about the second part.


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## Set (Oct 5, 2008)

Rechan said:


> There are still requests for Crafting and profession-related skills, now that 4e has taken them out, and as I try to think about them... I can't come up with why they should be there.




Then they probably weren't put there _for you._

I see no need for psionics, but I don't begrudge their fans the existence of psionics rules, because I noticed at some point that I'm not the only person who plays D&D.

Other people like stuff I don't. Good for them. I'm not going to petition for every rule that I don't use to get axed from the game, nor post long-winded explanations for why something that *other people like* is better off removed from the game, because *I'm* not using it.

Game and let game.  It's like 'live and let live,' only with dice.


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## Greg K (Oct 5, 2008)

airwalkrr said:


> I wasn't opposed to WotC removing Craft/Profession from the game. They were cutting back skills that were underused and overemphasized. While Craft/Profession weren't really taking up a lot of space, they didn't demand a presence in the game. They weren't really necessary and a simple subsystem like an Intelligence or Wisdom check suffices just fine if you want to implement it back in.




It might be fine for you. I think that is an unsatisfactory way to handle it.


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## AllisterH (Oct 5, 2008)

Delta said:


> 3E PHB: "For example, a sailor knows how to tie several basic knots, how to tend and repair sails, and how to stand a deck watch at sea. The DM sets DCs for specialized tasks."




I'm not touching Craft as depending on the campaign world, it could be useful.

Profession though? That needed the boot.

No, your example even highlights the problems and that's where I mean it makes no sense and how Profession is too broad a skill in the relatively specific skill system of 3E.

If Profession (sailor) means I can tie basic knots, does that mean without it, I can't? If so, what the hell does the Use Rope skill mean? Same thing with standing watch at sea (so wait, what's the difference between standing watch at sea and at camp? Balance? But you don't have the Balance skill in Profession)

No, the way to fix the Profession skill is what an earlier poster mentioned and also mentioned in the PHB.

The proper way to build a Sailor would be to assign skill points in the specific sub skills like Balance, Climb, Use Rope, Knowledge etc and maybe, MAYBE, have it so that taking Profession grants you a +2 bonus to those specific skills when used in context of the profession.

Basically, how any other decent skill based system outside of 3E does it. The method in 3E means that I could simply say Profession (Cat Burglar/Circus Performer) and argue that all those subskills were in the Profession and thus "cheat" the system.

I repeat agian, Profession was just plain WEIRD. It should've never been added in the format it was in 3.x


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## Delta (Oct 5, 2008)

AllisterH said:


> No, your example even highlights the problems and that's where I mean it makes no sense and how Profession is too broad a skill in the relatively specific skill system of 3E.




Are you posting under multiple accounts?

Will you admit that you were mistaken earlier when you told me snidely to (under the other name), "Um, read the skill description closely. What a Profession DC check tells you is how much money a person can make in a week. NOT how well they can do the job."?


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## AllisterH (Oct 5, 2008)

Delta said:


> Are you posting under multiple accounts?
> 
> Will you admit that you were mistaken earlier when you told me snidely to (under the other name), "Um, read the skill description closely. What a Profession DC check tells you is how much money a person can make in a week. NOT how well they can do the job."?




Actually, I read the 3.5E skill description of Profession from the SRD.

I wasn't being "snide" but stating my opinion that Profession makes no sense with the skill system as it stands in 3E. 

As I hopefully pointed out, using Profession to set the DC of a task makes no sense since the skill primarily is tied to how much money you can make in a week and NOT how well you do your job.

p.s. I didn't even realize I had two accounts. Yeah, Allister and AllisterH are the same person. Weird, when the hell did I log in twice?


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## Stalker0 (Oct 5, 2008)

I believe for the most part that profession/craft skills are superfulous.

They are mostly flavor, though a player is always welcome to put the appropriate skills on his sheet to match his profession.

If your a sailor, you likely have athletics and acrobatics. A guardsman might have perception, etc.

If my character is a smith, then he can make stuff. Okay, you still pay X amount of gold, but its the character making it, your not buying it at store.


I'll give an example from my character. My character doesn't go to "magic item shops", but they do exist in the game I'm playing in. He does have a thing for wenching however. In the last game session my character acquired some new armor...a gift from a person he had helped. However, near the same time my character also was robbed by a girl he had "visited" previously.

Mechanically: I asked the DM if I could buy some armor, and pay the appropriate cost. The DM would only allow me to have the item if he felt the shop would have it.
Flavorwise: My character never sat eyes on a magic item store and felt rewarded for his virtues and harmed by his vices, which felt very in character.

Craft and Profession I think are the same way. I don't need mechanics to tell me I can weave baskets if my character is a basketweaver. But if I could, then any baskets I would "buy" I would instead "make", still paying the mechanical gold cost but maintaining the flavor of my character.


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## I'm A Banana (Oct 5, 2008)

> I can't see a purpose for having any sort of profession or craft skill.






> Perhaps there's just a disconnect between those that like the craft/profession skills and my taste in games




Answered your own question, boyo. 

Honestly, it has to do with the "forgotten" mundane tier, in my mind. The idea that you start killing rats in a sewer and being spat on by beggars means that your rusty pen-knife will probably break at some point, and you will be forced to engineer a chiv. The idea that you have a family that taught you a medieval trade. The idea that your skill can become your kung fu (I bake with the power of chi! I am such a great tailor my needle can slay fiends!). The magic in a craft performed well (items becoming magical simply because you have a high enough Craft check, rather than necessarily needing to go on seven collection quests). 

It's kind of the same reason that gods need to be gods of agriculture and civics in addition to being gods of swords and elves. You need a reason for them to exist, to be rooted in the NPC world, so that they don't just spring fully formed from their mothers womb with the power to shoot divine radiance from their nads. 

That said, there are a lot of effective ways to handle this that run a pretty large gamut of styles. I mean, you can go the WoW-ish route of using it to craft magic or superior items (and making sure to include things like exotic diamonds, gold thread, etc. in treasure). You can go the d20Modern route of basically having a job that gives you some wealth and some skills. There's a continuum. "Craft and Profession Skills" a la 3e is just one way, and, very arguably, not the best way, to handle this.


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## Tetsubo (Oct 5, 2008)

Under 3.5 a Warforged without an appropriate Craft skill couldn't "heal" itself.

I've never played a fighter type without a Craft skill. And never had a campaign wherein it didn't see use. A Dwarf without a Craft skill is a sad thing.


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## Delta (Oct 5, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> The idea that you start killing rats in a sewer and being spat on by beggars...




LOL. Beautiful.


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## Delta (Oct 5, 2008)

AllisterH said:


> Actually, I read the 3.5E skill description of Profession from the SRD...
> 
> As I hopefully pointed out, using Profession to set the DC of a task makes no sense since the skill primarily is tied to how much money you can make in a week and NOT how well you do your job.




And yet somehow you missed the 2nd part in (3.5 SRD): "Try Again: Varies. An attempt to use a Profession skill to earn an income cannot be retried... An attempt to accomplish some specific task can usually be retried."

So it looks like you're not going to admit that your snide comments are in direct contradiction to the core-rules/PHB quote I pointed out. Not engaging further.


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## AllisterH (Oct 5, 2008)

Delta said:


> So you're not going to admit that your snide comments are in direct contradiction to the PHB quote I pointed out. Not engaging further.




Hmm...I was working on the SRD and if you want me to admit that I was wrong about what it says then I'm wrong.

Still doesn't change the fact that as mentioned in the SRD, that the primary  use of the skill is to make money in a week. There's also the fact that using it in such a manner such that you can make a Profession check to accomplish a task makes hash of the rest of the skill system.

You haven't actually explained how the Profession skill actually is a good thing though. Hell, in fact, nobody on this thread has actually argued for Profession.

Seen decent arguments for and against the implementation of a CRAFT system.

But Profession? Nope, not one and I've actually raised points as to the problem with the use of the skill.


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## I'm A Banana (Oct 5, 2008)

> You haven't actually explained how the Profession skill actually is a good thing though. Hell, in fact, nobody on this thread has actually argued for Profession.




As a skill, it perhaps lacks something.

I'm a fan of using "Profession" as a replacement/adjunct to "Class Skills." If you're a sailor, you get Athletics (climbing the rigging!) and Perception (land ahoy!) and Acrobatics (swinging from the ropes and balancing on storm-tossed seas!) and maybe Nature (red sky at morning, sailor take warning). 

As an express skill in and of itself, you've basically got its problem -- it either makes other skills superfluous (though this can be solved to a certain degree with a sort of 'nonproficiency' penalty of -5 or something) or it's mostly useless for PC's (when you're raiding dungeons for phatty lewt, a handful of GP in a week is chump change). 

A profession system of some sort is useful for that "mundane tier," but as presented in 3e as a skill, it has some problems.


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## AllisterH (Oct 5, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> As a skill, it perhaps lacks something.
> 
> I'm a fan of using "Profession" as a replacement/adjunct to "Class Skills." If you're a sailor, you get Athletics (climbing the rigging!) and Perception (land ahoy!) and Acrobatics (swinging from the ropes and balancing on storm-tossed seas!) and maybe Nature (red sky at morning, sailor take warning). .




I actually agree with this and in fact, other RPGs have such a system where you take a broad skill and allow one to use it for specific subsystems but that's because said systems don't have specific skills like Balance and Climb.







Kamikaze Midget said:


> As an express skill in and of itself, you've basically got its problem -- it either makes other skills superfluous (though this can be solved to a certain degree with a sort of 'nonproficiency' penalty of -5 or something) or it's mostly useless for PC's (when you're raiding dungeons for phatty lewt, a handful of GP in a week is chump change).




Even the nonproficiency penalty, unless it is extreme, makes the broad skills too attractive. Take Profession (Sailor) as the classic example (you know, as an aside, why is it always seemed to be Sailor?).

You can either spend a point in Profession (Sailor) or have to spend a point in Spot, Climb, Balance, Use Rope, Survival and Knowledge (Nature) to match that? You know what people are taking.


Kamikaze Midget said:


> A profession system of some sort is useful for that "mundane tier," but as presented in 3e as a skill, it has some problems.




Even in the mundane tier, how long is it actually useful for? By level 3, I think you're actually making more money just plain adventuring.

Against the mundane opponents, it still would be better to use the specific skills in skill vs skill contests.


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## Emirikol (Oct 5, 2008)

I agree with you that profession and craft aren't a huge loss to the game.

Our game, currently set in the WARHAMMER FANTASY world, uses Careers/professions..but we don't need "rules" to tell us that stuff.  Players choose a "career" for their character and it's effective for roleplaying.  That's all we need!  Character background doesn't need "rules" for everything.

Rules rules rules.  D&D is smothered in rules as it is.

Our campaign book on the subject is here:  Emirikol's Maptools and General Projects



jh


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## Skaven_13 (Oct 5, 2008)

The last game that I played in used craft skills heavily, mainly for determining how well an item was made.  The dwarf in our party also had a code that he would not wear armor or use a weapon that was not crafted by his own hand.

I want to pose this question about the Profession skill.  Has anyone taken the profession skill as a way to get around having to take a lot of cross class skills?  Since the profession skill is a class skill for almost all of the classes (only cross class for barbarian and fighter) and can cover tasks that might be part of cross class skills, even if it is in a limited capacity?  

For example, a bard that takes profession: sailor (the most popular profession on this thread  ) can repair sails (a craft skill, class skill), tie knots (use rope, cross class), and has some minor survival skills related to being at sea (survival, cross class).  So instead of having to worry about spending the extra skill points on cross class skills, the bard can fall back on his training as a sailor to get him through.

Now, you could say that the profession should be defined by taking the skills.  With the cost of cross class skills, combined with the fact that a lot of the classes receive an inadequate amount of skill points per level, the profession skill could be an option to get a broader skill base, even if it is limited in function.

Thoughts?

Skaven13


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## I'm A Banana (Oct 5, 2008)

> Even in the mundane tier, how long is it actually useful for? By level 3, I think you're actually making more money just plain adventuring.




I don't think adventurers should be using the profession skill to make money directly very often (though NPCs could probably use it like that?). 

They might be using it to bake a cake for the goblin king in which they cleverly disguise a poison, or using it to avoid sailing their ship into the part of the map with all the sea monsters on it, or using it in a contest against the Duergar forger who is the favored of the king and thus is getting inside information he's passing on to the goblin army outside or something. They should be using it for _adventures_, because they are _adventurers_. 

There's plenty of adventure to be had in a profession-style challenge, and in using your mundane skills for heroic ends (fairy tales are filled with brave tailors and enchanted cobblers and magical forges and poor shepherds who use their skills to save the kingdom). 4e kind of assumes no one really wants to do that, which is why it's not a big concern for them. 

Some kind of profession system could give support for this kind of adventure. The 3e Profession skill wasn't really the best at it (though you could use it in a pinch), but 4e doesn't even give that tiny little nod. 

A profession skill after the "mundane tier" should become useless just like a magic missile becomes useless after the "heroic tier." Because you have entered a new epoch of skill, it's okay if it turns into something else (say, magic item crafting?).


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## WayneLigon (Oct 5, 2008)

Rechan said:


> What happened to 1) Speed of plot, or 2) What sounds reasonable.




What happened to them? Gamers happened to them. The people that you cannot give an inch to, lest they take a mile. They want a nailed-down system of some kind for doing the things that your common adventurer wants. And what he wants to know is 'how long until that magic sword is ready?'


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## jgbrowning (Oct 5, 2008)

Rechan said:


> There are still requests for Crafting and profession-related skills, now that 4e has taken them out, and as I try to think about them... I can't come up with why they should be there.




Those who find them fun will use them while those who think they are foolish will hand-wave them away.

joe b.


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## Starbuck_II (Oct 5, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> I don't think adventurers should be using the profession skill to make money directly very often (though NPCs could probably use it like that?).
> 
> A profession skill after the "mundane tier" should become useless just like a magic missile becomes useless after the "heroic tier." Because you have entered a new epoch of skill, it's okay if it turns into something else (say, magic item crafting?).



 Nah, I used Profession to make money every downtime (what else was I going to do withthe week oe two off?). Sure it is only 100 gp at most (at low levels), but free money is sweet.


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## Remathilis (Oct 5, 2008)

Skaven_13 said:


> I want to pose this question about the Profession skill.  Has anyone taken the profession skill as a way to get around having to take a lot of cross class skills?  Since the profession skill is a class skill for almost all of the classes (only cross class for barbarian and fighter) and can cover tasks that might be part of cross class skills, even if it is in a limited capacity?




The question then becomes: where does that end?

Can my sorcerer take Profession: Thief and get access to stealth and lockpicking skills?

Can a wizard take Profession: Solider and get training in weapons (or a reduced penalty?)

Can a fighter take Profession: Trapper and get access to trapmaking and woodland survival?

Can a barbarian take Profession: Witch Doctor and gain access to alchemy, healing, and nature skills?

You get my point. At some point, you could come up with any "profession" to justify free ranks in plenty of useful skills.


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## Cadfan (Oct 6, 2008)

I feel like I should clarify my opinion on this.

I consider "just wing it" to be a valid profession/craft system.  It was the only system I had when I first started gaming, and it worked just fine.  I don't think you can rule out counting player/dm interaction as part of the game set- its what makes RPGs into RPGs, in a way, so it has to count for something.

So for me the question isn't "should D&D have craft and profession rules?"  Because it always will, as long as there are DMs and character backstories.  The question is more, "what sort of craft and profession rules should D&D have?"  Or perhaps, "should D&D have 3e style craft and profession skills?"

And I think the answer to that is "no."  I prefer winging it to using the 3e style system.  I don't think this reflects a change in game focus, or really anything at all.  I guess I can see how someone might feel that way, but since my first character ever was a rules cyclopedia wizard who was also a master blacksmith in a game system with no crafting rules, I don't feel much change.

To my mind, the failure of the 3e version of craft and profession rules was that:

1. Poor siloing.  Having been raised as a blacksmith's apprentice shouldn't trade off as heavily as it did with things like learning to jump, swim, or climb trees.
2. Unclear outcomes.  Not always true, but often true.
3a. Too precise.  5% increments aren't really necessary for most profession or craft skills.  Is it really important that one character have a +12 at weaving, while another has +13 at fletchery?  Probably not.  
3b. Too precise.  This is also related to number 2.  Too much precision in statistics without much precision in outcome.
4. Take 10 and Take 20 made a lot of that precision pointless.  This is related to 3a.  Why differentiate between a +12 and a +13 if you're just going to Take 10 or 20 anyways and beat the DC by a mile?
5. Unclear overlap with a lot of other skills.  The stereotypical example was Profession: Sailor, and how it affected all your other sailing related skills.

There are places in the game where bonuses spread across a d20 make sense, but I don't think its here.  At least not for most skills and most campaigns.  Winging it gets you through without all the rigmarole.


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## I'm A Banana (Oct 6, 2008)

> I consider "just wing it" to be a valid profession/craft system




That depends, as you admitted, on your style of game. It's okay for some styles, it's completely stupid for others. For instance, a more "fairy tale" style game would get a lot of awesome mileage out of a handy Farming skill or somesuch.

It depends, like everything, on where your focus is.

For some games, "just wing it" is a valid _combat_ system, after all.



> 1. Poor siloing. Having been raised as a blacksmith's apprentice shouldn't trade off as heavily as it did with things like learning to jump, swim, or climb trees.
> 2. Unclear outcomes. Not always true, but often true.
> 3a. Too precise. 5% increments aren't really necessary for most profession or craft skills. Is it really important that one character have a +12 at weaving, while another has +13 at fletchery? Probably not.
> 3b. Too precise. This is also related to number 2. Too much precision in statistics without much precision in outcome.
> ...




I'll mostly agree with those failings, but that doesn't make craft/profession systems irrelevant holistically. It just means that 3e's model could use some adjustment. But, the argument goes, at least 3e *has* a model. 4e, not so much...


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## Cadfan (Oct 6, 2008)

KM-

"Just wing it" is a model.  Its a kind of sarcastic way of referring to "DM/Player backstory and interaction."  You might be familiar with it- its the default way of adjudicating _everything in the game_ that doesn't have an explicit rule covering it.

Whether it matches my "style of play" or whatever doesn't speak to that point.  Style of play speaks to whether its a model _that I like._  It doesn't speak to whether its a model at all.

So given the two options, "winging it" (often known as "roleplaying) and "3e rules," I go for winging it.

I can't vote for some undefined hypothetical third system that is better than the two known possibilities because that doesn't seem honest.


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## Hussar (Oct 6, 2008)

I retooled Profession skills in my current 3.5 game to become more of a catch-all skill that allows you to use them, with varying penalties, if you can justify their use.  So, Profession Sailor allows you to make Balance or Climb checks.  You would be better at climbing if you had the Climb skill, but, your check will be better than an untrained Climb check.

It works for us.

As far as "is it needed in D&D"?  Not really.  It comes up far too rarely to be honest.  Yes, I know YOUR game uses them all the time, but, I'm going to say fairly confidently that the majority of games barely used the rules, if at all.


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## I'm A Banana (Oct 6, 2008)

Cadfan said:
			
		

> "Just wing it" is a model.




I'm not disputing that at all.

I mean, the thread is entitled: "Profession/Crafting skills: Why?"

Why? Because sometimes you need a _model_ that is more robust than "just wing it."

When are those times?

When the _style of game_ that you play asks for it.

That's why "just wing it" isn't always a good model.



> So given the two options, "winging it" (often known as "roleplaying) and "3e rules," I go for winging it.
> 
> I can't vote for some undefined hypothetical third system that is better than the two known possibilities because that doesn't seem honest.




Those aren't your only two options, though. Not by a long shot. 

And for those who need more than "winging it," 3e rules are at least better for them than 4e rules.

Because "wing it!" isn't always (or even often) a useful way to model something, but it can be useful for something you don't want to pay much attention to.

Sometimes, combat is modeled by "wing it!" because it's not something you want to pay much attention to, depending upon the focus of the game. 

4e assumes you don't want to pay much attention to craft/profession, but thinks you'll want to pay a LOT of attention to combat.

Whether or not that suits you is largely dependent on your _style of game_.

Hope I'm not losing you, here?


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## That One Guy (Oct 6, 2008)

I like crafting/profession skills. I never used the 3.x rules for them.

The most effective I ever found prof skills were when the PCs were a tactical espionage group (think Vagrant Story Riskbreaker - but works in a team) who needed day jobs.

I also once had a PC whose job 'back home' was bowsmithing (fletcher, but I liked bowsmith at the time). So, as he traveled he made bows and sent them home to his family at every major town.

But... those things do not need hard and fast mechanics in the books. I'd like to see them just to have a frame of reference, but I'd honestly promptly ignore them in all reality.

Tangent...
So, it would be sweet in 4e if alchemy was cheaper to make - esp. in regards to traps. It would also be rocking if people could take a feat to forge as if +2 levels higher on a specific item... like Heavy blade smith or Scale armor smith or something. Costs the same and everything, but can forge higher. I'd also dig something along the lines of if one goes and finds the physical materials for an uber armor or weapon an appropriate smith can forge something MW or pseudo-magical.

Edit: Seraph, I too like the corsair method.


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## Fifth Element (Oct 6, 2008)

jgbrowning said:


> Those who find them fun will use them while those who think they are foolish will hand-wave them away.



That's easy enough to say, but you should know as a publisher that if you decide to include one thing, something else has to be left out. It's a question of putting in the content that *most *of the players will find the *most *useful. Finite resources prevent the inclusion of every little thing.


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## Fifth Element (Oct 6, 2008)

Delta said:


> And yet somehow you missed the 2nd part in (3.5 SRD): "Try Again: Varies. An attempt to use a Profession skill to earn an income cannot be retried... An attempt to accomplish some specific task can usually be retried."



Of course, the rest of the skill description does not contemplate such checks. The only check mentioned in the SRD is the one to determine how much income is earned in a week of dedicated work.

Any other check would be left to DM fiat, and since that's the case, there's not much point to having the skill. The DM will just have to decide anyway.


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## steenan (Oct 6, 2008)

I agree that Profession skills in 3.x were done poorly. It was very unclear what they let you do, some overlapped heavily with some of the "adventuring skills". The disadvantages of this system are numerous and have all been listed by previous posters. 

Craft skills, on the other hand, are something I feel a need to have. They may be done in such a way that they have well-defined scopes and are, at least occasionally, useful for characters. My 3.0 characters used crafts quite often:

My ranger crafted traps and repaired leather items (boots, cloaks, bags etc.). Repairs may be handwaved as a part of his background, but traps need a numerical measure of effectivenes, hard to get without a skill roll.

My sorcerer crafted many different things in his career, being a trained jeweller, tailor and cook (and boosting these skills with self-made magic items). Most of time it was useful, but not very important and could go without a test. There were some cases, though, when I had to reach the heights of arts:
- Creating a dress for a party cleric when we were to meet a king and she had nothing to wear that would be approproate in court. Of course, we could order it from a tailor, but it would take two or three weeks and we needed it for the next day. Craft (tailor) DC 30 did it.
- Preparing a killed aboleth to be edible - because we were in a middle of a sea, at least a few days from nearest coast, and most of our food had been dstroyed during a fight.
- Fashioning gold we gained in a not very honest way into a from that could be sold for a good price while not looking similar to what it was before.
- Creating jewellery good enough to be enchanted when we had neither time nor opportunity to buy it.


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## Fenes (Oct 6, 2008)

Set said:


> Then they probably weren't put there _for you._
> 
> I see no need for psionics, but I don't begrudge their fans the existence of psionics rules, because I noticed at some point that I'm not the only person who plays D&D.
> 
> ...




Good post. The forums would be a far nicer place if people would stop trying to tell people that what they like is stupid, wrong, or both.

Some people like craft & profession skills. Some people like shifting enemies accross a grid.


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## Zustiur (Oct 6, 2008)

Sorry if I'm repeating, I haven't read this thread in full, but I think the OP and many others have missed the most important use of craft.

What do you do when you're stranded without equipment? 

Hope you have someone who can make good enough equipment to get you by for a time so that you can get real equipment. That's what.

Stuck on an island and need a canoe or raft to get off? Hope you've got a carpenter.

And similar situations. They're survival skills. 
They're also down-time skills if you play that leveling up takes time and not all of your characters have synchronized experience.
One players spending a month levelling up? Might as well sell some baskets while we're waiting.

Trying to make an iron golem? Do YOU know how to forge metal?

Profession has much the same set of uses. They're survival(city) skills. 
Need to spy on the nobles but don't have high enough diplomacy to act like one? Try being one of their cooks or cleaners or any number of other tasks.

The possibilities are endless if you actually bother to look for them.


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## scruffygrognard (Oct 6, 2008)

Hussar said:


> I retooled Profession skills in my current 3.5 game to become more of a catch-all skill that allows you to use them, with varying penalties, if you can justify their use.  So, Profession Sailor allows you to make Balance or Climb checks.  You would be better at climbing if you had the Climb skill, but, your check will be better than an untrained Climb check.
> 
> It works for us.
> 
> As far as "is it needed in D&D"?  Not really.  It comes up far too rarely to be honest.  Yes, I know YOUR game uses them all the time, but, I'm going to say fairly confidently that the majority of games barely used the rules, if at all.




I've done something similar in my C&C game (which uses 3rd edition skills to a limited extent).  Profession checks are made in order to gain a +2 bonus to a related skill check.  

Examples:
A character with Profession: Sailor who makes a DC10 skill check (which can be modified based on the circumstances) gets a +2 bonus to a related skill check (such as Climb, Knowledge: Nature, Balance, etc).  Of course the Profession check can only be used in situations that directly relate to that profession.

A character with Profession: Herbalist who makes a DC10 skill check gets a +2 bonus to a related skill check (such as Craft: Alchemy, Heal or Craft: Cooking... yes, cooking is a craft check in my game as craft is the ability to convert raw materials into a finished product).


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## mmu1 (Oct 6, 2008)

Wow. No use for Craft and Profession style skills - not just in D&D, or in fantasy RPGs, but in _any_ RPG?

I can't think of - for example - a single game of Shadowrun I was in in which various professional knowledge, design, and repair/technical skills didn't play a part. They also came up plenty of times in various Storyteller games I played in - or in Burning Wheel...    

Basically, the more grounded in the real world an RPG is, or the more it emphasizes narrative control, the more likely that those "useless" skills will come into play - not every game assumes you're spending all your time going on "adventures" involving killing things in holes in the ground and taking their gold. 

Not that there's anything wrong with killing things and taking their stuff, but even in the D&D games I played in, Craft and Profession - mainly Craft, though - have played a part often enough to matter.


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## Rel (Oct 6, 2008)

I was just having a conversation about this with Henry over the weekend.

Why do I feel a need for Craft and Profession skills in my campaign?  Because they add depth and interest for me and for some (though probably not all) of my players.

While I wasn't wild about the system in 3.x, I was a bit disappointed that they weren't included in 4e.  This disappointment quickly vanished however when I realized that this was the easiest house-rule fix I'd ever make.  Here's how the Rel System works:

I ask each player two questions.  "What did you do to make a living before you became an adventurer?" and "What do you enjoy doing as a hobby that doesn't involve killing bad guys and taking their stuff?"  Then I say, "You can consider yourself Trained at those two things."

That's all there is to it.

If they say, "Well, I was a blacksmith.  And for fun, I always enjoyed decorating the stuff I made with engravings," then they write down those as Trained skills.  If we ever come across a situation where they need to make something with blacksmithing or want to engrave it, they can use those skills against whatever DC I assign.  For easy stuff I might not even have them roll.  For very difficult stuff then I at least have a number I can use.

Moreover, they have given me a tool to make my adventures more interesting.  When the PC's go searching for the Missing Prince, they may not find him right away.  But the fact that the party blacksmith can tell that the sword the Goblin Slaver was using has a Royal Forgemark on it tells them that they are on the right track.

As to the problem of overly broad profession skills, I can see that as a potential issue but not an intractable one.  If somebody wants to have been a Sailor, I'm not going to let them substitute that for all Balance and Climb checks.  But, if they are on a SHIP, then I'd certainly tell them that "Your training as a Sailor gives you a +2 circumstance bonus to your Balance and Climb rolls while you're on the ship."  Would I do that if I was running an entirely nautical campaign?  No.  But I think that if the relatively rare circumstance comes into play where they are having a fight on the deck of a ship then I'm happy to give them the bonus.


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## Fenes (Oct 6, 2008)

Sometimes though you need that precision 3E gives. If there's a crafting competition, or a bard challenge, if you're trying to outdo the king's cook to gain access to the royal household, etc. etc. then you need to know how much better - or worse - your meal, performance, sword was than the competition.


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## jgbrowning (Oct 6, 2008)

Fifth Element said:


> That's easy enough to say, but you should know as a publisher that if you decide to include one thing, something else has to be left out. It's a question of putting in the content that *most *of the players will find the *most *useful. Finite resources prevent the inclusion of every little thing.




Of course. But what some consider a little thing, others find enjoyment from.

I think the OP is quite incorrect to believe there's never a purpose for profession or crafting rules in all RPGs. It's a very broad brush to be painting with, IMO, burdened by the difficulty that the only "purpose" in an RPG is "fun" and some people find profession and crafting rules "fun" so there would appear to be at least some purpose in such rules.

joe b.


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## Allister (Oct 6, 2008)

Keep in mind, there are THREE viewpoints in this thread.

1. Those of us who don't see a need for Profession or Craft.
2. Those of us who see a need for both Profession AND craft.
3. Those of us who can see a need for CRAFT but not Profession.

Technically, there should be a 4th viewpoint of those amenable to Profession but not Craft, however, haven't seen anyone argue that point yet....


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## GlaziusF (Oct 6, 2008)

Rel said:


> While I wasn't wild about the system in 3.x, I was a bit disappointed that they weren't included in 4e.  This disappointment quickly vanished however when I realized that this was the easiest house-rule fix I'd ever make.  Here's how the Rel System works:




Great system. One question: do these have a governing attribute or are they just whatever seems applicable?


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## Psion (Oct 6, 2008)

Rechan said:


> There are still requests for Crafting and profession-related skills, now that 4e has taken them out, and as I try to think about them... I can't come up with why they should be there.
> 
> And I mean that for any rpg.




Any RPG.

Though I disagree with your stance, I can see if you play an all combat all the time sort of game, why you might not use them.

But _any_ RPG? Oy.



> Unless you're playing Hammer and Chisel: Craftsman Adventures, I can't see a purpose for having any sort of profession or craft skill.




I find this to be a very exaggerated position. A skill need not encompass a major endeavor in the characters' lives in D&D/D20. A class is there for that.



> Why would you spend the time to make mundane items? Even if you are getting half, or even a fifth of market prices, after at what, 3rd level, those prices don't matter.




I'd never use craft or profession skills to make money, or expect PCs to do that.

I would expect them to be used to deal with problems in the adventure. I find the concept that "the only vector that PCs should be using to solve their problems should be combat" to be somewhat wanting. I can create challenges around a great variety of skills.

And, as a GM, I think that a powerful technique of getting players involved in the game is using the "specifiable" skills as a method of letting players define those skills and then presenting challenges to those skills during the course of the game.

On the flip side of the coin, I think that the craft and profession skills are a great venue to expand or specialize the game. A seafaring game should be expecting PCs with profession(sailor), etc., and a GM of such a game should provide challenges against those skills.



> "But it's part of my background/personality!" Still doesn't explain the necessity for a mechanic.




I'm not sure we really have grounds to communicate here then. AFAIAC, defining the character is the crux of what a character generation system is about, and if it translates into something a character should be able to do better than someone who doesn't have that background, then there should be a skill for it. If it doesn't fit a non-profession skill, then profession is a nice accommodation for it.



> I don't need to take a "Orphan" to designate my family was killed by x.




Is this a serious point or a jab? Has anyone ever suggested an "orphan" skill?



> Nor do I need "Lady's Man" to designate my charismatic character as being a woman chaser. Or even "Drunkard" to designate that I immediately go for the alehouse as soon as we roll into town with our swag. (Exceptions made for HERO and SotC, where these have actual impact on the system).




Skills are not a parallel to aspects. Skills are skills. Things you can do.



> You must be thinking, "But Rechan! What if my players want to make magical items!" Okay, let me ask you something. Your party has spent the last three sessions hunting down the necessary materials to make a magical widget. They put everything together, and ... roll a 1. Do you honestly plan to say "Sorry, your efforts were in vain. No item."




If a skill is required, then yes. Sort of like "we find the dragon's lair... but we're not good enough to fight him. Do we get the treasure?" 



> The same question applies if you journey far and wide to the greatest swordsmith in the world, do you expect to have him roll a craft skill to make the weapon?




I expect the "greatest swordsmith in the world" to have a good enough craft skill he could take 10.



> In a naval campaign, profession (sailor) would be taken, but then you'd be using that stat so often it just becomes a god-stat compared to the others.




Like BAB is a "god stat" in a "combat-adventuring game"? And nobody would take a class that would slight that "skill"? 

Seriously, it takes all types. In seafaring games, some players want to be the sailing hero, some want to be the canny navigator, some are along for the ride. Just like any other character design decision, there are many things you can make your character good at. What do you want _your_ character to be good at?



> The answer may be "To make traps/poisons!" Although there has never been adequate rules for either (1,000GP for a pit!?), unless you scrounge around the 3rd party materials in the first place, so that can't be the answer.




I see a degree of difference between "the 3.x crafting rules need some work" and "there is no reason for craft skills." You've argued one; that does not imply the other.



> My ultimate point is, if the purpose is story and fleshing out your character, then why shouldn't the DM just say, "Okay, what you just wanted, you do it."




If that's all there is to it, then what's to keep any other character from doing the same thing? Someone who lacks your character skill and background.

If a chargen system does not provide a fair basis to distinguish between the capabilities of characters, then it has not done its job.



> Finally, I ask another question. I am willing to hypothesize that only a small subset of players and DMs would emphasize or strongly use the craft/profession skills. If that is the case (and remember, the question hinges on IF it is), then should they be in the core rules of an RPG?




Only a small subset of people play RPGs in the first place. Why have RPGs?


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## scruffygrognard (Oct 6, 2008)

GlaziusF said:


> Great system. One question: do these have a governing attribute or are they just whatever seems applicable?




Hmmm... this discussion makes me wonder if Professions could be replaced with Feats in 3.X.

Profession Feats would give you a +1 bonus to 4 related skill checks and allow you to use them unskilled.

Example:

*Profession: Sailor[General]*
*Benefit*
You get a +1 bonus to any four of the following skills: Balance, Climb, Craft: Shipwright, Knowledge (nature), Knowledge (geography), Swim & Use Rope.  You may make use these chosen skills unskilled.


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## Psion (Oct 6, 2008)

Allister said:


> Keep in mind, there are THREE viewpoints in this thread.
> 
> 1. Those of us who don't see a need for Profession or Craft.
> 2. Those of us who see a need for both Profession AND craft.
> ...




I'm more #2, but I'd give up Craft before I gave up Profession.


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## Psion (Oct 6, 2008)

cperkins said:


> Hmmm... this discussion makes me wonder if Professions could be replaced with Feats in 3.X.
> 
> Profession Feats would give you a +1 bonus to 4 related skill checks and allow you to use them unskilled.
> 
> ...




Swashbuckling Adventures has a family of feats to that effect.

Some players might find giving up feats a bit dear unless you have a bonus feat mechanism in place, though. Or if the skill is REALLY important in a game. Generally, I've seen more players willing to part with a few skill points than a feat.


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## Rel (Oct 6, 2008)

GlaziusF said:


> Great system. One question: do these have a governing attribute or are they just whatever seems applicable?




Well, I'm sort of two minds on the subject.  Part of me would want to leave that open.  For example, there are parts of blacksmithing that require strength, dexterity and intelligence.  Heck, maybe even constitution.  So I could leave it open and say, "Make a Blacksmithing roll modified by your Strength." on one occassion and swap in Intelligence on another.

But for simplicity's sake, I'd probably just pick one attribute that would most commonly apply and have that always be the one.  In most cases this would probably be obvious but I'd be willing to negotiate it with the player at the time the character is made.


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## AllisterH (Oct 7, 2008)

Psion said:


> I'm more #2, but I'd give up Craft before I gave up Profession.





 Please explain how Profession is GOOD for the game?

Like I've said before, Profession WORKS for more freeform RPGs where you just select a Profession and you then try to use said Profession in situations which don't directly match up such as using your Profession (Sailor) skill to climb a mountain.

However, those systems DON"T have specifc skills at all such as Climb.

For 3e and 4e, the best implementation is either the "Background" skill that the PHB uses or the Paragon-path style that the FRPG uses. Even in 4E, I think spending a feat to get a circumstance bonus to 4 or 5 skills seems better.

But as it existed in 3E? The cons seem to overwhelm the pros....


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## MerricB (Oct 7, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Why? Because sometimes you need a _model_ that is more robust than "just wing it."




Indeed. The trouble I had with the Craft and Profession skills in 3e was that they provided a generalised system which fell down horribly when dealing with specifics. 

Specifically, when they tried to deal with the crafting of actual items, or the earning of actual money. Neither paid attention to the actual item or profession being crafted or performed. A sailor gained the same income as a merchant banker; a jewelsmith took forever to make a beautiful necklace...

I like the concept of craft and profession skills, but I've yet to see a system that I really like.

Cheers!


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## billd91 (Oct 7, 2008)

AllisterH said:


> Please explain how Profession is GOOD for the game?




Because it provides a way for multiple games to deal with character actions in certain contexts without DMs having to whip things up on the fly. Same as pretty much every other rule in the game.
Just because _you_ don't see a need for a profession skill doesn't mean that some of us aren't seeing characters involved in boat races, examining the account ledgers of a noble withholding the king's taxes, taking over the running of an inn and trying to keep it profitable while the local thieves' guild is trying to pressure the owners into paying protection money, etc.


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## Fallen Seraph (Oct 7, 2008)

billd91 said:


> some of us aren't seeing characters involved in boat races, examining the account ledgers of a noble withholding the king's taxes, taking over the running of an inn and trying to keep it profitable while the local thieves' guild is trying to pressure the owners into paying protection money, etc.



The thing is though, why are Profession/Craft needed for these when the actual skills required to do them are already there. That for me is the main issue, why should the actual skills mentally or physically required to do said tasks simply not matter since you magically have high-skills in a Profession even if you don't have the necessary points in the actual skills involved.

This is why I personally prefer the concept of background-bonuses or feats that work like the Corsair PP, but only specifically tailored for the skills-part. Since it actually makes SENSE!


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## Imp (Oct 7, 2008)

> The thing is though, why are Profession/Craft needed for these when the actual skills required to do them are already there. That for me is the main issue, why should the actual skills mentally or physically required to do



Mentally? Having skills in Balance/ Jump/ Swim/ Use Rope imply fairly little about someone's ability to, say, tack into the wind on a caravel or when to use what knot for the sails or any other skills specific to sailing, since we're using that function as an example. And it just makes it more complicated to make the checks so I don't think it's much of a win.

More generally I think having options in the books that you may or may not use is a good thing, up to a point, much as many around here are all about purge purge purge purge wahoo purge. I have not seen an implementation of professions that has really satisfied me however. Sailing, I'd as soon treat like the Ride skill.  In other words, a skill fairly relevant to at least some kind of adventures. Lets adventurers go into worse and worse places with their boats and all that.


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## Fallen Seraph (Oct 7, 2008)

My problem is though, if you had absolutely ZERO skills in those things but high skills in Profession: Sailor you could do all your examples easily. This just doesn't make any sense to me. Why should the actual abilities used in the profession not matter??

Which is why, I prefer the methods like the PP it makes sense that since your knowledgeable of how to use said skills on a boat that you would gain a higher proficiency when doing so.


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## Simon Atavax (Oct 7, 2008)

Cadfan said:


> I'm with you, Rechan.
> 
> You don't need a 3e style skill system unless success and failure are both options, those two outcomes are reasonably definable, and unless you need a fine gradient of 5% increments to differentiate between various levels of skill.
> 
> I wouldn't mind some semblance of a skill or profession system, even if all it read was, "Non Adventuring Skills and Professions- Discuss these with your DM. With your DMs permission, you can know how to craft certain types of items, or how to perform certain professions. It is recommended that no character have more than one of these abilities."




I think I read this in the back of the AD&D 1e DMG.  Ah, the more things change . . .


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## Skaven_13 (Oct 7, 2008)

Remathilis said:


> The question then becomes: where does that end?




I know it's not perfect, which is why I asked the question.



> Can my sorcerer take Profession: Thief and get access to stealth and lockpicking skills?
> 
> Can a wizard take Profession: Solider and get training in weapons (or a reduced penalty?)
> 
> ...




I agree that the profession skill could be taken too far if you are going to allow full access to another skill, so you really need to define what those are.  The point of the profession skill is to be able to perform minor tasks that are involved with a profession.  If I were looking at some of the professions you provided above as a dm:

Thief: Casing a place for a theft (search/spot), finding a fence (gather info)
Soldier: find mercenary work (gather info), knowledge of mercenary guilds or ranking officers in an army.
Trapper: set small game traps...etc

The trick would be to look at a broad range of skills, but only at a limited capacity.  You don't want the profession skill to overshadow the actual skill.  And it's not a feat (or even a half feat) so I wouldn't use it to reduce non-proficiency penalties in combat.

Skaven13


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## billd91 (Oct 7, 2008)

Skaven_13 said:


> The trick would be to look at a broad range of skills, but only at a limited capacity.  You don't want the profession skill to overshadow the actual skill.  And it's not a feat (or even a half feat) so I wouldn't use it to reduce non-proficiency penalties in combat.




Plus it means you can have a character be demonstrably competent at a profession and the tasks involved in that profession without having to have a rogue's skill points to invest in everything.


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## Rechan (Oct 7, 2008)

Set said:
			
		

> I see no need for psionics, but I don't begrudge their fans the existence of psionics rules, because I noticed at some point that I'm not the only person who plays D&D.
> 
> Other people like stuff I don't. Good for them. I'm not going to petition for every rule that I don't use to get axed from the game, nor post long-winded explanations for why something that *other people like* is better off removed from the game, because *I'm* not using it.



And would you petition to have Psionics not be in the Core rule books? How would you feel if they were? How about cat-people? Or guns? 

Would that get the same "Game and let game"? 

Because I say in the last paragraph:


> Finally, I ask another question. I am willing to hypothesize that only a small subset of players and DMs would emphasize or strongly use the craft/profession skills. If that is the case (and remember, the question hinges on IF it is), then should they be in the core rules of an RPG?



If they're a minor rule that only a subset of gamers are looking for, then why should they be in the _core rules_, which has all the stuff that the most people care the most about? 

Those that love craft/profession skills will want them, opening up the opportunity for them to be sold an expansion with the craft/profession stuff attached to it. 



			
				Psion said:
			
		

> I can see if you play an all combat all the time sort of game, why you might not use them.




Except that I don't just play in all combat all the time sort of games. 

I've ran detective games, super hero games, and played in survival horror games, nation building games, and "you're small fish in a big pond"/Slice of Life Werewolf games.

But I've *never* come across a situation where the result of a craft or profession type check was important or pivotal. I've never come across a situation where the skill was appropriate. 



> Is this a serious point or a jab? Has anyone ever suggested an "orphan" skill?



It's serious, because I have seen many background-reflecting feats or traits that give bonuses because you're an orphan, or an outcast, or a rich boy, or you pick yournose or whatever. 



> I expect the "greatest swordsmith in the world" to have a good enough craft skill he could take 10.



Either way, you don't bother rolling, you just say "It's a success".



> I find the concept that "the only vector that PCs should be using to solve their problems should be combat" to be somewhat wanting. I can create challenges around a great variety of skills.



I hope you got the impression that "the only vector that PCs should be using to solve their problems should be combat" somewhere else, because I certainly didn't say that.

I love the insinuation that because I see no point in craft/profession, all I care about is Monty Haul hack'n'slash. 

You know what's important to me? *Story*. And I believe there is a moat and stone wall between Story and Mechanics.



> Only a small subset of people play RPGs in the first place. Why have RPGs?



Because people will buy them. Supply and demand. See my response above about _selling expansion packs_. If you were talking about RPGs 



			
				Zustiur said:
			
		

> Stuck on an island and need a canoe or raft to get off? Hope you've got a carpenter.



Or your DM handwaves all that. 

Making a pointy stick or a raft is not rocket science. I would never, ever make my players roll for things like that. 

But let's just say I'll take you seriously. You're on the island. No one has the craft (make primitive crap). Then what? "Sorry you couldn't successfully sharpen a rock, so you are overrun by a flock of persistent seagulls and are killed." If no one has the appropriate nature skills, they can't figure out what's edible, and end up eating poisonous plants? "No one has profession (hunter) or (Fisher), so you can't find adequate food. You all starve." 

To me, it (and Crafting/Profession as a whole) is the equivalent of in a modern-era game, forcing a player to roll a driving skill every time he gasses the car up, or make him roll to change the oil, with the possibility of harming the engine by fumbling at pouring something from a bottle into the hole.

But to a more general point, I don't believe that the player should have to roll the craft/profession stuff at all. An example on the first page was the "Macguyver" juryrigging guy. Which is a fine concept, but there's never any question "Can MacGuyver put that device together?" No! Because he's freakin' MacGuyver! He has the knowledge, it's a simple insert tab A into slot B simple, so there's no need to worry about it. The question is, "Once he has it together, does it work?" This is, to me, the "to-hit" roll, not the craft roll. There's no difference, story wise, between "I start the game with it in my inventory" and "I make it on the fly", because you have it, and you use it. 

It feels like, to me, the equivalent of "Okay we're going to do some surveillance on this guy's house. But first, we have to roll our Profession: Cop skill to make sure that we 1) can actually see the window from our location, and 2) turned on the phone tap correctly." "Sorry guys, Joe rolled a 2 on his check; he falls asleep on watch, and you have a six hour gap in your stake out information."


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 7, 2008)

Rechan said:


> There are still requests for Crafting and profession-related skills, now that 4e has taken them out, and as I try to think about them... I can't come up with why they should be there.
> 
> And I mean that for any rpg.




Unless you're playing Hammer and Chisel: Craftsman Adventures, I can't see a purpose for having any sort of profession or craft skill.



> Why would you spend the time to make mundane items?




Because it makes sense for the PC to do so, either because of roleplay or campaign situations- the PC may wish to fabricate something that is not otherwise readily available.  Example- in a recent campaign, I wanted my PC to use a Dire Pick, but he could never find a craftsman capable of making one.  Had he had the skill points, he could have made one and eventually enchanted it.



> "But my character should repair his own items!" Seeing as I've never seen a mechanic for wear and tear of items, then you don't need a mechanical representation of repairing your items.




It may not exist in all campaigns, but it can and does happen.  Sometimes, its even crucial to the plot.



> "But it's part of my background/personality!" Still doesn't explain the necessity for a mechanic.




Sure it does, if the PC makes use of it enough times.  Someone who is playing the role of a super-scientist will probably load up on KSs, why shouldn't someone who is playing the role of a mason turned warrior (like a Paladin I once played) have some knowledge of architecture and engineering?  Such skills may even prove useful in an actual game situation in the hands of  a top-notch player and an open-minded DM.

Besides, if you think about it, some non-craft/profession skills are still profession skills without the name attached.  Things like "Appraisal," "Carousing," "Gather Info," "Sleight of Hand," "Streetwise" and so forth are generally the bailywick of certain "professions" and have just been broken out of those jobs for game purposes.




> You must be thinking, "But Rechan! What if my players want to make magical items!" Okay, let me ask you something. Your party has spent the last three sessions hunting down the necessary materials to make a magical widget. They put everything together, and ... roll a 1. Do you honestly plan to say "Sorry, your efforts were in vain. No item." The same question applies if you journey far and wide to the greatest swordsmith in the world, do you expect to have him roll a craft skill to make the weapon?




I would and have done so.  Yes there were groans of disappointment if there was a skill failure, but when the goal was achieved later, there was much rejoicing.

To me, such a failure is no more disruptive than a greatly skilled warrior rolling a 1 in combat and accidentally skewering his ally, or a dex-monster PC who makes a critical failure on an acrobatics roll.



> The answer may be "To make traps/poisons!" Although there has never been adequate rules for either (1,000GP for a pit!?), unless you scrounge around the 3rd party materials in the first place, so that can't be the answer.




Again, something like this may vary from game to game and campaign to campaign.  A thief finding himself in a tightly controlled LG theocracy not his homeland might have better odds of making his own poisons than buying them.


> My ultimate point is, if the purpose is story and fleshing out your character, then why shouldn't the DM just say, "Okay, what you just wanted, you do it."




Fairness would be the first concern.  Having rules in place at least gives a guideline beyond arbitrary "Yes" or "No" answers to players' requests.



> The wear and tear of items is a good example. Most DMs I would say would just hand-wave the fighter fixing his stuff because he brought it up. ("Well, that fight tore my armor, I'm going to fix it." "Hold on there champ, until you do, you get a -2 to AC.")




OTOH, game effects that can cause breakage or degradation of equipment aren't uncommon- Sunders from 3.X, or Drains/Suppress/Transforms from HERO just to name a couple.  Having the skillset to be self-sufficient in the area of repairs can be invaluable.  Ditto being able to craft one's own ammo.



> I am willing to hypothesize that only a small subset of players and DMs would emphasize or strongly use the craft/profession skills. If that is the case (and remember, the question hinges on IF it is), then should they be in the core rules of an RPG?




Sure.  Just because something won't be used by the majority of players doesn't mean it won't add to the quality of the game.  In addition, their inclusion is probably a trivial expense in terms of production costs.

So why not?


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## billd91 (Oct 7, 2008)

Rechan said:


> And would you petition to have Psionics not be in the Core rule books? How would you feel if they were? How about cat-people? Or guns?
> 
> Would that get the same "Game and let game"?




It's a question of playing to the genre. How many people really think of psionics as a core fantasy element? Guns? Cat people?

Now how many times have you seen, in a fantasy book, people involved in mundane professions? How many times have you seen the main characters working in a mundane profession when they aren't adventuring? 

I think I can say, without much fear of being wrong, that you see a lot more mundane profession work and crafting than you do psionics, guns, or cat people in both fantasy movies and literature. While there may be occasional elements of psionics, guns, and cat people in the genre, you're really trying to compare outliers with elements MUCH more common and mainstream. It's almost like asking someone why they wouldn't want UFOs in the core of a WWII RPG when they're asking for some consideration for military logistical skills.


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## Rechan (Oct 7, 2008)

billd91 said:


> It's a question of playing to the genre. How many people really think of psionics as a core fantasy element? Guns? Cat people?



Animal-humans are huge in fantasy. Practically every fantasy game has had some sort of race of that fashion. Sci fi too. Flying ships are part of the genre; why aren't they in core? Talking animals? 

There are tons of things in the Genre which aren't in the core rules of many games.

It comes down to what the most people find the most useful.


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## Thasmodious (Oct 7, 2008)

billd91 said:


> Now how many times have you seen, in a fantasy book, people involved in mundane professions? How many times have you seen the main characters working in a mundane profession when they aren't adventuring?




How many times have you seen it be mechanically relevant to the outcome of the story?  Has the grizzled old veteran hero ever seen the farm boy roll a 1 on his milk the cow check and decide to move on rather than tap the young farm boy to be the next epic hero?  Does it often matter to the story how well the young princess performs her needlework, or is it merely a detail of her mundane life before she discovers that ancient tomb?

Rechan isn't arguing that no PC should ever craft anything or work as a bartender in his own tavern between forays into the Forbidden Swamp.  He is arguing that crafting SKILL, not crafts themselves, is not a relevant or necessary mechanic.  

The real problem in 3e, though, was not the inclusion of mechanics for such, it was that such choices limited a characters abilities to be good at their core skill set.  The 3e mechanic was not a useful tool for expanding the game and RPing, but a limiting mechanic that restricted freedom and forced unsound mechanic choices onto players.  Your dwarf fighter could be decent at Brewing or Jumping, but not both.  The fighter had to sacrifice half his skill points a level to become a good crafter of something and it made him a poorer fighter.  That is a poor mechanical system.  

4e's design philosophy makes sense.  There are a million ways to play the game, but at its core the D&D game is about killing monsters and taking their stuff.  You don't have to play that way, but there are better systems to choose if you prefer to romance the monsters and buy them stuff, or if you prefer no monsters at all, or a game where artists live in a colony and compete to sell their artwork.  

There are players and groups who enjoy utilizing a craft system.  There are players who enjoy resource management, heavy political games, extended wilderness survival challenges, spending hours and days plumbing the depths of libraries for forgotten knowledge.  The problem is all that can't, and shouldn't be in the core books.  Many of the corner cases that lit fires the 3e staff spent so much time trying to extinguish existed because of the interaction of these subsystems with the core rules.  4e was designed with an awareness of the success of the OGL experiment and the willingness of 3rd party publishers to make all kinds of specialized content.  When 3e was designed, it was unknown how well the experiment would work.  With 4e, the designers were free to focus on the core system and produce a much more elegant, streamlined ruleset and relegate many of these subsystems that are only used by a smaller subset of D&D gamers to future sourcebooks, Dragon articles, or 3rd party publishers and community forums like this one. 

If your group needs crafting rules, make them.  Rel has a simple and elegant system.  I'm sure probably more than one 3rd party publisher will tackle crafting IF there is enough player interest in it.  WotC did their own research into how the game was being played and they arrived at their design philosophy in part through that research.  

Myself, I find 4e very freeing.  I can play my dwarf master brewer/fighter and not have to choose between being a good brewer or a good fighter.  My players are free to design the characters they want to play working with me as the DM to flesh out details of their lives and skillsets before adventuring and what it means that the eladrin wizard was a musical child prodigy and how that plays in the game.  He never has to roll to successfully play a song no more than the former farm boy turned cleric has to roll to help an old man milk a cow.  Most expressions of those wonderful background details are best handled through RP.  Why is it mechanically relevant if a PC enjoys working a loom?  He just does.  It's an RP detail, something for the DM to work in by having it curry some favor with a Lord who rose to the nobility from humble beginnings and whose father spun wool for a living.

Those rare times that it becomes mechanically relevant how well the PC is doing something related to his background details, a skill challenge handles it much better than a check to see if he succeeds.  Take a showdown between  the PC musician (that elf prodigy) and a local minstral who isn't going to stand by while the PC draws his regular Tuesday night crowd to the other tavern.  He challenges the PC to your standard dueling banjoes competition.  What do you want a roll to represent here?  Successfully strumming notes?   That's not very interesting or realistic.  If you play an instrument, how often do you fail at playing songs you already know how to play?  Sure, you might be flat on this note or not nail that complex guitar solo completly , but is that how such a contest is judged anyway?  A skill challenge is a much better mechanical representation of the encounter that is unfolding.  You have room to define success and failure and their consequences (perhaps success has a small monetary reward from the crowd or the tavernkeep for filling the house, along with a +2 boost to the parties streetwise and diplomacy checks while in town).  The relevant skills aren't perfrom (wind instrument) and (lyre), but rather things like -

Insight (to read the crowd and play off their moods, picking the right type of song, something upbeat and danceable, or a funeral durge to wet their eyes)

Diplomacy (to understand their ways and customs to avoid picking a bawdy song in a community that would see that as terribly innappropriate)

Streetwise (to figure out what types of people you are dealing with based on urban clues, like understanding that this is the poorer tavern in town, by the docks, and that the room is full of sailors and their wives, so a lament about the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald would endear you to everyone in the room)

Intimidate (directed at the minstral, to throw him off his game with an especially skillful display)

Acrobatics (to weave a floor show with your song choice), etc.

You end up with a vibrant encounter with a lot of options that never requires a skill check to determine if you manage to strum a series of notes in the right order or somehow muck it up.

Having a game system that gives me what I need to adjudicate challenges and gets out of the way for the rest of it is something I find very freeing as a DM and a player.


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## Fenes (Oct 7, 2008)

Thasmodious said:


> Those rare times that it becomes mechanically relevant how well the PC is doing something related to his background details, a skill challenge handles it much better than a check to see if he succeeds.  Take a showdown between  the PC musician (that elf prodigy) and a local minstral who isn't going to stand by while the PC draws his regular Tuesday night crowd to the other tavern.  He challenges the PC to your standard dueling banjoes competition.  What do you want a roll to represent here?  Successfully strumming notes?   That's not very interesting or realistic.  If you play an instrument, how often do you fail at playing songs you already know how to play?  Sure, you might be flat on this note or not nail that complex guitar solo completly , but is that how such a contest is judged anyway?  A skill challenge is a much better mechanical representation of the encounter that is unfolding.  You have room to define success and failure and their consequences (perhaps success has a small monetary reward from the crowd or the tavernkeep for filling the house, along with a +2 boost to the parties streetwise and diplomacy checks while in town).  The relevant skills aren't perfrom (wind instrument) and (lyre), but rather things like -
> 
> Insight (to read the crowd and play off their moods, picking the right type of song, something upbeat and danceable, or a funeral durge to wet their eyes)
> 
> ...




You end up with an encounter where the actual skill at playing an instrument doesn't matter at all. Not something anyone I know would like. Not surprisingly, since you consider playing music "strumming a series of notes in the right order".


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## Thasmodious (Oct 7, 2008)

Fenes said:


> You end up with an encounter where the actual skill at playing an instrument doesn't matter at all. Not something anyone I know would like. Not surprisingly, since you consider playing music "strumming a series of notes in the right order".




Yes, because the game is not Lutes & Lyres.  You've already answered the "how skilled" issue when you wrote in the character background "musical child prodigy".  We already know you play well and the minstrel plays well.  The encounter isn't going to be won by outplaying the other guy, but by out competing him, picking the right songs, playing the crowd, shaking up the other guy and getting him off his game.  If you want to gain a success on the challenge through pure musical ownage, you could do so with an appropriate skill or attribute check (dexterity or acrobatics for something with strings, for example, or constitution or endurance for some impressive singing), counting it as a trained skill.  The ruleset allows for that to be accomplished easily as well.


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## Fenes (Oct 7, 2008)

Thasmodious said:


> Yes, because the game is not Lutes & Lyres.  You've already answered the "how skilled" issue when you wrote in the character background "musical child prodigy".  We already know you play well and the minstrel plays well.  The encounter isn't going to be won by outplaying the other guy, but by out competing him, picking the right songs, playing the crowd, shaking up the other guy and getting him off his game.  If you want to gain a success on the challenge through pure musical ownage, you could do so with an appropriate skill or attribute check (dexterity or acrobatics for something with strings, for example, or constitution or endurance for some impressive singing), counting it as a trained skill.  The ruleset allows for that to be accomplished easily as well.




_Your_ game is not lutes and lyres. _The_ game is more than _your _game. In _my _game, perform is one of the most important skills, and performing competitions are a staple.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 7, 2008)

> If you play an instrument, how often do you fail at playing songs you already know how to play? Sure, you might be flat on this note or not nail that complex guitar solo completly , but is that how such a contest is judged anyway?
> 
> <snip>




As someone who plays a few instruments, I can say that it happens pretty often, depending on your practice habits and your overall skill level.  And, of course, the natural deterioration of skills due to age.

There is a nice documentary about a band preparing for a tour.  One of the hired musicians says something to the effect of "X isn't playing the lead because he's the best, he's playing it because he wrote it."  There quickly follows several shots of the guys in the band getting frustrated at screwing up songs they've been playing for 20+ years.

Some "contests" are simply contests of skill- can you play well enough to earn your food and lodging for the night?  Other contests are about who is better, like Ralph Macchio "cuttin' heads" against Steve Vai in _Crossroads._

Having craft/profession skills give you that extra bit of flexibility.

Besides, all of those Diplomacy, Insight and Streetwise checks- maybe even an Intimidate check vs your opponent ("Play *THAT!!!!*")- mean nothing if you ham-hand your instrument.  At some point, your dude has to _play._


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 7, 2008)

> The encounter isn't going to be won by outplaying the other guy, but by out competing him, picking the right songs, playing the crowd, shaking up the other guy and getting him off his game.




Actually, sometimes it _is_ about outplaying the other guy.

Again, check out the "cuttin' heads" sequence from _Crossroads._  Macchio's  character Eugene must beat the Devil's guitarist (played by Vai) or lose his soul.  The contest involves each player playing the same musical passages.  Sure, part of it is showmanship, but in the end, it boils down to the fact that Macchio's character can play a complicated guitar run- part of a Paganini caprice- that Vai's character completely fumbles.  The Devil loses the wager, and Eugene walks away a winner.

(Vai, btw, actually plays both parts- the success and the flub- for the soundtrack.)


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## Goumindong (Oct 7, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Answered your own question, boyo.
> 
> Honestly, it has to do with the "forgotten" mundane tier, in my mind.




You, and everyone else, still hasn't answered why you cannot just put these into your background, especially when they come up so infrequently.


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## Rel (Oct 7, 2008)

Goumindong said:


> You, and everyone else, still hasn't answered why you cannot just put these into your background, especially when they come up so infrequently.




I'll answer it:  Because the variety of skills and their proficiency at them could vary considerably from character to character and the ability to write an extensive (which is not to say "good") character background shouldn't necessarily translate into a mechanical advantage in the game.

One player may indicate that his character was the only son of a poor farmer who simply did menial tasks on the farm until the day that his family was slaughtered by Orcs and he took up the life of an adventurer to seek revenge.  Another player may indicate that her character lived in a major metropolitan center, worked a large variety of jobs as a youth and is a veritable Jaqueline of All Trades.

For the first character, the applicability of his skills as indicated by his background will be rare.  For the second, she may have altered the entire flavor of the campaign to the point that "infrequently" is a completely inaccurate descriptor of how often her skillset is applicable.  This situation is bad enough if the players are doing it by accident.  If they are actively trying to game this non-system then you could have a real problem.

Could this be addressed by simple adjudication by the GM?  Most certainly.  But then again, so could pretty much everything.  The point of having systems and sub-systems in the game is so that not everything has to come down to a judgement call by the GM.  He has enough to worry about already.

In 3.x this was dealt with by the spending of finite resources (skill points and feats) to improve skills so that one PC didn't have an unfair advantage over another.  It's absolutely true that the simple farm-boy who became a Fighter after his family was killed is going to have a far narrower skillset than the Jack of All Trades type Rogue who grew up in the city simply due to the disparity in skill points.  But at least there is a theoretical trade off in other abilities to compensate for that.

I'm planning to return to the model of spending a finite resource (allowing them to pick two, but only two, profession/crafting skills) to gain trade and hobby skills to add interest and flavor to my game.  But in my case I'm getting what I consider to be the best of both worlds.  The player determines the skills without being bound by a specific list.  And because I'm adding the trade and hobby skills onto the system rather than substituting them for other skills, the PC's don't sacrifice any effectiveness in other areas.

For the record, I'm also open to the PC's developing additional skills over the course of the campaign.  If a player wishes to describe their PC becoming buddies with a local musician and asking them to teach his character how to play the lute, I'm fine with eventually (over the course of some period of time and game sessions) saying, "Go ahead and add Lute as one of your Trained skills."

Anything that will help the players become more immersed and engaged with the game world and campaign is worth a bit of time and effort and this certainly falls into that category as far as I'm concerned.


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## Delta (Oct 7, 2008)

Thasmodious said:


> Your dwarf fighter could be decent at Brewing or Jumping, but not both. The fighter had to sacrifice half his skill points a level to become a good crafter of something and it made him a poorer fighter. That is a poor mechanical system.




That is an _absolute requirement_ of any mechanical system I'd ever use. If you get some advantage, you have to pay for it. It's also more realistic: Medieval knights spent their whole life training to fight, they didn't stumble into it while working as brewers.


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## AllisterH (Oct 7, 2008)

Heh. I thought we were debating the validity of the Profession and Craft skills.

The people arguing for Profession with regard to musical instruments, you do realize you're actually making my point for me?

If you're using the Profession skill to judge a "devil vs guy fiddle contest", what the hell is the PERFORM skill then for?

By the SRD listing of the skills, 

Knowledge (Local) to figure out what would be a popular/well received song in the region (don't want to sing Stars and Stripes in North Korea as an example)

Perform to actually be able to PLAY said song.

Why again is Profession a GOOD thing?


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## Hella_Tellah (Oct 7, 2008)

Maybe this is too much of a corner case, but if my campaign is set far from civilization, then I'd like skills players can roll to craft basic weapons and tools from the materials they gather.  Without mechanics for doing that, I can't run _Lost_ d20!


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## Cadfan (Oct 7, 2008)

Hella_Tellah said:


> Maybe this is too much of a corner case, but if my campaign is set far from civilization, then I'd like skills players can roll to craft basic weapons and tools from the materials they gather.  Without mechanics for doing that, I can't run _Lost_ d20!



I think this thread is more about this question:

Which is better?

A 3e style skill system that would allow you to do that, but which would also be present as part of the default rules in every non _Lost_ D20 game?

Or a simple reference to DM judgment about player backstory and capability, with maybe an intelligence check if you really feel it to be necessary?

I prefer the latter.  In my opinion, the former is basically the latter anyways, except more restrictive.


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## Psion (Oct 7, 2008)

AllisterH said:


> Please explain how Profession is GOOD for the game?




Are you selectively replying to my posts? I do so two posts up from the post you were quoting.


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## Set (Oct 7, 2008)

Cadfan said:


> Which is better?
> 
> A 3e style skill system that would allow you to do that, but which would also be present as part of the default rules in every non _Lost_ D20 game?
> 
> Or a simple reference to DM judgment about player backstory and capability, with maybe an intelligence check if you really feel it to be necessary?




And yet, doesn't this also fit the social aspect of the game?  Instead of having some social-conflict-resolution mechanic or skills like bluff, diplomacy or intimidate, why not just have it part of player backstory (Ariadne grew up a noble's daughter, and has a good command of etiquette and intrigue), and just dispense with skills or mechanics?

Wouldn't this also apply to combat?  'Ariadne also trained in fencing, at her uncle's salon, and got to be better than most of the spoiled young men who fancied themselves 'better than any girl.''  When combat shows up, the player just describes what she does, and, if the DM feels it is utterly necessary, he can make some dexterity check or something to see if she manages the graceful disarm she mentioned, or a strength check to see if she really snapped that dude's sword in half.

It all comes down to what is important in your games.  If combat is not the end-all-be-all of the roleplaying experience, then there is no real need for many pages of combat resolution systems, just as there can be argued to be no need for a half-page devoted to the Craft and Profession skill in a game not based around making stuff or working between missions.

Craft and Profession skills *aren't* necessary.  Certainly not for all games.  But neither are social skills, nor are combat abilities, nor are lists of spells and powers, when a player could just state 'My father's bloodline gives me the power to throw bolts of fire, and I can shape and control fire, making it dance, or swerve around me and not harm me' with the DM adjudicating on the fly any corner cases like 'can he shape and control the balor's infernal hellfire, or will some sort of opposed check be required?'

This isn't meant as a reductio ad absurdium argument btw.  I'm not mocking here.  If the systems aren't really important, then they aren't really important, and can be phased out for combat as readily as for craft / profession, since combat only makes up a small percentage of a particular game session (barring games like Star Fleet Battles, where combat resolution can take *hours!* but no edition of D&D has been that crazy complex!).


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## GlaziusF (Oct 7, 2008)

Fenes said:


> _Your_ game is not lutes and lyres. _The_ game is more than _your _game. In _my _game, perform is one of the most important skills, and performing competitions are a staple.




And how many people don't max perform? How many people don't create +perform and +cha enchanted gear?

In short, are you actually having a competition or does everyone simply max out their skills to the point that it's just a coin flip?

I actually really like the idea of having a performing competition being a skill challenge of a whole bunch of skills that aren't Perform. And maybe the occasional stat check. 

The idea, of course, is that you're already as competent a performer as you're going to get, and the skills involve various abstract aspects of your performance in the same way they involve various abstract aspects of your world interaction. 

But what's to stop someone who's never held an instrument in their lives from getting up on stage and shining, you ask? And does this mean that a rank amateur has the chance to show up a genius virtuoso?

Of course not! The rules aren't there to model every challenge -- not even every combat challenge, otherwise the DMG wouldn't advise setting limits on monster levels! If you already know that something isn't going to happen why bother taking the 400-to-1 shot that it will anyway?

Craft and Profession don't add much to D&D. They can hurt the party through their absence ("But but but the discrepancy in the dragon's ledgers was going to be a whole new adventure hook! What do you MEAN none of you took Profession: Accountant?!") and they take points away from skills that can directly impact the party's survival ("Okay, so the cannonball has struck your stores of gunpowder. The ship comes apart and you're all in the drink. I'll need to you start making Swim checks to tread water - what do you MEAN you put all your points in Profession: Sailor?!") so if the DM wants to take special advantage of them he writes them explicitly into the story. 

It's better in that case just to let everybody pick a couple of background traits and work from them for special advantage. Heck, you could even do a campaign about a literal adventuring band that boots out the cult that took over the amphitheater in the morning and comes back that evening to give a concert (skill challenge) as ambassadors of peace and love.


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## Psion (Oct 7, 2008)

Rechan said:


> Except that I don't just play in all combat all the time sort of games.
> 
> I've ran detective games, super hero games, and played in survival horror games, nation building games, and "you're small fish in a big pond"/Slice of Life Werewolf games.
> 
> But I've *never* come across a situation where the result of a craft or profession type check was important or pivotal. I've never come across a situation where the skill was appropriate.




Well then, I think it's fair to say that there are a large variety of games that we run entirely different, to the point that I'm not sure I could understand or play in one of your games.



> It's serious, because I have seen many background-reflecting feats or traits that give bonuses because you're an orphan, or an outcast, or a rich boy, or you pick yournose or whatever.




Feats or Traits are not skills; they are used for different purposes.



> Either way, you don't bother rolling, you just say "It's a success".




So? What's essential about rolling? It gave you a tactical option to your benefit. Whether or not risk should be involved is another issue.



> I hope you got the impression that "the only vector that PCs should be using to solve their problems should be combat" somewhere else, because I certainly didn't say that.
> 
> I love the insinuation that because I see no point in craft/profession, all I care about is Monty Haul hack'n'slash.




I hope you got Monty Haul hack'n'slash from somewhere else, and I didn't say that.



> You know what's important to me? *Story*. And I believe there is a moat and stone wall between Story and Mechanics.




That's nice. I don't. But you can't accept that it's useful to me to model these things mechanically even if it's not desirable to you?

To me, "story" is a synthesis of events, their resolution, and the scenario at hand. And AFAIAC, the best way to resolve events fairly and with the best internal consistency is with *drumroll* mechanics.



> It feels like, to me, the equivalent of "Okay we're going to do some surveillance on this guy's house. But first, we have to roll our Profession: Cop skill to make sure that we 1) can actually see the window from our location, and 2) turned on the phone tap correctly." "Sorry guys, Joe rolled a 2 on his check; he falls asleep on watch, and you have a six hour gap in your stake out information."




This sounds to me like the "profession(orphan)" silliness again. When defending your example relies on making up extreme example that nobody I (and I suspect, you) game with _ever do_, it's time to step back and reconsider your position.


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## Psion (Oct 7, 2008)

Cadfan said:


> I think this thread is more about this question:
> 
> Which is better?
> 
> ...




And I prefer the former. The former is basically the latter, but with a mechanism to provide for character definition with more consistency and permit rules extrapolation more seamlessly.


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## Cadfan (Oct 7, 2008)

Set said:


> And yet, doesn't this also fit the social aspect of the game?  Instead of having some social-conflict-resolution mechanic or skills like bluff, diplomacy or intimidate, why not just have it part of player backstory (Ariadne grew up a noble's daughter, and has a good command of etiquette and intrigue), and just dispense with skills or mechanics?



1. Many people agree with you that the social skills shouldn't exist, since they overlap with the player's ability to roleplay their character as an effective liar, smooth talking diplomat, or intimidating thug.

2. Earlier in the thread, I wrote out a post where I discussed the reasons that I feel that a 3e style craft and profession skill doesn't make sense.  Here's the list.


			
				Me said:
			
		

> To my mind, the failure of the 3e version of craft and profession rules was that:
> 
> 1. Poor siloing. Having been raised as a blacksmith's apprentice shouldn't trade off as heavily as it did with things like learning to jump, swim, or climb trees.
> 2. Unclear outcomes.  Not always true, but often true.
> ...



Combat, by contrast, doesn't have these problems.  In order,

1. Its siloed pretty effectively away from other aspects of your character.  The only major overlap are feats that could boost combat or could boost skills, depending on what you choose.  
2. The outcome of an attack is usually the most well defined thing in the game, unlike a craft where its really not clear exactly what one can produce with a Craft: Weaving check outcome of 27 (a really nice rug?  How nice?  What does that even mean?)
3a and b. 5% increments in combat skill level are actually important, and increases in your skill combat skill level have discernible effects on your character's career.  
4. There's no "override switch" like taking 10 or 20 that makes whole aspects of your character's combat skills stop counting.
5. Combat talent (almost) never overlaps with other aspects of your character's build in an unclear manner that makes it difficult to know which rules to use to handle a particular situation.

Social skills are a mixed bag.

1. They're not siloed away, but it seems more reasonable for your ability to be a smooth talker to trade away with your athletics skill since they're both adventuring type skills.  Unlike profession skills which often punish characters for investing in their backstory, social skills get used more frequently.
2. Outcomes are usually clear.  Less so than combat, but more so than Craft.  This has a lot to do with the fact that the checks are opposed by someone's defense.  A higher bluff skill allows you to fool more insightful persons much like a higher stealth skill allows you to conceal yourself from more perceptive persons.  A higher craft skill, by contrast, allows you to make more difficult to build items... but what are those?  Only DM judgment can really say.
3. 5% increments in skill level matter more because the check is opposed, and have noticeable effects on who you can lie to/ intimidate/ sweet talk.
4. You can't take 10.  Take 10 is kind of the death of skills, because it bypasses them so completely.  With a skill like Craft or Profession, where you can almost always take 10 (in the case or certain profession uses, you can't, but those uses also don't matter much because all they do is produce a little gold) what you've really done by taking 10 is turn the whole architecture of the skill into a basic "can I build this? yes/no?"
5. These also don't overlap with other areas of your character in confusing ways.

In partial summary, a skill check is useful if you need to know the answers to the following questions:

How often can I do this successfully? (ex: jump over a pit)
Can I do this better than someone else can perform a task? (ex: can I hide better than you can find me)

Its less useful for questions like

Can I do this at all? (ex: fix a broken wagon axle)

In that case, you can usually get by with a general understanding of what the character can and cannot do, which doesn't require 5% increments, etc, etc, etc.  It just requires an understanding between the people in the game.

I think Craft and Profession skills mostly fall into the "Can I do this at all?" category.  They're not things where you sometimes succeed and sometimes fail (because you take 10, which mimics the fact that in real life someone who knows how to make a cabinet doesn't accidentally fail every so often and have to start from scratch, he just makes the dang cabinet).  They're not things where you are opposed by someone else (hypothetically you could have a cooking contest but generally you are unopposed when you build a bookcase or operate an apothecary stand).  They are, in my opinion, better supported by simply roleplaying (winging it) than by utilizing the architecture of the skill system.


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## Cadfan (Oct 7, 2008)

Psion said:


> To me, "story" is a synthesis of events, their resolution, and the scenario at hand. And AFAIAC, the best way to resolve events fairly and with the best internal consistency is with *drumroll* mechanics.



The key there is the word "resolve."  Craft and Profession skills rarely "resolve" anything.  "Resolve" implies a chance of success or failure, or possibly a situation that the DM doesn't know how to judge, but which can be answered by reference to the rules.  Craft and Profession rarely have either of those traits.


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## Psion (Oct 7, 2008)

Cadfan said:


> The key there is the word "resolve."  Craft and Profession skills rarely "resolve" anything.




As has been emphasized earlier, our experiences obviously differ here.

Hmmm. And it's not hard to guess why. I wonder if a poll is in order here...


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## Allister (Oct 7, 2008)

Psion said:


> This sounds to me like the "profession(orphan)" silliness again. When defending your example relies on making up extreme example that nobody I (and I suspect, you) game with _ever do_, it's time to step back and reconsider your position.




But what would you consider "good professions then"?

We did Sailor and I highlighted the many problems with that profession and someone recently used Profession (Guitarist) and again, he same problems as before come up (if you have Profession here, what's the point of Perform and Knwledge then?)


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## Umbran (Oct 7, 2008)

Allister said:


> (if you have Profession here, what's the point of Perform and Knwledge then?)




Who said that there cannot be overlap between such skills?  It may be that perform (guitar), Profession (guitarist) and knowledge (music History) have some overlap.  That's okay.

The performer knows how to play well.  The person with the same ranks in Profession (guitarist) may not play as well, but also has experience with roadies, groupies, and band managers.


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## Crothian (Oct 7, 2008)

Allister said:


> But what would you consider "good professions then"?
> 
> We did Sailor and I highlighted the many problems with that profession and someone recently used Profession (Guitarist) and again, he same problems as before come up (if you have Profession here, what's the point of Perform and Knwledge then?)




They do different things.  Profession is about making money, perform would be about actual skill in doing something, and knowledge would be acedimic study of the subject.  

I have a character who currently has Profession Innkeeper.


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## Goumindong (Oct 7, 2008)

Rel said:


> I'll answer it:  Because the variety of skills and their proficiency at them could vary considerably from character to character and the ability to write an extensive (which is not to say "good") character background shouldn't necessarily translate into a mechanical advantage in the game.




1. I was not aware that "I was a blacksmith" is an "extensive character background"

2. Which is why you justify having a background to be a mechanical disadvantage? There is no way, outside of "background points" to balance this and they do not revolve around skills.

Your examples are hyperbolic and foolish. The game as played revolves around solving problems. There are a set of skills commonly used in resolving these problems. Backgrounds are not going to be freebees to enhance these skills, we already have a mechanic for that. They are small "you can do something else which probably isn't going to matter in the scope of the game but help to define your character"


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## Cadfan (Oct 7, 2008)

Rel said:
			
		

> I'll answer it: Because the variety of skills and their proficiency at them could vary considerably from character to character and the ability to write an extensive (which is not to say "good") character background shouldn't necessarily translate into a mechanical advantage in the game.



The problem is that putting points into Profession or Craft often translates into a mechanical _dis_advantage.

If the choice is to be between:

1. If you want mechanical benefit for your backstory, you have to spend the same resource that normally would stop you from drowning or falling off cliffs.

2. A character who's backstory involves "doing more things" than someone else will be able to actually do more "things" than a character with a less diverse backstory, but only to the extent that those "things" are not adventuring-type things (because then they'd be covered by preexisting skills), and only to the extent that the DM gives permission.

I have to go for the latter.


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## billd91 (Oct 7, 2008)

Cadfan said:


> The problem is that putting points into Profession or Craft often translates into a mechanical _dis_advantage.
> 
> If the choice is to be between:
> 
> ...




There is no more mechanical disadvantage in spending points on a craft or profession where a check never comes up than there is in spending points on any other skill that just doesn't happen to come up.

If all you're doing is climbing and swimming, then any points spent on diplomacy are just as mechanically disadvantageous. Context is the key.


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## Thasmodious (Oct 7, 2008)

Set said:


> And yet, doesn't this also fit the social aspect of the game?  Instead of having some social-conflict-resolution mechanic or skills like bluff, diplomacy or intimidate, why not just have it part of player backstory (Ariadne grew up a noble's daughter, and has a good command of etiquette and intrigue), and just dispense with skills or mechanics?
> 
> Wouldn't this also apply to combat?  'Ariadne also trained in fencing, at her uncle's salon, and got to be better than most of the spoiled young men who fancied themselves 'better than any girl.''  When combat shows up, the player just describes what she does, and, if the DM feels it is utterly necessary, he can make some dexterity check or something to see if she manages the graceful disarm she mentioned, or a strength check to see if she really snapped that dude's sword in half.
> 
> It all comes down to what is important in your games.




It does.  And what is important in the core D&D game is killing monsters, RPing with monsters, NPCs, patrons and the like, and taking stuff.  It is fine, great even, if that's not the way you run your games, but it IS the core assumption, the way most people play the game and the playstyle the game is designed for.  Asking why social and combat skills and powers are in the game is a bit silly and doesn't make any kind of point.  The encounter, and its resolution is the cornerstone of the D&D game.  The 4e game system includes rules to resolve those conflicts, even those conflicts that involve something outside of the more normal adventuring means - such as crafting or performing.  The rules consist of advice on winging it and a few tables on DC by level, skill challenges and the like.  

Choosing a game system, then playing that game in a manner well outside of its core assumptions (the game is about adventurerers adventuring), puts you in GM creativity territory.  Twisting D&D into Lutes and Lyres is certainly possible, but complaining that the rules for doing so were left out is a bit puzzling.  If you use the D&D ruleset to play a game that isn't about adventurers, has no monsters or loot, and no combat, more power to you.  But there are better systems.  

Crafting is superflous.  Some DMs/groups like to use it, most don't get much out of it.  I'd much rather have a streamlined, balanced ruleset from which to work, rather a bloated ruleset full of subsystems and gaping holes where these subsystems react with each other or the basic rules.  Trimming the game back from rules bloat is much more difficult than creating the rules you need for your style or shopping online for 3rd party supplements that fit your playstyle.  

Gamers are a creative lot and its quite easy to modify a game system to fit your needs.  And when you modify the game for your own group, you don't have to worry about what kind of brokenness that is going to open up in the land of munchkin.  If you design a craft system for your group who loves craft systems and it has holes the size of krakens, it won't matter much because your group will play with the spirit of the rules.  If those same rules are part of the core system mechanics, then its a problem for the whole community.  If your players look for ways to abuse your own house rules, beat them with sticks until they learn better.

Gamers are also armed with a robust and creative online community that designs, often for free, entire system modifications, subsystems for practically everything imaginable, forms, aids, etc., often just for the joy of sharing their creations with others.  If a complex and robust set of crafting mechanics really has a niche in D&D gameplay, the 3rd party publishers will tackle it, put out some great rulesets and there will be no need for complaint that the designers did not cater to your particular niche of needs for your particular gamestyle.  

Combat and encounters are assumed to be part of ALL D&D games.  And in the default game, it is of little matter whether your sword was bought, found, stolen, crafted by you, an heirloom... those are background details and belong as such.


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## Cadfan (Oct 8, 2008)

billd91 said:


> There is no more mechanical disadvantage in spending points on a craft or profession where a check never comes up than there is in spending points on any other skill that just doesn't happen to come up.
> 
> If all you're doing is climbing and swimming, then any points spent on diplomacy are just as mechanically disadvantageous. Context is the key.



1. Not exactly, because failing swim checks, jump checks, or climb checks sometimes makes you die.

2. This is basically true, in general.  I guess it all depends then on which skills are more likely to come up in a game of D&D- Profession: Something Important from my Backstory, or Spot.


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## I'm A Banana (Oct 8, 2008)

> And I believe there is a moat and stone wall between Story and Mechanics.




Right there.

The wrought iron fence made of tigers.

It's better for me, by leaps and bounds and galaxies and dimensions, when this does not exist. When the story and the mechanics reinforce each other rather than keeping away from each other.

It's yin and yang, male and female, uranos and gaia. It is much more enjoyable to mix these things together and let them enhance each other than to keep them separate.

I say to you, *TEAR DOWN THAT WALL*. 









> Combat, by contrast, doesn't have these problems.




I think if we spent as many pages on craft skills as we spent on combat, they wouldn't have this problem, either.



> I guess it all depends then on which skills are more likely to come up in a game of D&D




This is why it depends on _your style of game_. What is more likely varies with your style of game. 3e absolutely loved it some combat, but it at least gave a nod to those who also loved playing blacksmiths in the philosophy of "We're not going to tell you how to have fun, that's up to you."

4e believes it knows how you have fun, and it's sure not by playing some lame blacksmith! RARGH!

FWIW, both approaches have their benefits and their costs.


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## Cadfan (Oct 8, 2008)

Actually, what matters is the style of game that most people have.

I stand by my argument that, for the reasons exhaustively listed earlier in this thread in my comparison and contrast of 3e style craft and profession skills with just plain roleplaying crafts and profsesions, that the just plain roleplaying option is superior for most people.  Probably even for you, since I don't actually believe your insinuation that you'd prefer if the game spent just as much time on crafts and professions as it did on combat.


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## Psion (Oct 8, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> It's yin and yang, male and female, uranos and gaia. It is much more enjoyable to mix these things together and let them enhance each other than to keep them separate.
> 
> I say to you, *TEAR DOWN THAT WALL*.






You rock.


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## I'm A Banana (Oct 8, 2008)

> Actually, what matters is the style of game that most people have.




That's a debatable proposition.

Let's refine it a bit, get more specific.

What matters for 4e D&D is making sure that people have as much fun playing D&D as possible. I think we can both pretty much agree on that.

In a magically perfect world, the stuff in the core rules contains exactly everything you want from a basic D&D game, and nothing superfluous. Nothing you will never use, and everything you do use directly explained and implemented in a way that you can understand and make good use of.

But life ain't perfect, so everyone, to a certain extent, has to make do with rules they'll never use and things that confuse them and a need to make rules for things that their games go into that the rules don't cover.

I think we can both also accept that as a universal.

Now, this is a problem for D&D, because everything they put out is inherently flawed to some extent no matter how hard they try, no matter what they do, they cannot, will not, ever, ever, ever, please everyone. 

3e's answer to this problem was "We won't tell you how to have fun, that's up to you." In a nutshell, the strategy was to toss a bunch of rules at you that you may or may not need, not expecting everyone to get or use everything, but expecting the DM to weed out what they liked from what they didn't. For the people who REALLY LIKED in-depth character backgrounds, there was the PHB2. For people who thought mindflayers were the shizzle, there was Lords of Madness. For people who didn't, there were other things. They wouldn't please everyone with every product, but there would be enough mass appeals to justify the weird stuff. Sort of how a big record company or movie studio works. You throw out the summer blockbuster that everyone is going to go see, this pays for the little indie drama that is more niche, but gives you street cred as daring and edgy and willing to take risks (even if they're not very big risks, given the amount you raked in with the most recent superhero movie). 

4e's answer to this problem has been pretty comparable to this. In a nutshell, the idea so far is to figure out what "most people want," and deliver that, because "that's what works." This is sort of how network TV seasons have been done historically. You have models for what people like, and you give people what they want, and they love you for it, and then you give them more of what they want, so you make a lot of money on everything.

The big flaw in that 4e approach, from where I'm sitting, is the same problem that network TV is having recently: Cable, baby. Things that are edgier and crazier and more different and more risky that, when they pay off, catch you entirely by surprise because you had NO FREAKIN' IDEA THAT WAS POSSIBLE. We don't have our "Cable D&D" yet, but I think it'd be the strongest way to actually compete with WotC (some sort of publisher's co-op that muscles a variety of products into new markets would be golden -- sell them online or through e-publishing to double down). 

The big flaw in the 3e approach is a lot of wasted wordcount and some big flops of products. 

So "what matters" is how WotC addresses the eternal problem of the books they put out not being useful for everyone in the world all at once. Do they put out their assured hits and then risk some failures with the weird stuff? Or do they design for the base to the exclusion of everything else and give us the D&D version of Everybody Loves Raymond (that's not a dig, really -- ELR is hilarious!).  



> I stand by my argument that, for the reasons exhaustively listed earlier in this thread in my comparison and contrast of 3e style craft and profession skills with just plain roleplaying crafts and profsesions, that the just plain roleplaying option is superior for most people. Probably even for you, since I don't actually believe your insinuation that you'd prefer if the game spent just as much time on crafts and professions as it did on combat.




Well, WotC has dynamite market research. I'm sure they can tell what most of their audience says they want.

The real question about what WotC does here is this: Do they deliver ONLY what the audience tells them they want? Do they give us year after year of new sitcoms?

Personally, I wouldn't be that surprised if we have some sort of 4e craft system down the road that is more detailed than DM fiat that I will love much, much more. We don't right now, but we've got at least 5 years, and until we have a 4e that I can love, I've got Pathfinder or 3e or T20 or FFZ. All of which have a more robust crafting system than DM fiat, even if "most people" never use it.


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## Rechan (Oct 8, 2008)

While thinking about this last night, I did come up with a way in which to handle the Profession business. It's based off the argument of "Profession: Sailor" getting to use his profession skill rather than all those myrid of other skills.

You have your Profession, or Background, or WhatHaveYou. And there is a number beside it. Let's say you have Profession Sailor: +3. 

So any time you have to roll a skill that ties into your Sailory goodness, you add the +3 to the modifier, to reflect your experience beyond just the skill.

So if it's "Climbing a net or robe similar to rigging", then you have Climb +8, add +3 to it for being a Sailor, and now you have an +11 to roll.

Of course, this has the potential to be abused ("My profession is Thief!" "Mine is Adventurere!"). So you have some pre-determined professions or backgrounds, with some guidelines, and otherwise the player and DM negotiate when the skill should apply.


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## The_Gneech (Oct 8, 2008)

Okay, to knock some silliness out of the way right off the bat:

If somebody with Profession (Sailor) wants to climb a rope, that person makes a Climb check. Profession (Sailor) is for things that don't have other skills already, like using an astrolabe. Sheesh.

I have always been a fan of "useless" skills because I want the game-mechanic model of my character to match my mental model. Even if the character _doesn't_ ever make a check against Profession (Scribe), it warms some geeky little place in my heart to have defined the character's abilities in such a way. Besides, if I get creative enough with it, I can probably come up with some way to make it useful during the course of an adventure, even the most plotless dungeon crawl since "Orc and Pie."

As for there never being a good use for it in any RPG, people might think the same thing about a Psychoanalysis skill until they've played _Call of Cthulhu_. There's a lot more to RPGs, or at least the great ones, than killing monsters and taking their stuff.

-The Gneech


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## Rechan (Oct 8, 2008)

Psion said:


> Feats or Traits are not skills; they are used for different purposes.



Perhaps I wasn't being clear when I made the point. But I was trying to make the point that one does not need to take mechanical things (feats, skills, traits, whatever) to reflect their character's background or personality.

So yes, skills and feats are different, just like apples and oranges, but when the topic is "Fruit is tasty", you can bring them both up. The point I was trying to make was that I don't need to take "Feat: Orphan" to play my character as an orphan, any more than I need Craft: Underwater Basketweaving to play my character as a college slouch (that was a joke, for reference).



> So? What's essential about rolling? It gave you a tactical option to your benefit. Whether or not risk should be involved is another issue.



The point is, since he's "The greatest swordsman in the world", you don't have to calculate his craft skill. You don't even know it. You just handwave and say "He takes ten".

How is that different than saying "He's the greatest craftsman in the world. So he just does it."

You are making my argument for me here, with this little sentence:


> What's essential about rolling?



What is essential about rolling craft at all? Just say "You do it." Tada.



> To me, "story" is a synthesis of events, their resolution, and the scenario at hand. And AFAIAC, the best way to resolve events fairly and with the best internal consistency is with *drumroll* mechanics.



And I have never seen a story where a craft or profession roll was ever integral to overcoming the resolution. 

Really, I'm for the less mechanics, the fewer fiddly bits, the better. I don't track ammunition, or rations, or - if I didn't have to, I wouldn't bother with gold accounting. 

If there was a game that involved cards with "Succeed" Or "Fail" and you handed them in when you felt appropriate to the story, and the object is to just use them in a strategic fashion, I'd be sold. After all, to me the goal of a DM - as someone else put it here - is the art of letting the players win without allowing them to realize that's what you're doing. 



> I hope you got Monty Haul hack'n'slash from somewhere else, and I didn't say that.



You didn't say "You only like Monty Haul Hack'n'slash", but I get the insinuation you are making from these:


> I can see if you play an all combat all the time sort of game, why you might not use them.





> I find the concept that "the only vector that PCs should be using to solve their problems should be combat" to be somewhat wanting. I can create challenges around a great variety of skills.



If you didn't get it from me, then from whence came the concept that "The only vector that PCs should be using to solve their problems is combat"? The only person that brought that up is you. 



> But you can't accept that it's useful to me to model these things mechanically even if it's not desirable to you?



I can accept that it's your opinion. But I do not accept it being a majoritive one, and thus I do not accept that it should be in _core_. 



> This sounds to me like the "profession(orphan)" silliness again. When defending your example relies on making up extreme example that nobody I (and I suspect, you) game with ever do, it's time to step back and reconsider your position.



As I stated above, that wasn't silliness. Feat: Orphan, or Trait: Orphan, exists. And it exists as a mechanical representation of background, which isn't necessary.

But no, I'm being hyperbolic for two reasons. One, to get the gist of my point, and two, for this little statement here:


> It feels like, to me



Get that? That's how _to me it *feels*_. Or do you not accept that someone can feel a distaste or utter befuddlement with the necessity, let alone the desire, for certain mechanics? Just like you feel pleasure when putting your skill points to background fluff, the above scenario goes through my head when I see those same skills.


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## ProfessorCirno (Oct 8, 2008)

Oddly enough, I think of all games, the Warcraft RPG had some rather neat concepts regarding crafting.  The tinkering rules from the core book were fantastic, and I loved the flavor of later classes built not only entirely around making potions, but of making special potions that didn't appear in spell form, or being able to throw the potions to give their effect to targets far away.  If anything, 4e should've been a step towards THAT, giving more freedom and more fun to help get players involved with building and crafted new things.  Instead, they just threw out the whole thing.  I mean, if they took those tinkering rules and twisted them around a bit to create the Artificer as a class that was built specifically for making magical items and gadgets both for himself and the party, I think it would've been incredibly cool.  Plus, they could've made the Arcane Commando the Artificer has become into a seperate class, because as cool as the Arcane Commando idea, it really doesn't scream "Artificer" to me.

Really, I think Artificer is the perfect example on how crafting ideas were just thrown out.  It's gone from a class who's identity was "make magic items" into some weird mix of Batman and Rambo.  I'm not saying the class concept of Rambat isn't cool, but what the dickings does that have to do with artificing?


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## Psion (Oct 8, 2008)

Rechan said:


> Perhaps I wasn't being clear when I made the point. But I was trying to make the point that one does not need to take mechanical things (feats, skills, traits, whatever) to have that background in the first place.




If the background grants you a specific capability that is not encapsulated in the existing skills and feats, my stance is: yes it does.



> So yes, skills and feats are different, just like apples and oranges, but when the topic is "Fruit is tasty", you can bring them both up. The point I was trying to make was that I don't need to take "Feat: Orphan" to play my character as an orphan, any more than I need Craft: Underwater Basketweaving to play my character as a college slouch (that was a joke, for reference).




Jokes aside, as I don't see salient capabilities in an Orphan profession skill, I would agree one is not needed.

Side note: spycraft has an "orphaned" talent (starting ability, like a d20 occupation.) It translates into bonuses to other abilities, much like a feat would. But again, as it's not a capability, I would have no real issue with a character who is an orphan not taking this ability.



> The point is, since he's "The greatest swordsman in the world", you don't have to calculate his craft skill. You don't even know it. You just handwave and say "He takes ten".




How can you know he's good enough to just take ten if I don't know how good he is? I think that "greatest swordsmith in the world" _means_ something in game terms. Something tangible. Something worth more than just jotting down as a background note. Something worthy of an investment.



> How is that different than saying "He's the greatest craftsman in the world. So he just does it."




Because combat is a conflict. Crafting need not be. It doesn't mean anyone can do it.



> You are making my argument for me here, with this little sentence:
> What is essential about rolling craft at all? Just say "You do it." Tada.




You're _missing_ the argument here. Having a capability does not mean that capability needs to be rolled. That's a false criteria.

A druid can change into a bear. A druid does not need to roll to turn into a bear. So, should we conclude that a character not need to expend any character resources for such an ability?



> And I have never seen a story where a craft or profession roll was ever integral to overcoming the resolution.




Come play at my place sometime. 

[qutoe]Really, I'm for the less mechanics, the fewer fiddly bits, the better.[/quote]

Yep. I got that stance from you once you made the "moat and wall between story and mechanics".

But not all folks share your stance.



> If there was a game that involved cards with "Succeed" Or "Fail" and you handed them in when you felt appropriate to the story, and the object is to just use them in a strategic fashion, I'd be sold.




To be clear, I'm not trying to "sell" you. It's obvious, that if you cared enough to start this thread and _argue it this vehemently_, you are pretty happy with your way of doing things.

But I wouldn't be. So you can either choose to accept that there are people out here with different priorities than you and accept that these few pages benefit us.

Or you can just go about your day, refusing to admit we exist or that our experience is negatively impacted by removing profession and craft skills.


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## Rechan (Oct 8, 2008)

Psion said:


> Jokes aside, as I don't see salient capabilities in an Orphan profession skill, I would agree one is not needed.



WHY do you consider it "Orphan" profession? I have said many times I was referencing feats/traits, not profession skills. 



> How can you know he's good enough to just take ten if I don't know how good he is?



Because he's the greatest swordsmith in the world. I don't need to know his stats to know he's the greatest. He just _is_. He can make swords in his sleep. He can do it with an unlit forge and a spoon, because he's just _that good_.

I don't need to know his level, or his skill ranks, or his class, or _anything_. All that matters is _who_ and _what_, not HOW.  



> Something worthy of an investment.



An investment? He's an NPC. He begins existing when the PCs hear about him, and he ends existing when he doesn't become relevent or remembered. There's no investment.



> Because combat is a conflict. Crafting need not be. It doesn't mean anyone can do it.



Huh? That made no sense whatsoever. Where did combat come from? I didn't bring it up. 

And no, not anyone can do it. But _he's the greatest swordsmith in the world_. He's not anyone.



> You're _missing_ the argument here. Having a capability does not mean that capability needs to be rolled. That's a false criteria.



And _you're_ missing the point that one has to write down a number beside "Greatest Swordsmith in the world" to be capable. The fact that he _is_ thus means his capability.



> Come play at my place sometime.



I think our styles and tastes are too separate for real agreement there. Thanks for the offer, however.



> Or you can just go about your day, refusing to admit we exist or that our experience is negatively impacted by removing profession and craft skills.



I do not see how I can possibly say you don't exist. However, I don't see the point of that existence beyond "Well, we just like it, therefore it should be in the main book." 

It's like saying "4e core doesn't have thunderstones in it. That negatively impacts those that just adored thunderstones. So it should be in core." I can acknowledge intellectually that yes, some people must like them, but that doesn't mean that I have to agree that because Someone likes it, it Must be there. 

I reference guns and psionics and so on. Hey, I like psionics. But I don't think they should be in core. Because I _know_ that 1) less than a majority use the rules, and thus 2) it would upset a _lot_ more people than it would make happy. Even though I would be happy to be able to go to any table and play a psionicist, I know that that fact would get under the skin of more people; there are all ready those that feel put upon for having Tieflings and Dragonborn in 4e, let alone this "Sci fi stuff in my fantasy". 

I started the thread because I couldn't see why anyone would like it. I post this intellectually aware that some like it for x y and z. I can't dismiss that. But just like people being so attached to the Blood War or the Great Wheel, I am so utterly disconnected from that enthusiasm and attachment to anything, let alone those specific things.


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## Cadfan (Oct 8, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> 3e's answer to this problem was "We won't tell you how to have fun, that's up to you." In a nutshell, the strategy was to toss a bunch of rules at you that you may or may not need, not expecting everyone to get or use everything, but expecting the DM to weed out what they liked from what they didn't.



Craft and Profession skills were core, dude.  There is absolutely no reason, no possible justification, for believing that 3e was designed with the intent that you would throw out core skills.  Certainly you don't give one.  Those skills were carefully worked into the entire rest of the product line.  

You're just making stuff up.

I've compared and contrasted the 3e system and the 4e system.  I don't have much else to add here since you're not addressing any of those points and not taking a position of your own other than a general hope that someday a better system might come along, coupled with a weird disdain for 4e based on some awkward assumptions about the avoidance of rules bloat somehow representing selling out to the mediocre masses.


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## Psion (Oct 8, 2008)

Rechan said:


> WHY do you consider it "Orphan" profession? I have said many times I was referencing feats/traits, not profession skills.




What's the name of this thread again?

You're the one who made the original skill suggestion. If you are admitting that it's not a very credible suggestion for a skill, and agree that feats cover different ground than skills, I really don't have any other points to make here.



> Because he's the greatest swordsmith in the world. I don't need to know his stats to know he's the greatest. He just _is_.




Yeah. That's not good enough. I need to know what justifies a player to say his character is the greatest swordsman in the world. And I'm certainly not going to give it to him for the price of some throwaway words in his background.



> An investment? He's an NPC.




That's different, and not what I was arguing.

Then, I have no problem with handwaving it. As I set the DC, I set the skill rank just as easily.

However, the question does come when the players need the services of a swordsmith who is "pretty good". How good? What can he do? Having a system in place answers these questions.



> Huh? That made no sense whatsoever. Where did combat come from? I didn't bring it up.




Actually, you were. You were the one who mentioned the greatest _swordsman_. Did you mean to say something else?



> Thank you, but no thank you.




Truly, you wound me.



> I do not see how I can possibly say you don't exist. However, I don't see the point of that existence beyond "Well, we just like it, therefore it should be in the main book."




I don't see how that's any better than "I don't like it/don't use it, therefore it shouldn'I t be in the main book"? Further, having such a skill in the book is not an imposition to you. Lacking those things in the book is an imposition to me. 

There's classes I don't play in every edition; I don't fret their presence, because I know the book isn't just for me. I think crafting a sword or sailing a ship is quite a bit more bog standard fantasy ability than psionics, and thus, much more deserving of inclusion in the core rules.


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## Rechan (Oct 8, 2008)

OT, but I notice you're in Southern MD, Psion. That's a nice place; I was living around Bethesda/Rockville for six months, really liked it there.


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## I'm A Banana (Oct 8, 2008)

> Craft and Profession skills were core, dude. There is absolutely no reason, no possible justification, for believing that 3e was designed with the intent that you would throw out core skills. Certainly you don't give one. Those skills were carefully worked into the entire rest of the product line.




Really?

I mean, how many people took the Skill Focus feat? What about the Forgery? How many strict European campaigns ditched the monk? How many parties had both a sorcerer and a wizard?

How many people used the town generation mechanics in the DMG?

How many people played the expert NPC class?

How many people used the Ythrak?

No, there are parts of the 3e core that were absolutely there for those who wanted them to use and for those who didn't want them to ignore. Being core (and being referenced in other products) doesn't mean they weren't part of that philosophy.



> I've compared and contrasted the 3e system and the 4e system. I don't have much else to add here since you're not addressing any of those points and not taking a position of your own other than a general hope that someday a better system might come along, coupled with a weird disdain for 4e based on some awkward assumptions about the avoidance of rules bloat somehow representing selling out to the mediocre masses.




Well, I already answered the question this thread was started about. Several times. I really thought that part of the conversation was over, because the answer is so simple and obvious that I can't see it needing further explanation. Why? Because some people want them. 

When you say "What matters is what most people want," I say that's debatable. It doesn't matter so much what most people want. It matters what diversity WotC wants to provide -- what support they want to provide for different play styles. The answer in 4e so far has been "not much," but it's early in the game's life yet, so maybe that will change. 

I gave you two different models of how WotC might determine what they are providing. 

Is it really that shocking that, because it doesn't support my style of play, I'm not a tremendous fan of 4e in many respects?


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## ProfessorCirno (Oct 8, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> What about the Forgery?




I ALWAYS took forgery.  Forgery was awesome.  Because nobody ever took forgery except me.  And the skill check to see past forgery?

Forgery.


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## Rechan (Oct 8, 2008)

Psion said:


> That's different, and not what I was arguing.



Yes. We're talking about an NPC.



> Actually, you were. You were the one who mentioned the greatest swordsman. Did you mean to say something else?



Even if I did, what does it matter? As you have proven in your last post, no matter how much I explain "I was not clear in saying something else", you will insist on arguing that I said something else because "That's what the thread is about".



> I don't see how that's any better than "I don't like it/don't use it, therefore it shouldn'I t be in the main book"?



Because, as I have been saying since the first post, it's not "I don't like it; it shouldn't be there". It's "I don't think a vast majority even use it. SO it shouldn't be there." 

Again, back to the thunderstones, guns and psionics. Whether it's in stock fantasy or not doesn't matter. It's use, not presence.


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## Psion (Oct 8, 2008)

Rechan said:


> Yes. We're talking about an NPC.




Obviously, that was not clear to me. Now, I know that's what you meant; I've stated how my perception bears on this particular situation. If the character is the greatest swords smith in the world, I'm alright with plot-devicing him, knowing I could set his skill to whatever I need it to be.

However, this is a bit of an extraordinary situation. I don't consider encounters with the "world's greatest sword smith" to be any sort of a litmus test. Meeting craftsmen in villages and cities to perform needed tasks is far more the norm. And, as stated, I still maintain that having a system in place for NPCs is a convenience to qualify the scope of their abilities.



> Even if I did, what does it matter? As you have proven in your last post, no matter how much I explain "I was not clear in saying something else", you will insist on arguing that I said something else because "That's what the thread is about".




From where I am standing, it appears you were backpedalling from the stated purpose of the thread. Even if you weren't, I've already stated that feats occupy a different role than feats, so I'm not sure why you brought it back up.



> Because, as I have been saying since the first post, it's not "I don't like it; it shouldn't be there". It's "I don't think a vast majority even use it. SO it shouldn't be there."




Well, you won't be able to demonstrate that, but I think it's incorrect. If you dropped the word "vast", I might have shrugged my shoulders and said  maybe.

Even if so, I really think KM has my proxy on this issue: that good games are best served serving a variety of tastes.

Your thesis question was "should games have such skills?". I think they should. When you asked the question were you genuinely interested in hearing the positions of other posters to learn why they thing so? Or were you only interested in shouting them down? Because from the last quoted paragraph, that's how it's looking.

But maybe it's late and you are getting grumpy and you ought to try again in the morning?



> Again, back to the thunderstones, guns and psionics. Whether it's in stock fantasy or not doesn't matter. It's use, not presence.




To repeat myself from the last post, IMO something as ubiquitous in fantasy as capabilities represented by the craft and profession skills and adding as much flexibility to the game as those do certainly deserves a place in the core books more than thunderstones, guns, and even (yes) psionics.


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## Hussar (Oct 8, 2008)

Rechan, you are going to be batting against the closed window for a long time with this one.

This is precisely the same argument that was floated for ejecting the gnome.  Despite the fact that it was shown pretty clearly that very few people used the gnome, it should still be included because both gnome players obviously want it.

I admit, I don't agree with the argument either, but, that's how this goes.


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## Hussar (Oct 8, 2008)

Psion said:
			
		

> To repeat myself from the last post, IMO something as ubiquitous in fantasy as capabilities represented by the craft and profession skills and adding as much flexibility to the game as those do certainly deserves a place in the core books more than thunderstones, guns, and even (yes) psionics.




Ubiquitous?  Really?  How many protagonists from fantasy stories have craft or profession skills?  NPC's, sure.  But, then, with NPC's we don't need the rules in the first place.  But protagonists?  What crafting/profession skills did Aragorn or Gandalf have?  Conan?  Harry Potter?  Merlin?  Arthur?  Odysseus?  Captain Kirk?  

Crafting is something the sidekick, at best, does.  Usually it's some unimportant side character who does it.


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## I'm A Banana (Oct 8, 2008)

> Despite the fact that it was shown pretty clearly that very few people used the gnome, it should still be included because both gnome players obviously want it.
> 
> I admit, I don't agree with the argument either, but, that's how this goes.




Well, it should only be included if you feel that those two gnome players are important elements to your hobby and deserve some nod of support.

The movie industry considers little indie films to be very much an important element deserving of support, even if they only hit niche markets.

One reason for that is that if you don't cater to the niche yourself, someone else will gather together all the little niches and find a good way of catering to them like how cable TV did.

To recap, as I see it.
Rechan: Professin/Crafting skills...why does anyone need 'em?
Some Posters: Some play styles worry more about them than others.
Rechan: So what? MOST play styles don't worry about them
At least me: The idea that D&D should only support the broadest play style and completely ignore others has some very deep flaws.



> Crafting is something the sidekick, at best, does. Usually it's some unimportant side character who does it.




You vastly underestimate the importance of crafting to some players, and overestimate the amount of literature-emulation going on in D&D. 

I'll boil down to the following response:

Different strokes for different folks.

4e has chosen to, in this regard, not support one of those different strokes. Like tossing Gary Coleman out of that penthouse.

Is it really that hard to grok that some people enjoy playing crafty characters and that they would like a craft system that is more robust than DM fiat? Or that some DMs enjoy the granularity of some sort of craft system more than they enjoy makin' stuff up?


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## Hussar (Oct 8, 2008)

The problem becomes, where do you stop KM?  How small of a niche do you have to cater to before it becomes too small?

And, remember, if you cater to that niche, with rules that affect other rules, then you are forcing everyone to deal with this, not just the niche.  Crafting is perhaps not a huge deal since it's pretty easy to ignore. Same with profession.  But, it does stand out.

Why does my master weapon smith need to be 12th level after all?  The profession/crafting rules do have a pretty large effect on setting design.  It's adding more work for every DM out there, whether or not they choose to ignore that work is up to them, but, it's still adding more work.

All to cater to a small number?  I'm not sure if that's a good way to go.  Why not eject it from core and add it as a supplement?  If enough people want it, then fine and dandy.  But, why subject everyone to something only a small number of people want?


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## Imp (Oct 8, 2008)

The thing is, there are a lot of little niche playstyles, and when you get done carving off a bunch of 2-percenters, you wind up really shrinking the appeal of the game (or whatever).

Basically this is the platonic-D&D vs. toolbox-D&D argument.

I would imagine 4e is going to head more towards toolbox as more supplements come out, unless they've really got a game rigged up.


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## Psion (Oct 8, 2008)

Hussar said:


> Ubiquitous?  Really?  How many protagonists from fantasy stories have craft or profession skills?  NPC's, sure.  But, then, with NPC's we don't need the rules in the first place.




We are not in agreement on that point, as I state in the post you have quoted. But continuing...



> But protagonists?




The first one that flashes to mind is Taran from the Prydain chronicles.
Thence Durnik who is part of the "party" in the Belgariad.

Fantasy stories aside (which I could wield effectively to dismiss a lot of what goes on in 4e... but then I've long held that some things work well for books that don't work well for games and vice versa, so I'll decline using the IMO flawed argument of strict literary emulation), over the years I have had many players play characters who desired the ability to craft items or have unique professions. At least one per party in most parties.



> What crafting/profession skills did Aragorn or Gandalf have?  Conan?  Harry Potter?  Merlin?  Arthur?  Odysseus?  *Captain Kirk?*




Now you are treading dangerous water. The party is more than one person and the #2 on Star Trek is... Spock. What has spock ever crafted? Can you honestly have to gall to invoke Star Trek and not immediately think of what is perhaps the most famed episode of the series, _The City on the Edge of Forever_, wherein spock crafts an electronic device to determine the flow of history?



> Crafting is something the sidekick, at best, does.  Usually it's some unimportant side character who does it.




I'm glad my players don't have you to tell them what a proper "non-side" character should have for their skills.


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## Hussar (Oct 8, 2008)

> Now you are treading dangerous water. The party is more than one person and the #2 on Star Trek is... Spock. What has spock ever crafted? Can you honestly have to gall to invoke Star Trek and not immediately think of what is perhaps the most famed episode of the series, The City on the Edge of Forever, wherein spock crafts an electronic device to determine the flow of history?




But, is Spock's main role, or even a fairly minor role, one of building electronic devices?  It's perfectly reasonable that the Science Officer would have a pretty decent working knowledge of electronics.  So, his class "Science Officer" should include some abilities in that direction.  I'll agree with that.  But, do you really need an entire subset of skills and rules to govern this?

And, do you honestly think that the craft skills in D20 would allow you to do this?



> I'm glad my players don't have you to tell them what a proper "non-side" character should have for their skills.




The words that I type and the way people take them continually amaze me.

Where did I say anything about "proper"?  What I said was that much of fantasy fiction, it's the side characters who have any major crafting/profession skills.  Now, there are exceptions, Taran from the Prydain Chronicles spends some time as a potter and various other crafts.  That makes sense from the narrative.  

But, you bring up Durnik, who is a side character, certainly not the main.  Pretty much going with what I said.

And, really, yes, I agree.  There's a guy in just about every group who wants to craft something.  It was usually me.  I'm the one who would spend three NWP's to get Weaponsmithing or Armorer in 2e.  I'm the one who would spend skill points on Profession skills.  

But, I also realize that I was the ONLY one who was doing it.  There's five or six people at the table.  Should the rules cater to the four or five or the one?  Why force the DM to do extra work to make that one guy happy?


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## Goumindong (Oct 8, 2008)

Psion said:


> Can you honestly have to gall to invoke Star Trek and not immediately think of what is perhaps the most famed episode of the series, _The City on the Edge of Forever_, wherein spock crafts an electronic device to determine the flow of history?




quoted for posterity.

Look there is a fundamental disconnect here. You and KB simply cannot understand, for some unknown reason, that the rules you want are useless. They don't need to be defined because they don't come up, they're too specialized to be valuable and comparable to another skill, and when they do come up they are only to "justify" a useless option, something a DM can do just as well for a background description. Just like there is no skill "connections" whereby you have connections because you built them up earlier, but if they are in your background the DM can decide to reward you by incorporating it.[or people take them in order to break the game]

The real kicker is that they are easily done using the current mechanics. You want to make something? Great, its a skill challenge, you gain commensurate XP and reward for an encounter of your level. You lose time in the process. Its likely to use athletics, perception, insight, and endurance.[for a craft]

The challenge becomes a series of rolls that are defined by how your character completes the task rather than a single roll to determine whether or not you succeed. 

So this is pretty much it. These skills, profession, perform, and craft, serve no function in the typical game, can easily be replaced when necessary, and are only valuable to the game when the DM pulls them out of your back story to be used just like he or she would pull anything else out of your back story to use. They provide no benefit to a DM in helping him describe a world, since all interactions of entities that are not in direct conflict with the PC's occur at a value as determined by the DM anyway. Therefore, the only value that these skills have is to make your character worse at doing other stuff. It penalizes you for having a background that is defined in that certain way[in the case of perform it was a penalty to everyone but bards, which it was a similar penalty, except one required to use their class features, which is even more dumb] while offering no penalties for other backgrounds or backgrounds defined within the context of the useful skills as listed.


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## Psion (Oct 8, 2008)

Hussar said:


> But, is Spock's main role, or even a fairly minor role, one of building electronic devices?




I never said it was his main role. But as I amplified in an earlier post, I don't expect a single skill to cover the same importance to the character's role as the class does, and it's disingenuous to suggest that's what I am saying or have said since.



> It's perfectly reasonable that the Science Officer would have a pretty decent working knowledge of electronics.  So, his class "Science Officer" should include some abilities in that direction.




Sure: class skills.



> I'll agree with that.  But, do you really need an entire subset of skills and rules to govern this?




I've made it pretty plain that I believe so, yes.



> And, do you honestly think that the craft skills in D20 would allow you to do this?




Within the realms of technology considered permissible in the setting, why not? Spycraft would let you. It would be a gadget, and you can build it with science (which is for all intents and purposes Spycraft's "craft" skill.)



> The words that I type and the way people take them continually amaze me.
> 
> Where did I say anything about "proper"?  What I said was that much of fantasy fiction, it's the side characters who have any major crafting/profession skills.




In case it's not clear: yes, I think you are coming across as telling me (and anyone else who plays the game) that taking profession/craft skills is only fit for "sidekicks" (I guess NPCs in your lexicon.) I can't muster any other way to take it. It seems to be pretty much "what you are saying". What am I missing? You don't like the use of the term "proper"?



> And, really, yes, I agree.  There's a guy in just about every group who wants to craft something.  It was usually me.  I'm the one who would spend three NWP's to get Weaponsmithing or Armorer in 2e.  I'm the one who would spend skill points on Profession skills.
> 
> But, I also realize that I was the ONLY one who was doing it.  There's five or six people at the table.  Should the rules cater to the four or five or the one?  Why force the DM to do extra work to make that one guy happy?




There are 8 core classes in the 4e PHB and 11 in the 3e PHB. Yes, I think that one player out of 4-6 is worth catering. Especially considering that rule does double duty as being a basic system for handling common NPC capabilities.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 8, 2008)

> If you're using the Profession skill to judge a "devil vs guy fiddle contest", what the hell is the PERFORM skill then for?




Profession: _Musician Type X_ or Craft: _Musician Type X_ would be the skills involved in getting a gig, keeping your instrument in good shape or knowing the people who can, knowing the market for your skills, knowing whom you have to pay, who has to pay you what, or letting you judge the competence of another player.

Perform: _Musician Type X_ is the skill you have to deliver a quality musical performance- Talent + Practice + Willingness to get up on stage and play.


> Can you honestly have to gall to invoke Star Trek and not immediately think of what is perhaps the most famed episode of the series, The City on the Edge of Forever, wherein spock crafts an electronic device to determine the flow of history?




Or how nearly every Engineer or "egghead" in the series has at one point or another kluged together something to save everyone's bacon?

Besides, I know someone mentioned him before, but MacGyver is a quintessential crafting main protagonist.  Like him, John Doe tread similar paths.  Dr Who is another infamous gadgeteer and improviser.  Detective Goren is a veritable font of information regarding all kinds of arcane modern knowledge, especially languages, symbology and the like...much like Sherlock Holmes before him.  Other heroes who used their brains as much as or more than their brawn abound.

In addition, sometimes it makes the players feel good if THEY actually provide the critical insight that breaks open a particular mystery or conundrum with their background skills rather than having the DM reveal/solve it via some NPC ex Machina.

There are countless sequences in detective stories in which the protagonist seeks out a particularly skilled supporting character- typically a psychologist, coroner or computer specialist in modern dramas.  Why shouldn't the PCs themselves be able to feel the rush of advancing the plot?

...even if its by doing something as minor as recognizing that the pottery in the campsite didn't come from the local economy, but from far across the sea...revealing that perhaps someone is executing a sophisticated ruse.



> These skills, profession, perform, and craft, serve no function in the typical game, can easily be replaced when necessary, and are only valuable to the game when the DM pulls them out of your back story to be used just like he or she would pull anything else out of your back story to use.<snip>




Your experience obviously varies greatly from mine.  I'm hard pressed to think of a single campaign in 30+ years in which at least one player- not necessarily myself- made a serious contribution to the game with one of the skills you deem useless.


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## I'm A Banana (Oct 8, 2008)

> The problem becomes, where do you stop KM? How small of a niche do you have to cater to before it becomes too small?




I couldn't possibly answer that question. You're shooting the moon, here. 

All I'm concerned with is stating that some people like craft/profession systems, and those who do won't like that 4e doesn't have any. If it's important enough for them or combo'd with other things, it might turn them off 4e entirely. Certainly, it's one of the reasons I'm turned off of 4e. 

I am in no position to tell WotC what it should do. I am in a position to mention if I don't like something they do. As some shlub with an internet connection, like rest of us here, I can mention it up and down and no one can stop me. Watch this:

"I don't like that 4e doesn't have a profession/crafting system.""

Of course, I don't think anyone in this thread is in a position to tell WotC what it should do, so when someone defends ignoring some niche group with "Well MOST people don't like it!" then I need to point out at least one of the many, many flaws with the idea that what most people like should be the only thing made.

So I did.

4e hates crafting. It's a fair cop. FWIW, I don't think this is a permanent situation, because every edition has had SOME kind of crafting system in it sooner or later, and 4e has the better part of a decade ahead of it. It hasn't even BEGUN to try catering to random niches. 

It doesn't matter that most people don't like it. We'll still have it. It'll still eat up precious pagecount. People might even use it. I do hope that anyone reading this thread will understand _why that may be_.


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## Psion (Oct 8, 2008)

Goumindong said:


> quoted for posterity.
> 
> Look there is a fundamental disconnect here.
> 
> You and KB simply cannot understand, for some unknown reason, that the rules you want are useless. They don't need to be defined because they don't come up,




If there's a fundamental disconnect here, it is this:
The rules that you are telling me never come up, _come up_, with regularity in my games. Not amount of telling me it's not so will make it not so.



> The real kicker is that they are easily done using the current mechanics. You want to make something? Great, its a skill challenge, you gain commensurate XP and reward for an encounter of your level. You lose time in the process. Its likely to use athletics, perception, insight, and endurance.[for a craft]
> 
> The challenge becomes a series of rolls that are defined by how your character completes the task rather than a single roll to determine whether or not you succeed.
> 
> So this is pretty much it. These skills, profession, perform, and craft, serve no function in the typical game, can easily be replaced when necessary, and are only valuable to the game when the DM pulls them out of your back story to be used just like he or she would pull anything else out of your back story to use.




I consider that a totally inadequate solution that fails to model differences in character crafting capability in anything resembling a sufficient manner. The same character who is good at crafting pottery under this system is also good at crafting swords.


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## I'm A Banana (Oct 8, 2008)

> You and KB simply cannot understand, for some unknown reason, that the rules you want are useless. They don't need to be defined because they don't come up, they're too specialized to be valuable and comparable to another skill, and when they do come up they are only to "justify" a useless option, something a DM can do just as well for a background description. Just like there is no skill "connections" whereby you have connections because you built them up earlier, but if they are in your background the DM can decide to reward you by incorporating it.[or people take them in order to break the game]




And, apparently, you can't understand that the game you play isn't the game everyone plays.

Have fun in your little backyard, I've got the whole world to play in.


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## ProfessorCirno (Oct 8, 2008)

Someone in another thread stated that the biggest thing missing in 4e was inclusiveness - it knows exactly what it wants to be and have, and to hell with anything or anyone else - neither the game nor its fans want their support or patronage.  This thread really, really helps hammer that home.


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## Fenes (Oct 8, 2008)

Cadfan said:


> Craft and Profession skills were core, dude.  There is absolutely no reason, no possible justification, for believing that 3e was designed with the intent that you would throw out core skills.  Certainly you don't give one.  Those skills were carefully worked into the entire rest of the product line.




There's a fine line between "throwing out" and "not using". You could play 3E without any craft skill taken by any PC, or any craft check made by an NPC. You were not forced to take those skills.

But you could take them, and use them, if you wanted.

And that's one of the most important differences between 4E and 3E.


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## Delta (Oct 8, 2008)

Goumindong said:


> Look there is a fundamental disconnect here. You and KB simply cannot understand, for some unknown reason, that the rules you want are useless. They don't need to be defined because they don't come up, they're too specialized to be valuable and comparable to another skill, and when they do come up they are only to "justify" a useless option, something a DM can do just as well for a background description. Just like there is no skill "connections" whereby you have connections because you built them up earlier, but if they are in your background the DM can decide to reward you by incorporating it.[or people take them in order to break the game]
> 
> The real kicker is that they are easily done using the current mechanics. You want to make something? Great, its a skill challenge, you gain commensurate XP and reward for an encounter of your level. You lose time in the process. Its likely to use athletics, perception, insight, and endurance.[for a craft]
> 
> ...




This is the most perfectly disagreeable post I've ever seen at ENWorld. I am truly, mightily impressed that you've managed to craft a post wherein I disagree 100% with every single word. (Assuming it's not a spoof. I really thought it was to start with.)


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## vagabundo (Oct 8, 2008)

I'd prefer if crafting and profession - so vague and broken to me - had never been in 3e. My group never ever used them so they were a waste of space, cluttering up my PHB.

I am glad they were removed from 4e ans that the PHBI focus on what I consider core DND stuff. I might like to see them return in some usable form in the PHBII. I dont have anything against crafting or professions in DND, just the poor 3e implementation.

For the moment, if one of my players decides to craft something, it will be a long term skill challenge. So much more appropriate.

And if someone wants to be a sailor then they are a sailor and they can have all the normal associated with being a sailor, but built using their class/level/feats. If they want to do something sailory then the standard skill checks and challenges will work fine.


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## Goumindong (Oct 8, 2008)

Delta said:


> This is the most perfectly disagreeable post I've ever seen at ENWorld. I am truly, mightily impressed that you've managed to craft a post wherein I disagree 100% with every single word. (Assuming it's not a spoof. I really thought it was to start with.)




Not a spoof, but I am glad you have no argument with which to refute mine.



Psion said:


> If there's a fundamental disconnect here, it is this:
> The rules that you are telling me never come up, _come up_, with regularity in my games. Not amount of telling me it's not so will make it not so.





No, they really do never come up. They only come up when the DM specifically inputs said [usually ridiculous] situation into the game where it is unnecessary.

DnD is a game of solving problems. These problems involve figuring things out, going place, killing monsters, and taking their stuff. Anything that is not involved in that is extraneous and pointless.

I am perfectly comfortable saying that if you are in a situation where your "craft armor" check or "perform check" is necessary to advance the plot in a way that simply saying you can craft armor or that you can perform the DM is going out of his way to include a ridiculous situation or has done something wrong. Yes, bad wrong fun, that is you. Now, before you whine about that statement[and you will] consider this. You are taking DnD into an area it does not go. Its a game that figures heroic fantasy. Complaining that crafting and perform are not skills has the same validity as complaining that "craft(lie)", "Craft(plot device)", "Craft(tesla coil)" or that the game isn't taking place on an airplane where everyone got sick by eating the fish. As fun as roleplaying out National Lampoon's "Airplane" would be, its not DnD. And neither is crafting, profession, or perform.



> I consider that a totally inadequate solution that fails to model differences in character crafting capability in anything resembling a sufficient manner. The same character who is good at crafting pottery under this system is also good at crafting swords.



But fail to consider that that is pointless. You never have a "play off" with your musical instruments to determine the fate of the world. You never have a "craft off" to determine the fate of the world. This is not "Crossroads", and when it is your DM has made something ridiculous in order to make your otherwise useless skill choice have some meaning. When these things do matter, they can always be adjudicated in the same manner as any other background can be. If you have family in a town, that changes the plot. But you don't pay in skills for the fact that you have family in a town, you just do. By that same token, you do not need to have to pay in skills or even define how good a blacksmith you are, you are a blacksmith and that is good enough. If you need to make something that is important, the DM can easily use all the other skills at his disposal to have you create something. Insight to figure out what thing that needs to be made to convince someone. Perception to see the prongs on a lock so you can make the key. Endurance as you wrestle with the molten hot armor and bash it into the form you need. And of course, an appropriate gold allocation.

The key here is that cost in terms of skills to overcome the challenge has not been modified. Whereas with craft skills it has, oftentimes negatively, with regards to characters with backgrounds relating to defined skills.

These skills are never conflict resolution mechanics. The do not function in a useful manner where there is a sliding scale of challenge that must be overcome.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> Profession: _Musician Type X_ or Craft: _Musician Type X_ would be the skills involved in getting a gig, keeping your instrument in good shape or knowing the people who can, knowing the market for your skills, knowing whom you have to pay, who has to pay you what, or letting you judge the competence of another player.
> 
> Perform: _Musician Type X_ is the skill you have to deliver a quality musical performance- Talent + Practice + Willingness to get up on stage and play.




Actually no. That would be "Profession: Marketer" But of course both of those skills are pointless[as described above]. You are a hero saving the world, you will not ever need to test your ability to book a show, and if by some crazy stretch of the imagination that you do, you have plenty of other skills to make it an interesting skill challenge that your DM can actually describe in an engaging way



> Besides, I know someone mentioned him before, but MacGyver is a quintessential crafting main protagonist



MacGyver is also a Deus Ex Machina in the same way that wizards in most fantasy literature are not DnD PC's. They represent the guy who simply wins because of how awesome he is. The difference is that MacGyver is the Deus Ex Machina in a different genera.



> There are countless sequences in detective stories in which the protagonist seeks out a particularly skilled supporting character- typically a psychologist, coroner or computer specialist in modern dramas. Why shouldn't the PCs themselves be able to feel the rush of advancing the plot?



Because the PC's aren't plot devices. And, as already explained, when they are, its just the DM saying "i want you to be involved in the plot at this point", its not a challenge to overcome[if you fail, you just have seek out the plot device] its no different from the DM inserting someone you wrote into your background into the adventure. If its no different from that, then why does it need to be codified?


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## Zustiur (Oct 8, 2008)

To those that wish to remove craft and profession:
These two skill (sets) take up 2 columns in the players handbook. That's one page out of the entire book.

What do you feel should have been included INSTEAD? What is missing, that is of so much value that these two skills need to be axed?

Remember that 3E assumes monsters and NPCs will be following the same rules as PCs. So just think of craft and profession as NPC skills in the same way that expert is an NPC class. I don't see you raging against having NPC classes in the game, so I don't understand why you'd rage against having these two skills in the game.

If anything, having these two skills is more useful to the players than the aristocrat class or adept class is!


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## Fenes (Oct 8, 2008)

Zustiur said:


> To those that wish to remove craft and profession:
> These two skill (sets) take up 2 columns in the players handbook. That's one page out of the entire book.




Well said! I do not get this obessesion with page count and the cutting of "useless" stuff. If anyone who likes craft/profession skills isn't even worth 2 pages in the PHB then that says a lot about the thoughts behind the system. I dislike druids for example and don't use them, but I'd not begrudge anyone having their druid in the 3E PHB.


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## The_Gneech (Oct 8, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> And, apparently, you can't understand that the game you play isn't the game everyone plays.




No, it's the game _some people play_, isn't that enough? People who've since been effectively told to take a hike.

-The Gneech


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## Goumindong (Oct 8, 2008)

Zustiur said:


> To those that wish to remove craft and profession:
> These two skill (sets) take up 2 columns in the players handbook. That's one page out of the entire book.
> 
> What do you feel should have been included INSTEAD? What is missing, that is of so much value that these two skills need to be axed?
> ...




By the same token, since we are assuming that there is a length that the book "must be". What would you remove to add craft/profession?

People want to cut useless stuff because it clutters the system, it creates externalities with regards to choice and dilutes the value of roleplaying by giving mechanics that ought be the provision of player only a hard meaning.


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## vagabundo (Oct 8, 2008)

Fenes said:


> Well said! I do not get this obessesion with page count and the cutting of "useless" stuff. If anyone who likes craft/profession skills isn't even worth 2 pages in the PHB then that says a lot about the thoughts behind the system. I dislike druids for example and don't use them, but I'd not begrudge anyone having their druid in the 3E PHB.




I begrudge having stuff cluttering up the books, making it harder for me to access the information I do need from them. Craft/profession was a skill point hole in most games I'll wager. It was a poorly thought out system, the fact that some people could use them in their games does not alter my opinion. They probably should have been included in the DMG as a optional system. 

I'd rather they had not been included, but my main beef with 3e was how poor the page layout was, small font size and the inconsistencies with the quality of the rules - profession, grappling, disarm and sunder making my most hated list. The first page of every chapter would make my eyes cross. /RANT


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## Psion (Oct 8, 2008)

Goumindong said:


> No, they really do never come up.




Ah, I've been dreaming all these games. Thanks for that, I'll pinch myself next time a craft or profession skill comes up in a game.

Crap, I've got a pbp going on right now. OW!



> They only come up when the DM specifically inputs said [usually ridiculous] situation into the game where it is unnecessary.




1) The DM need not drive it. The profession and craft skills players pick often relate directly to their self realized actions during the game. A character who fancies himself a fletcher will make replacement arrows during the game; a character who has craft(poison) obviously intends to make use of the skill.
2) It need not be ridiculous at all. PCs don't exist in a vacuum. The reason for the PCs involvement in the game may be directly informed by the skill, or vice versa. Is it really ridiculous for a character to make use of profession(sailor) during a seafaring game? Or mining skill in a game in which the character is a miner whose co-workers unearth something better left burried. I find your supposition of how these skills are invoked to be at odds with the real games I have played that rather naturally involve these skills.
3) If you are trying to shame me for designing a game to address what players are actually interested in (as evidenced by choices made in character design), you'll have to try harder, because it's a valid and compelling technique. 



> DnD is a game of solving problems.




Absolutely. But AFAIAC, DMing that only accepts one solution to a problem is poor DMing. And players who can come up with interesting ways to make use of their resources are great players.



> These problems involve figuring things out, going place, killing monsters, and taking their stuff. Anything that is not involved in that is extraneous and pointless.




*For you.*

I think we have little further basis for discussion here. The game you want to play is not a game I would want to play; I find a game limited to killing things and taking its stuff unsatisfying.



> But fail to consider that that is pointless. You never have a "play off" with your musical instruments to determine the fate of the world.




Do you need to save the world? I'm not talking about a musician class here (though there is de facto one in the core in 1e/2e/3e, BID), or a crafter class or what have you? This is a skill, a minor resource of a character, something that is generally safe to allocate a few points to even accepting that you aren't going to have a critical use for it every game.

That said, are there not other challenges on the road? Can the characters not, for example, find it important to impress the emperor of a foreign nation in order to win his support? That's the stuff good stories and good gaming is made of AFAIAC.


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## Fenes (Oct 8, 2008)

Psion said:


> Do you need to save the world? I'm not talking about a musician class here (though there is de facto one in the core in 1e/2e/3e, BID), or a crafter class or what have you? This is a skill, a minor resource of a character, something that is generally safe to allocate a few points to even accepting that you aren't going to have a critical use for it every game.
> 
> That said, are there not other challenges on the road? Can the characters not, for example, find it important to impress the emperor of a foreign nation in order to win his support? That's the stuff good stories and good gaming is made of AFAIAC.




I had an adventure where the question of who would succeed to the throne of a faerie realm was settled by each contender choosing a champion for a dance competition, and the one whose champion won was crowned. It could have been poetry, music, or crafting too, depending on the background of the realm in question.
In one of the countries in my campaign, poets, actors and bards and other artists are very honored, and when the party visited they were taking part in the annual festival, acting on stage, and dealing with bards and other artists.


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## vagabundo (Oct 8, 2008)

Fenes said:


> I had an adventure where the question of who would succeed to the throne of a faerie realm was settled by each contender choosing a champion for a dance competition, and the one whose champion won was crowned. It could have been poetry, music, or crafting too, depending on the background of the realm in question.
> In one of the countries in my campaign, poets, actors and bards and other artists are very honored, and when the party visited they were taking part in the annual festival, acting on stage, and dealing with bards and other artists.




Skill challenge and pure roleplay. Really, skill challenges are far more appropriate than ranks Craft and Profession. 

I'm not arguing against having these two elements in the game or that they could not add to the game, but that the implementation in 3e was very poor, to the point of being a hindrance.

NOTE: I was initially very happy with craft and profession, like a lot of 3e rules, they read great.


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## Goumindong (Oct 8, 2008)

Psion said:


> *For you.*
> 
> I think we have little further basis for discussion here. The game you want to play is not a game I would want to play; I find a game limited to killing things and taking its stuff unsatisfying.




Stop the lying. That is not I you said and you know it. 

What is the game you want to play if it does not involve solving some amorphous problem that will involve figuring things out, going places, killing monsters, and/or taking their stuff.

What part of political intrigue requires that you be able to play an instrument or make an axe?

A: None, it has to be specifically ham strung into the campaign by your DM.



> 1) The DM need not drive it. The profession and craft skills players pick often relate directly to their self realized actions during the game. A character who fancies himself a fletcher will make replacement arrows during the game; a character who has craft(poison) obviously intends to make use of the skill.



Why? This is useless to the game. The game is not rolling to determine whether or not you make arrows and how many you make, that is ridiculous and pointless. You say you can make arrows and you make arrows because its financially inconsequential. Who cares except you? If you are the only one that cares, why does it need to be defined? Just say you make arrows and you make some arrows. Is your DM so anal that he needs to track the 10 GP you are going to save over the course of an adventure where you will gain hundreds of thousands of GP in wealth?

Same with craft(poison). Unless you are looking at getting something for "nothing". [which was already covered by the "just wants to break the game" stipulation that has already been mentioned, specifically with poison you are gaining combat actions which is even more of a problem.] 



> 2) It need not be ridiculous at all. PCs don't exist in a vacuum. The reason for the PCs involvement in the game may be directly informed by the skill, or vice versa. Is it really ridiculous for a character to make use of profession(sailor) during a seafaring game? Or mining skill in a game in which the character is a miner whose co-workers unearth something better left burried. I find your supposition of how these skills are invoked to be at odds with the facts.



Yes i find it ridiculous that a character would make use of the "profession(sailor)" skill during a sea faring game. Because during a seafaring game i would be expecting everyone would be a sailor and how good they were at doing the things that sailors do would be defined by the rest of your skills! No one is going to be sitting around determining how much money they get per week based on their skill, its pointless. Anything else is just abusing synergy bonuses[remember that thing about gaming the system?]

No one needs the sailor profession, you've got an entire set of skills right there that determine how good you are as a sailor, _use them_.



> 3) If you are trying to shame me for designing a game to address what players are actually interested in (as evidenced by choices made in character design), you'll have to try harder, because it's a valid and compelling technique.



Nope[also, please stop misrepresenting my position], i am trying to tell you that the design choice that requires said skills is stupid and bad. You can perfectly well address the interests of your characters and their backgrounds without these skills. But there is never, ever a need to roll die for a profession check. There is never, ever, a need to roll a die for a craft check. There is no difference between the DM making a situation where you can use your craft skill and the DM making a situation where you can take advantage of the long lost cousin in your background. In both instances the DM is going out of his way to make the situation conform to your background. In no instances do these situations ever come up in the normal progress of DnD. 

Such, if you have the option of "bringing in your background by specific intent of the DM" and "bringing in your background by specific intent of the DM" the option that doesn't involve making your character worse at everything else for no good reason is the ideal mechanical design choice to make for your game.



> Do you need to save the world? I'm not talking about a musician class here (though there is de facto one in the core in 1e/2e/3e, BID), or a crafter class or what have you? This is a skill, a minor resource of a character, something that is generally safe to allocate a few points to even accepting that you aren't going to have a critical use for it every game.
> 
> That said, are there not other challenges on the road? Can the characters not, for example, find it important to impress the emperor of a foreign nation in order to win his support? That's the stuff good stories and good gaming is made of AFAIAC.



These impressions are not achieved by achieving some random quaternary task that cannot be achieved in the same manner by simply using a different set of skills and then describing it as saying you did it by quaternary task. Its achieved by ANY task that the player so deems. Because of such, what the background is is immaterial, its pointless to be there, use your other skills to define how well you perform the action that you can do because of your background. 

E.G. you want to impress an emperor. You want to do it by playing a song, you want to do this because you said you play the lute. Well, you play the lute and now you have a skill challenge regarding your dexterity for finger placement, endurance or athletics for stamina, acrobatics or athletics for flourishes of various sorts, and insight to determine what he wants.

You are making a sword and you can do the same thing. The end result is that you get to use your background in a way to advance the plot just fine. But you don't need the skill to achieve the task, and the skills provided will actually do a better job of describing the action and defining the quality of the end result than a roll of a perform or craft skill will.

Maybe you need to get into a room, but the door is locked. Well you're a blacksmith. So you fool around with the lock and say that you want to craft a key. Well, its your perception or thievery roll that would let you know how to make the key. Boom you make the key, just as if you had picked the lock, though it probably too a bit longer.

Maybe you need to climb a cliff? Well, instead of climbing you want to make some stairs, it will take more time, but you were a carpenter and you're in the forest so you've got wood. Its endurance to get the work done, dungeoneering to make sure the planks are in the right space and wont fall out. History or Nature to select the right wood. Boom, now you've got a skill challenge the entire gang can take part in[someone has to find and collect the wood] and you can make your staircase. 

Maybe you need to navigate a channel? History, Perception, Athletics, Nature

Maybe you need to forge the mythical metal into a mytical sword? Athletics, Endurance, Arcana, Religion, Perception. A group without a smith would have to go find one of the proper caliber, which would be whole other skill challenge.

Maybe you need to go down a cliff, but you're a weaver and want to make a parachute? Arcana, History, Perception, Streetwise. 

etc etc etc

You don't need these skills.


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## Fenes (Oct 8, 2008)

vagabundo said:


> Skill challenge and pure roleplay. Really, skill challenges are far more appropriate than ranks Craft and Profession.
> 
> I'm not arguing against having these two elements in the game or that they could not add to the game, but that the implementation in 3e was very poor, to the point of being a hindrance.
> 
> NOTE: I was initially very happy with craft and profession, like a lot of 3e rules, they read great.




As was posted above - a number of people prefer that for quite a number of tasks, you need to be able to do the actual task. Handwaving skills may work for you, but not everyone shares this taste.

When it comes down to performing, I want performers on stage. All the skill challenge rolls of the world will not carry the day if the musician on stage can't carry a tune. Of course they may help - I use a system similar to skill challenges if appropriate - and add some (even hefty) modifiers, but without craft you'll not win a crafting competition in my game, without perform you won't win the bardic challenge.

As far as profession goes - in one of my campaigns, handling an up and coming merchant house is a big part of the game. Profession is very appropriate to reflect this part of a character.


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## Goumindong (Oct 8, 2008)

Fenes said:


> I had an adventure where the question of who would succeed to the throne of a faerie realm was settled by each contender choosing a champion for a dance competition, and the one whose champion won was crowned. It could have been poetry, music, or crafting too, depending on the background of the realm in question.
> In one of the countries in my campaign, poets, actors and bards and other artists are very honored, and when the party visited they were taking part in the annual festival, acting on stage, and dealing with bards and other artists.




So you created a situation that the players could not possibly succeed at unless they had chosen the right perform skill to put points into?

Why would you ever do that if it was something for your players to participate in if they didn't have that skill?

If it was something for them to watch, why bother having the skill? Are you rolling for your NPCs? Your players must really enjoy that scene...

What is the difference in execution if one of your players had in their background that they were a dancer rather than having the skill points?


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## Goumindong (Oct 8, 2008)

Fenes said:


> As far as profession goes - in one of my campaigns, handling an up and coming merchant house is a big part of the game. Profession is very appropriate to reflect this part of a character.




*No its not unless you don't do any roleplaying and just handwave how well you do because of a profession role. That is lame*

Bluff, intimidate, diplomacy, history, insight, streetwise, religion, arcana.

Skill challenges based on the challenges that you come across. These are skills that define the broad range of things you can do. _use them.

Use them while you are talking to people, negotiating deals, dealing with competitors, ironing out production efficiency problems. Etc etc etc.

_"Roll... you manage it well" is not fun, nor is it necessary.


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## AllisterH (Oct 8, 2008)

Fenes said:


> As far as profession goes - in one of my campaigns, handling an up and coming merchant house is a big part of the game. Profession is very appropriate to reflect this part of a character.




Again, this is what is so frustrating about this topic to me...

Isn't this handled better by focusing on the specific sub-skills INVOLVED? 

Trying to convince the local guild to allow you to setup shop?
Bluff, Knowledge (local), Diplomacy etc....

This isn't a case of a system not being able to do the job quite well. Infact, the 3E skill system by ITSELF can handle the situation better and in much finer detail and give more satisying results if you ditch Profession entirely.

To me, for Profession this ISN"T a 4e vs 3E debate AT ALL. Since for 3E, Profession didn't and actually made the skill system worse (I'm seeing lots of examples of being ignoring KNOWLEDGE.....) 

I'm not debating CRAFT at all, (I see points for and against its inclusion) but Profession, that stuck in my craw from the very beginning because of the way it works and how it plays havoc with the REST of the skill system...


re: Astrolabe
Knowledge (Geography) with an Astrolabe providing a circumstance bonus a la Master's tool for lockpicing. Remember, having 5 ranks in Knowledge (Geography) already explicitly gives you a bonus in not getting lost.

re: Fiddler's contest
The question was, how does Profession help you win a Fiddler's contest.

So let's see....

Knowledge (local) provides you with "what music to play" 
Perform (guitar) provides you with the ability to play that music

and Profession (guitarist) is about getting the gig? 

1. If their's a contest, you already HAVE the gig and 
2. This also is Knowledge (local) for finding out what's happening in the city/town/village...


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## Fenes (Oct 8, 2008)

AllisterH said:


> Again, this is what is so frustrating about this topic to me...
> 
> Isn't this handled better by focusing on the specific sub-skills INVOLVED?
> 
> ...




For single tasks, sure. But for checking how the character handles the day to day business, if the merchant house is doing generally good or bad this week, how much money comes in from the different parts of the house, profession fits best. And it can easily be part of a big number of skill challenges, opening options for the character.

What's so frustrating about having more options?


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## Fenes (Oct 8, 2008)

AllisterH said:


> re: Fiddler's contest
> The question was, how does Profession help you win a Fiddler's contest.
> 
> So let's see....
> ...




If you conside the fiddler's contest as less of a single roll, and more of a skill challenge, then profession (travelling minstrel) can offer more options. It also helps determining how much money was made during downtime, if you do not play out downtime. In the specific fiddler's contest, profession could help by setting up the performance, picking the best spot/time, and so on.

Will there be overlap? Of course. But is that a bad thing?

And when two bards "battle", all other things (Perform, Knowledge) being equal, the one with profession might have an edge.


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## Goumindong (Oct 8, 2008)

Fenes said:


> For single tasks, sure. But for checking how the character handles the day to day business, if the merchant house is doing generally good or bad this week, how much money comes in from the different parts of the house, profession fits best. And it can easily be part of a big number of skill challenges, opening options for the character.
> 
> What's so frustrating about having more options?





How the house does from day to day business should probably be a direct correlation to how the players handle the challenges for the business. If they do well, the business does well. If they do poorly the business does poorly.

How hard is that rather than making a character make a check and then have a bunch of other stuff the players do be immaterial?

If the game revolves around managing the business then the challenges are the "day to day business". If the game doesn't then the player is off doing something else and there is no reason he should be rolling these checks[and would be hiring someone to manage the business instead].


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## Psion (Oct 8, 2008)

Goumindong said:


> Stop the lying. That is not I you said and you know it.




Lying? That's a pretty stern accusation. Please stop with assumptions of malfeasance; accusations of lying is a good way to escalate hostility in an already heated discussion.



> What is the game you want to play if it does not involve solving some amorphous problem that will involve figuring things out, going places, killing monsters, and/or taking their stuff.




Let's examine what you did say...



> These problems involve figuring things out, going place, killing monsters, and taking their stuff. *Anything that is not involved in that is extraneous and pointless*.




Emphasis added. I never objected to the idea that "figuring things out, going places, killing monsters, and/or taking their stuff" is par for the course for a D&D game. I did say that alone _insufficient_ for me. You said, right there, that anything else is _extraneous_. I'm at a loss at how else to interpret your position.



> What part of political intrigue requires that you be able to play an instrument or make an axe?
> 
> A: None, it has to be specifically ham strung into the campaign by your DM.
> 
> Why? This is useless to the game.




I'm not going to sit here and repeat previous posts. I've already shown one way in which an instrument skill could be important to the political game, and I've already stated I don't see anything wrong in coming up with tasks to accommodate players in what they are interested in doing; applying unflattering labels to it is not going to change my position.



> The game is not rolling to determine whether or not you make arrows and how many you make, that is ridiculous and pointless. You say you can make arrows and you make arrows because its financially inconsequential. Who cares except you? If you are the only one that cares, why does it need to be defined? Just say you make arrows and you make some arrows. Is your DM so anal that he needs to track the 10 GP you are going to save over the course of an adventure where you will gain hundreds of thousands of GP in wealth?




I don't run all my games at high levels, and not all my PCs turn every campaign into an economic feasability study... thank goodness. I know plenty of players do, but I stand against that playstyle.

Are your PCs always in civilization where they can get what they want, whenever they want, with no time constraints? If so, I think you are missing out on some good gaming. Earlier you said that games are about solving problems. Survival scenarios are a staple in gaming and one of the quintessential problem solving scenarios. It's all well and good that you could order 100 silver arrows back in Waterdeep, but here, now it could be if you don't come up with some silvered weapons, the werewolf (or worse beastie) is going to take down the town.



> Same with craft(poison). Unless you are looking at getting something for "nothing".




If skill points are nothing, then why do object to players allocating them to activities they are interested in having the capability to do.

Skill points aren't "nothing". They are the same resource that let you notice danger, avoid being spotted, and know important facts about creatures you are facing.



> Yes i find it ridiculous that a character would make use of the "profession(sailor)" skill during a sea faring game.




Then we really have no more basis for communication. Nothing I say is going to convince you.



> Because during a seafaring game i would be expecting everyone would be a sailor




I've addressed this earlier, but to repeat: my practical experience with seafaring games shows this to be false.



> No one needs the sailor profession, you've got an entire set of skills right there that determine how good you are as a sailor, _use them_.




Your right I have something that handles sailor correctly: the profession sailor skill.

As was mentioned earlier by another poster (the Gneech?), profession is meant to cover tasks that don't fall under other skills. A seafaring game might call on you to climb a mast or balance on a deck. But how about securing sails or performing damage control? That's not in the existing skill set.



> Nope[also, please stop misrepresenting my position],




I said "if". Feel free to say "no, that's not what I meant". But calling me a liar is not conducive to a reasoned discussion and invites escalating tensions.



> You can perfectly well address the interests of your characters and their backgrounds without these skills.




No, not to my satisfaction, you cannot.



> But there is never, ever a need to roll die for a profession check. There is never, ever, a need to roll a die for a craft check. There is no difference between the DM making a situation where you can use your craft skill and the DM making a situation where you can take advantage of the long lost cousin in your background.




Yes there is. But you've chosen to label positive player usage, using resources they have paid for with their skill points, as "just wants to break the game". Tarred, feathered, dismissed.



> In both instances the DM is going out of his way to make the situation conform to your background. In no instances do these situations ever come up in the normal progress of DnD.




As to sentence 1, not far out of your way, and it's worth it's weight in gold in making characters unique and significant. For #2, my experience differs; player will actively find ways to use skills with little or no DM intervention.



> E.G. you want to impress an emperor. You want to do it by playing a song, you want to do this because you said you play the lute. Well, you play the lute and now you have a skill challenge regarding your dexterity for finger placement, endurance or athletics for stamina, acrobatics or athletics for flourishes of various sorts, and insight to determine what he wants.




This is a rephrase of an argument from the last post; my reply hasn't changed: this is inadequate because it fails to models potentially very different competencies.



> (snip more examples of the skill system the nature of which we've already seen in prior posts.)
> 
> You don't need these skills.




No, *you* don't need those skills. As already discussed, the lack of character distinction would make these solutions inadequate for me.

So what am I getting here? I'm wrong for wanting something different out of gaming than you? You don't get to dictate what I want out of gaming; it doesn't work that way.


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## Mallus (Oct 8, 2008)

Hello, my name is Mallus, and I'm an inveterate role-player (funny voices and all). But I don't need mechanical representation for every facet of my characters. I'm content with a lot of my character existing in my head and, of course, in my performance of him/her on game day. 

So I prefer a small list of broadly-applicable skills that focus on common adventuring task resolution. I can take or leave craft and profession skills. Mostly leave.


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## Psion (Oct 8, 2008)

AllisterH said:


> So let's see....
> 
> Knowledge (local) provides you with "what music to play"
> Perform (guitar) provides you with the ability to play that music
> ...




I wouldn't say a profession (guitarist) skill is needed; those two skill pretty much cover most tasks you would need to do the job.

I wouldn't say that about many other skills.

This isn't an all or nothing proposition. Discretion is permissible.


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## Fenes (Oct 8, 2008)

Mallus said:


> Hello, my name is Mallus, and I'm an inveterate role-player (funny voices and all). But I don't need mechanical representation for every facet of my characters. I'm content with a lot of my character existing in my head and, of course, in my performance of him/her on game day.
> 
> So I prefer a small list of broadly-applicable skills that focus on common adventuring task resolution. I can take or leave craft and profession skills. Mostly leave.




Hello. I am Fenes. I like options, variety, and flexibility in a roleplaying system. 

I can't take or leave crafting and profession and perform skills in 4E, since they were cut out.


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## ruemere (Oct 8, 2008)

Hello,

I'm a latecomer to this discussion, and I actually appreciate existence of Craft/Profession skills in game. My NPCs use them, players use them to earn a living, at various moments tasks requiring use of  certain skills pop up.

Their broad aspect helps with defining work/background experience for numerous characters.

According to REH, Conan C. was a son of blacksmit, by the way.

Regards,
Ruemere


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## vagabundo (Oct 8, 2008)

Fenes said:


> For single tasks, sure. But for checking how the character handles the day to day business, if the merchant house is doing generally good or bad this week, how much money comes in from the different parts of the house, profession fits best. And it can easily be part of a big number of skill challenges, opening options for the character.
> 
> What's so frustrating about having more options?




Just shoving in more options does not a good game make. 3e had piles and piles of crap, digging through it to find the gems took too long. I believe having more polish is better, I know some people like the flaws, believe the flaws give it character.

But the only thing Profession is good for is either high level money making - and you could make a lot more gold plundering a dungeon - or specific tasks related to that profession and then it stomps on the other skills toes. That is my main problem with profession: the stomping.

I'm glad you use it and enjoy using it, but I still believe it should have been an optional sub-system/mini game.


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## Fenes (Oct 8, 2008)

vagabundo said:


> Just shoving in more options does not a good game make. 3e had piles and piles of crap, digging through it to find the gems took too long. I believe having more polish is better, I know some people like the flaws, believe the flaws give it character.
> 
> But the only thing Profession is good for is either high level money making - and you could make a lot more gold plundering a dungeon - or specific tasks related to that profession and then it stomps on the other skills toes. That is my main problem with profession: the stomping.
> 
> I'm glad you use it and enjoy using it, but I still believe it should have been an optional sub-system.




Profession skills effectively _are _an optional subsystem. They can be dropped out of 3E without many troubles by any DM by simply not using them. Just like a class or race. No character is forced to take those skills.

They also do not take up much space, nor foprce themselves onto anyone. They make it really easy to drop them - like all good optional systems do.


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## Eridanis (Oct 8, 2008)

Goumindong said:


> Stop the lying. That is not I you said and you know it.




Goumindong, you need to step away from this thread. Please remember we try to keep discussion civil around here, no matter how strongly we feel about an issue.


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## Rel (Oct 8, 2008)

Lots of interesting replies since I was last able to visit this thread.

First of all, Guomindong, your posts are trending more and more toward the jerkish and you need to cut that out.  I GET that you think that craft and profession skills are not something needed in this (or any) RPG.  Since a great many RPG's see fit to include them then I would say that there is room for disagreement on the subject.  You stating categorically that this is essentially badwrongfun is not conducive to further conversation.  So knock it off.  You're plenty smart enough to have a reasonable discussion on the matter.

Personally, as evidenced by my earlier replies in this thread, I like the inclusion of such skills and was slightly (not majorly) disappointed that they were not included in 4e.  Enough so that I quickly thought up the house rule that I posted earlier in the thread.

But to clarify that position, I fully acknowledge the problems with the manner in which those skills were applied as part of the overall skill system in 3.x.  The problem, as many of you point out, is that those skills had to be bought with the same set of points that you bought the skills that see a lot more use in day to day adventuring.  So when you are faced with either maxing out your Spot skill or putting points in Basketweaving, while you might find the second more flavorful, you know that you're going to be making Spot rolls like every 10 minutes.

That is precisely why I suggested a house rule that was an adjunct to rather than replacement of the skills you could already select.  You are not sacrificing any of the skills that you would already be trained at.  These extra skills utilize the same mechanics of the current skill system but don't use up any of the finite resource that you already have to manage during character creation.

I like the sense of realism that I get from this because, in my experience, people tend to have skills and talents that fall outside of their work oriented skills.  Some tax accountants are great at basketball and some policemen are great at painting.  I don't expect for policemen to skip time at the shooting range honing a skill that might save their life in favor of painting a picture of flowers.  But it seems reasonable that they might develop such a skill outside the context of their normal (and vital) job skills.  Again, IN ADDITION TO not INSTEAD OF their other skills.

I take the point of those who say that the existing skills can be used to make Skill Challenges that model these things.  It's a totally fair position.  However I prefer an extra layer of specificity that brings greater enjoyment of the game *for me and my group*.

If I do not add on that extra layer then the rolls that I'd have somebody make for playing a set of drums is probably the same as I'd have them roll for playing a lute.  And that's totally fine.  But if somebody says, "I want my character to be really great at the Lute," then my house rule gives me a tool to let them.

Again, the retort to this is, "If they want to be great at the Lute then just let them succeed and not bother rolling."  If that's the way you would prefer to handle it then fine.  *For me and my group* the possibility of failure adds a tension to the game that is enjoyable.  It makes success all the sweeter and it makes the rare failures (because if you want to be great at the Lute then you probably don't fail often) memorable and the sorts of things where later the PC might return to that inn and redeem himself against his former opponent.  I think that's cool.  

I don't insist that you also think it's cool.

I DO insist that everybody remain respectful of one another in this thread.


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## vagabundo (Oct 8, 2008)

Fenes said:


> Profession skills effectively _are _an optional subsystem. They can be dropped out of 3E without many troubles by any DM by simply not using them. Just like a class or race. No character is forced to take those skills.
> 
> They also do not take up much space, nor foprce themselves onto anyone. They make it really easy to drop them - like all good optional systems do.




True enough, but back to my original point: they're cluttering up my 3e PHB!!! They should have been in the DMG or one of the splat books. 

I would actually like to see a revamped craft/profession system in the PHBII for 4e. One that does not have the flaws of the 3e system and is silo'd from the core adventuring skills.


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## Fenes (Oct 8, 2008)

Not everyone is making spot rolls every 10 minutes. Not everyone feels that putting points into spot instead of perform is worth it. And not everyone feels that having to sacrifice combat effectiveness to be able to do very well in other situations is a bad thing.

It all depends on playstyle, preferences, and the DM.


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## Fenes (Oct 8, 2008)

vagabundo said:


> True enough, but back to my original point: they're cluttering up my 3e PHB!!! They should have been in the DMG or one of the splat books.




That some people can't stand 2 pages out of 250+ "sacrificed" in order to have more options in the game for others is part of the reason we have edition wars, and complaints about hostility.



vagabundo said:


> I would actually like to see a revamped craft/profession system in the PHBII for 4e. One that does not have the flaws of the 3e system and is silo'd from the core adventuring skills.




I don't like siloing non-combat skills.


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## Rel (Oct 8, 2008)

Fenes said:


> Not everyone is making spot rolls every 10 minutes. Not everyone feels that putting points into spot instead of perform is worth it. And not everyone feels that having to sacrifice combat effectiveness to be able to do very well in other situations is a bad thing.
> 
> It all depends on playstyle, preferences, and the DM.




Absolutely.  The trick is that, even though my gaming group gets along pretty well and agrees on certain things (like the fact that rolling the dice with the possibility of failure is interesting) they are not in total lockstep.  I'm not going to ask them to choose between guns and butter.  I'm telling them that they can shoot their guns and still eat their butter.  Just not any and every flavor of butter that they want.

Damn, now I'm getting hungry.  Mmmm butter.


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## Dausuul (Oct 8, 2008)

Yeah, I'm going to have to come down in the "Profession is silly" camp.  Most of the tasks covered by Profession properly belong to other skills - Streetwise, Diplomacy, et cetera.

I'm with Rel; I would like to see a mechanical system for "background" stuff like Craft, but not purchased out of the same silo that you use to purchase adventuring skills. A separate list of "background skills" might not see much use in the game, but requiring everybody to pick X background skills would encourage players to think about their characters' back stories, and look for opportunities to use those skills.

As for "What if you roll a 1 on your Craft check?" - that's why we have the "take 10" rule.  Taking 10 should be the default for crafting.  Then your Craft skill simply determines what you do and don't know how to make.


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## Fenes (Oct 8, 2008)

Dausuul said:


> I would actually like to see a mechanical system for "background" stuff like Craft. I just don't think you should be purchasing Craft out of the same silo that you use to purchase adventuring skills. Maybe have a separate list of background skills. They might not see much use in the game, but requiring everybody to pick X background skills would encourage players to think about their characters' back stories, and look for opportunities to use their skills.




If the game is more than dungeon crawling then an adventurer needs more than "adventuring skills" to be effective. Part of my problem with 4E is that it is so fixated on one playstyle.


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## vagabundo (Oct 8, 2008)

Fenes said:


> That some people can't stand 2 pages out of 250+ "sacrificed" in order to have more options in the game for others is part of the reason we have edition wars, and complaints about hostility.




I have a big problems with the whole of 3e, but this thread is about craft and profession. And I feel they do not add enough - and cause enough confusion - to the character creation process and they should have been cut or moved.



> I don't like siloing non-combat skills.




I never said combat: adventuring.


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## Mallus (Oct 8, 2008)

Fenes said:


> If the game is more than dungeon crawling then an adventurer needs more than "adventuring skills" to be effective.



Sure, but the question is: how many of those need to be represented mechanically in the system. 



> Part of my problem with 4E is that it is so fixated on one playstyle.



That's true, 4e gives you far more rules for a few specific, styles of play. Just like its predecessors.


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## Mallus (Oct 8, 2008)

Fenes said:


> I like options, variety, and flexibility in a roleplaying system.



Me too. 



> I can't take or leave crafting and profession and perform skills in 4E, since they were cut out.



For my paladin/poet PC, I'm using alternating between Diplomacy and Intimidate checks to represent his Dragonborn love poetry (which combines lyricism with thinly-veiled threats of violence).


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## Zustiur (Oct 8, 2008)

Goumindong said:


> [/I]"Roll... you manage it well" is not fun, nor is it necessary.



To *you.* I get the distinct impression that you feel no-one is able to disagree with you on this issue.
I happen to find that "Roll... you manage it well" is very fun, particularly when it means you're then able to get on with the story instead of playing out 3 hours of dialog that has little or no bearing on the abilities your character actually has.

Craft and profession both have uses within the system as written. The fact that your games apparently ignore that and resolve the issue by player ability instead of character ability is not sufficient reason to alter the rulebook.



			
				AllisterH said:
			
		

> re: Fiddler's contest
> The question was, how does Profession help you win a Fiddler's contest.
> 
> So let's see....
> ...



I don't recall Profession guitarist being listed... I don't have 3.5 to hand, but 3.0 certainly doesn't list musician or instrument-ist under profession. That's separated out into perform.

To take the sailor example; 
Use rope does not mean you know how to rig a boat. 
Diplomacy does not mean you know the difference between port and starboard, or the meaning behind other nautical terms and phrases. It's to do with getting what you want from someone without offending them.
Balance does not mean you're accustomed to sea travel (have sea legs). 
Knowledge (geography) does not mention travel at sea, or navigation by stars.
And so on.

The professions fit between the other skills and glue them together, as they should. One thing that would have helped is a synergy statement - 
"If you have 5 or more ranks in profession (x), you get a +2 synergy bonus on Diplomacy checks and Gather Information checks when dealing with members of that profession."

I alluded to this up-thread. Knowing a profession, rather than a collection of skills, is highly valuable when dealing with people of that profession, as adventurers do. Particularly when trying to get information from the cook at the castle, or the fisherman who passes near the mysterious island, or the stablehand who works for Lord Badguy.

Think about the work you do IRL. Think about how you feel with talking to customers or clients who do not know what they're talking about in regards to your field of work. 
Sure, today's society preaches 'customer first' so we smile and get on with it, but we all groan inside. We're all happier to be helpful with someone who understands what you're telling them. The same therefore applies to NPCs.

The other example I gave was of espionage.
How do you pretend to be a waiter at the ball if you don't know the etiquette? The answer is badly. Regardless of your diplomacy or balance checks. The diplomacy might get you out of trouble after you've upset someone, but it won't keep you from being detected as a spy.

Sure you can swing an axe all day long against orcs, but do you know enough about felling trees to mingle with the lumberjacks without alerting the bad guys/monsters that there's an imposter?

You might be the proverbial horse whisperer, but do you know enough about working as a stablehand that you can walk in and steal the lord's horse without anyone noticing the extra person in the stable?

And finally, you may be a dab-hand at disguises, but do you have the bluff and profession skills required to actually fool anyone that you're Ringo the master brewer?

As with all rules in all editions, skills are what you (the players) make of them. If you choose to ignore the possibilities and uses presented here, it is little wonder that you think that they're useless.


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## vagabundo (Oct 8, 2008)

Mallus said:


> For my paladin/poet PC, I'm using alternating between Diplomacy and Intimidate checks to represent his Dragonborn love poetry (which combines lyricism with thinly-veiled threats of violence).




lol, I like this a lot, I'm sending this on to the dragonborn fighter in my group. He has already decided that Dragonborn are basically Klingons and this fits right in.


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## Wicht (Oct 8, 2008)

Add another vote to those that greatly appreciate the presence of crafting rules in 3e.  I like being able to know, at a glance, whether a PC is a better blacksmith than an NPC. The removal of the crafting rules is one of the unselling points of 4e to me.  

3e profession, I think most would acknowledge, could be done better but, as a concept, I'm still glad thats its in the rules.  

If I was going to rework profession, I think that what I would do is create a list of three or four skills that are interelated and if the character has those specific skills he has the skills for that profession.  Then weekly profession rolls could still be made and the bonus would be an average of the skills involved.  That way as well, if there is a specific circumstance where a roll is needed then the relevant skill could be used but for a more general, how much money in a week, the average of the skills would be used.


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## Fenes (Oct 8, 2008)

Mallus said:


> For my paladin/poet PC, I'm using alternating between Diplomacy and Intimidate checks to represent his Dragonborn love poetry (which combines lyricism with thinly-veiled threats of violence).




Doesn't work for me. 

As another point, skills are also a part of character customisation for me. Too much condensation and I start to feel like a clone.


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## Mallus (Oct 8, 2008)

Wicht said:


> 3e profession, I think most would acknowledge, could be done better but, as a concept, I'm still glad thats its in the rules.



See, now my take on 3e profession is that it's useless. As written, the only thing it's used for is to generate a little money per game week. That's it. Sure, there are a host of _implied_ uses for it, which also happen to overlap with other skills, but the rules-as-written offer no guidelines, advice, or actual _rules_ regarding that. 

Giving a character a Profession skill in 3e was like describing him as "fat" or saying "he likes wine". Mere description. Except that it cost a valuable, limited character-building resource (and yes, all but one of my 3e characters had Profession skills because it "fit" the character).


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## Fenes (Oct 8, 2008)

Mallus said:


> Giving a character a Profession skill in 3e was like describing him as "fat" or saying "he likes wine". Mere description. Except that it cost a valuable, limited character-building resource (and yes, all but one of my 3e characters had Profession skills because it "fit" the character).




Other aspects aside, such a distinction is important for some. I like having different characters, and spending "valuable skill points" on something not everyone has helps. 

For a more 4E point of view: Having to spend skill points on such skills makes the "non-combat roles" clearer. The performer, the crafter, the sailor are different from the adventurer.


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## Mallus (Oct 8, 2008)

Fenes said:


> Doesn't work for me.



Can I ask why not? Too elegant? 



> As another point, skills are also a part of character customization for me. Too much condensation and I start to feel like a clone.



That's fair, but the "clone" issue doesn't really affect me. My character are differentiated mainly through loud, daft personalities (and as much re-skinning of character abilities as the DM/GM/system will allow).


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## I'm A Banana (Oct 8, 2008)

Rel said:
			
		

> Absolutely. The trick is that, even though my gaming group gets along pretty well and agrees on certain things (like the fact that rolling the dice with the possibility of failure is interesting) they are not in total lockstep. I'm not going to ask them to choose between guns and butter. I'm telling them that they can shoot their guns and still eat their butter. Just not any and every flavor of butter that they want.




I'm pretty much with you on this. Yeah, one of the big flaws with the 3e system was that the resources you spent on being a blacksmith's son were resources you didn't spend on killing goblins. In the early game, this was supposedly acceptable, because it had a very "play to what the characters are" DM strategy behind it. But by the advent of 4e, much of that had turned into "accidental suck," because there's only so much catering a DM can do to skill points in Blacksmithing, while skill points in Spot get used almost whether you want them to or not.

An adjunct system is a very good, very solid idea.

Something that maybe replaces your class skill list with its own "Profession Skill List" would be a useful way to do a profession. Or the proposed system above of getting a "Profession Bonus" to certain skill checks works pretty nicely, too. 

Crafting might need a little more than that, but that's a solid start!

That said, the trade-off isn't worth it for some people. I'd much rather deal with 3e's minor skill problems by, say, giving automatic Spot ranks, then fix 4e's inclusiveness problem with a wholly new subsystem or two. But if some other party wanted to make 4e profession and craft rules, I might pick it up, and be more inclined to run and play 4e because of it. 

But for those who love 98% of 4e and just kind of miss the profession skill, these are pretty good ideas.


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## Fenes (Oct 8, 2008)

Mallus said:


> Can I ask why not? Too elegant?




No need for snark, please. 

I simply do not think diplomacy and intimidate should be able to replace a talent for art. Call me snobbish, but I don't want the same skills that make a good politician also make the character a good artist. There should be a trade off (a sacrifice in some eyes) to be good at something important. Performance, crafting, profession - those are important for me, and shouldn't be replaced with skills that also serve in important other roles, such as diplomacy and intimidate.


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## Dausuul (Oct 8, 2008)

Fenes said:


> If the game is more than dungeon crawling then an adventurer needs more than "adventuring skills" to be effective. Part of my problem with 4E is that it is so fixated on one playstyle.




Sure.  The thing is, though, every campaign will strike a different balance between - as Rel so succinctly put it - guns and butter.  That means that if you're picking "gun skills" and "butter skills" from the same silo, there will be balance problems in most games no matter what.  If I run a campaign that's mostly about guns, and you run a campaign that's mostly about butter, there is no balance the designers can strike that will work for both of us.

If guns and butter come from separate silos, the question doesn't even arise.  Everybody has guns and everybody has butter; they're no longer in competition.  My players may not use their butter-skills much, and your players may not use their gun-skills much, but nobody has to worry about trading effectiveness for character development.

Furthermore, a separate silo for butter-skills pushes all players to flesh out their backgrounds, which I think is always a good thing.  You can't make rules to mandate roleplaying, but you can nudge people in that direction.


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## Wicht (Oct 8, 2008)

Mallus said:


> See, now my take on 3e profession is that it's useless. As written, the only thing it's used for is to generate a little money per game week. That's it.




Hrrm.  My daughter's wizard, having bought a tavern is making a pretty nice little income on those days she's not adventuring (100-300 gp+ a week).  She also has her cooking maxed out and is continually eager to make her weekly check for profit.  Her goal in adventuring is to finish making the payments on the tavern.  Her goal with the tavern is to provide income to supplement her magical research and pay for new magical creations.  

Now, sure, I could handwave away the rules and just say, you're making 200 gp a week.  Or I could say, you lost 200 gp this week.  One the one hand, I would feel like I was just giving her money.  On the other, she would feel like I was making running the business undesireable on purpose.  Her putting lots of skill points into both crafting and profession lets me, as a DM know, that she really cares that her character knows how to do these things.  Having her make a random skill roll means that as a DM, I'm not playing favorites or giving unwarranted monetary gifts.  

If you feel that the craft or profession rules are stealing valuable adventuring resources, my own houserule before beginning to playtest the PFRPG rules was that each character was allowed one extra skill point per level but it had to be used in a craft, professions, or Knowledge (local, religion, nature, history, geography) skill.  Problem solved.


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## Rallek (Oct 8, 2008)

The way that I use profession/craft skills in my games is (roughly) as follows;

Let's take the popular choice of sailor. What does taking profession(sailor) actually mean in terms of the character's abilities? In short, it makes the character familiar with and capable of executing the tasks common to the operation of a sailing vessel. This undoubtedly covers a number of things that are also expressed as separate skills, such as rope use, climb, and balance. So does the sailor in effect get these three skills for free? In my games no, and here's why.


If we read the “Character Skills” text that is broken out at the bottom of page 62 in the 3.5 player's handbook, we come across a quote that, to me, is very important here; “Performing routine tasks in normal situation is generally so easy that no check is required.” In this context what profession skills do is to expand the definitions of “routine task” and “normal situation” for the character in question. Is tacking against the wind or executing a gybe a routine task? For your average rogue, no, for one with profession(sailor), absolutely.

As far as the aforementioned “free skills” go, can the sailor tie exotic knots, climb through the rigging, and keep his balance on a heaving deck, sure. But that doesn't mean that he can scale a stone wall as if he had the climb skill, nor does he have any advantage at setting a grappling hook, binding an angry orc chieftain, or crossing a chasm on a beam three inches wide. The profession(sailor) skill grants him proficiency with climbing, uses of rope, and balance only in so far as they relate to the practice of sailing.

Let's say that on board a ship a character with profession(sailor) and one with ranks in use rope are securing some lines. The sailor has no need to roll a check, this is for him a routine task in a normal situation. The character with use rope has to make a check, even if only to state that they are “taking ten”, because while their skill at using rope may make this a rather trivial task, it is still outside of “normal” for them.  

So when and why does a character with profession(sailor) roll that particular skill? Let's say that your ship is facing into a hurricane west wind, and you're trying to make it to Whitefish Bay... this could end badly, time to roll that skill check. If no one in your party has the skill, you'd better hope that you hired some good sailors. For a less fatal example, let's say that you wanted to race another ship, or coax some extra speed out of your vessel to shorten a journey, this is also an excellent time for a profession check.


Craft skills work similarly, anyone with skill in blacksmithing for instance, can service basic equipment and turn out horseshoes, nails and the like if need be, as to him these are routine tasks in a normal situation. If it becomes important to know exactly how quickly a character makes a given item, or if the item is more complex/specialized then it's time to roll a craft check. 



As far as how often these skills are used in my games, I can honestly say that in all the years I've run D&D games, I can't recall a single campaign in which no characters took a craft skill. There have been several instances in which no one selected a profession skill, but this is the exception rather than the rule.


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## AllisterH (Oct 8, 2008)

Zustiur said:


> To take the sailor example;
> Use rope does not mean you know how to rig a boat.
> Diplomacy does not mean you know the difference between port and starboard, or the meaning behind other nautical terms and phrases. It's to do with getting what you want from someone without offending them.
> Balance does not mean you're accustomed to sea travel (have sea legs).
> ...




Why would you use Diplomacy for that when it is covered by one of the Knowledge sub-skills.

The problem isn't that Balance doesn't cover sea legs (Er, looking at the Balance skill again, if it doesn't cover sea legs, what the hell does it cover then?)

It's the fact that you can apply Profession (Sailor) to the other SUB-skills and basically "cheat" the system.

As an aside, it should be pointed out that MOST sailors actually couldn't navigate either. Most deckhands had rudimentary reading skills. 

Furthermore, the SRD defines "directions" under survival (Knowledge -geography provides a synergy bonus) as the Survival skill is the skill you roll against to both determine Weather conditions for the next 24 hours AND directions...

In fact, so I was wrong...

Profession (sailor) not only makes Use Rope, Balance, Climb less valuable skills but also Survival and Knowledge (Nature)....

re: Profession (waiter)
Um, you're actually spending skill points in this? Never mind that the scenario you listed is covered by either Disguise and/or Perform (Acting), and/or Knowledge (Nobility and Royalty).   

The 3E system has such fine granularity that a BROAD skill like Profession sticks out horribly.

As an aside, would anyone allow this in the game, Profession (Circus/Carnival Performer or Court Jester). Circus performers are one of the oldest professions in medieval life and also one that I think is actually more common to appear as background fluff in modules than say Sailors.

Even before we had many other professions, theee were travelling carnivals so does this mean that I get to "cheat" out by not spending points on the skills like Tumble and Balance?


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## Psion (Oct 8, 2008)

Mallus said:


> See, now my take on 3e profession is that it's useless. As written, the only thing it's used for is to generate a little money per game week. That's it. Sure, there are a host of _implied_ uses for it, which also happen to overlap with other skills, but the rules-as-written offer no guidelines, advice, or actual _rules_ regarding that.




Skills in general were a great opportunity in 3e that I generally feel was underplayed. Having played skills based games for years, I've always found the attitude that if there's not a printed use and DC for something you could do with a skill more than a bit baffling.

I'd like to say "the DMG says you can do this" to make it explicit, but I honestly don't know if it does. Generating your own tasks/DC is just something that is so obviously in the GM purview to me I never really looked for rules affirmation in 3e.


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## Bluenose (Oct 8, 2008)

Zustiur said:


> To take the sailor example;
> Use rope does not mean you know how to rig a boat.
> Diplomacy does not mean you know the difference between port and starboard, or the meaning behind other nautical terms and phrases. It's to do with getting what you want from someone without offending them.
> Balance does not mean you're accustomed to sea travel (have sea legs).
> ...




Profession (Sailor) doesn't mean you can do any of those things. It means that after one week working as a sailor you get:


> *Check*
> 
> You can practice your trade and make a decent living, earning about half your Profession check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work. You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the profession’s daily tasks, how to supervise helpers, and how to handle common problems.




If you assume anything beyond that you're going past what the rules say into GM discretion, which it's perfectly possible to do in any edition.

My personal opinion on profession as written is that it was one of the stupidest skills in the game. It doesn't give you any particular abilities you can use even when doing something that would be appropriate. And why would anyone assume that someone with Profession (Merchant Prince) and someone with Profession (Dirt Farmer) would have incomes that were within the same order of magnitude. Though it is a nicely communistic approach to income.


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## Wicht (Oct 8, 2008)

Rallek said:


> If we read the “Character Skills” text that is broken out at the bottom of page 62 in the 3.5 player's handbook, we come across a quote that, to me, is very important here; “Performing routine tasks in normal situation is generally so easy that no check is required.” In this context what profession skills do is to expand the definitions of “routine task” and “normal situation” for the character in question. Is tacking against the wind or executing a gybe a routine task? For your average rogue, no, for one with profession(sailor), absolutely.
> 
> As far as the aforementioned “free skills” go, can the sailor tie exotic knots, climb through the rigging, and keep his balance on a heaving deck, sure. But that doesn't mean that he can scale a stone wall as if he had the climb skill, nor does he have any advantage at setting a grappling hook, binding an angry orc chieftain, or crossing a chasm on a beam three inches wide. The profession(sailor) skill grants him proficiency with climbing, uses of rope, and balance only in so far as they relate to the practice of sailing.




Good stuff.  My main quibble would be that the practice of tying knots on ship actually makes one very good at tying knots offship.  My Grandfather was in the merchant marines and his knot tying skills were always excellent, even if it was cows he was tying up.


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## Fenes (Oct 8, 2008)

Dausuul said:


> Sure.  The thing is, though, every campaign will strike a different balance between - as Rel so succinctly put it - guns and butter.  That means that if you're picking "gun skills" and "butter skills" from the same silo, there will be balance problems in most games no matter what.  If I run a campaign that's mostly about guns, and you run a campaign that's mostly about butter, there is no balance the designers can strike that will work for both of us.




Why? In any decent group, people will know what comes up. Just as the DM tells the ranger that taking favored foe: Goblin won't be of much use in the campaign he can tell people that profession: Sailor might be a good or bad choice. In a long.running group, people know what to expect, more or less,a nd can spend their points accordingly. A system therefore can be balanced with offering different skills, the players adjust to the different specific campaigns by picking different skills for each campaign.



Dausuul said:


> If guns and butter come from separate silos, the question doesn't even arise.  Everybody has guns and everybody has butter; they're no longer in competition.  My players may not use their butter-skills much, and your players may not use their gun-skills much, but nobody has to worry about trading effectiveness for character development.




Sorry, but I disagree. As I said, I consider those skills as important, so just as a character needs to decide whether to be a striker/defender/whaever, they need to decide how effective they will be in other aspects - they can't be good in all aspects.



Dausuul said:


> Furthermore, a separate silo for butter-skills pushes all players to flesh out their backgrounds, which I think is always a good thing.  You can't make rules to mandate roleplaying, but you can nudge people in that direction.




Craft, perform and profession are not "Background skills" in my campaign. They are as important as sword skills. They are much or little tied to a character's background as the combat skills and class and race choices.


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## Mallus (Oct 8, 2008)

Wicht said:


> Hrrm.  My daughter's wizard, having bought a tavern is making a pretty nice little income on those days she's not adventuring (100-300 gp+ a week).



That's cool. I'm a big fan of adventurers with mixed mundane/heroic goals.



> She also has her cooking maxed out and is continually eager to make her weekly check for profit.



Which still nets the character an insignificant amount of money, at least by the RAW (half her Profession check). 



> Her goal in adventuring is to finish making the payments on the tavern.  Her goal with the tavern is to provide income to supplement her magical research and pay for new magical creations.



Again, great stuff. 



> Now, sure, I could handwave away the rules and just say, you're making 200 gp a week.



Aren't you handwaving it? Where did you get that 100-300+ gp income figure from?



> If you feel that the craft or profession rules are stealing valuable adventuring resources, my own houserule before beginning to playtest the PFRPG rules was that each character was allowed one extra skill point per level but it had to be used in a craft, professions, or Knowledge (local, religion, nature, history, geography) skill.  Problem solved.



It doesn't really solve the problem, it just alleviates it slightly. A real solution would involve a better costing of the various skills, with some being "expensive" and other nearly "free". Of course, this would be more cumbersome, and frankly, not worth the effort. I prefer to make do with a simplified skill list and some handwaving.


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## Rallek (Oct 8, 2008)

Wicht said:


> Good stuff.  My main quibble would be that the practice of tying knots on ship actually makes one very good at tying knots offship.  My Grandfather was in the merchant marines and his knot tying skills were always excellent, even if it was cows he was tying up.




Thank you.

Yes, it is not 100% consistent to say that you can only tie sailing related knots, but it would seem to be a conceit of the system, and one that has to be reluctantly accepted as a kind of gameplay or balance issue. 

At the end of the day I wouldn't think that it was any more game-world breaking than daily combat powers, or growing more slots for magic items.


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## AllisterH (Oct 8, 2008)

Psion said:


> Skills in general were a great opportunity in 3e that I generally feel was underplayed. Having played skills based games for years, I've always found the attitude that if there's not a printed use and DC for something you could do with a skill more than a bit baffling.
> 
> I'd like to say "the DMG says you can do this" to make it explicit, but I honestly don't know if it does. Generating your own tasks/DC is just something that is so obviously in the GM purview to me I never really looked for rules affirmation in 3e.




Here's where I agree with you.

I think there was short rift given to skills in 3.x but that wasn't because of Profession. Profession IMO, was one of the problems in keeping the skills from being used more....


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## Set (Oct 8, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Yeah, one of the big flaws with the 3e system was that the resources you spent on being a blacksmith's son were resources you didn't spend on killing goblins.




The irony being that almost all of the non-Craft/Profession skills are equally useless at killing goblins.  Diplomacy to talk them to death?  Climbing to, uh, carry them up to a high place and drop them from?  Move Silently to sneak around and avoid combat entirely?

But with a nice craft skill, one can whip up a suit of armor or masterwork weapon for half cost and end up being a more efficient goblin-killer.

Profession skills may not be great at goblin-killing, but Craft (alchemy) is going to make that Alchemist's Fire, that's going to kill a heck of a lot more goblins than your Knowledge (religion) or Disable Devices skills.  The mechanical effects (half price goods) are better than almost every other skill, from a min-max perspective.


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## Rallek (Oct 8, 2008)

Fenes said:


> Why? In any decent group, people will know what comes up. Just as the DM tells the ranger that taking favored foe: Goblin won't be of much use in the campaign he can tell people that profession: Sailor might be a good or bad choice. In a long.running group, people know what to expect, more or less,a nd can spend their points accordingly. A system therefore can be balanced with offering different skills, the players adjust to the different specific campaigns by picking different skills for each campaign.





I'm going to have to disagree with you slightly here. As the DM I only really know where the campaign is going to start, and where I INTEND for it to go... but no plot really survives contact with the players intact. 

For instance, in the campaign before last, the players took a plot related trip across an ocean. As soon as they finished up their immediate business there, they promptly decided to fall in love with the sea and turn pirate for awhile. The next several months worth of sessions were spent running down merchant vessels, avoiding the law, hired mercenaries and other pirate ships, while seeking a safe port of harbor and trying to expand their operations. Great fun was had, but I had in no way intended for the game to go all mariner on me like that.

Every single character ended up taking ranks in profession(sailor), though I think it was re-skinned as profession(pirate).


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## Psion (Oct 8, 2008)

AllisterH said:


> Even before we had many other professions, theee were travelling carnivals so does this mean that I get to "cheat" out by not spending points on the skills like Tumble and Balance?




I'll reiterate The Gneech's stance here, as it mirrors my own:



The_Gneech said:


> Okay, to knock some silliness out of the way right off the bat:
> 
> If somebody with Profession (Sailor) wants to climb a rope, that person makes a Climb check. Profession (Sailor) is for things that don't have other skills already, like using an astrolabe.




If a profession is such that it's handled by the more specific skills, there's no need for the profession skill AFAIAC. I don't need Profession (Wilderness Guide); survival and climb pretty much cover it.


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## Wicht (Oct 8, 2008)

Mallus said:


> Aren't you handwaving it? Where did you get that 100-300+ gp income figure from?




I asked for input over at Paizo for rules on running an inn.  It was suggested that the DMGII had rules and though I don't have the book, someone else summarized and we came up with a system using what was supplied.  



Mallus said:


> It doesn't really solve the problem, it just alleviates it slightly. A real solution would involve a better costing of the various skills, with some being "expensive" and other nearly "free". Of course, this would be more cumbersome, and frankly, not worth the effort. I prefer to make do with a simplified skill list and some handwaving.




I'm not sure why it doesn't solve the problem.  It worked for us.

Still I'm happy that you are happy with a simplified skill list and some handwaving.  I on the other hand am happy with a broader skill list and more dice rolling.


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## Rallek (Oct 8, 2008)

AllisterH said:


> As an aside, would anyone allow this in the game, Profession (Circus/Carnival Performer or Court Jester). Circus performers are one of the oldest professions in medieval life and also one that I think is actually more common to appear as background fluff in modules than say Sailors.
> 
> Even before we had many other professions, theee were travelling carnivals so does this mean that I get to "cheat" out by not spending points on the skills like Tumble and Balance?






I would indeed allow you to take this profession in game. You could use it to cut many a-caper, take some pratfalls, and even to do some flips and/or stand on your head to earn a laugh and some coin from the crowd. As per my previous post, however, this would not allow you to use circus performer to perform a discreet application of another skill in a venue not directly related to performing for a crowd circus style.


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## Storm Raven (Oct 8, 2008)

Rechan said:


> Well I put forward that there's no need to have a mechanic to determine if he rolled a 1 or not when trying to put it together.
> 
> I say just announce "Okay, you make it. Pay x gold." X may be 1/2 market price or whatever you want.
> 
> ...




Using that logic, why do you need any rules at all?


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## Mallus (Oct 8, 2008)

Psion said:


> Skills in general were a great opportunity in 3e that I generally feel was underplayed.



Agreed. 



> Generating your own tasks/DC is just something that is so obviously in the GM purview to me I never really looked for rules affirmation in 3e.



Oh sure... but I'm not talking about looking for or even needing rules affirmation for skill uses. I was talking about Profession being useless and/or problematic (in that it often works like a bundle of context-related skills rather than a single skill) as written. 

I don't have any trouble using skills in 3e... I just wish the system was better designed.


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## Mallus (Oct 8, 2008)

Wicht said:


> I asked for input over at Paizo for rules on running an inn.  It was suggested that the DMGII had rules and though I don't have the book, someone else summarized and we came up with a system using what was supplied.



Ah... okay. My comments where meant for Profession in the RAW.



> I'm not sure why it doesn't solve the problem.  It worked for us.



Cool. Come to think of it, I did much the same, giving out more skill points and adding certain skills to all class lists. Still, I can't help but feel that the 3e RAW essentially penalizes someone for trying to give their character a fuller, more colorful background.


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## Mallus (Oct 8, 2008)

Fenes said:


> No need for snark, please.



Sorry. 



> I simply do not think diplomacy and intimidate should be able to replace a talent for art.



Fair enough... I was happy with a simple, workable solution. Plus, in this case, the lacuna in the rules led me to a fun bit of characterization; that Dragonborn love poetry is full of threats.


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## Wicht (Oct 8, 2008)

Mallus said:


> Ah... okay. My comments where meant for Profession in the RAW.




Well you did ask how we arrived at the amount we did without 'handwaving' and I explained it.

I'll admit that 3e profession by the SRD core rules is a bit... subject to quirky happenings.  Its odd that a sailor can earn the same amount of money in a week as an innkeeper running the most successful inn in town.  The DMG II however does seem to address this somewhat.  

I think that profession is a spot in the 3e rules that could use a real face-lift and I was heartened when James Jacobs told me he would like better rules in PFRPG for running businesses.


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## Dausuul (Oct 8, 2008)

Fenes said:


> Why? In any decent group, people will know what comes up. Just as the DM tells the ranger that taking favored foe: Goblin won't be of much use in the campaign he can tell people that profession: Sailor might be a good or bad choice. In a long.running group, people know what to expect, more or less,a nd can spend their points accordingly. A system therefore can be balanced with offering different skills, the players adjust to the different specific campaigns by picking different skills for each campaign.




This completely misses the point.  You have to pay X amount of character resources (in this case, skill points/trained skills) to learn a given skill.  If you're paying for adventuring skills and non-adventuring skills out of the same pool of resources, then the game designers must set the relative value of adventuring and non-adventuring skills; in essence, deciding what the "standard" ratio of adventuring to non-adventuring should be.

Any DM who deviates from that standard ratio is going to end up with a situation in which players are punished for picking the "wrong" skills, and pretty much depend on the DM to tell them how to make their characters.  That's a lousy way to design a system.



Fenes said:


> Sorry, but I disagree. As I said, I consider those skills as important, so just as a character needs to decide whether to be a striker/defender/whaever, they need to decide how effective they will be in other aspects - they can't be good in all aspects.




You know, bringing up the striker/defender/controller/leader roles is an interesting angle here... because the goal of defining those roles was to ensure that everyone had something effective to do in a fight.  You have the choice to be a heavy melee brute, a nimble archer, or a pyromaniac spellslinger, but regardless of which you choose, you're going to have something effective to do when a fight breaks out.  The choice you specifically do _not_ have is whether to be good at combat.  There is no "noncombatant" role.

I see it the same way with separating out adventuring from non-adventuring skills.  You have the choice to be a blacksmith or a sailor or a minstrel or a soldier (that last one being defined by knowledge of military tactics, siege weaponry, logistics, and so forth).  What you do _not_ have is the choice to trade out having a more well-rounded character for being a more effective adventurer... or vice versa.


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## Wicht (Oct 8, 2008)

Dausuul said:


> The choice you specifically do _not_ have is whether to be good at combat.  There is no "noncombatant" role.




Which is another nonselling point with me.  But thats a tangent from the real topic.  

Doesn't it make sense that the guy who practices all his life swinging a blade and picking locks is not going to be as good at cooking as the guy who trained for little else.  

I like the fact that if a character wants to sacrifice lock picking skills for cooking skills that option is available to them.


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## Storm Raven (Oct 8, 2008)

Wicht said:


> Good stuff.  My main quibble would be that the practice of tying knots on ship actually makes one very good at tying knots offship.  My Grandfather was in the merchant marines and his knot tying skills were always excellent, even if it was cows he was tying up.




I came up with a collection of synergy bonuses that various craft, knowledge, and profession skills would apply to other skills - on the theory that a sailor was probably going to be really good at knots and so on. So having ranks in Knowledge: Law gave you a bonus to Profession: Barrister and things like that.


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## Delta (Oct 8, 2008)

Psion said:


> I'd like to say "the DMG says you can do this" to make it explicit, but I honestly don't know if it does. Generating your own tasks/DC is just something that is so obviously in the GM purview to me I never really looked for rules affirmation in 3e.




It does say that, right in the 3E PHB "Profession" entry (I quoted it earlier).


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## Fenes (Oct 8, 2008)

Dausuul said:


> You know, bringing up the striker/defender/controller/leader roles is an interesting angle here... because the goal of defining those roles was to ensure that everyone had something effective to do in a fight.  You have the choice to be a heavy melee brute, a nimble archer, or a pyromaniac spellslinger, but regardless of which you choose, you're going to have something effective to do when a fight breaks out.  The choice you specifically do _not_ have is whether to be good at combat.  There is no "noncombatant" role.
> 
> I see it the same way with separating out adventuring from non-adventuring skills.  You have the choice to be a blacksmith or a sailor or a minstrel or a soldier (that last one being defined by knowledge of military tactics, siege weaponry, logistics, and so forth).  What you do _not_ have is the choice to trade out having a more well-rounded character for being a more effective adventurer... or vice versa.




Which illustrates my point: I want a game where you have not seperate combat and non-combat skill point pools, but where you have to make trade offs - be the best fighter you can be, and less of a blacksmith, and vice versa.

The DM can - and for my games should - make either character equally worthwile.

A game where you don't have trade-offs for non-combat skills is not for me.


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## I'm A Banana (Oct 8, 2008)

> The DM can - and for my games should - make either character equally worthwile.




This, as far as I can tell, was pretty much 3e's philosophy on it.

That does put kind of a burden on the DM, though. They have to pay close attention to the PC abilities and actively work to include them.

And when the DM didn't do that, it lead to "accidental suck." Because the DM was playing to what the DM wanted to play, not to what the players designed their characters for.

There's also the "sandbox style" reason of some skills are some times going to be more useful than others. If you took ranks in Profession (sailor) but are in a desert, it won't do you any good, and if you're at sea in a boat, it'll help you a lot. The DM doesn't take your ability into account (though you have the ability to go wherever your ability might be more useful, in general). 

Personally, I prefer a system that is divorced from that, since it allows me as a DM to have confidence in whatever I think of throwing at my players, and it allows me as a player to not have to second-guess what my DM has planned or accidentally suck.

Not all DMs pay very close attention to exactly where their players spend their skill points -- many assume the system will keep them "powerful enough." But spending combat resources on social skills means that they might not be, given the same total resources.


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## GlaziusF (Oct 8, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Right there.
> 
> The wrought iron fence made of tigers.




Aw god. That thing is going to turn into Mudwimping 2.0, so let me try to bite it in the ass again.

This is the *canonical example given *of the wrought iron fence made of tigers:

Yahtzee, having received in-game a clue consisting of a simple arithmetic problem, solves the problem, revealing the numeric name of a trendy clothes boutique he has seen in-game.

But his character cannot actually enter the boutique - an invisible wall is blocking his path. In order to actually enter the boutique he must walk a few screens away and sit through a cutscene, wherein basic mathematics and elementary deduction are laboriously explained to his thick-as-two-short-planks avatar. Only after the puzzle has been solved FOR him is he able to enter.

It isn't that the story and gameplay work off of separate tracks - it's that the gameplay can't actually affect the story at all, even as far as being able to move your character to where the next part of the story should happen. 

It's ludicrous to claim that this necessarily happens in D&D. When it happens we call it "railroading", but it doesn't happen all the time, and neither is the system set up so that it must happen.


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## I'm A Banana (Oct 8, 2008)

> It isn't that the story and gameplay work off of separate tracks - it's that the gameplay can't actually affect the story at all, even as far as being able to move your character to where the next part of the story should happen.




And I believe that a game is better when the gameplay and story affect and reinforce one another. The idea is very relevant to this conversation. 



> It's ludicrous to claim that this necessarily happens in D&D. When it happens we call it "railroading", but it doesn't happen all the time, and neither is the system set up so that it must happen.




The idea that gameplay and story can affect one another is much bigger than railroading, though that is one place where a division between the two crops up. "It doesn't matter what you roll, you fail, because the story says you need to fail."

Plus, no one's claiming it that it necessarily happens in D&D.

Rechan said that gameplay and story, in his view, should be kept on two different sides (he used a moat and a brick wall, but a wrought iron fence made of tigers has a bit more zing and means the same thing). I vehemently dispute this proposition -- I think that a game is better where the two mix, rather than when the two are kept separate. It is in taking this proposition to heart that 4e has strayed away from being a game I want to play or DM (specifically, that affects my DM side more). 

One way that 4e has taken this proposition to heart that is relevant to the profession/craft system is that it provides no gameplay for it, keeping it entirely in the realm of "story" (which, in this case, is DM Fiat). The story might care if you're a blacksmith's son, but the rules don't.

This is the other side of that division. Railroading can be when gameplay doesn't affect stories. This is an example of when stories don't affect gameplay. They are kept separate by the wrought iron fence made of tigers. This is deeply unsatisfying, largely for the same reason: when I'm playing a role-playing game, I expect my game to affect my role-playing, and my role-playing to affect my game. Not to be divided.

It is a better experience, for me, when they are unified.

When the wrought iron fence made of tigers is taken down.

So I prefer a game where story and gameplay aren't on either side of a wrought iron fence made of tigers. 4e has a few examples of this being true, and it is deeply unsatisfying for me. None of those examples are really "railroading" in the sense that you talk about, but the concept behind railroading and the concept behind DM Fiat being enough for Profession/Crafting skills are similar on a pretty fundamental level.

Obviously, I'm not the only one who has the opinion that this isn't a good thing, at least in this case.


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## Miyaa (Oct 8, 2008)

As I see it, I like the professions/crafting skills because it can allow me for a greater variety of campaigns than not having one. If I wanted to developed a campaign that would involve a party exploring an unexplored region, I could use 3.0 or 3.5 edition's skill no problem (it's not likely they're going to run into another civilization on such a campaign). I couldn't use 4th edition for the same campaign without some House Rules (but I like the sliding scale concept mentioned earlier). 

4th edition seems to be best for military campaigns and your basic run of the mill dungeon campaign where you start out at a city or hamburg, go off to a large dungeon and ransack the place, like say the _Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil_. Anything else would require more stuff or some House Rules rigging.


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## Toras (Oct 8, 2008)

I find Professions, as either a single freebie choice or as a feat choice as something that is useful.  I also like Rel's homebrew system.

For those who don't see uses for things like profession, have you ever used those skills to masquerade as a ....(what ever ) to gain access to X place.  Have you ever had to decode ancient languages or learning a new language spoken by your captors.  What about improvising weapons when you are taken prisoner or put into slavery?

And you haven't lived until you've walled up an old enemy and left him to die as his air runs out.


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## Jack Colby (Oct 9, 2008)

Some people seem to enjoy the simulation factor of crafting their own things.  I suppose it could be fun in a way, having the possibility of failure.  I do think such things should be optional, however, especially in D&D. It's a waste of time for a lot of players, otherwise.


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## ProfessorCirno (Oct 9, 2008)

Just a note - Kamikaze is using the "fence with tigers" phrase correctly.  Yahtzee is specifically using it to refer to how jRPGs seperate story from gameplay, and how the game in question didn't just seperate the two, it did it with the proverbial tiger-fence.  And that they are COMPLETELY seperated, not that one just doesn't let you walk anywhere, but that the two don't support each other at all - the combat (or story) is almost a minigame set aside from everything else.  Kamikaze is saying that this same division between story and gameplay is being called in here, and...well, yes, it is.


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## ProfessorCirno (Oct 9, 2008)

Jack Colby said:


> Some people seem to enjoy the simulation factor of crafting their own things.  I suppose it could be fun in a way, having the possibility of failure.  I do think such things should be optional, however, especially in D&D. It's a waste of time for a lot of players, otherwise.




Yes, they should be optional.  That means that you still have the option there ;p


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## Allister (Oct 9, 2008)

Delta said:


> It does say that, right in the 3E PHB "Profession" entry (I quoted it earlier).




So what does a DC of say Profession (sailor) 15 mean then to the players?


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## GlaziusF (Oct 9, 2008)

ProfessorCirno said:


> Kamikaze is saying that this same division between story and gameplay is being called in here, and...well, yes, it is.




No. It's not, and it never will be.

Gameplay is the dice you roll and the things you say, story is what your DM says in response. Your DM may assign some story responsibility to you, but he always has right of first refusal. 

It's practically impossible for a game to survive where the dice the players roll and the things they say have absolutely no connection to any comment of the DM on the action. Even the combats take place in the story, since they don't have the luxury of suddenly shifting into an enclosed parallel dimension and then seamlessly back to reality with no time passed the way they can in a computer RPG. They have to take place in the world, Chrono Trigger-style.


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## Zustiur (Oct 9, 2008)

AllisterH said:


> The problem isn't that Balance doesn't cover sea legs (Er, looking at the Balance skill again, if it doesn't cover sea legs, what the hell does it cover then?)



Staying upright on a rocking surface is a balance check. Not throwing up on a rolling sea is a sea legs (profession sailor) check. They're not the same thing. Balance doesn't teach you how to tack, and knowing how to sail doesn't teach you how to walk on a thin ledge. They're separate skills.



> It's the fact that you can apply Profession (Sailor) to the other SUB-skills and basically "cheat" the system.



Again, the profession skills are there to fill the gap BETWEEN other skills, not to be used instead. A sailor character would logically have use rope, balance AND profession Sailor, and use each in different circumstances. It's like suggesting that Survival (which allows you to hunt animals for food) allows you to cheat by not having Move Silently. This clearly isn't the case. 



> As an aside, it should be pointed out that MOST sailors actually couldn't navigate either. Most deckhands had rudimentary reading skills.



MOST sailors wouldn't have many ranks, as they'd be commoner level 3 at most. 3E assumes nearly everyone can read, this is totally at odds with our history, and is not specific to sailors.



> Furthermore, the SRD defines "directions" under survival (Knowledge -geography provides a synergy bonus) as the Survival skill is the skill you roll against to both determine Weather conditions for the next 24 hours AND directions...



Whereas the SRD defines a profession as "a skill representing an aptitude in a vocation requiring a broader range of less specific knowledge." Which is just a way of saying it 'fills the gaps' between other skills.



> Profession (sailor) not only makes Use Rope, Balance, Climb less valuable skills but also Survival and Knowledge (Nature)....



Again I disagree. Profession (sailor) doesn't at any point replace Use Rope, Balance, Climb or any other skill and no attempt should be made to use it when the more specific skills are appropriate.



> re: Profession (waiter)
> Um, you're actually spending skill points in this? Never mind that the scenario you listed is covered by either Disguise and/or Perform (Acting), and/or Knowledge (Nobility and Royalty).



 ACTING? Acting might fool someone for a very short period of time, but it won't fool anyone who actually works in the field. I outlined disguise as something you'd use in ADDITION to your profession skill. To be a carpenter you need to BE a carpenter, you can't just ACT as a carpenter and expect to fool anyone. You cannot just act as a mason and expect to get into the guild of masons, they'll spot you for a fraud in an instant. The same applies to all other professions.



> As an aside, would anyone allow this in the game, Profession (Circus/Carnival Performer or Court Jester). Circus performers are one of the oldest professions in medieval life and also one that I think is actually more common to appear as background fluff in modules than say Sailors.



Yes certainly I'd allow it. And as above, it wouldn't be used where other skills are more appropriate. Being a Circus performer doesn't mean you don't need to take tumble, balance or jump. Each is a different task, and is applied at a different time. The skill Profession (circus performer) includes less specific tasks, such as knowing when to make a fool of yourself to get the best laugh, how to walk in clown shoes or how to interact with OTHER performers. To walk the tight-rope, you still need your balance checks, and no level of Profession skill will change that. Likewise being good at Perform (clown act) doesn't mean you'll know how much to charge for people to come and see the show.

Going back to the guitar example from earlier - You may be the ultimate rock star, but you'd better have profession (band manager) or employ someone who does, or you'll never get paid. 

This seems to be what people forget about profession skills. At no point can you use profession INSTEAD of a more specific skill.

In many ways profession is closer to knowledge than to any of the physical skills. Knowledge (Music) doesn't reduce the need for Perform (instrument). Neither does Profession (x) reduce the need to spend ranks in skill . If it helps to understand what I'm saying, replace the word Profession with Knowledge. It's now Knowledge (sailing) or Knowledge (Farming). 



ProfessorCirno said:


> Yes, they should be optional.  That means that you still have the option there ;p



So true.


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## ProfessorCirno (Oct 9, 2008)

GlaziusF said:


> No. It's not, and it never will be.
> 
> Gameplay is the dice you roll and the things you say, story is what your DM says in response. Your DM may assign some story responsibility to you, but he always has right of first refusal.
> 
> It's practically impossible for a game to survive where the dice the players roll and the things they say have absolutely no connection to any comment of the DM on the action. Even the combats take place in the story, since they don't have the luxury of suddenly shifting into an enclosed parallel dimension and then seamlessly back to reality with no time passed the way they can in a computer RPG. They have to take place in the world, Chrono Trigger-style.




You're not quite grasping the problem here.  Yes, that is the problem - it's being argued that the dice SHOULD have little to no connection to the in game story by the proponents of not having any crafting put into place; instead, gameplay shouold be sequestered away from storyline, and what happens in Veg-sorry, combat, stays in combat.  Once the mechanics have been taken care of, you can switch into Story Mode and keep going there.  This is why there this thought of "Crafting and profession are useless;" because they cannot understand why you would want mechanics that directly relate to the story.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 9, 2008)

> Actually no. That would be "Profession: Marketer" But of course both of those skills are pointless[as described above].



Actually, yes- and I know because I work in the music industry (as a Lawyer and marketer).

Most successful professional musicians have some knowledge of how to market themselves before ever hiring an agent...if they ever do.

Its not until they've proven themselves to have a marketable brand identity that they actually turn to professional marketers.



> You are a hero saving the world, you will not ever need to test your ability to book a show, and if by some crazy stretch of the imagination that you do, you have plenty of other skills to make it an interesting skill challenge that your DM can actually describe in an engaging way




Unless the campaign is bard-centric, that may well be the case.

OTOH, having the skills available means that someone MAY design such encounters.

Booking a show in your hometown may be something entirely routine, akin to climbing a tree with many limbs without making a Climb check.

OTOH, if you're a Drow Bard trying to book a gig in a Dwarven Bar, I can see that requiring a check.

Does that affect the game?  It could- what if that's the only bar in town that has a stage for bards, and you're short of coin?  Singing for your supper and lodgings might mean the difference between a good night's rest and being exhausted the next day (with relevant penalties).


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## Hussar (Oct 10, 2008)

Mallus said:


> Hello, my name is Mallus, and I'm an inveterate role-player (funny voices and all). But I don't need mechanical representation for every facet of my characters. I'm content with a lot of my character existing in my head and, of course, in my performance of him/her on game day.
> 
> So I prefer a small list of broadly-applicable skills that focus on common adventuring task resolution. I can take or leave craft and profession skills. Mostly leave.




Hello, my name is Hussar and I whole heartedly concur with the above statement.



ruemere said:


> Hello,
> 
> I'm a latecomer to this discussion, and I actually appreciate existence of Craft/Profession skills in game. My NPCs use them, players use them to earn a living, at various moments tasks requiring use of  certain skills pop up.
> 
> ...




Yup.  He's the son of a blacksmith.  In all the Conan stories, REH or otherwise, how many times did he pick up a hammer and make something?  How much need would there be for Craft mechanics to represent Conan?


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## Hussar (Oct 10, 2008)

Toras said:


> I find Professions, as either a single freebie choice or as a feat choice as something that is useful.  I also like Rel's homebrew system.
> 
> For those who don't see uses for things like profession, have you ever used those skills to masquerade as a ....(what ever ) to gain access to X place.




Covered in Disguise skill.




> Have you ever had to decode ancient languages




Decipher Script



> or learning a new language spoken by your captors.




Language skills in D&D are ridiculous, but, typically this is covered by a simple 1st level spell.



> What about improvising weapons when you are taken prisoner or put into slavery?




Improvised weapon = -4 to hit.  How much craft do I need to pick up a stick?  And, if I do decide to use the craft skill, where do I get the gold for the raw materials?



> And you haven't lived until you've walled up an old enemy and left him to die as his air runs out.




Wall of Stone is your friend here.  I gotta admit though, if someone took Profession Stonemason, I'd probably give them the pass on this one.


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## GlaziusF (Oct 10, 2008)

ProfessorCirno said:


> You're not quite grasping the problem here.  Yes, that is the problem - it's being argued that the dice SHOULD have little to no connection to the in game story by the proponents of not having any crafting put into place; instead, gameplay shouold be sequestered away from storyline, and what happens in Veg-sorry, combat, stays in combat.  Once the mechanics have been taken care of, you can switch into Story Mode and keep going there.  This is why there this thought of "Crafting and profession are useless;" because they cannot understand why you would want mechanics that directly relate to the story.




The story is anything the DM says. Even if it's in combat! Combat takes place in the real world and not the mysterious combat dimension. The gameplay is the players rolling dice and stating intent. Even if it's out of combat! You're still working your skill and the associated modifiers.

The reason Craft and Profession are mostly useless is that they're part of 3E's skill system, which was itself mostly useless. 

Seriously.

I mean, like 40 or 50 things you could possibly be good at but maybe 15 points a level to devote to them? How do you choose which 25-35 things you won't improve at? How do you judge the relative worth of 1 rank of Swim vs. 1 rank of Tumble?

Possibly by how useful they might be in the future. So let's say you have 2 skill points and have the decision down to three skills: Climb, which works on any vertical surface, Balance, which works on any difficult terrain, or Profession: Shopkeeper, which works in any shop you run. Now, which of these three are you most likely to hear? "No, there are no vertical surfaces", "no, there is no uneven terrain", or "no, you are not currently running a shop"?

Some skills had implicit hooks. Jump worked on any vertical or horizontal gap, Disable Device on anything with moving parts (including most traps), and Bluff worked on anything that could understand your language, or at least your body language. But the DM had to explicitly place or allow hooks for Craft, Profession, often Perform, and about half the extant types of Knowledge. 

4E moved on to a model of skills that represented very general and very broad categories of action, so most of the explicit-hook skills got taken out behind the barn and shot. You can't spend 1/4 of your trained skills to reflect that you were a shopkeeper or could play the trumpet or whatever, but that doesn't mean you can't still say that you were. How could that affect gameplay, aside from affecting what you say? Well, here are some ways. They're not RAW, but I don't see why they couldn't work.

*The Past Is Prologue. *When the warlord left Slugg Backfist's Boxing Arena And War Academy But Mostly Boxing Arena, he was trained in Athletics. He got this through extensive practice, but what he practiced was mostly climbing ropes or palisades and jumping distances on flat ground. Does that mean he can't climb a rock cliff or jump a yawning chasm, just because he didn't specifically practice those? Of course not! Similarly, a former shopkeeper turned adventurer may have learned how to stretch the truth about more than just cabbage and cabbage accessories and thus start with training in Bluff. Your background doesn't give you any extra skill trainings, but it can explain in part or in whole how your trained skills got trained.
*
Skill Training Or Equivalent Experience. *When you're in the narrow situation your background prepared you for, you're just as good as somebody with general training, though your general training doesn't help you any more specially. If a sailor is on a ship at sea, his sea legs let him take advantage of the motion of the ship to make Athletics and Acrobatics checks to move around as though he were trained. A former smith is trained in Religion for purposes of answering the booming question posed by the large iron dwarf with the large iron hammer, namely: "Recite the virtues of the good smith or I will smith you and it will not be so good."
*
It's Binary, Baby. *There are some things your background lets you do that people without it just can't, though training in general categories can help you do it better. So if you want to make a decorative glass vase to give to the king tomorrow, and you're the only one in your party who's a glazier, when the skill challenge starts (8 successes before 3 failures, lose a healing surge to negate a failure to simulate staying up later and being tired tomorrow) you're the only one who makes checks to reflect the blowing and shaping of the glass. Endurance for steady breath and Thievery for fine manipulation, respectively. They may not be hard checks, so you can make them even if you're not trained. What are your other party members doing? They're pumping the bellows with Athletics, coming up with a design the King might like with History and Insight, and using Streetwise to track down a bag of rare gem-sand that fell off the back of the wagon. 

*Let's Party. *If the entire party shares a background - you're all sailors or all musicians - the DM can create a skill challenge using the general-interest skills to represent circumstances that might challenge people of that background. Sailors taking a ship through a hurricane, or musicians rocking out hard enough to wake the dead and well enough to convince them to move on to the next world.


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## I'm A Banana (Oct 11, 2008)

> Combat takes place in the real world and not the mysterious combat dimension.




But combat mechanics have no express game-world effects.  This is an example of the division in 4e between mechanics and effects. That division is between "game" and "story," between the dice you roll and the effect that happens in the "real world." If a power lets you trip someone, you can use it to "trip" an ooze, because the mechanics don't relate to the the story (they are separated by the wrought iron fence made of tigers).



> The reason Craft and Profession are mostly useless is that they're part of 3E's skill system, which was itself mostly useless.
> 
> Seriously.




Obviously opinions differ. The OP suggested that you never need a Craft or Profession system for any game, regardless of 3e or otherwise. The central reason for this was because Craft and Profession, in their experience, _didn't actually affect the game_. It just affected the story. 

To which the big response was: some people want it to affect their game.

My collaborative point was: The story and the game should affect each other.



> 4E moved on to a model of skills that represented very general and very broad categories of action, so most of the explicit-hook skills got taken out behind the barn and shot. You can't spend 1/4 of your trained skills to reflect that you were a shopkeeper or could play the trumpet or whatever, but that doesn't mean you can't still say that you were.




I like this aspect of 4e's siloing. The way that skills are handled in 4e is pretty good, and fixes a lot of the problems I had with 3e's skills.

But 4e then fails to provide anything to support what they removed.

So in 3e, I could say I was a shopkeeper, and have mechanics (however flawed they were) to support that.

And in 4e, I can say I was a shopkeeper, but I have no mechanics to support it, flawed or otherwise. 

If having mechanics to support my fluff is important to me (and for me, it is, because I prefer a game where the story and the mechanics support each other), 3e is better than 4e. Because 3e might be a 2 or even a 1 on the 1-10 scale, but 4e is a 0. 

The suggestions down there aren't bad (though they're a lot lighter than 3e's system, which might mean they're not "enough" for some), but they're not something 4e gave us. A lot of this thread has just been people debating about whether or not it was OK that 4e didn't give us anything, from "No game needs Craft/Profession skills aside from the DM's say-so" to "Craft and Profession subsystems are vitally essential to my games, and I need them more than I need combat," and hitting mostly the places in between.

I'd just argue that it depends on one's style of game. For the people who never use it, 4e is fine. For the people who would always use it, 4e blows the goat. 4e's non-system won't work for everyone in every game, though there is a solid chance that it will work for the biggest slice of the bell curve, given WotC's generally canny market research.


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## roguerouge (Oct 11, 2008)

Thasmodious said:


> ... a game where artists live in a colony and compete to sell their artwork.




Yoink! I'm totally doing a battle of the bands side quest for my Chronicles of Dior campaign now.


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## roguerouge (Oct 11, 2008)

I'll be honest. As much as I like the concept of Profession and Craft... I don't use them when I have an option not to. 

For example, I'm running a campaign with a good deal of merchanting in it. Do I use Profession: Merchant? No. Because my player (in a one PC game) was reluctant to invest skill points into that mechanic when she was already investing ranks in Perform. So, when she buys supplies, I don't have opposed P: Merchant checks. I use a three step system: Bluff vs. Sense Motive (winner gets +2 on final check), Sense Motive vs. Bluff (winner gets +2 on final check), then Diplomacy vs. Diplomacy (or Profession: Merchant).

That campaign does a lot of sailing. And yes, Profession: Sailor does get used to determine the quality of the crew and checks for who gets the advantage in naval combat maneuvering. But I made Knowledge: Geography the skill for piloting the vessel, because using both it and P: navigator would have made piloting require two narrow skills (which is too big a cost) and just using Profession would have made the K: geography skill worthless.


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## roguerouge (Oct 11, 2008)

"No one needs the sailor profession, you've got an entire set of skills right there that determine how good you are as a sailor, use them."

Yes, I could resolve a naval maneuvering scenario by a lengthy series of rolls of bluff, sense motive, spot, knowledge: nature, knowledge: history, climb, balance, and use rope. Every round. 

Or I could use Profession: sailor opposed rolls to determine the advantage and get to the ballista shots and boarding actions. 

Which promotes more immersion in an action-packed story and leads to a faster pace? 

And it's not like I can't turn to that lengthy list of skills for when my player says that she wants to try a special maneuver.

And, note, that the use of K: geography for navigation and P: sailor for captaining a ship is from Stormwrack.


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## roguerouge (Oct 11, 2008)

This concept has come up a couple of times: "How do you pretend to be a waiter at the ball if you don't know the etiquette? The answer is badly. Regardless of your diplomacy or balance checks. The diplomacy might get you out of trouble after you've upset someone, but it won't keep you from being detected as a spy."

Guys: it's called the disguise and/or Perform (acting) skills. Profession is not the way to handle that scene.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 11, 2008)

I don't recall if this has come up or not...

In a significant subset of stories of myth, legend, and modern fiction, the making of magic items must involve the end user in the creation process.

IOW, if you want to have a magic weapon, you may have to do the hammering of the metal yourself; a mage may have to choose, cut and polish the wood for his staff.

And since, by D&D terms at least, a magic item must be masterwork, a maker of magic items in such a setting must also be a master craftsman...or at least have 1 rank in a relevant craft so that he has a reasonable chance of acing his craft roll.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 11, 2008)

For that matter...

http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...69-does-your-party-have-cook.html#post4504392

It may have been intended as a humor thread, but apparently, there are a number of people who actually play party's cook.  If played fully, those skill rolls could have real, in-game consequences.

Especially if someone accidentally used the poisonous part of a plant or some such...


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## GlaziusF (Oct 11, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> But combat mechanics have no express game-world effects.  This is an example of the division in 4e between mechanics and effects. That division is between "game" and "story," between the dice you roll and the effect that happens in the "real world." If a power lets you trip someone, you can use it to "trip" an ooze, because the mechanics don't relate to the the story (they are separated by the wrought iron fence made of tigers).




So you use the same swing you'd use to knock a goblin flat to squash an ooze flat. The difference is that the ooze can still move around just fine (using its move action on _shifting form_) but it'll be easier to hit and harder for it to hit you until it squirps back up to its full height. 

I do agree that this is mostly for game reasons, so people don't have to memorize a list of status exceptions based on creature type, but really it takes 10 seconds to paper a plausible story on top. People are good at stories. That's why you remember dreams as having their own weird narrative even though they were just your brain picking random bits out of a bag.



> The suggestions down there aren't bad (though they're a lot lighter than 3e's system, which might mean they're not "enough" for some), but they're not something 4e gave us. A lot of this thread has just been people debating about whether or not it was OK that 4e didn't give us anything,




4e gave us page 42, which is part of a nice little "this is the way you bend the rules" discussion in the DMG. 

Craft and Profession and the other explicit-hook skills needed DM intervention to work anyway, so it just knocked down the facade that putting points in Craft and Profession was somehow a guarantee of in-game returns the way putting them in Hide and Jump was. If crafting and profession are important to you and your DM, you can find a way.


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## I'm A Banana (Oct 11, 2008)

> I do agree that this is mostly for game reasons




So the wrought iron fence made of tigers is appropriate. 



> People are good at stories.




I like it when my story is supported by the mechanics (and also when my story supports the mechanics). When this doesn't happen in a tabletop game, it's very annoying to me, because the mechanics are the primary lens through which I see the story being told. If they don't support each other, for me, there may as well not be a story, since it's just an excuse for the mechanics (or, vice-versa, there may as well not be any dice rolling, because we can do whatever we want anyway). 

If there's no mechanical support for my story, I'll just go put on a play. If there's no story support for my mechanics, I'll just go play videogames. When they work together, I'm playing a role-playing game in the most fantastically fun sense I can. Without that combo, I have other choices that do each side better.



> 4e gave us page 42, which is part of a nice little "this is the way you bend the rules" discussion in the DMG.




But they didn't give us a craft or profession system, which is my criticism (and not just mine, from the looks of it). Any bigger points can be made in other threads. 



> Craft and Profession and the other explicit-hook skills needed DM intervention to work anyway, so it just knocked down the facade that putting points in Craft and Profession was somehow a guarantee of in-game returns the way putting them in Hide and Jump was. If crafting and profession are important to you and your DM, you can find a way.




But there wasn't _a way that was given_. That is a problem. It is a failing for those who value those things coming into 4e. For some, it'll be THE most important thing. For others, it'll be one thing among many. For some, it'll just be something they need to shore up with a house rule. For others, it'll actually be a good thing because the only people who ever used that system ended up not enjoying themselves. There is a continuum. Not everyone can be happy with the division. 

If you didn't like 3e's craft or profession system, there were not only several alternate systems, there was also the option of ignoring it completely by simply not taking those skills. So in this respect, 4e has failed to improve. Which isn't surprising, since there is no 4e craft or profession system.

I didn't say (nor would I say) that 4e cannot have a craft or profession system. I'm just saying that it doesn't have one by default, and that is a valid problem for some players. "But they can house rule it in!" isn't really a defense of 4e on this point. It's admitting that 4e has failed, but that a DM can make up for that failure.

No kidding. A DM can make up for any failure, in any edition, in a variety of ways. That's not really the point. The point is that for some people, it is a failure. If we can accept that, we can accept that other games or editions might be preferable to people, and we can accept that, when 4e comes out with its inevitable craft/profession system, it will be of immense use to some players and DMs. 

And if we can all accept that, then there isn't really much of a debate on this point anymore. We all agree!


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## MichaelSomething (Oct 12, 2008)

If there is such a huge demand for a good profession/craft skill system, why hasn't a third party publisher put out material about it?  

It's obvious that WOTC won't be putting out profession/craft rules anytime soon.

The thing is, who would want to create a profession/craft skill system?  I never encountered any 3PP saying, "We MUST make rules about tailoring and cooking!"

Is there any material printed during 3rd Edition that focus on profession/craft stuff?


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## Rel (Oct 12, 2008)

MichaelSomething said:


> If there is such a huge demand for a good profession/craft skill system, why hasn't a third party publisher put out material about it?
> 
> It's obvious that WOTC won't be putting out profession/craft rules anytime soon.
> 
> The thing is, who would want to create a profession/craft skill system?  I never encountered any 3PP saying, "We MUST make rules about tailoring and cooking!"




Um...they have.  It's the Advanced Players Guide by XRP.


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## MichaelSomething (Oct 12, 2008)

Rel said:


> Um...they have. It's the Advanced Players Guide by XRP.




You mean this guide?

I must have missed that part in the disscussions about it.  I stand corrected.  Hopefully, those who want crafting rules will buy the book and be happy with it.  Does that create a "put your money where your mouth is" situation?


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## Delta (Oct 12, 2008)

roguerouge said:


> And, note, that the use of K: geography for navigation and P: sailor for captaining a ship is from Stormwrack.




Actually, I'm really glad you threw that in there. I was just trying to figure which Knowledge skill was most appropriate.


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## Rel (Oct 12, 2008)

MichaelSomething said:


> Hopefully, those who want crafting rules will buy the book and be happy with it.  Does that create a "put your money where your mouth is" situation?




Not for me it doesn't.  From the little I've heard about the rules therein, I like my own homebrewed system better.  I'm intrigued about their Lingering Injury rules though.  Plus I just plain like Joe, Suzi and Ari so I might buy it just because they do good product and are cool folks.


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## GlaziusF (Oct 13, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> So the wrought iron fence made of tigers is appropriate.




Actually, this is the *exact antithesis* of the wrought iron fence made of tigers, which is why I can't stand you using it in this way.

The WIFMT shows up when a character who can jump 20 feet in the air is blocked by a fence 6 feet high, that only goes down after he's advanced the plot. Gameplay doesn't affect story.

Knocking an ooze prone is gameplay affecting story. Perhaps in ways that it seems like it shouldn't, but it doesn't affect players at all because* they're not the ones playing oozes*. 

This isn't to say that the WIFMT can't be a problem - I recall an anecdote from a Shadowrun GM playing in a "prewritten module" campaign who tried to get around a corporate barricade by planting breaching charges in a wall and breaking through to the building next door. The poor guy he tried to drop it on just froze up. That's a WIFMT moment. 



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I like it when my story is supported by the mechanics (and also when my story supports the mechanics).




So change one or the other to fit! I just came up with four ways in like half an hour! And the mechanics are explicitly stretchy so if you don't want to change your story you can grab them and pull! It's not only okay, it's encouraged!



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> "But they can house rule it in!" isn't really a defense of 4e on this point. It's admitting that 4e has failed, but that a DM can make up for that failure.
> 
> No kidding. A DM can make up for any failure, in any edition, in a variety of ways. That's not really the point. The point is that for some people, it is a failure.




4E makes it easier for a DM to "make up" than 3E did. This isn't exaggeration: I was always worried about balance and corner cases with 3E and had to jump through giant hoops to get a good prepared encounter set up for my players, and I can do the same thing in 4E in minutes.

The reason I like 4E so much is that it's so much easier for me to wing it. Saying that this is actually evidence the system has failed me seems kind of misguided when I'm *using *the system to wing it.


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## I'm A Banana (Oct 13, 2008)

> The WIFMT shows up when a character who can jump 20 feet in the air is blocked by a fence 6 feet high, that only goes down after he's advanced the plot. Gameplay doesn't affect story.
> 
> Knocking an ooze prone is gameplay affecting story. Perhaps in ways that it seems like it shouldn't, but it doesn't affect players at all because they're not the ones playing oozes.




The tiger-fence exists in any place that the game and story don't affect each other (it is the barrier between the two), wherever the dissonance occurs. It's a barrier. The direction of the flow isn't important.

The power that knocks someone prone is both story (you knock them down!) and gameplay (knocking them down has XYZ effects). When you can use it to knock down something that can't really be knocked down (by still giving them XYZ effects), there is a divide between the story you're telling and the mechanics you're using. This divide is the barrier. It's the wrought iron fence made of tigers. It is what, upthread, was called the brick wall and the moat. It is what stands between a DM Fiat crafting system and a more mechanical crafting system.



> So change one or the other to fit! I just came up with four ways in like half an hour! And the mechanics are explicitly stretchy so if you don't want to change your story you can grab them and pull! It's not only okay, it's encouraged!



Again, that's not the point. A DM can fix any problem in any game. The point isn't "can someone fix this?!" The point is "Is this a problem in the first place?"

If we agree that it's a problem in the first place, then there isn't any real debate. We agree.

Whether or not it's easy or fun or useful to fix is not the issue.



> 4E makes it easier for a DM to "make up" than 3E did.




That's great, but it's not really the point of the conversation. If you want to move the goalposts and talk about that, sure, but it might be better to start a new thread for it, since that's not really what this thread is about as far as I can tell. 



> The reason I like 4E so much is that it's so much easier for me to wing it. Saying that this is actually evidence the system has failed me seems kind of misguided when I'm using the system to wing it.




The failure is in *requiring you to wing it*. Winging it isn't good enough for some games because these systems are important to some games, yet 4e requires you to pull something out of thin air if it is important to you, while it provides you ample guidance on, say, how many 5' squares you can move on a grid when your turn comes up, and what that movement effects.

4e requires you to wing it? 4e fails (at this). Regardless of if it succeeds at making winging it easy or not.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Oct 13, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> The failure is in *requiring you to wing it*. Winging it isn't good enough for some games because these systems are important to some games, yet 4e requires you to pull something out of thin air if it is important to you, while it provides you ample guidance on, say, how many 5' squares you can move on a grid when your turn comes up, and what that movement effects.
> 
> 4e requires you to wing it? 4e fails (at this). Regardless of if it succeeds at making winging it easy or not.



I think there are different degrees of failure.

Does the game provide a rule you can use right out of the box. That's good.
Does the game provide a rule you don't like? That's a failure. You need to work on the existing one.
Does the game provide no rule. That's a failure. You need to create a new rule
Does the game provide no rule, and you worry because creating or changing a rule might easily break the game? That's a failure. You don't even dare to fix the issue.

Especially for a game to tightly concerned about "game balance" like 3E and 4E, the last failure is easily to get into. It is a psychological problem in many cases, because, for example, 3E wasn't that incredibly well balanced that changing some rules would be terrible, but it was designed in a way that you found it hard to predict the impacts of your changes.  But interestingly 4E, is so well designed that it seems far easier to figure out the impact of a new rule...


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## Thasmodious (Oct 13, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> 4e requires you to wing it? 4e fails (at this). Regardless of if it succeeds at making winging it easy or not.




This really is a ridiculous, if common, assertion.  A game system does not "fail" because it doesn't cover things that you, or your group, personally feel belong higher in a hierarchy of needs.  If your mark for system success is to somehow provide all the rules for all areas of gameplay, then there will never be a successful system, and labeling a system as having "failed" is meaningless noise.  

Some people feel crafting is important.  As this thread shows many do not.  WotC did their market research and studied how the game is most often played and built a strong, balanced system of core gameplay.  They decided crafting/profession was not an area the game needed.  It was a design decision.  Since they realized that design and did not accidentally put in crafting rules, it would be a success.  

Some people want to see hit locations, crit tables, rules for wounds, and a hundred other subsystems from past editions, third party, common houserules, past Dragon articles, UA, etc.  Their "exclusion" from the game does not constitute a failure in design, despite the feeling of some that such elements are essential for their own playstyle and preferences.  What 4e did, though, was address those issues by making sure the game was balanced and the balance was not hidden behind the curtain, so the system is easy to tweak to your groups own preferences and playstyle.  This was a stated design goal, and they succeeded.  Houseruling the game is easy, winging it is easy, DM prep is a breeze, balanced monster creation is a snap...those were design goals and they succeeded quite well.   

When a design team lays out its goals, meets those goals and puts out its product, you can't scream "failure" because your pet subsystem wasn't part of the design.  Now, if the 4e designers claimed to have developed the best crafting system ever, you could cry foul, but you can't say the system failed to deliver something that was never an intended part of the design.  That's a bit like claiming your new bicycle is a failure because you like cold drinks and it doesn't have a refridgerator.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Oct 13, 2008)

Thasmodious, while I generally agree with what you say, I don't think Kamikaze Midget is speaking of a "design failure" in your sense. He speaks of failing or meeting his (and others) needs of a game. If he needs Craft and Profession, 4E is failure to meet his needs.

My point would more be saying - it's easy to add one in. Which means it is not as big as a failure as a system where it would be hard to add one in later. Or take something out without breaking the system.


I think in a certain way, a "completist" game can sometimes be the hardest to do. Because you will often feel compelled to still do it in the "spirit" of the game. A complete game will create a lot of precedents, and adding or chaning a sub-system can feel "dangerous".

Many a house rules post was criticized for missing the "spirit" of the game - like using non-standard BAB or Save Progressions, saving throw DCs, even ability scores as feat prerequisites, and similar stuff. Quite a few modules were criticized for minor errors in stat-blocks (wrong skill modifiers, damage off, stuff like that). 
I can't really say I disagree with these statements. And certainly 4E is not free of this (even with this "exception based design idea" - the exceptions are still applied in a very controlled manner, using certain building blocks.)

But a completist game means you have to bother with this every time you want to add/remove/change something.


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## GlaziusF (Oct 13, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> The tiger-fence exists in any place that the game and story don't affect each other (it is the barrier between the two), wherever the dissonance occurs. It's a barrier. The direction of the flow isn't important.




*Yes it is.*

I can't stress this enough, *yes it is*.

When you're playing a game you have a set of expectations set up by the gameplay. If you push the jump button twice and your character goes 20 feet high, you expect to be able to jump 20-foot heights.

So when the story puts a 6-foot fence in front of you and prevents you from jumping over it, that confuses your expectations. You're now not sure anymore whether you can jump over fences or not. You feel like the game is broken.

But if the story puts a 6-foot fence in front of you, acts like you're not supposed to get to the other side of it yet, but you can jump over it anyway, your expectations are validated. You feel like you broke the game. 

The important difference in the latter case is one of agency. In the former case you're being restricted by forces you can't control. In the latter case you're flaunting the restrictions of someone trying to control you.

Calling both cases equally bad is like saying that it's just as bad for an innocent man to be convicted as it is for him to be freed on appeal, because in both cases he's walking through a prison gate. 



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> The power that knocks someone prone is both story (you knock them down!) and gameplay (knocking them down has XYZ effects). When you can use it to knock down something that can't really be knocked down (by still giving them XYZ effects), there is a divide between the story you're telling and the mechanics you're using.




"Your mighty overhead swing squashes the ooze flat."

No there isn't.

Also, I notice you've targeted this one narrow case and not complained about, say, skeletons being bloodied. Why is that?



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> That's great, but it's not really the point of the conversation. If you want to move the goalposts and talk about that, sure, but it might be better to start a new thread for it, since that's not really what this thread is about as far as I can tell.




What I've been saying this whole time is that Craft and Profession have always required DM intervention anyway. The DM has always had to place Craft and Profession and their contexts in the world explicitly. 

I don't see how that's *not *relevant to this conversation.


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## billd91 (Oct 13, 2008)

GlaziusF said:


> Also, I notice you've targeted this one narrow case and not complained about, say, skeletons being bloodied. Why is that?




While the term bloodied makes no sense in that context, we know it's just a term that means at or below half its hit points. It's not unreasonable to believe that there may be effects that make note of that for various story and game reasons.
Nevertheless, that's fundamentally different than imposing a condition on a creature that should be irrelevant (like the aforementioned prone ooze).



GlaziusF said:


> What I've been saying this whole time is that Craft and Profession have always required DM intervention anyway. The DM has always had to place Craft and Profession and their contexts in the world explicitly.
> 
> I don't see how that's *not *relevant to this conversation.




I think that's a fairly lame claim since every chance a PC has to exert any skill is ultimately there via DM intervention. PCs aren't climbing walls, forging documents, picking locks, or appraising antiques without the DM putting in opportunities to do so.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Oct 13, 2008)

billd91 said:


> While the term bloodied makes no sense in that context, we know it's just a term that means at or below half its hit points. It's not unreasonable to believe that there may be effects that make note of that for various story and game reasons.
> Nevertheless, that's fundamentally different than imposing a condition on a creature that should be irrelevant (like the aforementioned prone ooze).



Basically, you're accepting that bloodied can stand for more then a bloody wound, but prone can stand for something different. WHy not use the same assumption for Oozes? Maybe if you knock down a Ooze (in game terms), you're cutting off one of his pseudopods - he has a harder time attacking or defending himself without it, and he will probably spend a move action to get his pseudopod back. 

That is my preferred way handling this - if the typical understanding of a game term doesn't make sense, try to use a different one.


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## billd91 (Oct 13, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Basically, you're accepting that bloodied can stand for more then a bloody wound, but prone can stand for something different.




One difference: bloodied is essentially just defined as being at half hit points or below that may have an effect on certain powers. Prone is a defined condition that really doesn't seem applicable for all opponents. It wouldn't really be a severe hardship to recognize that there are some instances where a power really shouldn't work the way it works for most other cases... depending on the characteristics of the target.
But by putting the square peg and putting it in the round hole, we end up feeling disconnected.


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## Thasmodious (Oct 13, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Thasmodious, while I generally agree with what you say, I don't think Kamikaze Midget is speaking of a "design failure" in your sense. He speaks of failing or meeting his (and others) needs of a game. If he needs Craft and Profession, 4E is failure to meet his needs.




The statement he is maknig, as I see it, is different from the one you are defending.

"This system fails to meet my needs" is markedly different from "This system is a failure because it doesn't meet my needs" 

"I need a bicycle to have refridgeration for my beverage" is different from "this bicycle fails because it doesn't have refridgeration, despite still being a bicycle."  From what I am reading, KM is saying the latter, rather than the former, and that is what I am arguing against.  I could certainly be wrong, but that's how I'm reading his comments in this thread (and if I am wrong, Midget, feel free to tell me off for it).

My problem with that is in the unrealistic bar that sets.  If the judgment of the success of a system, or a design, is the necessity of meeting every conceivable need/desire, then there will never be a successful system.  One mans crafting is another mans assassins table.  Saying that 4e is not the system for you because it doesn't have crafting, or you don't like the powers structure, is perfectly valid.  There are many RPGs, one can search for and find the ruleset that comes closest to presenting a fantasy game in the manner that the person identifies with.  But labeling something a 'failure' for not meeting your specific needs/wants, when the design met its own goals, is a bit warped, imo.  "Its not the system for me" is a far cry from "4e is a failure because I have to implement my own crafting/profession/assassination/gestalt/spaceship rules."  No system can account for everything.  Every group I have ever gamed with has houseruled at least something in the system they were using.  A game system specifically designing elements to make house rules easy to implement, easy to ensure their balance, is successful design, not a failure to include -whatevertheheck-. 

I think including in the design, the ability to modify the design to suit the needs/desires of the end user and allows the individual gamer to play the game that suits their group without accidentally killing the game, is quite progressive in RPG game design, and certainly not a key feature of most systems.  This is why I guess it jerks my chain when someone is complaining that 4e doesn't include -whatevertheheck- and then they include this statement at the end - "and don't give me that 'just add it into the game yourself' garbage, I shouldn't HAVE TO!"  It's a very egocentric position to expect or demand a game must somehow be designed around your specific playstyle/needs.  And on top of it, its a bit out there to argue "I shouldn't have to" when the design specifically relegates subsystems to the realm of houserule and allows for their inclusion.  

D&D has an objective, identifiable, core of gameplay.  And it is not crafting, it is not manipulation of economic markets for profit, it is not ruling kingdoms or building castles.  All those things can be a part of any individual game, and are often great elements, but the core gameplay is encounter resolution.  Focusing the rules on that and relegating everything else to houserule, future supplements, third party and community sources, is a fairly bold design, and, I think, much more logical a solution than picking and choosing what of any hundreds of subsystems should be included.  These have always changed from edition to edition anyway, based on the egocentrics of the designers own playstyles - "well of course we need a table of clothing and descriptions and price lists for a hundred mundane items that no one ever really needs and rarely directly impacts gameplay".  And edition to edition, there are always players crying out "what about -whatevertheheck-, how come it was removed or not included?"  

To me, 4e is much closer to a complete system than the D&D brand had previously accomplished.  Its more modular design makes it easy to modify, easy to fix (a broken power requires a minor tweak, rather than a complete overhaul; such as with melee-magic disparity in previous editions), and easy to expand, both on a per group basis, and through supplmental material, whether from Wizards or the 3PPs.  A "complete system" can't include everything in the rules, thats impossible (or highly improbable).  Instead, the approach would be a modular design in which many elements could easily be incorporated (which, I realize, is what you are saying and where we agree, I'm just elaborating on my own thoughts here).  I think 4e is, if not all the way there itself, a huge step in that direction.


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## GlaziusF (Oct 13, 2008)

billd91 said:


> One difference: bloodied is essentially just defined as being at half hit points or below that may have an effect on certain powers. Prone is a defined condition that really doesn't seem applicable for all opponents. It wouldn't really be a severe hardship to recognize that there are some instances where a power really shouldn't work the way it works for most other cases... depending on the characteristics of the target.
> But by putting the square peg and putting it in the round hole, we end up feeling disconnected.




Prone is just as much a defined condition as bloodied is. It applies more than a flag - it applies a set of modifiers and action restrictions - but it's just as much a defined condition. It, like bloodied, evokes an image, and if the image doesn't match up with what's going on the solution is, like bloodied, not to deny the condition exists but rectify the image.

If a creature has an innate power stating that it cannot be knocked prone, that's just fine, but in the absence of such a power the prone condition must be applied.


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## GlaziusF (Oct 13, 2008)

billd91 said:


> I think that's a fairly lame claim since every chance a PC has to exert any skill is ultimately there via DM intervention. PCs aren't climbing walls, forging documents, picking locks, or appraising antiques without the DM putting in opportunities to do so.




I have detected a subtle flaw in your logic.

It is possible to think of a situation that doesn't involve any need to forge documents.

It is markedly less possible to think of a situation that involves no vertical surfaces.

Or, put another way, the obstacle for forgery is "an NPC who recognizes remote authority and bureaucracy" and the obstacle for climb is "gravity". Which is a given situation more likely to lack? 

Yes, right, there might be a giant citadel in the Elemental Plane of Air, made of planes of force, with a gate-guard. But I had to work to come up with that. I don't have to sell my players on the mysterious force of "gravity".


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## billd91 (Oct 13, 2008)

GlaziusF said:


> I have detected a subtle flaw in your logic.
> 
> It is possible to think of a situation that doesn't involve any need to forge documents.
> 
> ...




And yet, for climbing walls to have any story relevance, the DM still has to make it so. Might it be easier than using a craft skill? Maybe. But the process is still the same. Skills are as relevant as the DM makes them.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Oct 13, 2008)

billd91 said:


> And yet, for climbing walls to have any story relevance, the DM still has to make it so. Might it be easier than using a craft skill? Maybe. But the process is still the same. Skills are as relevant as the DM makes them.




Going from the typical D&D dungeon exploration element (or wilderness travel element at some levels in some editions), doesn't Climb still look more important then Forgery? Heck, even in a city adventure, it seems more likely to need Climb during a chase or "breaking and entering" scenario then using Forgery at any point...

(In all these examples, you can also include Craft, Profession or Perform)


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## billd91 (Oct 13, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Going from the typical D&D dungeon exploration element (or wilderness travel element at some levels in some editions), doesn't Climb still look more important then Forgery? Heck, even in a city adventure, it seems more likely to need Climb during a chase or "breaking and entering" scenario then using Forgery at any point...
> 
> (In all these examples, you can also include Craft, Profession or Perform)




Again, it depends a great deal on the type of game you're running. I've played in and run games where the right documentation has been very important in certain circumstances and forgery has been more useful than climbing walls when it comes to getting to the right places. When you're breaking and entering, you have to keep sneaking or get caught. But if you've got the right passes (or what passes for the right passes), you can walk out in the open...

EDIT: And, if using stealth, that means the 1 or 2 stealthy PCs in the party get to be the ones doing the sneaking, thus splitting the party and leaving both groups more vulnerable. But with a single good forger, we can ALL get into the game.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Oct 13, 2008)

billd91 said:


> Again, it depends a great deal on the type of game you're running. I've played in and run games where the right documentation has been very important in certain circumstances and forgery has been more useful than climbing walls when it comes to getting to the right places. When you're breaking and entering, you have to keep sneaking or get caught. But if you've got the right passes (or what passes for the right passes), you can walk out in the open...
> 
> EDIT: And, if using stealth, that means the 1 or 2 stealthy PCs in the party get to be the ones doing the sneaking, thus splitting the party and leaving both groups more vulnerable. But with a single good forger, we can ALL get into the game.




Of course. If you play a different game from the typical D&D assumptions, forged documentation can be more important than climbing over obstacles. Or Calligraphy. Or Tea Ceremonies. Of course it depends on the type of games you play in! But every games makes assumptions what are the more likely types of games to be played in it. It's hard to go without such assumptions. The question is how much do you want to expand beyond the scope of your core assumptions.
Taking Craft as the example? Are the 3E Craft rules any good? It seems strange to me how long it would actually take to create something like a Full Plate or a Masterwork Longsword? Are the times "realistic"? Do the rules make sense? I have no idea. They exist (and they are simple and in a way I actually like them), sure, but if my game was actually trying to cover Crafting rules, I would bet they would look very different. And I suppose they also wouldn't "break down" once you entered magical items - they would built into the "real" Craft system from the get-go!

There comes a time in every type of creative work where you have to decide "I am finished. Now it's time to get others to "use" my stuff. (Using can be reading, watching, playing, studying, whatever). And sometimes you have to just admit that there are things you can't do in the time frame you had set yourself, unless you do them half-baked.


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## ProfessorCirno (Oct 13, 2008)

I can, in full honesty, state that I've used Forgery far more then _Climb_.  Moments in game that happen in cities are far more often then moments in game that happen next to large cliffs with not a single pathway going up and no other method of reaching the top.


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## billd91 (Oct 13, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Of course. If you play a different game from the typical D&D assumptions, forged documentation can be more important than climbing over obstacles. Or Calligraphy. Or Tea Ceremonies.




I did, in fact, run lots of Oriental Adventures. Impromptu poetry contests in front of the daimyo and all. Running a game like that did encourage me to find outlets for using "non-adventuring" skills.


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## Jhaelen (Oct 13, 2008)

ProfessorCirno said:


> I can, in full honesty, state that I've used Forgery far more then _Climb_.



Amazing. Since I've never seen that skill used I even forgot it existed.
I have trouble to even think of things anyone might want to forge in a typical D&D game.


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## Scribble (Oct 14, 2008)

In my last full 3e campaign forgery was used a number of times. Nowhere near the amount of times climb was used, but it was used.

I'm amazed that someone could use it more then climb though... Climb just seems like one of those skills that is used a lot. Even in our most non dungeon campaign intrigue moments, there was always someone climbing something somewhere.

I don't dislike "background" type skills, but I don't think not having them in the new system is really damaging. Since ability checks increase with level at the same rate as non-trained skills really the skill list is infinite. If you can think it, you can try it.

Also forgery falls under bluff now doesn't it?


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## I'm A Banana (Oct 14, 2008)

Mudstrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> I think there are different degrees of failure.




Absolutely right. But these degrees are relative. All we can really objectively decide is whether or not it is a failure at all to anyone. The OP says that it's not, others say that it is. Unless everyone who says that it is is somehow lying or being deceptive or dishonest, it fails for them, which means *it does fail*. 

The only question after that is "How badly does it fail?"

That's a pretty subjective question, though, and opinions are going to vary a lot. For some, it's not a failure at all, but a success even! That's fine and dandy, but that doesn't mean it's not a failure for others (even if it's not a failure for you). 



			
				Thasmodius said:
			
		

> A game system does not "fail" because it doesn't cover things that you, or your group, personally feel belong higher in a hierarchy of needs.




Actually, it really does. The measure for success for a game system is how many things I need that it provides for me. The theoretical ideal game system for me would have everything I needed or wanted in it, and nothing that I didn't need. If it doesn't provide something I want or need, that's a failure.

Yes, that's an unattainable ideal. No, I would never expect a game system to ever actually provide everyone with everything. It is still fair to say that 4e doesn't provide some things that some people need and that not providing that is a failure for these people. Saying 4e isn't a perfect system shouldn't be blasphemy. Pointing out that 4e might not meet everyone's needs isn't sacrilege. It is the very nature of every game out there, and it must be recognized and dealt with. 



			
				GlaziusF said:
			
		

> I can't stress this enough, yes it is.




It doesn't matter how hard you stress it, it doesn't make it true.

The wrought iron fence of tigers is a barrier between mechanics and story. Period. Full stop. Nothing else matters. It is this barrier. That is all it is, and that is everything it is. That is what I am referring to. The barrier. That's all. Nothing else. It is the barrier.

Wrought Iron Fence Made Of Tigers = When Story and Mechanics don't affect each other in a particularly noticeable way. 

Everything else is superfluous, because these are all caused by that barrier being in place in the first place. That barrier, the tiger-fence, the divide between story and mechanics is, for me, a bad thing. 

The barrier sucks for me, the barrier causes many problems, one of the problems the barrier may cause is that DM Fiat craft or profession systems aren't very satisfying for games where crafting or professions are important. 

"the barrier" = wrought iron fence made of tigers. It's a useful term.



> Also, I notice you've targeted this one narrow case and not complained about, say, skeletons being bloodied. Why is that?




That's probably a valid dissonance, too, it's just a less blatant. The basic point is that the dissonance does exist. It is out there. Some games experience it. There is a divide. There is a barrier. That barrier is very strong in many places. Strong enough to cause a dissonance. The strength of this barrier makes it a wrought iron fence made of tigers. That dissonance does exist. That's the point. The point is that there is a dissonance, and that this dissonance is a problem. 

Agree that there can be a dissonance? Good. We agree that some people will have a valid problem with there being a dissonance. We agree that this is less than ideal for those people. This, then, makes it a failure, however  narrow or minor or easily fixed it is (because how narrow and minor and easily fixed it is is a more subjective issue). 

This shouldn't really need much of a justification. It's like saying that 4e fails to accommodate those who want a highly political game of intrigue where they play vampires in hiding in the modern day. Really? A game system isn't perfect? It can't do everything out of the box? _shocker_.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Oct 14, 2008)

billd91 said:


> I did, in fact, run lots of Oriental Adventures. Impromptu poetry contests in front of the daimyo and all. Running a game like that did encourage me to find outlets for using "non-adventuring" skills.




I had Oriental Adventures in mind when I selected this two skills, too. 

I wouldn't be too surprised if a 4E campaign setting that leaves the standard PoL assumptions behind will introduce such aspects eventually. But I would not count on it using actual skill checks.

Earthdawn had an interesting "cultural" aspect in it - horrors and horror-related creatures were unable to do artistic stuff. To test if someone could be trusted enough to let him into a settlement, people had to show a piece of artwork they created. This might point out you need a craft like skill dealing with this.

But do you really? Or do you just need a note on your character sheet, listening: Arts (Calligraphy) or Arts (Carving)? Do you really need to roll a check? By the background idea, the only thing you care about is whether people actually have the ability to be "artsy" - they don't have to prove grand mastership in it. 

In Oriental Adventures, it might be different. There might actually be a need for a "contest" or you need to achieve a certain degree of quality to be considered "worthy" enough to get in contact with a particular person, or to gain a position. 

On the other hand, if "Craft" is just about creating a certain item - do you care about success or failure? A DC based system (like the skill system) might turn out inappropriate, since a trained smith will not fail forging a sword - the question is only if it will be a masterful one, and maybe how much time it takes him.


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## billd91 (Oct 14, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I had Oriental Adventures in mind when I selected this two skills, too.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> In Oriental Adventures, it might be different. There might actually be a need for a "contest" or you need to achieve a certain degree of quality to be considered "worthy" enough to get in contact with a particular person, or to gain a position.




One additional thing about OA-style games. There may be characters _expected_ via social pressure to "waste" their time with courtly or intellectual pursuits (like samurai). And making them spend skill points on it works very well to model that expectation. Plus, it's a good way to impress your lord, visiting dignitaries, and so on with your impressive flower arrangement... or to create a total faux pas by blowing it.


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## Jhaelen (Oct 14, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Earthdawn had an interesting "cultural" aspect in it - horrors and horror-related creatures were unable to do artistic stuff. To test if someone could be trusted enough to let him into a settlement, people had to show a piece of artwork they created. This might point out you need a craft like skill dealing with this.
> 
> But do you really? Or do you just need a note on your character sheet, listening: Arts (Calligraphy) or Arts (Carving)? Do you really need to roll a check? By the background idea, the only thing you care about is whether people actually have the ability to be "artsy" - they don't have to prove grand mastership in it.



I've been thinking about Earthdawn in this context, too. And I've come to the same conclusion: It's really sufficient to note that you have the skill. In several years of playing Earthdawn I cannot think of anyone actually training the skill.

Then again I do remember a session that took an unexpected turn when one of the pcs first botched his craft roll and then failed to get even a poor result after two retries. But is that sufficient to legitimate it as a (separate) skill?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 14, 2008)

Jhaelen said:


> Amazing. Since I've never seen that skill used I even forgot it existed.
> I have trouble to even think of things anyone might want to forge in a typical D&D game.




Depending upon the nature of the campaign, you might wish to forge:

1) Financial documents: promissory notes, letters of credit, bills of sale or lading, gaming chips or even coins or notes of the realm.

2) Political documents: Letters of Diplomatic Status, Passports, Royal or Trade/Craft seals.

3) Legal documents: Writs of Habeas Corpus, Warrants for arrest, Wills, Letters of Introduction, proofs of geneology.


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## jensun (Oct 14, 2008)

ProfessorCirno said:


> I can, in full honesty, state that I've used Forgery far more then _Climb_.  Moments in game that happen in cities are far more often then moments in game that happen next to large cliffs with not a single pathway going up and no other method of reaching the top.



You have never scaled the smooth marble walls of the Temple of Set to steal the Emerald Eye of the Serpent God?

And here I thought the old school gaming method prmoted a sword and sorccery approach to conflict resolution.


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## Scribble (Oct 14, 2008)

Seems like 4e is handling skills and abilities in difefrent ways.

Skills seem regulated to things that can be answered with a yes/no answer

Did you notice that thing? Yes/No?
Did the creature call your bluff? Yes/No
Can you walk across the tight rope? Yes/No

They're also things that don't require anything but the person doing it.

I tell a lie (bluff)
I try to persuade (diplomacy)
I try to hide (stealth)

Whereas stuff that takes longer, and requires raw materials like making stuff (alchemy) or more elaborate spells (rituals) use a combination of feats + skill checks.

Seems like crafting, or performing, would work in a similar fashion. 9Since both of them require more time, raw m,aterials, and a formula of sorts)

Just make a feat in order to do things like forgery, or disguises, and then a "ritual" for creating various things... False documents, false coins, etc... make bluff a prereq, but use various other skills as needed (like rituals do)

You could even do the same for other crafting skills or performance skills.

bards could have a list of "performances" that fucntion like rituals in a way but have more "bardy" sort of effects. Use streetwise, to symbolize the bard tuning into his crowd to see what's working and what's not, but again use other skill;s like rituals do...

Maybe knowledge history for the bard to recite a specific epic poem or something.


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## GlaziusF (Oct 14, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> It doesn't matter how hard you stress it, it doesn't make it true.




Ha! "True". That's a good one. Try "useful", it lasts longer.



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> The wrought iron fence of tigers is a barrier between mechanics and story. Period. Full stop. Nothing else matters. It is this barrier. That is all it is, and that is everything it is. That is what I am referring to. The barrier. That's all. Nothing else. It is the barrier.
> 
> Wrought Iron Fence Made Of Tigers = When Story and Mechanics don't affect each other in a particularly noticeable way.
> 
> ...




Not used that way, it's not, because *there is no barrier*. 

Story and mechanics are not, somehow, different things. They're the same thing. In the video game, they're both code. In the real world, they're both ideas. 

Yahtzee perceives "the fence" because all he has access to is the gameplay; the story is predetermined by the programmers. It's not that gameplay and story are somehow separate; in fact, he's only coming across "the fence" because gameplay and story are trying to do the same things (in his canonical example, control where the character is going) and story is trumping gameplay. This isn't evidence of separation but of *overlap* -- gameplay is failing because story said so.

The "wrought iron fence made of tigers" is really only a valid criticism when it comes to a video game, where the story and to some extent the gameplay are both predetermined. Short of masterful editing tools, the story is not changeable.

But in a pencil-and-paper game, the players provide the gameplay, the DM arbitrates the story, and story only trumps gameplay when the DM decides it does. The responsibility ultimately lies with the DM, and it's also within the DM's power to restrict or change gameplay, for example by introducing new systems (both house rules and published products).



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> That's probably a valid dissonance, too, it's just a less blatant.




What, are you kidding? It's more blatant. Skeletons don't even HAVE blood! 

Just because the vocabulary used to describe the mechanics implies something, that doesn't mean those implications have to carry over into the story. 

The dissonance is only valid so far as it's unaddressed, which means that neither one is valid anymore.

Because I addressed them.


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## I'm A Banana (Oct 16, 2008)

> Story and mechanics are not, somehow, different things. They're the same thing. In the video game, they're both code. In the real world, they're both ideas.




This statement is incomprehensible to me. They are very much different things. That is why there are different words for them. That is why upthread there was said to be a "wall" between the two. A division between the two is the only way the OP's concept of a DM Fiat Profession or Crafting system can work (you let them do whatever makes sense as long as it doesn't affect the mechanics, and because it doesn't affect the mechanics, it doesn't really matter what they do). 

They are both ideas, sure. But so is Democracy, and so is a Triangle, and I would very much say that Democracy and a Triangle are, somehow, different things.



> It's not that gameplay and story are somehow separate; in fact, he's only coming across "the fence" because gameplay and story are trying to do the same things (in his canonical example, control where the character is going) and story is trumping gameplay. This isn't evidence of separation but of overlap -- gameplay is failing because story said so.




But the original quote didn't talk about overlap. It talked about a division. A separation. Here it is again.



			
				Yahtzee said:
			
		

> What I'm saying is that I like games where the story and gameplay go hand in hand, while in most JRPGs story and gameplay are kept either side of a wrought iron fence made of tigers.




That's very clearly a *division*. A very intense division. 

Upthread, the same thing was talked about: a division.



			
				Rechan said:
			
		

> You know what's important to me? Story. And I believe there is a moat and stone wall between Story and Mechanics.




Heck, let's even go into 4e rulebooks themselves.



			
				4e DMG said:
			
		

> ...values narrative elements over mechanical ones...the rules are there to support the game's ongoing story...when the rules get in the way, the narrative should win...the rules are all about determining whether you succeed or fail at the tasks you attempt...encounters are where the game happens...




And I'm sure there are more.

So unless Rechan and Yahtzee and every 4e designer are all very very mistaken on what they are talking about, it is safe to assume that, yes, there IS a difference between mechanics and story. Somehow. 

With regards to a Craft/Profession system, the OP suggested that because they don't affect the rules, a system where the DMs just adjudicate the results should be satisfying for everyone. The issue with that is that not everyone is happy with a system that doesn't affect the rules. The reason this is because not everyone is happy with there being a wall between mechanics and story. There is at least something of a wall there, if all the writing about 4e (including the "silo" theory) is to be believed, and I see every reason to believe that body of evidence over your own insistence that there is no difference because they are "ideas." 



> Just because the vocabulary used to describe the mechanics implies something, that doesn't mean those implications have to carry over into the story.




True. If they don't carry over *there is a barrier*. That barrier, for me, *is a bad thing*. 4e *has that barrier*, and this is *a bad thing* for me.

If we can agree on that, we don't have any real debate, here. 



> The dissonance is only valid so far as it's unaddressed, which means that neither one is valid anymore.
> 
> Because I addressed them.




No one asked you to. People do ask D&D to, but D&D doesn't, so it is still valid, because D&D hasn't done it. That's what this thread is about, after all: D&D. Not your pet house rules, but the published rules of the game. The OP suggested that DM Fiat is perfectly OK, people disagree, and that disagreement is entirely valid, regardless of how many posts with suggestions you make.


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## GlaziusF (Oct 16, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> This statement is incomprehensible to me. They are very much different things. That is why there are different words for them. That is why upthread there was said to be a "wall" between the two. A division between the two is the only way the OP's concept of a DM Fiat Profession or Crafting system can work (you let them do whatever makes sense as long as it doesn't affect the mechanics, and because it doesn't affect the mechanics, it doesn't really matter what they do).
> 
> They are both ideas, sure. But so is Democracy, and so is a Triangle, and I would very much say that Democracy and a Triangle are, somehow, different things.




But let's say you have a square and a triangle. Not the same thing, are they? But you can still talk about area and perimeter as it applies to both of them, because they're closed plane figures, and all closed plane figures have areas and perimeters.

The story and the mechanics both articulate relationships between ideas. Story in the default human set-theory model, with maybe a little bit of comparison - Company X arrived before Company Y and after Company Z - and mechanics expressing more complex numerical relationships. But you can interpret the results of the mechanics at the story level - if you run the starting positions of Companies X, Y, and Z, the terrain they had to cover, and their average traveling speeds, you could work out what order they arrived in. 



Kamikaze Midget said:


> But the original quote didn't talk about overlap. It talked about a division. A separation. Here it is again.
> 
> That's very clearly a *division*. A very intense division.
> 
> ...




Curse you, lack of nested quotes.

But really, you're undermining your own argument. If mechanics and story really were different, then nobody would be fussing about keeping them apart. I mean, does it even make sense to say "whenever Democracy gets in the way of a Triangle, the Triangle should win"? Of course not, since Democracy and Triangle have nothing to do with each other.

But story and mechanics are trying to address the same thing: the behavior of the game world. 



Kamikaze Midget said:


> With regards to a Craft/Profession system, the OP suggested that because they don't affect the rules, a system where the DMs just adjudicate the results should be satisfying for everyone.




Um, the DM always adjudicates the results. What kind of D&D are you playing that the DM doesn't?



Kamikaze Midget said:


> The issue with that is that not everyone is happy with a system that doesn't affect the rules. The reason this is because not everyone is happy with there being a wall between mechanics and story. There is at least something of a wall there, if all the writing about 4e (including the "silo" theory) is to be believed, and I see every reason to believe that body of evidence over your own insistence that there is no difference because they are "ideas."




The wall isn't between mechanics and story but should be between explicit and implicit skills. Implicit skills have hooks that need to be specially removed by the DM (for example, an unclimbable wall, or a Beefeater-style undistractable guard) while explicit skills have hooks that need to be specially placed by the DM. 

Explicit skills, because they are deliberately placed, are more story-related, since the DM is responsible for creating the story. Having them draw from the same pool as the implicit skills means that characters have to sacrifice their general utility in the world for the ability to participate in the story, which I don't believe is a desirable outcome.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> True. If they don't carry over *there is a barrier*. That barrier, for me, *is a bad thing*. 4e *has that barrier*, and this is *a bad thing* for me.
> 
> If we can agree on that, we don't have any real debate, here.




Next you'll be saying there's a barrier because somebody creates a city inspector and makes him a Rogue, to model his stealth, agility, and general ability to foil locks and misdirect criminals. But wait! Isn't a "rogue" an outlaw? How can you make someone who works not only within the law but to uphold the law and call him a "rogue"?!

The names for mechanical features are intended to evoke certain broad ideas to make them easy to remember, but they encompass more than just those ideas, so they don't always map perfectly onto the story. Nor should they, because that would mean sacrificing utility for the sake of preventing  a few seconds' confusion.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> No one asked you to.




I'm sorry, I thought you were raising those dissonances so you could have them resolved, not because you wanted to complain about how the books didn't resolve them.


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## I'm A Banana (Oct 17, 2008)

GlaziusF said:
			
		

> you can interpret the results of the mechanics at the story level




And if you don't, there is a divide.



> If mechanics and story really were different, then nobody would be fussing about keeping them apart. I mean, does it even make sense to say "whenever Democracy gets in the way of a Triangle, the Triangle should win"? Of course not, since Democracy and Triangle have nothing to do with each other.
> 
> But story and mechanics are trying to address the same thing: the behavior of the game world.




I'm with you, here.

I'm saying that, for me, it is the best when they both address the behavior of the game world, when they inform each other and, together, shape the behavior of the game world.

When one or the other has to "win out," it is unsatisfying. They should work together. The story should lead naturally into mechanics which should lead again into story which leads again into mechanics. They should work together, rather than be separate. When mechanics has to win out (when you "trip" an ooze because it would be unfair to rob someone of their ability), it doesn't satisfy me. When story has to win out (when you have to decide an NPC's role in a metagame sense before the PC's even deal with it), it doesn't satisfy me. When the two work together (a mechanic that erodes your Sanity score and thus causes character twitches) it is the most satisfying.



> Um, the DM always adjudicates the results. What kind of D&D are you playing that the DM doesn't?




There is all the difference in the world between a system that the DM adjudicates, and the DM simply handwaving it. 

If there wasn't, I wouldn't need 900 pages of rules.



> Having them draw from the same pool as the implicit skills means that characters have to sacrifice their general utility in the world for the ability to participate in the story, which I don't believe is a desirable outcome.




They don't have to be drawn from the same pool of resources. They just have to have a mechanically measurable effect, somewhere. They can be silo'd away from combat easily enough.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda...4e didn't. And this isn't OK for some people, because other games DO, and the desirability of an impact may, in fact, trump whatever failings the system does have.



> Next you'll be saying there's a barrier because somebody creates a city inspector and makes him a Rogue, to model his stealth, agility, and general ability to foil locks and misdirect criminals. But wait! Isn't a "rogue" an outlaw? How can you make someone who works not only within the law but to uphold the law and call him a "rogue"?!




If there was an explicit link between class title and character description, yeah, that might be a problem. In fact, I believe this was one of the reasons that it's not called "thief" anymore? So that the class title can be applicable to a broader range of archetypes? Yeah.

Fortunately for most, that's a relatively minor offender when compared to the complete lack of a crafting system (for instance). 



> I'm sorry, I thought you were raising those dissonances so you could have them resolved, not because you wanted to complain about how the books didn't resolve them.




Well, the OP offered a system they thought should be good enough for anyone.

I told them why it wasn't (and, by extension, why 4e's isn't). Defending that position has pretty much been my MO. That position doesn't need solutions, it just needs to be accepted ("Yes, 4e is lacking a detailed crafting system, and I can see, if it is very important to you, how 4e might be lacking, in that respect!") or denied ("No, 4e is not lacking a detailed crafting system. Here is what you missed:"). 

Once we're aware of what the problem is, we can worry about solutions for it, but I feel like I'm having enough difficulty even establishing the presence of a problem (and I can't understand why it is this difficult to establish).


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Oct 17, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> That position doesn't need solutions, it just needs to be accepted ("Yes, 4e is lacking a detailed crafting system, and I can see, if it is very important to you, how 4e might be lacking, in that respect!") or denied ("No, 4e is not lacking a detailed crafting system. Here is what you missed:").



Hey, I already did that! I said you it doesn't have a craft mechanic, and if for some reason you need that, it's a failure of the game for you! 

Why is my acceptance not enough??? Don't you like me?!  





Of course, why are we expanding the issue and talk about general aspects like "game mechanics vs story/narrative" then? I suppose that was the only way to get to the insane amount of pages we are already.


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## GlaziusF (Oct 17, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> And if you don't, there is a divide.




Eh, not really. Sometimes Company Y stops for some R&R and Company Z gets helped across the river by a friendly giant. 




Kamikaze Midget said:


> I'm with you, here.
> 
> I'm saying that, for me, it is the best when they both address the behavior of the game world, when they inform each other and, together, shape the behavior of the game world.
> 
> When one or the other has to "win out," it is unsatisfying. They should work together. The story should lead naturally into mechanics which should lead again into story which leads again into mechanics. They should work together, rather than be separate.




Uh, to not conflict, they have to be separate. When they conflict, that's evidence they're both pulling on the same game-world behavior, but they're doing it in different ways.

Which is actually kinda an inevitable consequence if you give people a lot of leeway with what mechanics apply to or what kind of stories they tell.

The thing with video games is that the programmers set up the limits of the mechanics and the limits of the story ahead of time, so it's easier to create the sort of "to you! To me!" thing you talk about here. But in a system intended for a broad audience, corner conflict cases are pretty much inevitable. 



Kamikaze Midget said:


> When mechanics has to win out (when you "trip" an ooze because it would be unfair to rob someone of their ability), it doesn't satisfy me. When story has to win out (when you have to decide an NPC's role in a metagame sense before the PC's even deal with it), it doesn't satisfy me.




You don't "trip" an ooze, you knock it prone. Can an ooze "drop prone" to, say, avoid ranged attacks? Why not? I'm pretty sure you can picture an ochre jelly just kind of flattening itself and slithering along the ground, and then puffing back up to slam into somebody. Do you have a problem with knocking flying things prone? I mean, there's not much of a way to trip those either.

As for NPC role - you're talking about brute, controller, soldier, etc? That's like complaining that PCs have to decide their role before they fight any battles. 



Kamikaze Midget said:


> There is all the difference in the world between a system that the DM adjudicates, and the DM simply handwaving it.
> 
> If there wasn't, I wouldn't need 900 pages of rules.




...did you just add the page count of the core rulebooks together, or is that the actual count of the rules you play with? Man, how long does it take you to answer a question at the table? 

But all those rules really are, are prepared handwaving. They've been tested, somewhat, to ensure they don't break any other rules in obvious ways, but they're just as arbitrary. It's not like there's a reinforced steel room at WotC with a giant rugged impact sensor and people analyzing how hard a titan swings a greatclub. 



Kamikaze Midget said:


> They don't have to be drawn from the same pool of resources. They just have to have a *mechanically measurable effect*, somewhere. They can be silo'd away from combat easily enough.




That's the core of the problem. Explicit-hook skills have possible effects introduced entirely at the DM's discretion, so having a player weight them really just amounts to the players and DM picking arbitrary numbers and hoping in the end they mean something.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> I told them why it wasn't (and, by extension, why 4e's isn't). Defending that position has pretty much been my MO. That position doesn't need solutions, it just needs to be accepted ("Yes, 4e is lacking a detailed crafting system, and I can see, if it is very important to you, how 4e might be lacking, in that respect!") or denied ("No, 4e is not lacking a detailed crafting system. Here is what you missed:").
> 
> Once we're aware of what the problem is, we can worry about solutions for it, but I feel like I'm having enough difficulty even establishing the presence of a problem (and I can't understand why it is this difficult to establish).




4E has a standard skill challenge system. I've detailed upthread how it could be adapted to crafting challenges and how crafter backgrounds could feed into it.

What isn't covered?


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## Ace (Oct 17, 2008)

I like craft skills because they add verisimilitude. They make my game feel more realistic and more like a real place. It also allows me to have an easy way to have an occasional oddball adventure and to stat out NPC's.

I just flat out feel better about say a fighter character with Spot, Profession Sailor, Balance and Rope Use  on the sheet rather than just saying "he is a a sailor"


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