Musings on the skill system

[kennew142]

PC Backgrounds

I like my characters to have backgrounds that include professions and crafting as well. I just don't like the PCs to become better bakers than anyone else in town just because they've killed a few orcs. I'm thinking of allowing PCs to choose backgrounds and treat them as skills that aren't modified by 1/2 level (for those odd times when a skill roll may actually be necessary). A PC with profession pastry chef would get WIS + 5 as a check. A PC master chef would get an additional bonus based on his years of experience (+5, +10, + whatever was appropriate).

In all honesty, I've seldom seen the need for rolling background skills. Even in 3.5 I assumed that 5 ranks meant a journeyman, 10 ranks a master and 15 ranks a grandmaster. If you're a pastry chef, you can make pastries. No die rolling needed.

As always YMMV.

 

[Scribble]

My biggest issue with the removal of Disguise is that there are now no disguise rules in the books at all, as far as I can tell, with the exception of the Change Shape ability doppelgangers have. A paragraph or so under Bluff would've been fine, but I don't like having to make a houserule for how a staple of adventuring fiction like that works.

It's handled under the Bluff Skill.

 

[kennew142]

My biggest issue with the removal of Disguise is that there are now no disguise rules in the books at all, as far as I can tell, with the exception of the Change Shape ability doppelgangers have. A paragraph or so under Bluff would've been fine, but I don't like having to make a houserule for how a staple of adventuring fiction like that works.

It doesn't have a paragraph on disguise under bluff, but the PHB does mention (under the bluff skill) that it can be used to pass off a disguise, with a bluff vs. insight check. How much more do we need? If you give a modifier to the check based on how extreme the disguise is, you should be good to go.

I was never fond of the detailed table of modifiers in 3e. If those rules modeled the real world, I've seen some drag queens with pretty high levels to cover all those ranks in disguise.