Spellcasting abilities as skills

[mlenser]

Extension of #414

See https://spellcasting-skills.kryxrpg.com/

Some benefits of this direction:

• Spells do not have a set chance to succeed. Both sides can roll and so the chances of success becomes more variable which makes the game more dynamic and a bonus benefit of easier to balance. Optional rule to use passive skills for a static DC is there for those who want it
• Players/monsters can choose how much to invest in the skill. Casters will probably want expertise while half casters may not.
• Spells can be defended by skills (insight/perception/acrobatics/athletics) where it makes sense as the systems will be aligned
• A bit more thematics. An Acolyte will desire to invest more into the Divinity skill, not just seeing it as a worthless skill. A suffused for example will have its skill determined by its power source, but will be an exception in that it can use Charisma for its spellcasting.
• Monsters have more saving throw proficiencies (math is still less favorable for a high level caster vs a challenge 1 monsters, but the monster isn't worthless - we resolved that earlier this week)

Spellcasting is based on how you learn your magic

• Acolyte: Magic comes from their deity. Wisdom for devotion and Charisma for Conviction. If we go with the Willpower system then Willpower is more clear here, imo
• Alchemist: Studies their formulas, Intelligence
• Mage: Studies their spells, Intelligence
• Naturalist: Connection to nature, wisdom
• Occultist: Learns their spells from their patron, Intelligence. Even though their power source is based on their patron, they still learn their spells the same way. That was my logic, at least
• Psionicist: Learns spells from mastery of self. Wisdom.
• Rogue (Spellthief): Study and practice the stolen words of power: Intelligence
• Suffused: Spellcasting is based on subclass

[shemetz]

We discussed this a lot on Discord, so I decided to sit down and summarize my general thoughts about this. They're mostly negative and not a lot of constructive criticism, which I'm sorry about, but I end up thinking that this is not a good change.

Benefits?

Spells do not have a set chance to succeed. Both sides can roll and so the chances of success becomes more variable which makes the game more dynamic and a bonus benefit of easier to balance. Optional rule to use passive skills for a static DC is there for those who want it

That can already be accomplished with a simple variant rule - allow spellcasters to roll 1d20 with their spellcasting bonus minus 2, to set the DC for every spell that they cast.

Players/monsters can choose how much to invest in the skill. Casters will probably want expertise while half casters may not.

I think that's an understatement. 99% of full casters will maximize this (gaining expertise at level 2), and 95% of half casters will do the same. I believe that the concept of "character who only casts auto-success spells" is really rare, and the system already supported it by allowing someone to dump their spellcasting ability.

A bit more thematics. An Acolyte will desire to invest more into the Divinity skill, not just seeing it as a worthless skill. A suffused for example will have its skill determined by its power source, but will be an exception in that it can use Charisma for its spellcasting.

I believe that, in effect, this will just make Acolytes to all be proficient/expert with Divinity. It feels like a false choice, when this skill determines your character's effectiveness at so many things. A much easier way of causing this change is just to give all Acolytes proficiency with Divinity (they already get automatic capability with it!).

Monsters have more saving throw proficiencies

The problem here is that flavor needs to be maintained, so unless you're adding a blanket layer of half-proficiency to every save of every monster, this is going to just widen the gap of some monsters - the ogre will be even better at fortitude saves and even worse at will saves. The problem is, players aren't random, and they will target weak saves whenever possible; so in effect it will increase the likelihood of most spells.

I don't think the above benefits justify this change, in comparison to all the problems that it creates.

There are some other benefits not mentioned here:

• "Everything is a skill" makes the system elegant, and elegance is nice.
• Effects that apply to skills will now apply to the most important combat rolls (this includes Bless, Lucky, Guidance, Call to Mind, and potentially stuff like Bestial Transformation if this change is extended to maneuvers)
• The system is more open to adding rules for advantage/disadvantage on spellcasting checks (e.g. a wizard using the Help action to help a fellow wizard cast a spell?)

And I still think that they don't justify this change enough :/

I'd rather add more local improvements to these issues, after discussing them. For example, allowing Bless to affect spell DCs, or forcing casters to take proficiency/expertise in their classic skill.

"Everything should be skills" is a noble idea but I think it can only work here if it's a huge and global change that doesn't move things out of balance. Even then, I'd prefer it if it had multiple strong arguments in favor of it, because players aren't really complaining about the current inelegant state of affairs. The change needs to make the game more fun.

Drawbacks & Risks

• This forces the idea of your magical power being tied to your specialty magic knowledge. I think there are a lot of characters who don't fit this mold. Like we mentioned in Discord - it's usual for sorcerers to not understand their spells, or for paladins to rely on determination and belief instead of relying on religious knowledge. Identification of spells, magic items, and monsters - also don't really need to tie into a spellcaster's power. And, again, if we do choose this, it's easier to just force proficiency as part of the class.
• Allowing for expertise in spellcasting checks increases success rate of all spellcasters by 5%-15% on average. Since I'm assuming that the previous values were good (at the "goldilocks zone" of success rates), we will have to make changes in order to counterbalance this. This is made even harder by the fact that some spells target AC (which doesn't increase if saves increase; and if it does, it will reduce chances of normal attacks).
• Effects that apply to skills now apply to your most important combat roll. This means that some spells (like Guidance) have to be changed in a way that makes them worse for mundane skills, to keep them from being too powerful in combat. This also means that magic items that affect your skills will also affect your combat efficiency. These were already slight problems with Stealth (a skill frequently used in combat), but this would be even more difficult to balance. Skill checks usually aren't as impactful as casting spells, so balancing them as if they're equal is sometimes problematic.
• Some skills matter more than other skills. I dislike this, because I like symmetry and equivalent choices. Perception might be too useful and Coercion might be too niche, but I'd rather try to improve these, not make things even more imbalanced with skills that determine the majority of a character's effectiveness
• False choices in skills are not interesting and not very healthy for the system
• Some complications with bookkeeping (Divinity (Wis) vs Divinity (Cha) - do you write both on your character sheet? if we make it an override, we break flavor, by allowing you to use Charisma for knowledge checks)
• Allowing saving throws with expertise is not something that requires this change. Converting saves or weapons or armor to skills is also not something that requires this change. If this goes through and ends up badly, it might dissuade us from making similar changes which might actually be good

So, overall, it feels like the benefits do not justify the cost. I'm open to more discussion, as I was initially in favor of this ("everything is skills" would be so nice and simple), but now I just feel like I'm finding more and more problems this creates, and not really seeing how it'll make the game better.

[mlenser]

That can already be accomplished with a simple variant rule - allow spellcasters to roll 1d20 with their spellcasting bonus minus 2, to set the DC for every spell that they cast.
A much easier way of causing this change is just to give all Acolytes proficiency with Divinity (they already get automatic capability with it!).

That solutions you suggest falls short of many of the benefits listed in the OP.
Divinity as a skill is largely not very valuable for an Acolyte, Primal is not very valuable to a Naturalist. WIthout spellcasting there is little reason for these skills to exist. Giving an Acolyte Proficiency in Divinity does not make Divinity a worthwhile skill.

unless you're adding a blanket layer of half-proficiency to every save of every monster
"Everything should be skills" is a noble idea but I think it can only work here if it's a huge and global change that doesn't move things out of balance.

Already did the global change on every place except monster spellcasting. The math is worked out at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sGvcz9vbq9yk4kRBEY6ZYGWhGO6-t7CWudznQcWPk74/edit#gid=158786285

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I'd rather add more local improvements to these issues, after discussing them. For example, allowing Bless to affect spell DCs, or forcing casters to take proficiency/expertise in their classic skill.

And this is where we differ. You generally prefer small bandages on top of a system to "make it work" while I prefer creating a system that works without the bandages. I'm always after a system with as few bandages as possible.

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This forces the idea of your magical power being tied to your specialty magic knowledge. I think there are a lot of characters who don't fit this mold. Like we mentioned in Discord - it's usual for sorcerers to not understand their spells, or for paladins to rely on determination and belief instead of relying on religious knowledge. Identification of spells, magic items, and monsters - also don't really need to tie into a spellcaster's power.

I don't agree with most statements in here like:

• "sorcerers to not understand their spells": This logic is super bad for the health of the game and the suffused specifically. A suffused isn't a buffoun who knows nothing about magic. They were born with their magic and have had by far the most experience of any class with their magic. Some suffused could have their magic manifest later in life and be less knowledgable about their skills, but that in no way prevents them from using their spellcasting skill to identify magic items. They fiddle around with it for a while and figure it out. It'd be in a different way than another class, but they aren't incapable.
• "paladins to rely on determination and belief instead of relying on religious knowledge": This is not how acolytes are represented in my system. Perhaps you're referring to houserules or 5e where paladins are connected to oaths. That is not the case in my system where Paladins, like all Acolytes, are connected to Deities.

we will have to make changes in order to counterbalance this.

The changes have already been made. And to loosely paraphrase you from previous discussions: "the math can always be fixed".

Effects that apply to skills now apply to your most important combat roll. This means that some spells (like Guidance) have to be changed in a way that makes them worse for mundane skills, to keep them from being too powerful in combat.

Guidance should be changed even if we don't do this change. Guidance allows pre-buffing. Additionally, current skills are not non-combat options. You generally phrase the discussions like that, but the current skills (and 5e skills) can be used in combat. Guidance can already allow you a much better chance to trip someone. You have also outlined the problem with Stealth, so these cantrips are already problematic.

Some skills matter more than other skills.

Not making this change makes the spellcasting skills much less valuable than others.

The reality is that some skills are better than others. Perception and some other are very strong. We should try to improve some, but some will always always be stronger.

False choices in skills are not interesting and not very healthy for the system

It's not a false choice. I could quite easily build a gish who does not use its spellcasting skill beyond capable level. Similarly, most PCs aim to get Perception if they can.

Some complications with bookkeeping (Divinity (Wis) vs Divinity (Cha)

We haven't sorted out how to handle these cases yet. This is premature.

[shemetz]

I can accept the goal of "magic knowledge skills should be more useful", but this change doesn't really do that - it's more like this change causes all casters to have expertise in that skill.

("I could easily build a character that doesn't need expertise in their most defining skill" is true but I believe it'll practically only happen <1% of the time. Maybe 2% of the time for gishes.)

I don't think this meaningfully changes the "value" of these skills. It's functionally forcing the casters to be experts in their one skill, but this does not make the other four skills any more appealing for them. Even if they get some extra power sources (from species or feats), investing in a skill will probably just make one of their spells a little bit better. This change does not make the five magical knowledge skills more valuable for any martial character, and it doesn't make Arcana or Psionics more valuable for a Druid.

If the skills are not valuable enough, I think a better direction (maybe even regardless of this change) would be to change what they can and cannot do, focusing on reasons (mechanical and flavorful) for characters to invest in skills that aren't for their specific spellcasting power.

For example...

• You could have the skills grant you extra known themes/spells/maneuvers from that power source
• You could have the skills requires to use magic items and scrolls that belong to a different power source
• You could increase the effectiveness of monster knowledge checks, encouraging players to make them in the middle of combat and encouraging parties to have multiple shared proficiencies (instead of "one arcana guy, one primal guy, one religion guy").
• You could reduce the effectiveness of abilities other than these five, for identifying spells and magic items (i.e. nerf the Identify spell)
• You could even scratch the idea of five skills for five power sources, and instead make them into "Monster Lore" and "Magic Lore".

You could also add more effects in the game that require the use of these skills - for example, requiring a Mage to make an appropriate skill check when scribing a spell to a spellbook/scroll, or requiring a character to make a Primal check when they eat a Goodberry or trapped in vines of Entangle. However, these will probably feel as a tax for the players, and I can't think of many of them that encourage characters to learn skills from different power sources.

[shemetz]

Some things change as a result of spellcasting with checks. I bolded the ones that are probably bad.

Spells that now make target cast spells with disadvantage

• itching powder
• dislocating strike
• ego whip
• bestow curse
• ancient curse
• synaptic static
• power word pain
• heat metal
• resurrection
• lullaby

Spells/features that now make target cast spells with advantage

• foresight
• fortunes of fate - the high priestess (for wisdom spellcasters)
• Psionicist - Psychic focus - Mind
• Rogue - Reliable Talent

Conditions that now make target cast spells with disadvantage:

• exhausted 1
• frightened
• poisoned

In particular, exhausted 1 would be extremely detrimental to casters, while (currently) it's only exhausted 3 that troubles martial characters.

It would be nice if the rules could say "ability checks other than spellcasting checks" for these cases. however, if that's too ugly, there should probably be another solution. For example, maybe it can be disadvantage only on some specific skill checks (e.g. frightened makes you worse at persuasion but not worse at athletics or arcana).

[mlenser]

Alchemical save DCs are now handled via the Alchemy skill, Maneuver save DCs are now handled via the Weapons skill, and Spell attacks and spell save DCs are now handled via magic skills.