D&D Q&A: Skills & Proficiencies

Earlier this week it was revealed that skills would be part of the default game (yay!), and we even got to see the current roster (yay…). This week’s Questions & Answers follwup sheds a bit more light on the skill list, how proficiencies work, and if/how you can pick more up.

The skill list is mostly fine, though a few like Perception and Search could stand to be combined (just swap out Wisdom and Intelligence depending on the circumstance), and I can easily see something like Drive being useful if a character wants to use a chariot, like in Eberron or Dark Sun.

This is not a big deal since according to the article they will provide advice on adding, removing, and/or changing them, as well as skills based on backgrounds or story elements. They are even considering an alternate rule that allows you to create a skill using a short phrase, which seems very much like FATE‘s aspects and 13th Age‘s backgrounds, so I both approve and prefer that model.

When I originally read this article I felt that the proficiency bonus was a promising idea, because if attacks and skills had the same range of bonuses that it would be really easy to make one set of DC’s for use in and outside of combat. Additionally an established range of bonuses would make it easier to determine what the range of DC’s in general should be (probably not up to 35).

However I have since read the latest packet where the proficiency bonus is implemented, and I am not impressed with it; the bonus is not only based on your overall character level, but it uniform across the board.

This means that two characters with the same proficiency will have the same bonus throughout the campaign, differentiated perhaps only by ability score (which will ultimately account for less than half of the overall bonus, anyway). Even worse is if you pick up a proficiency later, as it is immediately set to your level-bonus, so a fighter can go from having no knowledge about magical things, to having comprehensive knowledge of it in an instant.

I, as well as many others I am sure, would rather have characters make an actual choice between increasing a skill or choosing a new one instead of having one bonus. The range of the bonus is fine, but a player should choose which one(s) to increase over time so that you get to see your character improve through deliberate choice. Also add something like skill powers to the mix.

Legends & Lore: Skills Are Back

It is nice that, after a few weeks of no Legends & Lore (and a pretty disappointing packet release), it comes back from hiatus with some good news: skills are back, +10 lore “skills” and skill dice are gone, and skills are not hard-wired to ability scores.

I made it pretty clear on at least one occasion that I was disappointed with the removal of skills; characters are already starved for choices, and I am not one of those people that believes that having a high Dexterity or Charisma is the same thing as being skilled at sneaking or talking to people respectively.

I am glad, and honestly a bit surprised, that they are going to be a default component of even the basic version of the game. I never thought that if done well they would overwhelm new players, and it sounds like that they are keeping that in mind by having them making you better at dealing with existing rules instead of adding new rules (jumping, I am looking at you). I think that the game is way better off with them, but even so if skills are not something that you want to deal with you will apparently be able to ignore them “fairly easily”.

You can become proficient in a skill or set of tools, which gives you a static bonus. The article mentions a +2 to +6 spread, plus another +5 on top if you are an expert in a skill. I am fine with this so long as Difficulty Classes are not written with the expectation that a character will be an expert. It does not mention how many proficiencies you start with, or how you can get them, but that the bonus will depend on your level, and this is where I get a bit more iffy about the whole thing.

I would rather not see a character pick up proficiency later and have a huge bonus at it. It bugged me about the time Next introduced the skill die, where every skill had the same bonus, and if you opted to increase it they all got the same increase (including skills that you picked up later). I think a simple and organic way to go about it is to have characters spend proficiency slots to either gain a +2 bonus with something or improve the bonus to +4, then finally +6. Classes could have a class feature option where you can choose to become an expert in specific skills that make sense for it.

You could even rank skills and/or attach other potential benefits that can be unlocked, like 4th Edition’s skill powers. For example getting Acrobatics at +4 makes you automatically take less damage from falling, while Acrobatics at +6 lets you use a reaction to reduce damage from an attack. You know, cool choices like that.

Something that I found interesting was how they mentioned weapons along with skills and tools. Does this mean that fighters will start with a +2 to all weapon attacks, or will they be experts (giving them a starting bonus of +7). At the least if weapons follow the same progression as skills then I think it will make it easier to peg DCs for characters trying to do creative things in and out of combat, like adding your Strength and Weapon bonus to bash down a door.

Finally the skill list. It is lacking in Dungeoneering, which I liked for its aberrant lore, but I am guessing that Arcana will give you access to that sort of thing. Strange to see Endurance get cut, meaning there are no skills linked to Constitution. Otherwise it is pretty much fine. Maybe include some kind of piloting or riding skill (unless that got folded into Animal Handling, which would also be fine).

DDN Q&A: Skills

If you were wondering why skills were largely jettisoned in the most recent playtest packet, I guess it is to…streamline the game? If you were also wondering why lores were kept (and the bonus drastically inflated), it is because a lot of the players apparently missed being able to be an expert in a field of knowledge…?

Right.

I am serious: they kept asking what their characters would know, so the solution was to give them a non-scaling bonus to a couple of checks, which at
a whopping +10 is less of a bonus, and more of a guarantee, so I guess it
accomplishes their mission of streamlining the game since players will not even
need to ask.

You know what I miss? Being able to make meaningful decisions when building my character. 4th Edition gave us more control, especially since you could pick up training in any skill by using Skill Training or most multiclass feats. So if you wanted to, you could easily have a fighter that knew some stuff about magic, or was at least competent in social situations. Want your illusionist to be good at lying and sneaking? An easy two feats, at least one of which might give you something else like Sneak Attack.

As refreshing as this was, 5th Edition made it even better…for while anyway: you got to pick any four skills you wanted. No feats, no variant class features, anything goes. With this Josh was able to easily make a thug-type wizard that could intimidate people and sneak around pretty well. Given the lack of choices elsewhere in the bigger picture it was not much, but it was something. Now? Aside from spell selection he is virtually identical to every other evoker out there.

Personally I think that most groups want skills in some capacity. It is not like most of them are terribly complicated. Well, maybe when you are trying to jump; I can never remember the formula for that. Anyway, basic rules for skills should be the default. If you do not want them, then a sidebar or module can give you guidelines on how to adjust DCs. Same thing if you want more elaborate skills, or other ways to use them.

Legends & Lore: Feats AND Skills

This is a pretty lengthy article, so I am going to start out by condensing the already condensed list of the current design goals featured at the end:

• Every class gets ability score increases, though the frequency may vary by class, and you can swap them out for feats (which are optional).
• Skills are also optional (which means that I have to adjust the character sheet I am making for the contest again).
• Backgrounds now give various benefits–of which one category is called benefits–instead of skills.

I mentioned last week that I was not a fan of feats being able to increase your ability scores because it is already incredibly easy to hit the cap: the druid in my playtest campaign already has a Wisdom of 20, and pretty much everyone else has a key ability score in the 18-19 range. If characters no longer gain both ability score bonuses and feats that can also be ability score bonuses, well, that changes things somewhat.

As I also mentioned last week I am not opposed to simplicity (I am definitely a player that prefers lots of complexity), except where the simplest options are also the best. Previous editions saw feats that granted the equivalent of a focused +2 to an ability score, plus something extra. By shifting them so that it takes two to gain a similar bonus to a wider spread, I think it will be easier to balance feats with that are more complex, maybe more focused, but provide more immediate benefits.

Which is a concern: can they design feats that can coexist, without either side of the complexity camp becoming the “correct” choice? I know they intend to design the game so that it is not assumed you are taking ability score boosts, but then players might pile them on anyway to help guarantee success. Technically you might not need another +1 to your attack rolls to hit that dragon, but that still improves your odds by 5%, and your investment provides even greater returns when it is also linked to your ability to climb, jump, and break things.

Another concern is how many feats characters will get; 3rd Edition had many trees, but few opportunities to see any of them grow to fruition, while 4th Edition gave you many more feats, shorter trees, and built-in retraining from the start, which made it a legally safer edition to dabble in. Currently 5th Edition tops you off at four (about half of what you got in 3rd Edition), but I expect that to change since in addition to ability score bonuses, they are also going to be prestige class/paragon path currency.

While the opener on feats got me interested, even a bit excited, the followup on skills did not. When it comes to skills I am a fan of the skill die, because it provides a variable bonus that helps make the d20 roll remain relevant. In 3rd Edition the static bonus could gradually eclipse the by-the-book DCs around mid-level, while in 4th Edition it was incredibly easy to start out with a +12 to +14 to a skill. When the 1st-level DCs run the range from 5 to 15, is there even really a reason to bother rolling?

When you couple this with the goal to rein in the bonus, it makes their reason to step back to a static-bonus model both confusing and a bit disappointing (though I am fully aware that this can change in the future, maybe even before the next packet is released). What I also found confusing was that despite people being really happy with skills that they are making them optional, and if you want to use them you will need to keep in mind how it can affect the DC’s (ideally they will tell you straight up).

What was more silly than confusing was that one of the “challenges” is apparently players incorrectly calling for skills, with the example being Spot instead of Perception. A lot of us have been through two editions of the game at this point, one of which condensed and renamed skills at the midway point, and some of us play more than one edition. I think some initial confusion is to be expected and should not be a factor in determining if/how you implement a skill system.

So that maybe sucks, but the section on backgrounds sounds probably good. Instead of skills and a trait, they will now provide up to three categories of features, though I am not sure if they will provide just one, one of each, or some combination of them.

Areas of knowledge are something that I kind of used in 3rd and 4th Edition, where I always assumed that characters with a Knowledge skill knew everything with a DC equal to 10 + their skill bonus (in essence “taking 10” on the check). It made things go a lot faster and helped avoid player speculation based off of what skill check I might ask for (similar to how players might go on guard if you ask them for a Listen/Spot/Perception check).

I am not sure how to feel about proficiencies. From the sounds of it they will serve as prerequisites to doing things using ability checks that you otherwise could not. The examples include forging a sword or sailing a ship, but I think that these could easily extend to things like crafting magic items or access to things like 4th Edition’s rituals, Martial Practices from Martial Power 2, and expanded capabilities with weapons, implements, etc.

Benefits sound like background traits by another name, which I have liked from the start, and I am looking forward to seeing how they change and grow.

Finally, I am so, so happy to hear that classes are being designed with the assumption that you are not using feats and skills, especially where the fighter and rogue are concerned. Though Mearls again mentions them getting the lion’s share of feats, I am hoping that with this in mind the classes will still be evocative and flexible enough without them.

DDN Blog: Skills and Task Resolution

“Characters get four things–skills or traits.” 

This model kind of reminds me of a combination of 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons and Exalted, in that skills grant a flat bonus to a variety of related things, but you can opt to nab other things if you want. A workshop was specifically mentioned, but I could also see something like influence, followers, a familiar, and more. Not sure about languages. They would have to be pretty darned useful, or other things less so, to make them a compelling choice. This–along with wizards getting at-will spells without having to burn a feat, themes granting at-will spells, and the potential for a variety of magic systems (daily, power- and point-based, etc)–has been one of the few rare things to get my psyched for 5th Edition.

I like that they are not super specific like 3rd Edition (Climb, Jump, Swim, Knowledge skills, and Use Rope come to mind), but instead somewhat vague like in 4th Edition, allowing for more player input and creativity. Given that the DC’s for many things at 1st-level was very low (like, 12-13), I often did not have the issue of players checking their sheets for the best modifier and trying to rationalize an application. I think that, if anything, it was that players were used to seeing massive bonuses of potentially +11 and assuming that it was the norm. Hopefully with skills only conferring a +2, at least initially, will help break that habit.

I think that I would like to have seen things like what Rob calls active and passive skills divvied up, which is something I recall happening in 3rd Edition Shadowrun; players had two pools of skills. Or maybe one was knowledges? I do not remember, really. Basically everyone got to spend things on both sets. Regardless, I really dig this movement of making characters more dependent on their ability scores instead of skill modifier. I think it will help encourage players to at least try things that they normally would not.

We will see what happens next week when the playtest finally starts.

A Matter of Perception

Cook’s Legend & Lore debut involves him essentially recreating the Passive Perception wheel, ie the system we have now, except that instead of using Passive Perception as-is with numerical DCs he proposes a rank system (novice, journeyman, expert, etc). That is it, and it just feels like he is arguing semantics. The fact that the rules for Passive Perception have existed for years, including in part in 3rd Edition’s take 10 rule, has lead some to believe that perhaps Cook was trying to make a (bad) joke.

Currently if a character’s Passive Perception meets or beats the DC to find something, then they notice it. Easy. Otherwise they can declare that they are searching a room and make an actual roll, giving them the chance to find something that a cursory examination missed. You can adjust DCs up and down to account for player actions and methods, or even for having other trained skills (for example, you might consider giving a character a bonus on Perception checks to find hidden doors if they are also trained in Dungeoneering).

Cook’s system gives things a rank, which is used to determine if characters automatically succeed, have to make a roll, or just cannot succeed. The difference between the trained and untrained characters is that a rank that you cannot succeed at can be rolled against, and one that requires rolling is an auto-pass. Additionally players can describe their actions and methods, potentially reducing the rank, which can give a character that otherwise could not roll a roll, or a character rolling an auto-pass.

It sounds very similar, but there are some issues that crop up on further examination.

One issue is a lack of granularity. Currently Cook cites only five labels, while DCs can be any number you like. This allows you much better control over fine-tuning a DC, as well as the modifiers that items and circumstances provide, as opposed to simply saying that you pass, can roll, or are fucked. It also vastly increases the opportunities characters have at succeeding at tasks, even if the odds are stacked against them, without having to resort to “Zorking” or pixel-bitching.

I do not want my players to have to result to zorking just because they lack a sufficient rank to make a roll to try and succeed at something. Cook uses a statue as an example of this method, describing a situation where  a player can ask if the teeth can be moved in order to “make the impossible possible”, and honestly the only difference I see between allowing a roll by default and requiring them to ask me 20 questions in order to get a roll is wasted time.

Cook claims that this method will avoid the purported issue of players assuming that a low roll–or the DM rolling in general–means that they must have overlooked something and trying to rationalize another roll or continuing to muck about anyway, but I do not think it will change anything; if the DM simply tells them that they do not find anything, it could be that it was an auto-pass or auto-fail, and if they have to roll they could still jump to the same conclusions.

I do not need to have labels. If I want–or need–the players to succeed, then I can just make the DC really low, or better yet, not require a roll at all. Sometimes I even allow characters to automatically succeed on some skill checks if they are trained in the skill (something I saw in an adventure that I cannot remember). If I for some reason want to peg it at an area where only some characters can auto-succeed, I can make it so that the DC can be passed on a low number, even a 1. I think that really the only thing I can not do (or at least not easily/reliably do) is generate a DC that untrained characters just cannot pass, while trained characters can still roll; there almost always seems to be a slim chance that even untrained characters can succeed.

Cook’s proposed “changes” to the skill system seems to hinder more than it helps, and again I think it is important to note that you can easily do what Cook is “suggesting” using the current system without giving it an overhaul: just give out bonuses to the character if they suggest something clever, which is something that DMs honestly should have already been doing.

Legend & Lore: Player vs. Character

When it comes to skills I greatly prefer the approach of later editions: let the player tell you what they are generally trying to do, and then let a combination of dice and the character’s modifiers to determine the outcome. Mearls argues that this approach detracts from immersion because it causes players to focus on their sheets rather than the environment. I would argue that it actually helps maintain it because characters good at stuff that the players are not are still likely to succeed, and things that the player is good at but the character is not are more likely to fail.

In other words it helps sustain the players’ beliefs that the players are pretending to be someone that are not themselves.

On the topic of the environment, in past editions I guess the players had to engage in a combination of 20 questions and Zork in order to find…whatever it is they are trying to find. Personally I started with Basic and recall having to make ability score checks to do stuff like snatch food out of Axel’s hand or keep him from getting pissed off but, eh. At any rate the attention to detail is utterly irrelevant to the mechanics used to interact with it. If I wanted to I could describe all the furnishings in a room, and even allow players to state in excruciating detail what they are doing with it. My main problem with this route is time.

Maybe in some games players enter a room and declare that they are going to search it and just make Perception checks–which is fucking fine by me because it strips out the endless torrent of queries–but usually in my games players actually call out specific things in a room to investigate, in which case I go into additional detail and/or call for a skill check if appropriate. Here I find that being able to make a Perception (or Dungeoneering, History, Arcana, etc) check to indicate important details and/or secret shit a huge time saver, as rather than going down a list of search criteria I can encapsulate it all with a single dice roll and more accurately simulate the character’s ability to search and find things–often resulting in the party missing out on important things much less often.

Finally, I feel that this approach helps level the playing field between newer and veteran players. As Mearls states in the article, older editions required the player to actually learn information about monsters; the cited example was the weakness of trolls, but I recall that OD&D made it so that you had to try charm spells on monsters until you figured out which ones it worked on. The problem was that once the player figured this out, she could either use it in future games with other characters, or have to pretend not to know and “stumble” upon the information (probably in a contrived manner). In this instance immersion is reinforced by the fact that the book-worm character has a chance to know this sort of thing instead of figuring it out via trial and error.

Dungeons, Dragons, and Aspects

Disclaimer: I have never actually played Dresden Files, or even a Fate game. I have read through parts of the book, a wiki article, and listened to an “actual play” podcast. In other words, I might have interpreted aspects grossly incorrectly.

Building a D&D character goes beyond choosing a race, class, feats, skills, and gear. Regardless of what detractors might think there are about six and a half pages–starting on page 18–devoted to role-playing, with a few pages telling you to go through the motions of choosing some personality traits, mannerisms, describing your character, and if possible answering a few questions about your background and motivations. In past editions DMs I played with would award–or penalize–you with “role-playing” experience depending on how well you played your character and adhered to your alignment. Nowadays this practice has fallen out of use in my gaming circle, which is fine because some players do not want to engage in extensive social role-play (or are just really bad at it and/or derive fun from other sources).

While I encourage my players to think up flavor material for their character–especially anything I can use as an adventure hook–I most often find them missing from characters, particularly those of the casual members. On the other hand some players take a few sessions to figure out their character’s identity, while others are just happy to give me a rough motivation and leave it at that. I had entertained the idea of starting to award players with bonus XP, but depending on the level it might not make any difference at all, and even then probably for only a session. It was much more effective in older editions when classes advanced at different rates and had various means of gaining it; thieves from getting cold, wizards from casting spells, etc. It was even kind of useful in 3rd Edition, because as a wizard I could set it aside as my item creation fund.

With that in mind one possibility I had considered would be to give the entire group bonus XP for socially role-playing their characters well, but then you could have a few talented players pulling the weight of everyone else, in a similar vein to the theoretical party with a player’s theoretical farmboy-who-picked-up-a-sword-to-fight-orcs.

A better idea is one that I found in another game entirely: Dresden Files RPG. This game uses the Fate system, which puts a much, much larger emphasis on a character’s personality, background, and motivations to the effect that you are supposed to sit down and basically have a “collaboration session” with the other players.

In D&D your personality does not have any mechanical bearing on what your character does, instead providing a benchmark for stuff your character is likely–or unlikely–to do. If a character acts within these parameters, then great. If not, then it falls to the DM to correct the course of action (or get into a debate until everyone comes to an acceptable conclusion).

In Fate you have character elements called aspects. These constitute a diverse array of character elements–personality, physical traits, motivations, even items–that make up the character as a whole. Examples could be silver-tongued, greedy, reckless, or an item like a family sword. Aspects are not limited to the characters; non-player characters, objects, or even areas can have aspects; for example a cutpurse could be desperate, while a cliff could be slippery from rain, or a crate could be highly flammable.

Aspects have a double-edged purpose. First, you can “tag” them in a situation or challenge in order to gain a bonus. A greedy dwarf, for example, might be driven to succeed where there is money involved. On the other hand, the Gamemaster can also “compel” an aspect, essentially forcing you to do something. The same greedy dwarf might be compelled to betray one or more friends in exchange for a sizable bribe. Now, players can refuse a compel by giving up a Fate point, but if they go along then they gain a Fate point. In this way Fate points could be seen as a kind of story-directing currency.

With all this in mind I wanted to create a mechanic by which a player could receive an immediate benefit by doing stuff that their character should be doing anyway. An incentive to get into the social aspect of the game, as it were. I thought about a rule where characters could tag their aspects for a small benefit, or require them to spend action points to get the benefit, potentially making it a variable bonus like how action points worked in 3rd Edition, or just giving a re-roll. The more I thought about it, the more it started to sound like the potential changes to skills that Mearls was talking about last week (which I would be interested to see an Unearthed Arcana article for).

Anyway, if you want to use aspects and fate points in your games, then I would first have each player create a list of at least three aspects, but probably no more than five. Aspects that can be both beneficial and detrimental are best. There is a pretty sizable list here. These can be derived from your character’s personality traits, racial tropes, mannerisms, motivations, goals, connections, etc, or be generated in place of all those things.

For fate points, I would work them as follows:

• Action points pull double-duty as fate points. They still give normally give you an extra action.
• A player can tag one of her own aspects and spend an action point to gain either a 1d6 bonus to the check, attack, or defense. Alternatively you could re-roll the check entirely/force a re-roll (for example, if you are attacked or a creature is making an opposed check).
• A player can spend an action point to gain a measure of control over the direction of the story based on the aspect of a creature, object, or environment. The DM can grant the invoking player an action point to waive the compel.
• The DM can compel a character to do something based on one of her aspects, or cause something to happen based on the aspect of a creature, object, or environment. If the player allows this to happen, she gains an action point. She can instead pay an action point to waive the compel.

There is probably a lot that I am missing, but if you are interested in collaborative storytelling and world-building I would recommend checking out the Fate system in addition to reading up on the chapter in Dungeon Master’s Guide 2. I am going to try this route for my next campaign, making sure that each player gives me something good to work with, and allowing for their input on the campaign’s foundation and direction.

Legends & Lore: Skills in D&D

My response was “somewhere in the middle”, because it seems like a good part of what Mike Mearls is musing about already exists in the game–just written in a different way and/or in a different spot–and the other stuff seems fairly situational (likely making it harder to remember, especially if you get a lot of “talents”). I do like the idea of making it more explicit as to what abilities can do; 4th Edition kind of glosses over them and sticks to direct benefits, such as telling you what defense or skill(s) it affects as opposed to giving a broader explanation.

As it stands you can play Dungeons & Dragons without skills at all and just default to ability scores (for example instead of Athletics, just use Strength), and characters can already at least try any skill application except for detect magic (Arcana) or reduce falling damage (Acrobatics). Aside from that being trained in a skill just drastically increases the odds that you will succeed. With the proposed system you still get small bonuses, but you also get some sort of passive benefit.

I like the concept that Mearls is going for. Groups that want a skill-less game can do so, while groups that want skills can choose their complexity (skills as bonuses, skills with benefits, etc). Even better groups can dial the complexity up and down as they want without having to switch between editions. The problem is that groups can already do something very similar with relative ease by removing skills from the game (modifying DCs, of course), sticking with skills, or using skill powers.

My final verdict would depend on whatever edition of the game this ruleset is actually intended for; in 4th Edition I would not like it because players already have to deal with a lot on their plate, and adding skill talents to feats and powers would just bog down things even further. I recall something similar near the end of 3rd Edition, though I never used it and I do not think it was particularly popular. In a theoretical 5th Edition though, who knows?

Error: Rule Not Found

I have no idea why people think that older D&D editions are somehow more intuitive or easier to houserule. They come to the bizarre conclusion that since 3E and 4E had rules for stuff, that you are now somehow utterly incapable of performing actions that dont specifically have rules spelling it out for you. While I think 3E took things a bit too far by having rules for virtually everything (like crafting and professions), 4th Edition provides some good solid advice on about how to accurately peg a task depending on the level of the character and how hard you want it to be.

And you know what? This isnt bad. It provides an easy-to-reference foundation for what players should expect when trying to do something not covered by the rules. This has the effect of speeding up game rulings while also preventing the DM from making a bad call, even unintenionally, since not all DMs are concerned with fucking over their party and actually want to progress a story. Just saying, is all.

I’ve been very pleased with the Skill Focus articles at Dungeon’s Master, as they are all very good examples on how to take a skill and apply it to areas that fall outside the defined function of the skill (for example, using Heal for torture or Endurance for remaining conscious at 0 or less hit points). I think that everyone should read these and use them. A lot.

One of my players, Josh, often tries to perform many unorthodox maneuvers that while not as tactically efficient as another action, are generally pretty cool for the narrative. Stuff like flipping over tables or flying drop kicks. We had a druid use…whatever the fuck that at-will vine attack was to grab a zombie troll and yank him into a set of gears to pin him into place.

In all situations, it was very easy to invent a simple task resolution so that there is a chance of failure and so that he can feel like that his choice had actual merit. In the case of the drop kick, it was a Strength vs. AC attack that did unarmed damage and knocked the enemy prone if he made a successful Acrobatics check (hard DC).

Completely on the fly, and allowed him to do something useful and cool. Was it more powerful than an at-will attack? Not really, but it wasnt so weak as to force him to waste a turn in order to do something flashy: he could be flashy and functional at the same time. I could not say the same for 3E and older games, where generally in order to do something like that would likely involve an attack penalty, an opportunity attack, and probably dick for damage assuming it worked.

I think that the open and flexible nature of skills and level-based DCs allows for a lot of interpration and creativity in the use of powers and skills, such as using scorching burst to create a fire or ray of frost to freeze water. Simple stuff like that, that players might not try since the power doesnt explicitely state otherwise. Would this be game-breaking? I dunno, but if a player wanted to use ray of frost to freeze water in a pipe and cause it to rupture, I’d probably call for an Arcana check to see if she could properly channel the necessary magic to make it work.

I’m not a fan of handwaving rolls unless the task itself is fairly trivial. For example, climbing a fucking wall. Its tedious, and if there isnt any real threat involved them I’m not going to waste time forcing them to make a series of simple Athletics checks in order to try and “keep it real”. I’ll keep the skill checks for the times where it counts. Maybe if they were attacked by a flock of harpies, a gang of ninjas, or…ninja harpies.