Add some skills crunch to Dragon!
Sernett said:
We'd love it if you'd take a look at the first couple of issues and let us know what you think of the new format: what works and what doesn't. That goes for anyone who hasn't checked out Dragon in a while or who has been dissatisfied with what we've been doing. We made these changes to the magazines with our consumers desires in mind, and we want to hear from you about the new magazines.
I haven't subscribed to either Dragon or Dungeon in years. I still have my
collection of dragon #70-250 or so, and Dungeon #1-60 or so.
Class Acts is the most attractive thing about the new Dragon.
I do advise you though, the next time you print multiclassing progressions,
that whoever wrote up a cleric/ranger 10/10 with the cleric level first, losing
out on all the ranger skill points (even under 3.0), shouldn't be allowed to
write Class Acts.
Now, I just happened to review the new SRD posting, with many Epic Feats
all in one place and this struck me:
Complete Divine has feats requiring 4 ranks of a skill, (based on ENworld
threads, haven't seen the book) and the SRD has Epic feats requiring 24,
27, 30, whatever ranks of a skill.
How about some cool feats requiring 10 or 15 ranks of a skill? Yeah, there
are tons of Prestige Classes that do that, but not feats!
If I stuff 15 wasted points into Jump (wasted, because by that time I have a
Flying magic item or mount) then I want a feat that requires 15 ranks of
Jump and gives me something cool!
Right now, D&D skills have the following breakpoints:
1 rank: some trained only stuff
5 ranks: synergies
max ranks: concentration and tumble and other stuff you can't live without
and misc ranks: prestige classes.
Let's give reasons to have 10, 15, 13, whatever ranks of a skill besides
prestige classes and (occasionally) the skill DC chart for that skill.
I want to see new crunch tasks I can accomplish, or feats I can gain without
going in to a prestige class, for all skills at all ranks.
You can start with 3-5 feats an issue and work from there. I know it's a
big task
Given that some Dragon rules ended up in Complete Divine (Radiant Servant
of Pelor anyone?) how about giving us some early previews of skill-based
feats, whatever, that will make it into Complete Expert or whatever the
3.5 Complete "Rogues and other skill users" book is?