D&D 3E/3.5 Eliminating Class and Cross-Class Skills (3.5)

[Alexander123]

Define your terms, please. This game under discussion is wildly finicky and requires precise language. "Reasonable" means what?

You're confusing should and is.
The diplomacy skill (or any single spell) should not be an "I Win button". By the rules of the game under discussion, the game 'we have all agreed to play', it is.
Until you can provide some evidence to the contrary, it will continue to be an "I Win Button".

Infinite wishing is also RAW so is pun-pun but I don't think anyone would say that pun-pun is a D&D "I win button."

By reasonable I mean realistic. In real life while diplomacy has its place, it does not become a substitute for guns therefore the DM should create encounters which do the following:

1. Provide the PCs with an opportunity to use their skills.
2. Provide alternative means of solving a problem, either diplomacy or fighting.
3. Require fighting as the solution.

And the DM should try to have a number of each type of encounter in his games.

In real life, it does not matter how may ranks in dimplomacy you have this doesn't mean you can avoid going to war against the Nazis. Diplomacy in D&D, should not make fighting obsolete since that is unrealistic. The type of abuse that you are talking about can only arise out of incompetent DMing.

 

[JamesonCourage]

In real life, it does not matter how may ranks in dimplomacy you have this doesn't mean you can avoid going to war against the Nazis. Diplomacy in D&D, should not make fighting obsolete since that is unrealistic. The type of abuse that you are talking about can only arise out of incompetent DMing.

Let's pretend he said "Genghis Khan's Mongolia" instead, or something, and avoid Godwin.

Also, Alexander, you're arguing RAI, not RAW (which is something the other two are addressing). Arguing RAI is a valid argument, though you will not agree with them since you are not addressing their voiced concern.

They'd like to see rules in place that are better suited to reflect a certain realism. They're seeing they'd like to see a better RAW. Then, use the RAI mindset. These people are expressing the bad parts of the rules as written, and are advocating improving them before individual groups adopt homebrew rules (which are fine, and encouraged in my book). This seems very reasonable to me.

Saying "it's fine as is, as long as everyone changes it" seems less reasonable, though I think it's not entirely invalid by any means.

 

[Alexander123]

I agree, I am arguing RAI.

If the rules are taken to mean such a thing then it would be bad but I consider diplomacy as an I win buttion to be abuse. I think that being realistic does not allow such abuse since real life does not allow diplomacy as an I win button.

I think that the rules as they are do not require changing but I may have requirements for diplomacy should it turn into abuse by doing two things:

1. Requiring a valid reason why a particular NPC should feel helpful etc. depending on the degree to which they are important. I think that I would definitely do this for the NPC attitude of helpful, I may leave the NPC attitude of friendly to the roll although it depends on the NPCs starting attitude. If they are unfriendly they would be more difficult to persuade and may require some valid reason. If they are hostile, then it would be even more difficult.
2. Having intelligent NPCs who cannot be reasoned and negotiated with.

I do not by any means want to prevent a PC from using their skills nor do I want to make these skills worthless. I think that parties who have ranks in bluff and diplomacy should benefit from it and those parties that don't should be penalized for it but there is a big difference between casting the spell wish and infinite wish abuse.

 

[Celebrim]

In real life, it does not matter how may ranks in dimplomacy you have this doesn't mean you can avoid going to war against the Nazis.

Ah, yes, but in real life no one is more than 6th level. And while a 6th level character can do some pretty amazing things, convincing 'Ghengis Khan' not to go to war with his neighbors is beyond the abilities of a 6th level character.

The question becomes, how superhumanly good of a diplomat do you have to be to have a chance of persuading 'Ghengis Khan' to spare you and your city?

Well, maybe this good: Pope Leo the Great. Though, a skeptic might argue that the significant bribe that went along with that plea might have had made the DC merely within the realm of ordinary skilled diplomacy.

Diplomacy in D&D, should not make fighting obsolete since that is unrealistic. The type of abuse that you are talking about can only arise out of incompetent DMing.

By which you mean, that compotent DMs don't play with the rules as written but, when the rules present nonsense as a result, change them either in a formal manner or an informal one. And, in that much, I'm willing to agree with you, though we would then both be risking being highly insulting to the people who either play by the RAW or believe that they do. Nonetheless, that sort of 'abuse' is permitted by the rules and by very core and central ones at that. It doesn't take anything but the SRD to +25's or better to Diplomacy at a quite low level. Arguing that the DM can simply ignore the rules case by case in order to produce a more desirable result, may be true, but ignoring the rules in a manner like that is going to lead to table conflict sooner or later.

 

[Alexander123]

By which you mean, that compotent DMs don't play with the rules as written but, when the rules present nonsense as a result, change them either in a formal manner or an informal one. And, in that much, I'm willing to agree with you, though we would then both be risking being highly insulting to the people who either play by the RAW or believe that they do. Nonetheless, that sort of 'abuse' is permitted by the rules and by very core and central ones at that. It doesn't take anything but the SRD to +25's or better to Diplomacy at a quite low level. Arguing that the DM can simply ignore the rules case by case in order to produce a more desirable result, may be true, but ignoring the rules in a manner like that is going to lead to table conflict sooner or later.

If someone doesn't like how I DM or the houserules I have he is perfectly free to not play in such a game, start his own game and make his own rules. There are many DMs whose rules I don't like and I don't play with them.

 

[JamesonCourage]

If someone doesn't like how I DM or the houserules I have he is perfectly free to not play in such a game, start his own game and make his own rules. There are many DMs whose rules I don't like and I don't play with them.

While I do agree with that sentiment 100% (because if someone doesn't want to follow my house rules, then they don't have to play in my game, either), I still think that the idea obtaining better RAW rules on Diplomacy before using RAI to run your game is an entirely reasonable request.

I very much prefer Giant's take on it: Giant In the Playground Games

The only big change I made was an Impossible (+infinity) section to the bottom of the Risk vs Reward section (asking a merchant to give up his livelihood with no compensation by giving you something very valuable at no cost), but it has to be pretty crippling.

However, once I changed the Intimidate rules to reflect the new system (Intimidate used to make people "friendly" but I changed it so that after the level check [15+hit die+wis mod]), they moved one step in favor of you on the Risk vs Reward section, possibly moving them from Impossible section into more manageable territory (after being adequately frightened, of course).

 

[Sorrowdusk]

I don't think I would eliminate class skills and cross class skills. Class and cross class skills give you the feeling that you are actually a trained professional in a field and that anyone who wants to master a certain field also has to undergo the training by taking levels in the particular class which offers the skill.

IMC we made Knowledge a single skill. So taking one point in any of those skills gives you one Knowledge as usual. However for every four ranks your character has, you gain a bonus additional Knowledge specialization. So 1 point in Knowledge could say give you knowledge (Arcana). At 1st level with max ranks you could have 4 ranks in Knowledge, so you could choose 2 specializations say Knowledge (Arcana/Religion). So with max ranks and a +4 Int mod IMC you could roll +8 in both Arcana and Religion at 1st lvl. You could gain another specialization when you had 8 ranks in Knowledge-giving you a total of three areas you can roll knowledge in. In addition this also removes class Knowledge skills. So in effect any character can invest in any knowledge they want every 4 ranks.

Perform skill follows the same pattern as Knowledge. Similarily ranks raising Craft confers a new Craft specialization skill every six ranks. Ranks raising Profession confers a new bonus Profession every ten ranks.

 

[Celebrim]

If someone doesn't like how I DM or the houserules I have he is perfectly free to not play in such a game, start his own game and make his own rules. There are many DMs whose rules I don't like and I don't play with them.

I don't think you are going to get much argument over that, at least not from actual DM's.

However, it is also not much of an answer to any specific problem. The problem I'm trying to point out isn't that I don't like your house rules or that I disagree with your general 'the game is more than the rules' approach, but rather that I don't even know what your rules are. Were I a player in your game, and I asked you about diplomacy I would not be able to tell how you adjudicated social situations at all. Because of that, I would never invest scarce resources in social skills like diplomacy, intimidate, or bluff because the risk that DM fiat would trump player resource investment is simply too great. You don't seem to have definable rules, and hense it is difficult to have confidence that how you rule will take much into acount the formal rules. Your 'rule' seems to be 'it works if I think it is reasonable to work', which was basically the rule that applied in 1e back when we didn't have social skills per se. Hense, it seems like some token value in social skills is likely to work as well as some high value. Since the skills only work in situations of moderate utility, there is no since investing more than moderately in them.

Now, it's probable that your group is basically ok with that. Particularly if you have a group that favors kick down the door and ask questions later over negotiation, they probably aren't highly attracted to heavily investing in diplomacy anyway. All I'm trying to point out is that you gain some breadth in your ability to handle different groups if you not only recognize when the RAW fails, but come up with some formal mechanisms of fixing the hole.

 

[Alexander123]

I don't actually have any rules as yet for diplomacy. I was being pragmatic and trying to do what I can within the existing rules and my players have tried not to abuse the rules.

I have decided to implement the diplomacy rules on Giant in the Playground.

 

[JamesonCourage]

I don't actually have any rules as yet for diplomacy. I was being pragmatic and trying to do what I can within the existing rules and my players have tried not to abuse the rules.

I have decided to implement the diplomacy rules on Giant in the Playground.

I really like those rules too. I would suggest adding an "Impossible: +infinity" onto the Risk vs Reward section, but that's my personal preference.