half as many skills - half as many skill points?

[Slapzilla]

I agree about the Rogue. The points and skill set are great for creating a specialist. Cat Burglar, Mole, Sneakthief, House (Dungeon) breaker, Dip, Hustler etc., etc.. You can build a generalist with a couple of points in all the skill but you'll be second best.

I think if there is a need to simplify an already simple system it is towards defining things like Tumble and Balance. Climbing up a gutter downspout it (of course) breaks and tilts backwards towards another roof... it's steep and apparently thin metal so landing on it will be LOUD and being on it you'll slide. Tumble to land quietly and Balance to prevent the slide? If you do slide, is it a Tumble or Jump to get off the roof without hurting yourself? Any self respecting player wants to jump back onto the wall the downspout broke off of in the first place. Tumble or Jump while making a Balance check to do that? We could debate this situation for any length of time and we'd all have good input. The expedient answer is Acrobatics for all rolls.

I think the Player and DM should agree on three tightly related (to the character) skills, like Balance, Jump and Tumble, call it Acrobatics (or something) and for 2 points, get a +1 in all three. Abuse potential abounds but DMs must be firm. Climb/Jump/Swim for the outdoorsy type, Bluff/Disguise/Knowledge (Nobility and Royalty) for a spy, Disable Device/Open Lock/ Use rope for the especially nimble-fingered. Combinations galore! Since it is character specific, blanket combos wouldn't be as prominent and the specifics should be worked out at the table. Just a thought.

 

[Claudius Gaius]

Well, you could always give everyone a seperate skill point pool for "characterization" skills to cover the stuff that isn't generally useful on an adventure.

After all, every fighter should know how to fix minor damage to his or her armor, clothing, tent, and other gear, recognize the insignea of major individuals that they might come up against, be able to make an edible stew out of whatever they can snare, know a bit about the geography of the lands they've fought in, and so on.

How many clerics have you seen running around without any Knowledge/Religion?

Giving everyone some points to spend on - say - agriculture and basic animal handling because they grew up on a farm, profession/sailor because they got tired of hauling slop and ran away to sea, and so on, wouldn't have much impact since any skill that actually was important in the game (say, profession/sailor in a ship-based campaign) would automatically be excluded from the skills available as "characterization" skills.

 

[Slapzilla]

1 point each in as many skills as your Int, Wis or Cha bonus (whichever one best reflects your background is a cool idea). Off the original topic, but still a good one.

 

[Celebrim]

There is a pretty delicate balance here because the risk when giving out too many skill points is that INT will become a universal dump stat. There is also a risk that you'll have a situation where everyone is good at everything, so 'lateral' thinking or any problem solving by the player (as opposed to the character) is never required. If that is true, then your players are being cheated out of alot of the fun of playing a pen and paper RPG in the first place.

 

[evilbob]

What a dizzying array of posts. Thanks to those who've contributed to my original question...

I generally agree with the post immediately prior; I honestly was never considering chopping the skill list in half and leaving skill points as they are - that just flat-out doubles everyone's skill points, and that's clearly not the best thing to do. However, simply dividing all class's skill points in half also doesn't quite feel right.

My guess as to what would be fair would be to sort of curve the skill point decline. Here's my first thought:
current -> new
8 -> 6
6 -> 4
4 -> 3
2 -> 2

At first this seems biased in favor of the classes with few skill points; however, given that an 8-point class still has 6 points and half as many choices, I think it still heavily favors those with many skill points already. The question still remains: is this fair? Should skill points based on INT be changed in some way? I'm not really worried about INT becoming a dump stat - non-wizards still need other stats so much more - but it still seems worth evaluating. What about the bonus skill points for being a human - suddenly that's worth twice as much?

Any (on topic) thoughts?

 

[Claudius Gaius]

Require half the bonus points from intelligence (rounded down) to be spent on background skills and stuff that the character - in your judgement - picked up in passing. That way, if they go sailing for three weeks, or spend a lot of time in a foreign country, everyone will soon have a point in sailing or speak the language, whether or not thats a skill they'd prefer to spend points on.

If you do decide to do something like that, anything you pick up in pasing should be purchased at the 1-for-1 price, regardless of whether or not its cross class.

Secondarily, I'd try to preferentially combine infrequently-used or less-useful skills, that way you won't find that some skill points are worth more than others.