Skill Overhaul/Skill Trees

[Cyvris]

I was recently introduced to Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars RPG system at a convention and I was very impressed with its "narrative" approach to skills. Because I clearly have nothing better to do, I decided to write up my own "overhaul" for 4e's Skill system to replicate the FFG "Core Mechanic". If you're not familiar with it the "basic" version of the system is you create a dice pool based off of your rank in a skill and your core ability. The larger of the two is how many dice you roll, the smaller is how many of those are "upgraded" to a different type of dice. These dice have symbols instead of numbers, and you end up counting those against what the DM rolls. Positive dice can come up as "Success" "Advantage" or "Triumph", while negatives are "Failure", "Threat", and "Despair".

Now, to actually apply this to D&D. First, because of the Skill Rank/Ability mod interaction I had to take ability scores down a bit. I use 5e's point buy now, as "16" is a better early cap. Adjust all 4e math accordingly. Next, all classes have "Skill Points" back. Everyone gets 5+Int mod per level, save for Rogue and Bard, they get 7. Being "trained" in a skill automatically grants you "Skill Rank I" for free. You purchase ranks down a tree, or across the linked branches. A single talent in each row costs a certain amount of skill points (2/3/4/5/6). You can buy non class skills for *triple* the skill point cost for Skill Rank I and then double for any other talents.

The game is Earthsea like, so I added the "sailing" skill. Likewise, I collapsed 5e's "Investigate" into Insight and Survival/Nature into one. With that, I also allow a good range of "flex" on the ability players can use for a skill. Athletics/Acrobatics can be either Strength or Dexterity. Insight and Survival can be either Intelligence or Wisdom.

The attached PDF has the skill trees. I worked in as many of 4e's skill powers as I could as well, since I wanted to integrate those better than they have been before.

Also, if anyone is wondering this is one of the smaller changes I've made to 4e.

 

[MoutonRustique]

while very little of this seems like my cup of tea, I must salute the effort !

(and ask for your other changes - It's always so cool to see what people constructed / conceived!)

 

[Cyvris]

In terms of "other changes", I've basically gone through all of 4e and "collapsed" the powers down, removing stuff that is too similar or straight underpowered/uninteresting. For most of this I simply went through the old Charop guides, with my players offering thoughts here and there on quirky stuff they felt was interesting. From there I kept 3-6 powers per class which all got added to a single pool of powers, broken up by power source. Every power source now has its classes share a single set of around 15-20 powers between. Want Twin Strike on your Fighter? Knock yourself out. Booming Blade on the Wizard? Feel free. I also removed the "ability" scores tied to powers, opting instead for each class getting a casting stat or tying it to weapon type (finesse weapons came back). Current party has a Warlord who picked mostly Rogue like powers. She is super mobile, letting her zip about the battlefield to offer support.

I only did Arcane, Martial, Primal, and Psionic classes though, mostly as I rather dislike the Divine power source.

Feats also got trashed for the most part, with class related ones joining other completely new options as "Class Features" split into three "tiers" over the twenty levels my tweaked power progression curve spans. They bear more resemblance to how SWTOR's class/discipline talent trees work than anything. Classes also got most of 5e's "fluff" choices ported over to help differentiate them as well. Utility powers saw almost all the "combat" related ones removed and Rituals, or older edition spells, added in their place. Everyone has "Cantrip" like At-wills now. Healing Surges recharge based of Constitution score.....it goes on and on.

It's 4e, but "Condensed" as I call it, taking only the very best of the edition, and leaving most of the utterly ridiculous bloat behind.

 

[MoutonRustique]

[...] Feats also got trashed for the most part, with class related ones joining other completely new options as "Class Features" split into three "tiers" over the twenty levels my tweaked power progression curve spans. They bear more resemblance to how SWTOR's class/discipline talent trees work than anything. [...]

I'd very much like to hear more about this part - feats are something of a headscratcher for me, at the moment. Another take on them could be very useful.

Also, I'm unfamiliar with how SWTOR works.

 

[Cyvris]

SWTOR's answer to class talents was to break them up into four levels (Skillful, Masterful, Heroic, and Legendary), each with six talents in them. You get eight points while leveling to put into them, but need to place two points into a level before you unlock the one above it. I copied the idea but with only three levels (I want to expand it a bit, my games have yet to go past heroic and I think adding a fourth would be good). Right now I have Novice/Adept/Master, following a similar "distribute points" idea. I included both old class feats in this and some new options I created. Balance is...who knows and I don't care too much, my players have fun.

Couple of examples of "Novice" features.

Barbarian
Novice Class Features
Brutal Swing-When you make are wielding a two-handed weapon reroll any weapon damage die that displays a 1 when making melee attacks.
Endure Pain-While you are wearing no armor or Cloth armor, you can add your Constitution modifier to your AC.
Hurl Weapon-You can use any one-handed weapon as a heavy thrown weapon with a range of 5 squares and a long range of 10 squares.
Improved Feral Might- Your Feral Might ability gains the following benefit.
*Rageblood Vigor-You gain 5 additional temporary hit points from your Rageblood Vigor
*Thaneborn Triumph-When you use Roar of Triumph it becomes a close burst 5 + your Charisma modifier, and you gain a +2 power bonus to weapon damage rolls until the end of your next turn.
*Thunderborn Wrath-the damage dealt by Thunderborn Wrath increases by 5.
*Whirling Slayer-When you use Whirling Slayer to shift, you can shift number of squares equal to your Dexterity modifier, instead of 2 squares.
Rising Fury-When you reduce an enemy to 0 hit points, you gain a +2 feat bonus to weapon damage rolls until the end of your next turn.

Bard
Bard of All Trades-You can two Boost die to all untrained skill checks. This does not stack with your Skill versatility feature.
Battle Cadence-When you use Majestic Word, the target gains a +2 bonus to the next damage roll he or she makes before the end of their next turn.
Improved Bardic Virtue- Your Bardic Virtue gains the following benefit.
*Advantage of Cunning-When you slide an ally with your Virtue of Cunning, you can also slide an enemy that was adjacent to that ally into the square your ally vacated.
*Virtue of Prescience-When you use your Virtue of Prescience to grant a power bonus to any ally, that bonus lasts until the end of the ally’s next turn.
*Virtue of Valor-When you grant an ally temporary hit points with your Virtue of Valor, that ally gains a +2 bonus to the next damage roll they make.
Improved Majestic Word-When you use Majestic word, the target of the power gains temporary hit points equal to your Charisma modifier.
Wild Virtue-Each time you use your Bardic Virtue, you can shift 1 square as a free action.

Druid
Agile Form-When you use Wild Shape to change from your humanoid form to beast form, you shift 1 square.
Nature’s Cycle-You tap into the primal cycle of the world to empower yourself.
*Primal Guardian-While you are in beast form and not wearing heavy armor, when you take damage from a melee or ranged attack, the damage is reduced by your Constitution modifier.
*Primal Predator- When you are in beast form and an enemy grants you combat advantage, your melee attacks deal 1d10 extra damage against that enemy.
*Primal Wrath-When you hit an enemy with a Primal Evocation that has the Cold, Fire, Lightning, or Thunder keywords, one enemy in 5 squares of the target takes damage of the same type equal to your Wisdom modifier.
Primal Defenses-You manifest the power of your Primal Aspect to increase your defense.
*Primal Guardian-While in beast form, you gain a +2 bonus to AC.
*Primal Predator-While in beast form, you gain a +3 bonus to AC after moving at least 3 squares on your turn.
*Primal Wrath-After hitting with an Evocation that benefits from your Primal Wrath feature, enemies consider all squares adjacent to you difficult terrain.
Shifting Growth-Once per turn, as a move action, you can move the zone created by Nature’s Growth up to four squares.
World Serpent’s Grasp-The next attack made against a target that you slowed or immobilized before the end of your next turn knocks the target prone.


The Swarm Druid no longer exists under my rework and all Druid's can now cast the Protector's "Nature's Growth" power. Indeed, I made similar powers for every Controller (Wizards get a small wall, Psions got a "gravity well" that pulls targets to a point/reduces speed by Int-mod) because an encounter sustainable zone really felt right to me as a way to give Controllers a clear thing to do.


I did keep some feats (about 30), but they are either more general or been beefed up a bit so they sort of resemble 5e's Feat set up, though they don't compete with ASIs. Sometime in the future I might post my whole overhaul, though probably only "lists" of the powers since I don't know how "legal" it is to post the powers themselves.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Some of it sounds a bit like what I've done.

I didn't REALLY like SWTOR's trees because it forced you to decide basically at character creation what your whole progression is going to be. If you want to get to the impressive 4th tier abilities then you need to plan your whole career from the start, which is WAY too much like 3.x to me!

OTOH, maybe in practice cutting back on the number of tiers of skills and if you loosen the restrictions then it could be OK.

The only thing I don't like about turning most feats into class features is that it really boxes you in when it comes to creating certain characters. If 'rogue' doesn't fit your concept, but you need something that is now only available to that class you're a bit SOL.

Frankly I just weakened classes. You have one in HoML, but most advancement comes from 'boons', which are gained one per level and usually add a power to your power list (or sometimes as many as 3 for certain boons) and usually some other thing, though there are some that are more purely 'feat like'. In any case, its easier to combine various elements, though most things have 'associations' which tell you how you could use them most effectively or at least how they were envisaged to be used.