Subskills

[RandomUsernamehmimo71]

In my game I've been using a variant system I've been calling Subskills.

Basically you can put a skill point into a skill, such as spot, as normal... Or, you can put it into a subskill, such as read lips, and have get two ranks in the subskill.


So a character could conceivably put 4 ranks into spot, and an additional 2 ranks into read lips. This would give him a Skill bonus of 4 when generally spotting things, and a bonus of 8 when trying to read lips.

My thought is for balance, you still should not be able to have more ranks in a skill (including skill and subskill) than your max ranks. Otherwise, people might abuse this idea horribly... We've been playing it this way in my game, but I'm open to ideas.

It's particularly useful for knoweldges, as otherwise people wouldn't put in many ranks at all.


Thoughts greatly appreciated.

 

[Li Shenron]

IMHO it may become too much at mid-high levels, because it basically DOUBLES your rank in the skill when using it in the specialised way. A 10th level character could easily have a +30 bonus on that, which is beyond the game expectancies... people will be able to do things at a much higher DC they're supposed for their level.

OTOH if it is allowed to spend skill points at a +2/1 rate on subskills INSTEAD of spending on the whole skill, then there's no problem. By this I mean e.g. a character could choose to spend point between e.g. Spot and Read Lips in the following ways:

4 ranks in Spot, for 4 skill points: +4 to all Spot uses, including Read Lips

4 ranks in Spot(Read Lips), for 2 skill points: +4 to Read Lips, +0 to other uses

2 ranks in Spot for 2 skill points + 2 ranks in Spot(RL) for 1 sp: +4 to RL, +2 to other uses of Spot

IOW, I'd suggest to keep the max ranks per level valid to subskills as well. The utility of the variant is still a fine-tuning versatility of the characters.

 

[Aaron2]

Thoughts greatly appreciated.

I had almost the exact same system for my SW game way back (only I called it Specialty Skills) with only a few minor exceptions:

First, a Specialty Skill was limited to 1/2 the ranks of the main skill. So a 5th level character could have 8 ranks in Climb and up to 4 ranks in Climb(trees).

Class skill Specialties ranks cost 1/2 a skill point while cross class cost 1 skill point per rank. For 1 skill point, you can get 1 Specialty rank in two different skills (usefull when your rank limit is odd).

You could only have one Specialty per skill but you could upgrade your Specialty ranks at +1 per 1/2 skill point (+1 per 1 for cross class skills, natch).


Aaron

 

[Vrecknidj]

Aaron,

I like your system, but why limit it to one specialty? I mean, I can imagine some halfling (for example) with both Climb (rocks) and Climb (trees). Why not?

Dave

 

[RandomUsernamehmimo71]

Aaron,

I like your system, but why limit it to one specialty? I mean, I can imagine some halfling (for example) with both Climb (rocks) and Climb (trees). Why not?

Dave

Oh, I certainly agree. I'd let people have as many sub-skills as they were interested in taking. I think Aaron's idea might help keep people from trying to replicate a skill by filling in all of the possible uses of it in subskills, but I can't see anyone being THAT much of a munchkin.. They'd be wasting buckets of Skillpoints.


I agree that if it weren't capped, it could get to be rather high.. I capp it strictly in my game, as I'll explain below. But I think I might be able to get away with Li Shenron's suggestion...

I currently say that your ranks in (skill + subskill) cannot be over your max ranks in a skill. It makes subskills less useful in getting skills up really high, but more useful in taking More skills.

For example, a 1st level character would have a max ranks of 4.
The following options would be available for one skill-

4 skillpoints in Climb. (4 ranks)
2 skillpoints in climb, one skillpoint in Climb Trees. (4 ranks in climb trees, 2 ranks climb)
2 skillpoints in climb trees (4 ranks in climb trees, 0 ranks climb)

When then went up to 2nd level, if they put more skillpoints in the General Skill climb, so they had 4 ranks in climb, and two in climb trees, They would technically be above max ranks for Climb-trees. So We'd only let them use up to their max-ranks in a skill..


I do like Li Shenron's suggestion, though. If we limited it to 1/2 of the ranks in the main skill, and let it go above the max-ranks argument, it lets characters get slightly more powerful, but at the cost of hyper-specializing..

Worst case would be a 20th level character, with 34 ranks in Climb (Tree) or Disable Device (Traps), rather than +24.

While that's high, there's TONS of Magic items which would give a much larger boost.

-Colin

 

[Taryn]

One of the previous DMs I played under had a system for one of my characters (a swordsmith), where I simply gained a version of synergy. For instance, I had:
Craft (Weaponsmithing) - 5 ranks
Craft (Swordsmithing) - 5 ranks

So, on all swordsmithing checks, I got a +1 bonus. When I advanced to having 10 ranks in Weaponsmithing, I'd end up with a +2 bonus.

Now, that doesn't make the system really all that feasible, because it greatly undercuts the power of the subskill system (The main ranks aren't added in, except a +1 bonus every 5 ranks). I still took the skills, but only because it was in my character concept to do so.

Anyway, I do like the system you've proposed, might have to snatch it for my game, once it's ironed out.

 

[Aaron2]

I like your system, but why limit it to one specialty? I mean, I can imagine some halfling (for example) with both Climb (rocks) and Climb (trees). Why not?

A +1 in Climb (trees) costs 1/2 a skill point and a +1 in Climb (rocks) costs another 1/2 skill point. For the same 1 skill point, the character could just buy 1 rank in Climb. The main reason is because I envisioned it as a way for a character to be particularly good at one thing rather than a way to circumvent the max ranks. I also thought it would work for a character that might be good at one part of a skill but not so much with the skill in general. For example, in the SW game the Pilot skill is used to fly pretty much everything from a speeder to a Star Destroyer. Using the specialty skill Pilot (speeder bike) you could make a character good racing speeder bikes without having him also be and expert at flying TIE Fighters.


Aaron

 

[Vrecknidj]

Reading over the other replies has touched off another round of thoughts. It seems that in the real world, if there were "skill points," almost all of our skills would be subskills. I mean, there have to be loads of people who can climb trees far better than rocks or vice versa, and people who can long jump better than they can high jump, etc., etc.

I realize that the D&D system operates on a "let's make things simpler, even if it means less realistic" maxim, and for many good reasons. But, if you wanted a really flavorful campaign, you could always make many subskills for the skills (and leave open the option of creating new ones, of course), and just increase the skill points. You'd have to build in more safeguards, so the system didn't get abused, but it might be a cool way of going about skills.

After all, currently, ranks in Knowledge (religion) mean that someone knows about churches, undead, and other things. Why not Knowledge (Pelor) and Knowledge (vampires) and Knowledge (liches) and all that?

Perhaps at each level, a character could get (similarly to what's been already suggested) the option of taking, say, 1 rank in Knowledge (religion) or 1 rank each in Knowledge (vampires) and Knowledge (Pelor)? Having lots of knowledge in Pelor's religion might give a particular person some shot at knowing stuff about vampires, but having the same number of ranks in Knowledge (vampires) ought to be better. Maybe the DCs can vary.

Example Knowledge question: Will a daylight spell hurt this vampire?

As a Knowledge (Pelor) question, the DC might be 15.
As a Knowledge (undead) question, the DC might be 14.
As a Knowledge (vampires) question, the DC might be 10.

And so on.

Dave

 

[Frostflame]

The idea seems pretty neat to me, I'll talk to my players whether they want to use it in my campaign. The specialized skill system seems a good alternative to me, maybe I'll work it out.