removing class & cross-class skills - convince me why this is a bad idea

A player wants to play a stealthy fighter or a diplomatic wizard.

To that I say - awesome! Cool idea. Unfortunately, the skill system does not agree.

The way the skill system stands now, it essentially prevents this type of character building. It pretty much penalizes the player for creating interesting character/class roles. Heck, a fighter can't even put ranks into Spot. That's great for town guards and watchmen.

I'm basically ready to remove all class/cross-class skills and let players put skill ranks wherever they want. I even want to increase the number of skill ranks each class gets. A lot of systems are already doing this (Iron Heroes, Grim Tales lets you choose your skills regardless of class, True20, etc) and it's a common opinion that classes don't get enough skill points - even Mike Mearls agrees!

The only potential "problem" skills I can foresee are Use Magic Device and maybe Spellcraft. You could probably add Disable Device to that list but without the Trapfinding rogue class skill, I'm not even sure it's a valid concern.

But again, I'm not sure I'd even care if fighters and barbarians start putting ranks into UMD. It's easy to justify with fluff and I can't find any reason that it's broken. You want to try to use a cure light wand with your 8 Charisma? Good luck with that.

As a DM it is within your purview to switch out class and cross-class skills.

That wizard wants diplomacy as a class skill? Give the player diplomacy as a class skill at the expense of another class skill.

Go for it I say.

In my game all skills are class skills. I also ruled that anyone can find and disable traps with... although only rogues and classes with magical abilities can find and disable magical traps.

Agreed with Reveille.

It's entirely up to you, and the DMG says you can. Just look in the Characters chapter. The rules aren't restricting you from making a few tweaks to fit a character concept.

They just don't normally encourage characters to be really effective with skills that don't make much in-character sense for most members of their class to have. Wizard schools don't normally teach infiltration tactics and assassination skills, do they? Fighter academies don't generally teach their students how to trick random magic items most of them have never had any prior contact with into working for them, or how to pick locks and filch coins from the people they're supposed to be guarding, do they? Thieves' guilds don't ordinarily go around instructing their street rats and thugs on how to identify spells and sigils, how to serve as a combat medic, or teach them all about ancient history and the intricacies of modern politics in the surrounding kingdoms, do they?

That's all that class skills and cross-class skills are there for. Most members of Class X don't have an extensive background/education covering every conceivable topic, only the unusual ones learn things that are way outside their main field of expertise (warfare, or thievery, or magic use, etc.).

If you as DM feel that a PC's background is suitably different enough from the norm for most members of their class, go ahead and swap out a few class skills for ones that better fit their background.

Personally, for my campaigns, I just introduce one or two feats that can be taken for access to extra class skills. My Diverse Talents feat (one time only, choose 3 extra class skills) has been taken by multiple characters in my Rhunaria campaigns. Of course, humans in Rhunaria get a bonus class skill automatically from their race, too.

Reveille said:

As a DM it is within your purview to switch out class and cross-class skills.

That wizard wants diplomacy as a class skill? Give the player diplomacy as a class skill at the expense of another class skill.

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But why have any skills to switch out at all? Again, who cares what the wizard spends his ranks on. Does a wizard who spends his ranks on Diplomacy unbalance the character creation system or are you merely holding on to a narrow vision of what the wizard should be?

Wizard schools don't normally teach infiltration tactics and assassination skills, do they? Fighter academies don't generally teach their students how to trick random magic items most of them have never had any prior contact with into working for them, or how to pick locks and filch coins from the people they're supposed to be guarding, do they?

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Again, this assumes a lot about the supposed world. First, for example, that there are schools at all. Even if there are no schools per se, it's very easy to justify why a certain class might be good at a certain skill. Heck, you can pass off anything as natural talent or affinity easily enough.

Why knows how a character picked up a skill? Personally, I think it allows the player to *gasp* be creative with their character!

I also think that players will still gravitate towards skills for their characters that are important - Concentration and Spellcraft for the casters, stealth for the rogues, etc - which is essentially what the class skills are already.

GlassJaw said:

But why have any skills to switch out at all? Again, who cares what the wizard spends his ranks on. Does a wizard who spends his ranks on Diplomacy unbalance the character creation system or are you merely holding on to a narrow vision of what the wizard should be?

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The DM needs to care, all the rest of us are doing is offering suggestions. It sounds like you ahave already made up your mind about removing cross-class skills.

Reveille said:

The DM needs to care, all the rest of us are doing is offering suggestions. It sounds like you ahave already made up your mind about removing cross-class skills.

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Well I'll agree the DM needs to care about balance, which is why I'm putting this idea in front of the EN World collective.

Aside from fluff reasons, I haven't been able to find any solid examples this system breaking the game or even something that could be exploited. Again, I still think UMD has the highest potential but I can't think of a specific example that would cause me to rethink trying out this system.

I've even been trying to put Spellcraft through the paces. Would a fighter with ranks in Spellcraft cause any issues? Would it (or UMD or Disable Device) instantly become a must-have skill that everyone would put ranks in it?

Sorry, I'm not going to try convincing you not to. If you think UMD might be a problem, remove it; it's hard to justify for any character anyway. Or you could change the skill so that the DCs scale with item caster level, which would at least help with any potential balance issues.

TS

I'd be much less concerned with Spellcraft-using Fighters and more concerned with ninja Wizards, uber-alert clerics, and such. Wizards who can sneak around invisibly and unheard, pick the locks without making the noise of a spell, stealing the McGuffin, listening and looking intently for signs of danger (given their high Intelligence and thus decent skill points), and sneaking away. Bards at least have significant reasons to spend their skill points elsewhere. Clerics who can thwart any ambush could be annoying.

There's really not much mechanical reason, though. Mainly, it makes Rogues rather obsolete and Bards to some extent too. And Rangers too, kinda.

I think an answer in 4e might be giving classes incentive to take and use the skills that should be integral to their class; while your fighter might take stealth, it is the rogue that gets abilities in his class to make maximum use of these skills. After all, it is the rogue that is supposed to be the stealthy ones.