A Fighters skill points....

Darklone · Sep 28, 2003

My "favoured" players don't need bonuses to hit, they use tactics in combat and appropriate logic in battles.

Btw: The last singleclass fighter I had here put his second best stat (16) in Intelligence... guess why. He did never have any problems with skills.

Crothian · Sep 28, 2003

Seems to me Darklone is using role playing in his game and not just using numbers. I really wish we had more that would do that sort of thing. Good Job!!

LuYangShih · Sep 28, 2003

Why have the social skills present in that case? Just because something is true does not mean it is going to convince other people of your argument. I can show you many real world historical examples if you wish. Reasoning would be Intelligence, which does not rule over social encounters. A character with a low Charisma and low to no ranks in Diplomacy will be unable to put forth a convincing argument, just as a character with low Strength and no skill with a blade will be unable to hit the AC 30 monster.

By the way, how is it roleplaying to have the 6 Charisma Dwarf convince the king and his nobles of the validity of his cause? Is that not the antithesis of roleplaying? The 6 Charisma Dwarf would not have the personal magnetism or confidence to do such a thing. Just as a 6 Intelligence Half-Orc is not going to come up with brilliant tactical plans, or beat the high Wizard in a game of chess. If you want to allow your players to ignore certain skills and statistics because they have personal magnetism or intelligence, why even have those skills or statistics present in the game in the first place?

Scion · Sep 28, 2003

personally, I've had the experience that no one takes more than 4 levels of fighter, ever. Most just take other classes instead of even the first 4 actually even if they wanted to make a primary combat type. I think that the fighter needs more skill points, slightly better skill selection, and more feats. Fighter feats are already limited, give them more to try and make them better at what they are supposed to be good at.

Having more higher end feats is very good as well. Feat chains that require 6 or 7 feats are the fighters world, they are the only ones who can easily reach them. Say:
Whirlwind, the next step = When useing whirlwind gain an extra attack against each target at -10. Prereq: whirlwind, endurance.
Now, anyone could take it, but only the fighter could take it easily and have feats for other things.

If you make some feat chains only accessible to fighters and are very good then he wouldnt need the extra feats possibly, but as is he needs a lot of little somethings.

As for the social skills, I'd have to agree with LuYangShih, why do you even bother to write them down if you arent going to pay attention to them? I was in a group recently and this is one of the reasons I quit. If someone had a 30 charisma and 23 ranks in diplomacy they werent any better than the 1 charisma 0 diplomacy ranks character who's player could come up with incredible speeches. They said that it was based on 'good roleplaying' whether you had a good speech or not. I'd say that they werent roleplaying, THEY HAD NO SKILL! but this just didnt sink in. When I asked if my character could then lift 3 tons with my strength of 6 they said that was silly since no one could lift 3 tons.

Who is roleplaying better at that point?

FrankTrollman · Sep 28, 2003

If you make some feat chains only accessible to fighters and are very good then he wouldnt need the extra feats possibly,

Although if you do that te class is no longer customizable at the high end - violating the entire supposed purpose of the Fighter class.

-Frank

Scion · Sep 28, 2003

FrankTrollman said:
Although if you do that te class is no longer customizable at the high end - violating the entire supposed purpose of the Fighter class.

-Frank

Exactly, hence why I said they still need lots of little somethings, and even that might not be enough.

Crothian · Sep 28, 2003

Scion said:
As for the social skills, I'd have to agree with LuYangShih, why do you even bother to write them down if you arent going to pay attention to them? I was in a group recently and this is one of the reasons I quit. If someone had a 30 charisma and 23 ranks in diplomacy they werent any better than the 1 charisma 0 diplomacy ranks character who's player could come up with incredible speeches. They said that it was based on 'good roleplaying' whether you had a good speech or not. I'd say that they werent roleplaying, THEY HAD NO SKILL! but this just didnt sink in. When I asked if my character could then lift 3 tons with my strength of 6 they said that was silly since no one could lift 3 tons.

Who is roleplaying better at that point?

There is a line between Role playing and allowing good ideas and having role playing overshadow the rules, Just like the rules can overshadow the role playing. There needs to be a balance. The best way I've seen is when people have the role playing modify the roll. If the player role playes it well, they get a small +2 or +4 bonus on the roll. So, even if it is role played great, the character with no skill is still going to have a lousy skill roll.

Crothian · Sep 28, 2003

FrankTrollman said:
Although if you do that te class is no longer customizable at the high end - violating the entire supposed purpose of the Fighter class.

-Frank

It is versatile at the high end, one just has to make those choices. If the fighter has 6 different chains to choose from, he's still the only class that can go down any of the 6. So, he becomes really good at one of these areas but still has the feats to be good at a few other combat styles.

Scion · Sep 28, 2003

Crothian said:
There is a line between Role playing and allowing good ideas and having role playing overshadow the rules, Just like the rules can overshadow the role playing. There needs to be a balance. The best way I've seen is when people have the role playing modify the roll. If the player role playes it well, they get a small +2 or +4 bonus on the roll. So, even if it is role played great, the character with no skill is still going to have a lousy skill roll.

So if they have 0 ranks then role playing it well might be stumbling over themselves, saying the wrong words and then trying to shake the wrong hand. Thereby horribly offending the dignitary, where does the +2 come in again?

If they have inside info that could help them then that is a circumstance modifier. Which is already in the rules and easily accounted for.

FrankTrollman · Sep 28, 2003

It is versatile at the high end, one just has to make those choices. If the fighter has 6 different chains to choose from, he's still the only class that can go down any of the 6. So, he becomes really good at one of these areas but still has the feats to be good at a few other combat styles.

There are thousands of feats. That's versatility. If you only get to choose from six feats because you are predicating game balance on a smaller number of more powerful feats - you have reduced customizability by aboout 99.4%. And that's not even counting the fact that these have prereqs, which force players to make their selection from path feats every level or fall behind - thereby reducing a 6th level character from 2000 choices of which 6 are chosen (about 8.8 quadrillion options to six).

For rather obvious reasons, I don't like that solution at all. You know the mantra - options, not limitations. If players have to take feats from a small collection of increased effectiveness options, that essentially is disqualifying all the thousands of feats which have here-to-fore been printed - and that means that quadrillions of options that are supposed to be viable are not - and that's bad.

-Frank