All Skills as Class Skills?
- Thread starter Rokes
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Rokes
First Post
Mmmm, cherries. 
This is by far not the only house rule I use (or consider using). For one Rogues already get 10 + Int. skill points. (Bards get 6 plus 2 bonus to use for Perform only).
Could someone please explain how a Fighter with Tumble and UMD is broken?
And if there are other threads about this subject, can you provide a link? It seems my Google skills must be lacking.
This is by far not the only house rule I use (or consider using). For one Rogues already get 10 + Int. skill points. (Bards get 6 plus 2 bonus to use for Perform only).
Could someone please explain how a Fighter with Tumble and UMD is broken?
And if there are other threads about this subject, can you provide a link? It seems my Google skills must be lacking.
Nail
First Post
Tumble allows you to avoid AoOs. Simple enough.
UMD allows use of any magic item. Again, the abuses are simple.
There are other skills that would create problems, I'm sure.
All of these will be issues starting at mid-level, and highly dependent on your players ability to see where the DM has created loop-holes.
UMD allows use of any magic item. Again, the abuses are simple.
There are other skills that would create problems, I'm sure.
All of these will be issues starting at mid-level, and highly dependent on your players ability to see where the DM has created loop-holes.
Eh. The dwarf barbarian (in mithral full plate!) in my current game has Tumble, and he still gets whacked 50% of the time. Besides, all it means is he doesn't get a full attack, and doesn't expose himself to a full attack.
As for UMD, if it means people no longer treat Cha as a dump stat, that's great.
Everything can be broken with readily available, cheap skill boost items, but that's a problem with the items.
As for UMD, if it means people no longer treat Cha as a dump stat, that's great.
Everything can be broken with readily available, cheap skill boost items, but that's a problem with the items.
wayne62682
First Post
I've played in a lot of games that used it, and I think it was a great rule. Most people I have gamed with never see the point in arbitrarily limiting skills based on some archetype; it prevents the mechanics from meshing with roleplaying.
Example: Take the Fighter (lets assume a Core only game for discussion). If my character is a nobleman from the Free City, I would logically have diplomacy skills to represent my affluent upbringing. Maybe Knowledge (Nobility and Royalty) or Heraldry or something like that. But under the current ruleset I cannot do that because someone arbitrarily decided that all Fighters learn the same skills in "Fighter 101" with no room for deviation based on background. So if I spend the extra points on cross-class skills, it severely limits how well I can do it in-game, even though realistically my character would be good at it. The background is trumped by the game rules for no good reason at all. Maybe it's just my experience, but saying my character is a nobleman but having a pathetic Diplomacy skill is going to get me laughed at the second I try (and fail miserably) to use Diplomacy on someone.
What I would prefer to see is the option for all classes to have a couple of set class skills representing what the vast majority of those classes know, and then an extra "choose an additional three skills, based on your character concept and background, to become permanent class skills" that would allow custom-tailoring of skills based on the character. With a rule like that in effect I could have my noble fighter who actually has some courtly skills.
Before anyone brings up multiclassing into Bard or Rogue for my previous example, that just serves to prove my point. A Fighter type should not have to multiclass into a non-Fighter type (or hell, this applies for ANYTHING) just to realize a basic character concept. That's my issue with the way classes work in 3.5 as it is; the class system shoehorns you into someone else's vision of what a class should be and gives you absolutely no room to modify that concept without judicious multi-classing into other archetypes, the end result of which means that you need to wait several levels in order to effectively do something that you should have been able to do from the start of the campaign.
Example: Take the Fighter (lets assume a Core only game for discussion). If my character is a nobleman from the Free City, I would logically have diplomacy skills to represent my affluent upbringing. Maybe Knowledge (Nobility and Royalty) or Heraldry or something like that. But under the current ruleset I cannot do that because someone arbitrarily decided that all Fighters learn the same skills in "Fighter 101" with no room for deviation based on background. So if I spend the extra points on cross-class skills, it severely limits how well I can do it in-game, even though realistically my character would be good at it. The background is trumped by the game rules for no good reason at all. Maybe it's just my experience, but saying my character is a nobleman but having a pathetic Diplomacy skill is going to get me laughed at the second I try (and fail miserably) to use Diplomacy on someone.
What I would prefer to see is the option for all classes to have a couple of set class skills representing what the vast majority of those classes know, and then an extra "choose an additional three skills, based on your character concept and background, to become permanent class skills" that would allow custom-tailoring of skills based on the character. With a rule like that in effect I could have my noble fighter who actually has some courtly skills.
Before anyone brings up multiclassing into Bard or Rogue for my previous example, that just serves to prove my point. A Fighter type should not have to multiclass into a non-Fighter type (or hell, this applies for ANYTHING) just to realize a basic character concept. That's my issue with the way classes work in 3.5 as it is; the class system shoehorns you into someone else's vision of what a class should be and gives you absolutely no room to modify that concept without judicious multi-classing into other archetypes, the end result of which means that you need to wait several levels in order to effectively do something that you should have been able to do from the start of the campaign.
hong said:
I think that allowing UMD as a class skill for all classes actually encourages using Cha as a dump stat.
With UMD as cross class, your max ranks is lower, and you spend more to get it, which makes your Cha modifier a more significant part of the roll. When UMD is a class skill, you can have more ranks and spend less to get them, so a low Cha modifier wont make as much of a difference.
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