All Skills as Class Skills?

[hong]

Hong! Welcome back from the dead.

Hey there, Val! I've gone over to the dark side (Book of 9 Swords). Join me and we will rule the galaxy.

 

[Arkhandus]

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.................The background is trumped by the game rules for no good reason at all.

And if you were a nobleman raised to deal in high society, then you'd logically start out with a level of Aristocrat to represent that experience. If your PC cared anything at all about learning to deal with other nobles and not raising his family's ire through social/political ineptitude, then he'd have focused at least some of his efforts on mastering basic aristocratic skills. Which means a level of Aristocrat, or Expert.

If he didn't really focus on that stuff (maybe they didn't care about politics, or didn't care about how their family snubbed them, as long as they still got some cash each month or so), then sure he might have focused on training as a Fighter instead, putting most or all of his efforts into becoming a capable swordsman. Maybe with a few cross-class ranks in social skills to represent the little bit he had to learn to get by, but didn't really want to. Cuz otherwise he'd have started with an Aristocrat level; a Figher level's measely few skill points wouldn't accurately represent any significant training or experience in aristocratic matters, anyway.

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.

This would be essentially no different from what the original poster suggested. May as well just go with the simpler method of the OP if you want this sort of concept.

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.

Aristocrat and Expert are fighter-type classes of a sort. They're a fair mix of fighter-type and skill-type classes, which is exactly what any halfway-competent nobleman would be (a decent or good skill-user and a decent or good combatant). Aristocrats receive full fighter proficiencies, and Experts receive decent proficiencies for a noble duelist sort of character. Either of them make sense as 1st-level choices for a character that wants to be a warrior-type with some good skills in his background. Sure you may want to find a PC-worthy version of the Aristocrat or Expert, rather than use the half-power NPC classes, but that's not a problem with the system (which already allows for such to be added).

Other character concepts can be adequately fulfilled too, by choosing the character's 1st-level or 2nd-level class appropriately, without regards to how powerful the class is, rather than taking a good character concept and trying to shoehorn it into a class that doesn't even accurately fit the concept to begin with. Fighter != competent socialite. Fighter = a dedicated and highly-trained warrior, first and foremost.

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.........

For reference, though, the DMG does mention the option of tweaking a class' features just a bit sometimes to properly fit a player's concept when it won't quite fit right in an existing class. Also, keep in mind that 1st-level characters represent the youngest, most inexperienced adventurers; any PC with a significant amount of backstory or training is likely to be more like 3rd-level or higher before they even begin their actual "adventuring" career. This is also not a problem with the system, but with what some people want it to do (rather than simply starting their campaigns a few levels higher if they want to use character concepts involving storied/experienced/highly-trained individuals).

Further: you can always add feats to the game which may fill this gap of customization. I have a feat in my homebrew campaigns that is only available once, but provides 3 extra class skills of the character's choice (within certain minor limitations). I based it on a similar feat from the Rokugan book (by AEG, but an official sort of supplement/replacement for Oriental Adventures), called Versatile I think, which grants some extra class skills. Want a PC of 1st-level to have some magical talent in his background despite being a Fighter? Make a feat that gives him or her a 1st-level sorcerer spell that can be cast once per day (but just like a normal sorcerer spell, so ASF and stuff applies), along with the feat making Spellcraft a permanent class skill (or maybe Concentration). Perhaps instead it gives a few 0-level sorcerer spells known, and a few 0-level sorcerer spell slots (say, maybe 2 cantrips known and 3 slots of 0-level), and makes Sorcerer count as an additional favored class. I dunno, whatever.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Hey there, Val! I've gone over to the dark side (Book of 9 Swords). Join me and we will rule the galaxy.

NEVER!

... Or at least not for a while. I'm enjoying IH too much to go back, even to ToB:Bo9S.

 

[Crashy75]

...
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.
....

I like that idea. I'm thinking something similar to d20 modern occupations.