Alternative feats for cross-class skills

[Li Shenron]

I'd like to find an alternative to giving a feat to add "any 2 skills" into your class skill list.
I don't know what Complete Adventurer has to increase your number of class skills, but anyway I'm focused on a 3.0 campaign at the moment.

If a feat granted a number of skills to be always class skills for you, but the exact skills were fixed, how many would you think it'd be the right amount? And how would you divide the skills into groups?

Using the 3.0 list of skills, I was considering the following possibility:

ADEPT
Benefit: Alchemy, Knowledge(Arcana) and Spellcraft are always treated as class skills for you.

ACROBAT
Benefit: Balance, Escape Artist and Tumble are always treated as class skills for you.

ATHLET
Benefit: Climb, Jump and Swim are always treated as class skills for you.

STALKER
Benefit: Hide and Move Silently are always treated as class skills for you.

FOCUSED
Benefit: Concentration, Listen and Spot are always treated as class skills for you.

SCHOLAR
Benefit: All Knowledge and Speak Language are always treated as class skills for you.

SCOUT
Benefit: Heal, Intuit Direction, Knowledge(Nature) and Wilderness Lore are always treated as class skills for you.

EASY-GOING
Benefit: Diplomacy, Gather Information, Innuendo and Sense Motive are always treated as class skills for you.

CAT BURGLAR
Benefit: Search, Disable Device and Open Lock are always treated as class skills for you.

ANIMAL TRAINER
Benefit: Handle Animal, Ride and Use Rope are always treated as class skills for you.

PERFORMER
Benefit: Bluff, Disguise and Perform are always treated as class skills for you.

They all give 3 skills as class skills, except a couple which give 4 (but one skill is weak and 3.5 wrapped it into something else), and except Stalker which is anyway quite strong as is.
The Animal Trainer feat is definitely the weakest group in concept and I may just get rid of it.
Finally, some feats didn't make it in, and I wonder if/how to do that: Intimidate, Pick Pocket, Forgery and Appraise.

What do you think, too weak? Too good? Is there a better combination? I prefer groups that makes sense together than just "any 2".

 

[Spatzimaus]

I'll agree that "any 2" is just too strong. Not having Complete Adventurer, the only three ways I know of to add Class skills are:
1> Cleric choosing certain domains
2> Paragon Human racial class ability (Any one skill)
3> Cosmopolitan Feat from FRCS. (Any one skill, and get a bonus to it)
None of these are unbalanced IMO.

Part of the reason I think the "any 2" would be unbalanced are because you could get both Hide and Move Silently as class skills. Either of these skills are decent, but when combined with the other, they become extremely strong. Similar logic applies for Spot and Listen or Spot and Search. So, while I like the concept of limiting it to certain combinations, the fact that you're allowing many of the same combinations doesn't help.

If you shifted it a bit, I think that might help. For instance, try Hide+Spot (the visual ones) in one skill, and Listen+Move Silently (the audio ones) in the other. I know that conceptually it'd be a bit awkward, but balancewise I think it'd be much more tolerable.
You could move Concentration to the animal trainer one; that one's already not very thematic, and it'd bring it up to balance. Or, just remove it from the Feats altogether, like you did Use Magic Device. After all, the only people who need Concentration skill are those who have it on their class lists already.

One small nitpick:
In most cases, the skills that benefit from these Feats are useful for everyone, making them a nice alternative to multiclassing. The sole exception is Adept, which gives Alchemy, Knowledge (Arcana) and Spellcraft. Who, outside of a caster, ever would spend skill ranks on these? I mean, I don't see Barbarians spending a Feat AND many of their skill points raising a skill solely for the purpose of identifying incoming spells.

Anyway, not a bad concept, but I'd definitely want to see it in practice before deciding on balance. As someone who's played mostly high-skilled characters (Rogues, Rangers, Shaper Psions), I know I'd have loved to have these available.

 

[Afrodyte]

Since I use 3.5, some of my comments may be irrelevant. However, I'll go from the best of my knowledge. In any case, I like your idea. The thematic aspect of the skills are pretty cool, but some themes are more equal than others. But I digress. Here's something I would use. Basically you can gain new class skills or get a +2 bonus to the class skills you already have. Rather than say the same thing over and over, I'll just list the skills and their categories.

Acrobatic: Balance, Tumble
Alertness: Listen, Spot
Animal Affinity: Handle Animal, Ride
Athletic: Climb, Jump, Swim
Artistic: Concentration, Craft (any one), Perform (any one)
Burglar: Disable Device, Open Lock, Search
Commanding: Intimidating, Perform (oratory)
Convincing: Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Sense Motive
Deft Hands: Forgery, Sleight of Hand, Use Rope
Merchant: Appraise, Gather Information, Knowledge (local)
Occultist: Knowledge (arcana), Spellcraft, Use Magic Device
Outdoorsman: Heal, Knowledge (geography), Knowledge (nature), Survival
Scholarly: Decipher Script, Knowledge (all), Speak Language
Stealthy: Hide, Move Silently

 

[jeffhartsell]

The HR I use is that the skill feats that grant +2 to two skills or the skill focus feat ALSO make the skills class skills. Simple and makes them more worthwile. Players won't complain about the power-up either. We also use a HR that all PCs gain Able Learner (cross class skills cost 1 point instead of 2) for free. This makes tracking skill points spent much easier.

A PC spending points each available level in a class skill will still always be better than in the cross-class skills.

 

[Li Shenron]

In most cases, the skills that benefit from these Feats are useful for everyone, making them a nice alternative to multiclassing. The sole exception is Adept, which gives Alchemy, Knowledge (Arcana) and Spellcraft. Who, outside of a caster, ever would spend skill ranks on these?

True, it's not going to be very useful. I wrote it because those 3 skills looked nice together. Maybe the only case when someone would take it would be if he has only a few levels of Wiz/Sor, and wants to still use those. For example, what about a Fighter/Wizard or Rogue/Sorcerer who only dabbles a little in spells, but crafts alchemical substances and reads lots of arcane tomes?

 

[Li Shenron]

Basically you can gain new class skills or get a +2 bonus to the class skills you already have.

I thought about the same thing before starting this thread: my first idea was that if a skill in the group was already a class skill for you, instead of that benefit you'd get a +1 on that skill (+1 only because my reference is 3.0, and I don't want these feats to make Skill Focus too weak).

It has a problem tho: what about someone who has only 1 level in a class for which the skill is class skill? He would both get the +1 and it'd be always a class skill for him.

So at the moment I'm opting for the idea that they only grants those skill as "always treated as class skills". In the worst case, the PC may choose to take a feat only for 1 skill, which IMO it's not too bad anyway; and if it's too bad, well he can just keep it as cross-class.

 

[Li Shenron]

Another thing, I came up with another feat:

CHIVALRIC KNIGHT
Benefit: Intimidate, Knowledge (Nobility & Royalty) and Ride are always treated as class skills for you.

However I'm not 100% sure with Intimidate, maybe Diplomacy would be better?

 

[ed.han]

i'm just curious: why would "pick any 2" be too powerful? a lot of the classes that would benefit from such a feat don't get a lot of skill points in the first place. let's say i'm playing a fighter. why would i blow my measly 2 skill points on anything but climb & jump, which key off my main ability score anyway into which i very likely already put my best (or at least 2nd best) score in all likelihood?

if you wrote a "pick any 2" feat*, you could restrict the new class skills as being appended to the class skill list of the class in which you just leveled up, which would restrict most abuses, i would imagine.

*the d20 SW supplement heroes guide lists a feat called versatile [general] which permits you to pick 2 skill points and always treat 'em as class skills.

ed

 

[Li Shenron]

i'm just curious: why would "pick any 2" be too powerful? a lot of the classes that would benefit from such a feat don't get a lot of skill points in the first place.

Not too powerful, just boring. I wanted an alternative to that just because "any 2" is flavorless and I want something strong-flavored from the characters' perspective.

if you wrote a "pick any 2" feat*, you could restrict the new class skills as being appended to the class skill list of the class in which you just leveled up, which would restrict most abuses, i would imagine.

That is not what I had in mind. I wanted a chance for certain characters to either (1) opens up the option of an ability from another class, or (2) train in a second class without completely losing focus in the first. What I had in mind was therefore these sorts of situations:

(1a) a single-class Fighter who also trains in stealth (Hide & Move Silently)
(1b) a single-class Wizard who also plays with traps (Search, DDevice & Open Lock)
(1c) a single-class Cleric who also studies as a scholar (Knowledges)

these can be done already with cross-class skills, but if there is no one else in the party to cover those skills, the new feats will allow these PC to have higher ranks

Case (2) may be a multiclassed Wizard who wants to still have max Spellcraft/KN(Arcana) for example.

What are the possible abuses you can foresee here?

 

[Afrodyte]

Li Shenron,

After visiting my FLGS recently and taking a look at Iron Heroes, I think you might want to take a look at the way they do things. It's almost exactly what you have in mind.