Anyone else think Skill Points are... wierd?

[Zadam]

I've always been a bit uneasy about intelligence being the sole contributing stat to how many skill points a character gets. It makes sence for SOME of the skills, but for some others, it just seems weird...

Think about it in the case of a powerful Orc warrior, who live on the land. He might have an INT of 6 or less, but surely he could be good at many "skills" which might not have anything to do with his level of intelligence, for example swimming, riding, climbing, jumping, balancing, intimidating, listening, spotting, survival, and so on.

Some of these ok maybe you CAN explain it in a way where intelligence plays a role, but some things make no sence in that regard (especially listening, spotting, and jumping).

I realise that SP's are effected by INT for game balance reasons, but it just seems strange. Imagine in the case of a int 6 Half Orc Fighter... only 1 skill point per level???? He can either jump far, or have good hearing, or have good vision, but he is "too dumb" to have all 3???

Another thing... anyone else think its a bit strange that the Intimidate skill is affected by only your charisma? For some reason I always imagined a big hulking snarling rude Half-Orc would be able to intimidate someone more than a charismatic halfling bard...

 

[Caeleddin]

Some people House Rule Intimidate to be Str or Cha. Charisma is presence as well, so the Intimidate may be more of the guy looking at you icily while you sweat bullets instead of raging up and down threatening to break your head.

Intelligence means the ability to retain knowledge. You can't Spot for nuts if you don't remember to look up! You can't Listen well if you don't know what the noise mean. It could be background noise for all you know.

 

[Jack Simth]

Personally, I suspect it's more of a paperwork reduction issue than a balance issue - Ookay - you get (Stat Bonus/2) skill points to put into each of your (Stat) based-skills. So for Mr. Wizard over there, that's 1 wisdom skill point, 3 Int skill points, 0 charisma skill points, 1 dex skill points, 1 con skill point, 0 strength skill points. Joe Barbarian, that's 3 strength skill points, 2 dex skill points....

 

[Diirk]

I realise that SP's are effected by INT for game balance reasons, but it just seems strange. Imagine in the case of a int 6 Half Orc Fighter... only 1 skill point per level???? He can either jump far, or have good hearing, or have good vision, but he is "too dumb" to have all 3???

Another thing... anyone else think its a bit strange that the Intimidate skill is affected by only your charisma? For some reason I always imagined a big hulking snarling rude Half-Orc would be able to intimidate someone more than a charismatic halfling bard...

Well 0 ranks and 10 in a stat make someone average in any given ability. He's probably already 'good' at jumping by virtue of his high strength. For spot/listen, he could be 'good' at them simply by putting ranks in them alternately (or taking alertness as a feat)

 

[Zadam]

Some people House Rule Intimidate to be Str or Cha. Charisma is presence as well, so the Intimidate may be more of the guy looking at you icily while you sweat bullets instead of raging up and down threatening to break your head.

Intelligence means the ability to retain knowledge. You can't Spot for nuts if you don't remember to look up! You can't Listen well if you don't know what the noise mean. It could be background noise for all you know.

Yeah I guess that makes sence to some degree... But surely knowing what to listen for and remembering to look up are more "common sence" type of things (which is why both those skills are based on WIS...).

 

[Zadam]

Well 0 ranks and 10 in a stat make someone average in any given ability. He's probably already 'good' at jumping by virtue of his high strength. For spot/listen, he could be 'good' at them simply by putting ranks in them alternately (or taking alertness as a feat)

Well thats true, but being good at it by virtue of a high stat only applies for lower levels. At higher levels, the high INT fighter with medium STR and WIS will be better at jumping, spotting, listening, etc than a low INT fighter with hight STR and WIS. Or rather the low INT fighter can choose to still be really good, but only at ONE of those things.

 

[Caeleddin]

Common sense is merely a set of prejudices that you have perfected by the age of 18


Your common sense will tell you that you should be doing something else. WHAT that something else is will be based on what you can recall (hence Intelligence).

 

[Corlon]

He may have int 6, but he could have wis 14, and thereby have +2 to listen and spot, unless of course he's invested some ranks into them. I mean, sure he's not GRAND, he can't hear an owl flying through the air on the other side of a brick wall, but generally +2-+6 are good for most "general" purposes of characters.

 

[Crothian]

I imagine it could be a balance thing. Int for most character is just important for skill points, so doing this weakens it even more.

 

[Staffan]

If the orc warrior has been living off the land, he should be a ranger (or at least an expert). That gives him six skill points per level to begin with, four after Intelligence adjustment.

Also, I think you are misunderstanding what skill points are supposed to represent. They're supposed to represent training, not talent. Since your orc warrior is stupid as a brick, it just takes a lot longer for him to train himself (or have someone else train him) to do things. He might have natural talent (read: bonuses in other ability scores) that compensate in part for the lack of training, but he'll still have a very hard time learning new things.