Anyone else think Skill Points are... wierd?

[Lonely Tylenol]

You have to be smart enough to figure out how to train.

I completely agree with this statement. I used to tutor some guy for chemistry. He was dumb. Well not exactly dumb, but he was really, really slow on the uptake. You could see him thinking when you told him something and he was attempting to make it connect to whatever else he had in his head so that he might remember it in ten seconds. About half the time he failed at this and forgot it almost as soon as he heard it. That's if I could get him to pay attention to the material long enough for him to hear it. He had attention difficulties...

I can just picture Bob the ranger training Oog the half-orc...

"Oog. Look here. You see how these herbs are broken like this? Oog."
"Huh, what?"
"Oog. Pay attention. These herbs, you see how they're broken?"
"Uh, yeah."
"This means that something light stepped on them. What might have done this, do you think?"
"..."
"Oog?"
"What?"
"What might have done this?"
"Done what?"
"Broken the herbs?"
"I dunno. A rock?"

I can understand how Oog might be less inclined to pick up skills that require training than a brighter fellow.

 

[Crothian]

so is the 8 int half-orc barbarian is too stupid to hire an athletic trainer and dietician?
if he did, would you give him bonus SP's to use for jump?
seems reasonable, but for the sake of simplicity/balance we dont allow that.
that's more of a Ultima Online style skill system anyway.

- Felnar

Doesn't matter. The game assumes that no training is needed to gain anything. So, no not even with a trainer and dietician (not that that would actually exist in most worlds).

 

[Liquidsabre]

Though the DMG has a nice variant for invluding training time and trainers into the game in order to level and increase skills, etc. Neat stuff.

Int works fine, nothing untoward with it's usage at all, and it's the most appropriate attribute for SPs. I tend to use the Intimidate skill as per Spycraft - Intimdate (Cha/Str) but only allow the Str mod to be used after a character successfully performs a show of strength of some kind.

 

[Zadam]

Have you ever coached football, or for that matter do you follow sports like football and basketball to any degree? It's not a coincidence that some of the best atheletes in the game are also some of its better spoken. Players like Michael Jordon, Tim Duncan, or David Robinson excel in large part not just because of thier exceptional physical talents, but because of thier drive, initiative, and understanding of the game. There have been men of equal atheletic ability playing the game as Jordon (Sean Kemp comes to mind), but noone of his combination of atheletic ability and intelligence. In football, you are continually hearing about quarterbacks and wide recievers, who, though they possess the necessary speed, agility, strength and height to play the position at the highest level lack the mental skills to develop thier talents - while at the same time men of lesser stature and speed make the pro-bowl because of thier greater awareness and decision making ability on the field.

I think maybe the problem is that you equate intelligence solely with the sort of mental abilities displayed by the sort of nerds who enjoy role playing games (like me), but I think that in fact intelligence is a much broader characteristic which encompasses the capacity to learn skills and apply oneself to any task. And, I don't think that this is something any further removed from real life than having a single number represent strength (which is ridiculous because thier is a tremendous difference between being strong and being powerful), or a single number represent dexterity.

A good reply, I can definately see what you are getting at. I guess the one thing that is still not totally convincing to me with the examples you have used above is that you can't totally equate something like sport, which I think involves like you say just as much mental prowess as it does physical. Playing a sport such as football or basketball would involve many different "skills", and also the ability to make split second decisions, reflexes, fitness/endurance, strength, figuring out strategies of play etc. The point is you would need to be good at a multitude of skills to be good at a sport, and some sportsmen are better at certain aspects of the game than others, which backs up that point.

You can't really compare this to something like the "Jump" skill which is a much more "simple" thing to do than to play sport. I doubt any of the mental attributes needed to play a sport well would be applicable to jumping... Having to make split second decisions, figuring out a strategy of play etc... It's a much more simple thing...

 

[Thanee]

1) I think Intelligence works fine that way, for reasons stated above. It's also an abstraction, don't forget that.

2) I think, generally, characters get too few skills.

A good solution would be some sort of background skill package, every character receives, which grants skills aquired before the adventuring career. Of course, there would need to be a lot of those packages for the various combinations.

While this is meant to be covered by the x4 multiplier at 1st level and the untrained skill checks, it hardly does so.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Bront]

OK, I understand that SP's represent training, however, training to jump further would probably involve things such as jumping over and over again, and strengthening your legs etc. I don't really see how intelligence would have any effect over this. Likewise, how do you "train" yourself to have better hearing/vision (for listen and spot)?

Take a look at sports. Generaly, there are players in sports who are good due to physical talent, but the great players are able to train and learn beyond their physical skills and often show an understanding of the game beyond just your normal player.

Physical ability (stats) can help, and make you good, but it takes knowledge and understanding (intellegence) on how to use this ability that makes you truely great at using those abilities best.

 

[Bront]

A good solution would be some sort of background skill package, every character receives, which grants skills aquired before the adventuring career. Of course, there would need to be a lot of those packages for the various combinations.

I've seen several packages in a few games that gave out 2 skill points in 2-4 different skills (Wheel of Time book I think).

 

[mhd]

Yes, players don't get enough skill points, especially for campaigns that don't focus purely on dungeons on wilderness. And even there...

My current campaign uses a variant rule introduced in some fanzine, where you get your normal skill points, but add your "prime" attribute. Plus an additional 2+Int points usable only for the group skills (Perform, Craft, Profession, Knowledge). That adds some background. It would probably break down for rabid min/maxers and isn't that nice for Dex&Int fighters (who could multi-class to Rogue or switch to Swashbuckler)...

Another Idea was dividing the skill points by two, adding Constitution (persistance) to one half and buying the physical skills with that and Intelligence to the other half for mental/social skills. Probably bumping the classes that only get 2 points to 4.
Or simply adding Constitution and Intelligence...

Last but not least, what about dropping the rule that cross-class skill cost double, but keeping the max ranks? You'll have a more broad base of skills, but won't reach the pinnacle that othere classes might achieve.

 

[Staffan]

OK, I understand that SP's represent training, however, training to jump further would probably involve things such as jumping over and over again, and strengthening your legs etc. I don't really see how intelligence would have any effect over this. Likewise, how do you "train" yourself to have better hearing/vision (for listen and spot)?

You don't think jumping involves techniques learned? It's not just a matter of strengthening your leg muscles. There's a lot of technique involved too. And as for training Listen and Spot, I see that as more of a matter of learning what to look for - they don't really enhance your hearing or eyesight, but someone with a high Spot would recognize that small change in the silhouette of a barrel as a halfling trying to hide behind it, while someone who's untrained would just ignore it.

 

[Staffan]

Last but not least, what about dropping the rule that cross-class skill cost double, but keeping the max ranks? You'll have a more broad base of skills, but won't reach the pinnacle that othere classes might achieve.

There's a feat that does exactly that in Races of Destiny. It's only available to humans and dopplegangers (though I'd allow it for changelings in an Eberron campaign), and has to be taken at 1st level.