Are we sure we need a skill guy?

[Ry]

What if we had only these 3 archetypes:

Heavy Fighter
Light Fighter
Caster

But any of them could have a lot of skills? I mean, what's the real need for the skill guy?

 

[kensanata]

Our current party has no rogue. Just bash down the doors!

 

[lukelightning]

No. Most skills are not vital, and are easily replaced by the right spell or other action. The main roles of "skill guys" is social interactions and dealing with locks and traps. Social interactions? charm person. Traps? 10' pole or summoned creature. Locks? Sunder.

 

[3d6]

What if we had only these 3 archetypes:

Heavy Fighter
Light Fighter
Caster

But any of them could have a lot of skills? I mean, what's the real need for the skill guy?

OD&D had the fighting-man, magic-user, and cleric as its three classes, so something like that has been tried in the past.

 

[mmadsen]

There's no particular reason for sneaking around and disabling traps to be implemented as skills, for fighting ability to be a mixture of hit dice, BAB, and feats, but not skills, for magic to be a mixture of spell slots per level, spells known, and a few feats, but not skills, etc.

 

[krunchyfrogg]

but it's cooooool....

 

[Aust Diamondew]

When it comes down to it you can play a party with any combination of the archtypes and it can work with resourceful players and a DM who doesn't try to exploit your weaknesses every encounter.

The thing thats most needed though is a caster, preferably a cleric since they can patch you up after a battle and handle the other casting roles and do some front line fighting.

Edit: If your DM is trap happy it can make life more difficult not to have a search/disable device guy, but the other roles other characters can cover. Sneaking is overated anyway unless the whole party can do it.

 

[papastebu]

There is nothing in the game that requires the skills-based character to exist. But that is strictly a mechanically-based answer. What I think you need to ask yourself is this, "Do you feel lucky... " Wait, that's not it. Does the rogue/expert/whatever add any of the flavor you want in your game? Do the players clamour for the ability to defeat a trap? Sneak-attack? Any of the legerdemain abilities? Even if they do, you could still make these abilities available generally, instead of for a specific class. This is one of those things that you have to find out how many of your players are going to be disappointed by the change. The needs of the many, and all that.

--Steve

 

[Desdichado]

There's certainly a need for people in the party to have access to skills, but I don't think that it needs to be implemented in a single class. In fact, the rogue kinda mixes two archetypes IMO--the stealth assassin type (with his sneak attack damage) and the skill guy. If that can be mixed, why not just eliminate him entirely and make skills more widely available?

I kinda like it. Good idea.

 

[RFisher]

How about just Fighter/Warrior & Caster/Adept? These are, IMHO, the only two classes you really need.

If you make BAB, Saves, & spell casting skill-based (or skill-&-feat based), then you only need one class.

After talking over the options for my own d20 variant with my group, that was the direction they seemed most interested in. (I still lost interest in developing it after a few weeks, though...) Of course, when going that direction, you need to be able to answer the question: Why aren't I just using BRP, Gurps, &c.?