Characters that can do more without being (much) more powerful?

[Obergnom]

Hi,

I would like a houserule that would allow the PCs to be able to do more, without being much more powerful.

At the moment, we do this: Everyone gets 8 free skill points that might be spend into craft, knowledge, profession or perform skills at first level. These are Background skills.

This makes low level gaming more interessting, imo.

I am thinking, would giving more skill points to characters unbalance the game? How much more would be okay? Would allowing all cross class skills as class skills be a problem? What if you allow the unavailable skills to? (Use Magic Device Fighters? Might really help them...)
What about feats? What would change if everyone gets a feat at every 2nd level? Or every level? How many bonus feats should classes like the fighter or wizard get under those circumstances?

I know the characters would be more powerful. But how much? I do not know.

for example, if you use flaws, every character kann have a total of 9 feats when reaching 20th level, without any bonus feats. If you would give one feat at every odd level (1,3,5...) thats just one more. (And many flaw drawbacks seem to be avoidable...)

This is something that came to my mind when I though about two things.

- What I love about Castles&Crusades is that all characters are able to do a lot of things. (Basically you get full "ranks" in all skills tied to 2 (3 if human) abilities through the primes mechanic.

- a designer (might be Monte Cook, but I am not sure) said that amount of feats published stands in bad proportion to the number of feats a character gets. Thus making character building harder. (You have to be more careful about choices if you do not have that many. A phb fighter has so many feats available compared to the amount of choices, its hard to go totaly wrong. No "completes" character will take a single weaker feat like alertness, even if it would fit the concept, because he wants to get the basics of his concept done first.)

 

[ValhallaGH]

Options:
Delete the concept of cross class skills.
Use skill groups.
Give more skill points.
Use a Star Wars Saga style skill system.

Basically, any or all of the above are used to increase character versatility without really increasing character power. Personally, I'd recommend either using some form of skill group or Sadrik's skill fix, as seen in my signature.
None of them are unbalancing, unless you consider any particular skill to be unbalancing. Then it doesn't matter who can access that skill, if the skill is broken then you need to fix it (delete or modify).

As far as feats go, I'd recommend reworking feats to combine seven versions of the same feat into one feat. For example, Spring Attack, Shot on the Run, Ride by Attack, and Fly by Attack are all basically the same thing for four specific uses; change it all to Move By Action (Can move, take a standard action, then finish moving; total distance can't exceed your speed for the movement mode used) and you've just slimmed down a character build by seven or eight feats.

If you're planning to hand out feats faster than usual, don't worry about the classes with bonus feats. They still get all their bonus feats. Their bonus feats are not as large a percentage of their total feats as before but they still will have the exact same number of feats more than the other classes. They aren't missing out and their feats aren't less valuable, they're just getting the same across the board increase in build power as everyone else.


Good luck, and I hope it helps.

 

[GreatLemur]

What about feats? What would change if everyone gets a feat at every 2nd level? Or every level?.)

I don't think this is such a bad idea, really. I'm not totally sold on it, because it sure sounds like a change that could have some huge and unforseen effects, but I really, really prefer when characters gain more interesting options (and players have to make more interesting choices) over gaining raw power. I'd rather get a feat every level than an HD and a point of BAB, honestly.

Delete the concept of cross class skills.

Whoa, yeah. The whole class/cross-class thing is one of the most drastically poorly-designed things about D&D 3.x, and in so many different ways. It's pure (and, in my opinion, undesirable) niche protection. Furthermore, nothing makes a new player's eyes glaze over faster than hearing about which skills cost how much per rank, and that class/cross-class skill chart is literally the worst table I've ever seen in any WotC book ("C" vs. "cc"? Who's the information design genius who okayed that one?). So, yeah, I ditched it for the game I'm running at the moment.

 

[Piratecat]

It's pure (and, in my opinion, undesirable) niche protection.

It is pure niche protection, although I consider it very desirable (that's probably a different thread all its own.) I agree with you about that table, though.

 

[The Souljourner]

I like giving feats at every odd level and giving every class 2 more skillpoints per level PLUS give 2 skillpoints per level that can only be used on background skills (like you mentioned in the beginning).

It is pure niche protection, although I consider it very desirable (that's probably a different thread all its own.) I agree with you about that table, though.

Exactly what he said.

I don't think you should drop crossclass skills. It would greatly reduce the impetus to take the skillful classes. I don't think cross class skills are really all that terrible to understand. Here's the list of skills you get a 1/rank, everything else is 2/rank. No big deal. Max is level +3, half that for skills not on your list. It's easier than figuring out your attack bonus, and only needs to be done once per level up. If you don't start out at 8th level with 4 different classes it's positively simple.

-Nate

 

[The Levitator]

I agree about the niche protection and can also see where that might be necessary for balance. My question is, if you add skill points to allow characters to take more skills, does it give enough of a boost without eliminating the cross-class idea? While it does feel a bit clunky, it does make some sense that certain types of characters would be more inclined to some skills than others. I try to remind myself that my version of D&D isn't the Information Age, so knowledge is an even more precious resource. We use skills extensively, in fact I'm even trying to develop a skill resolution system that more closely resembles combat with multiple rolls for social interaction. Before I fully implement this skill resolution system, I want to be sure that our distribution of skill points works well with it.

Right now I give 4 skill points at character creation and 2 additional pts. per level. Is this in line with most who take the "add more skill points" option? I prefer the idea of 8 at character creation. Would the additional 2/lvl. work as well with 8 instead of 4 at character creation?

I don't think I want to get rid of the cross-classing alltogether.

 

[Roger]

I would like a houserule that would allow the PCs to be able to do more, without being much more powerful.

At the moment, we do this: Everyone gets 8 free skill points that might be spend into craft, knowledge, profession or perform skills at first level. These are Background skills.

How does giving more skill points to PCs enable them to do more?



Cheers,
Roger

 

[The Souljourner]

How does giving more skill points to PCs enable them to do more?

It makes it much easier for players to create characters with a diverse background and realistic knowledge in multiple areas without gimping skills that their class is "expected" to have.

How many players do you know that take Knowledge: Local? Knowledge: History? How about craft: weaponsmith? Shouldn't practically *every* fighter have some ranks in these? He could, but then he wouldn't be able to ride, jump, swim, or climb. Those feats may keep him alive, knowledge: local generally won't.

I love the idea of "background only" skill points that allow players to give their characters some flavor. What if you want your fighter to be pretty good with the fiddle? Or have an interest in obscure knowledge about the history of Orcs?

-Nate

P.S. I suggest adding perform and speak language to the list of background skills. Only bards really benefit from free perform, and that'll allow them to do more than just one instrument awesomely and everything else miserably.

 

[Arkhandus]

Souljourner: Actually, uh, I take those kinda skills, and those exact skills in fact, kinda often. Even cross-class. But I'm wierd and I know it.


But yeah, having more skill points and class skills helps a character to do more stuff outside of combat, or even in combat by not needing to sacrifice combat-friendly skills (tumble, bluff, sense motive, spot, listen, etc.) for lack of enough skill points. A fighter who can do more than just Climb, Jump, and Swim is going to be more active and less dull than one who can only afford to take those three skills (or 3 other fighter class skills, which are pretty limited in scope).


However, I'm one of those who likes the niche protection, generally, and sees the point behind it. I'm also not very fond of 'generic' characters who have little to distinguish themselves because everyone has the same skills and feats (or spells/powers).

 

[Roger]

It makes it much easier for players to create characters with a diverse background and realistic knowledge in multiple areas without gimping skills that their class is "expected" to have.

[...]

I love the idea of "background only" skill points that allow players to give their characters some flavor. What if you want your fighter to be pretty good with the fiddle? Or have an interest in obscure knowledge about the history of Orcs?

Sure, that's all fine. All I want to know is this:

How does that enable the PCs to do more?

Yes, you can make a fighter who can play the fiddle with slightly more proficiency than a fighter without these extra points.

But that fighter could have still picked up the fiddle and still played it even without using these particular house rules.



Cheers,
Roger