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

[Obergnom]

More skills allow players (or, my players) to do more, because they see a chance to succeed. While it is possible (and often happens) to try everything at low levels, because there is a differnence of maybe 20%-30% in the chance of success between skilled and unskilled characters, at higher levels having ranks in a skill or not is the differnece between being ablet o do something or not. (At least, thats my experience)

I'm still pretty unsure though, how important is it to keep cross slass skills? It is a kind of "niche protection", but in groups where players plan to be able to work together it more often ends in a: "You need to play an X, because we still have no one with this skill" than in any benefit I can really see.

Here is an idea I came up with (using the Iron Heroes Skill Groups):

You gain access to 2 skill groups of your choice. (This would be similar to C&Cs Primes)
Humans (and Half-Elfs in my campaign) do no longer get a bonus skill point at every level, but may choose a 3rd skill group.

What do you think?

oh, and has anyone ever tried giving out more feats than usual? I would really like to know how such a thing works out.

 

[XCorvis]

I gave an extra skill point and made all cross-class skills (except speak lang) cost 1 instead of 2 points. The level cap on cross-class still exists. That way, it's ok to have a few ranks in something odd, but you'll never be as good at it as someone who has it as a class skill. More variety, but also niche protection.

 

[robberbaron]

Giving out more feats would depend on which feats were given.
If a Fighter could take more feats he could become quite a lot more powerful and would hit the "got all the feats I want, what now?" point earlier.

Perhaps, have a separate list of General Feats and give one of them every other level.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Something that has slipped my mind that a friend of mine does. Education feats.

At first level, 5th level and every five thereafter, characters gain a feat slot that must be spent on one of the skill feats. Alertness, Animal Affinity, Skill Focus, etc.
It's really nice, and adds some fun dimensions to characters that they wouldn't normally have.

Now, if you are handing out a feat every level (and I've seen it done, it's not bad) then you won't need such things. There will be enough feats available that everyone will have a couple of 'education feats' or similarly neat feats that aren't often used but are nice to have (Run, I'm looking at you).

 

[GreatLemur]

I don't think you should drop crossclass skills. It would greatly reduce the impetus to take the skillful classes.

See, I'd say that just getting a lot of skill points is all the incentive I'd need. Sure, with the Fighter could take ranks in Open Lock and Use Magic Device, but he'd have to do that at the expense of Climb and Jump. He wouldn't be any closer to being the skill monkey that the Rogue is.

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.

What can I say; it's been my experience that people new to the system will say "Whatever, just do it for me" at that point in character generation. There's a reason that they're ditching skill ranks in Star Wars: Saga Edition.