D&D 3E/3.5 Class and cross-class skills in 3.5e

[Golem2176]

Hmm, Thresher you have a point, it's definitely food for thought. However, I still think that all experts should have the profession skill for free.

 

[Gez]

"Wizard" etymologically means "wise one". They are sage by definition.

 

[Li Shenron]

No, they don't necessarily make sense.

Heal, for example, is far more useful to fighters (with a combat medic archetype) than to clerics (they've got cure wounds).

I've decided to adopt a little house-rule that CC skill ranks are paid the normal price (1 rank for 1 point) but the max rank is still halved.

I've decided to adopt the opposite the next time I am DMing: to have cross-class skills still cost 2sp/rank, but have the same max rank of 3+lev as class skills.

I like the fact that there are class skills which are typical for a character to learn, and cross-class skills which require more effort because they are more stranger to you. But besides Listen & Spot (which are always useful without need to max them out) nobody in my games except me has so far wanted to have a skill if not at its best.

Some skills are especially critical, like Search/Disable Device: you either keep it very high or you'd better take something else, since traps DCs scale with CR. If you have no Rogue in the party, then the DM has to accomodate the adventure so that there are almost no traps, because even if someone wanted to take the burden of handling traps, he couldn't keep up with their CR quite soon.

 

[ciaran00]

Take a look at the 3.5 SRD or PHB (page 63), all Knowledge skills are class skills.

EDIT: My bad, I thought you were proposing your list as changes. You know it makes sense to me that wizards have all Knowledges as class skills, otherwis how would sages effectively do their job? I think most sages are wizards, to some degree. Thoughts?

Well, my problem isn't so much that certain classes HAVE certain skills as class skills... it's the opposite. I don't understand why the sorceror doesn't know things about planes quite as easily as a wizard. What's worse... a wizard is more inclined to pump up his INT, making the skill disparity worse by the level.

So no one has any cautions as to changing the C/CC markings class by class?

ciaran

 

[BSF]

No cautions from me. As I said above, every skill is a class skill for all classes in my current campaign. I just insist that the characters explain how they acquired a particular skill. So far, so good.

But, if it falls apart at higher levels, I will let everyone know.

 

[Staffan]

Well, my problem isn't so much that certain classes HAVE certain skills as class skills... it's the opposite. I don't understand why the sorceror doesn't know things about planes quite as easily as a wizard. What's worse... a wizard is more inclined to pump up his INT, making the skill disparity worse by the level.

It's because wizards are all about book-learning, while sorcerers aren't. I'd rather give Sorcerers some more interpersonal skills than knowledge skills (Diplomacy, Intimidate, and maybe Gather Information comes to mind).

 

[Li Shenron]

No cautions from me. As I said above, every skill is a class skill for all classes in my current campaign. I just insist that the characters explain how they acquired a particular skill. So far, so good.

But, if it falls apart at higher levels, I will let everyone know.

I really don't think it falls apart, there are several DMs who treat all skills as class skills.

I prefer to keep class skills list because of the flavor: IMHO having class skills lists adds difference between classes. Also, I like the idea of the Rogue having the easiest time of all in picking up different skills, while other characters are easy only on their own field (knowledge for Wiz, athletic for Fighter...).

I want characters to have the possibility of being less iconic if they want, but I don't dislike that such a choice comes at a cost. It's a good thing that a Fighter could be good in Knowledge(Arcana) as a hobby, of a Wizard in Disable Device and a Sorcerer in Swim. What really prevents that is the max rank, not the double cost.

To completely eliminate cross-class skills won't break the game for sure, anyway.

 

[Lavinia Teeblatt]

I agree with ciaran. I also cannot understand why the sorcerer have got so less class skills compared to the wizard.
But I like Staffans idea of giving him more class skills like Gather Info, Intimidate,...
I don´t think it´s a good idea to give him so many knowledge skills like the wizard because all knowledge skills are based on Int and I would never spent so many points in Int for a sorcerer as his spell abilities is Cha.
But instead of keeping the Int modifier at 0 I would probably spent some points in Int to get more skill points. Of course only in fact the sorcerer would have more class skills than 4.

Greetings!
~ Lavinia

 

[ciaran00]

The only three that I've found offensive so far are:
* Not that the Sorceror has virtually no Knowledge skills, he doesn't have much of anything else either. Diplomacy, Intimidate, yeah.
* Fighter: Rope Use and a couple of other combat-oriented skills. He doesn't have them
* Paladin: Has virtually none of the combat-oriented skills.

ciaran

 

[Grayhawk]

I've decided to adopt a little house-rule that CC skill ranks are paid the normal price (1 rank for 1 point) but the max rank is still halved.

I'm using this house rule as well.

And on top of that all characters are granted a free skill point each level to be spend on a Craft, Knowledge or Profession skill.