Combining Skills and Needing More Skill Points

[JayDarkson]

One of my players points out to me at least every session that there just are not enough skill points available to characters in D&D 3.5 as well as some characters being limited to a small handful of useless skills. The Fighter class has become the joke of the table, having only "jump" or "climb" or even "ride" as the class skills. Of course for a fighter wearing heavy armor, skills like "jump" and "climb" become a waste of points. Mages are really the only class that have all the Knowledge skills to choose from and only a couple of other mage specific skills.

My gripe is that I think listen and spot should be combined into one skill and make it a general skill. Maybe call it "perception" or something. Why should a rogue or ranger get listen and spot and somebody like a fighter not? Or even a cleric with that large wisdom?

I would combine Move Silently and Hide in Shadows into one skill. Maybe call it stealth. The reasoning is in some cases this gives a player an extra chance to fail. You may have moved past a guard unseen but you failed your move silently and are caught.

Anybody else have similar problems?

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Anybody else have similar problems?

Not me. In fact, I pretty much disagree with everything you said. Jump and Climb can be as useful as the DM makes them. As a DM, I almost always create combat terrain in which Jump certainly and Climb often becomes relevant. Ride is an incredibly useful skill in many games that feature treks across vast distances, a la Lord of the Rings.

It also makes perfect sense to me that a ranger is trained to spot the rabbit (or goblin) hiding in the underbrush, while the fighter's focus lies on pulverizing enemies right in front of him.

Not to be contrary but...yeah, I don't have any of these problems.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

One of my players points out to me at least every session that there just are not enough skill points available to characters in D&D 3.5

I think that, too. Quite often. Usually whenever I create another rogue (and those guys have Int 14 at least. In another game I play a succubus with 20 int, and they get as many skill points as rogues due to outsider HD). But then I remember that I can't have everything. You can't be the best lookout AND best sneak AND best diplomat AND best acrobat AND best burglar AND... out there. Either specialize or generalize (not maxing out skill points).

as well as some characters being limited to a small handful of useless skills. The Fighter class has become the joke of the table, having only "jump" or "climb" or even "ride" as the class skills. Of course for a fighter wearing heavy armor, skills like "jump" and "climb" become a waste of points.

I'm thinking it's exactly the other way around. When you use heavy armor, you *need* those skill points, or you won't be able to climb up there while the rest gets up the rope to safety. Well, you have heavy armor and that big sword, you can stand up to the dozen of giants....

Your typical fighter is quite strong, so he can balance out the armor penalty with that and suddenly you have use for those skill points again. And, if everything else fails, you can boss people around (intimidate)

Mages are really the only class that have all the Knowledge skills to choose from and only a couple of other mage specific skills.

Bards have all knowledge skills, too.

My gripe is that I think listen and spot should be combined into one skill and make it a general skill. Maybe call it "perception" or something.

I'm not sure how I stand to the whole skill combination idea. perception would be one of them, though.

Why should a rogue or ranger get listen and spot and somebody like a fighter not? Or even a cleric with that large wisdom?

The fighter isn't trained to look out for stuff. He's trained to hit the things others point out for him. Rangers, on the other hand, are the woodland scouts. Rogues, are the urban scouts.

Why should cleric get spot? Only because they have large wisdom? They don't need spot in their usual field of work. Besides, they do get a bonus to spot because of that large wisdom.

I would combine Move Silently and Hide in Shadows into one skill.

No wonder that you don't have enough skill points. Start by combining Hide in Shadows and Hide behind Cover into Hide (how they did in 3.0, anyway) (my point being, it's called hide and covers all kinds of hiding, not just in shadows.

Maybe call it stealth. The reasoning is in some cases this gives a player an extra chance to fail. You may have moved past a guard unseen but you failed your move silently and are caught.

This works both ways. The party look-out has two chances to perceive the assassin before said assassin buries his daggers in the backs of various party members.


As I said above, I don't know what to think of skill combination. In other games, things like this exist, but they usually have a more complex system to combine abilities and skills. (Example: World of Darkness. There, you have only "athletics", but for jumping, you add strength to the dice pool, but dexterity for jumping). Stuff like this would cause problems, and exceptional rulings, in D&D.

So you have perception (listen, spot, maybe search), stealth (hide, move silently, maybe sleight of hand) and acrobatics (jump, climb, tumble, balance). So what ability score to apply to perception? Wis doesn't work for search. Same for acrobatics, it's either dex or str. You'd have to make different columns. Same for equipment: Those nice climbing tools are for acrobatics, but only when you climb.

This would seem to make D&D easier, but I think it would in fact make it more complicated.

 

[Li Shenron]

First of all, this house rules has been proposed to death in the House Rules forum. Lots of people probably have already used Listen+Spot=Perception and Hide+MoveSilently=Stealth, and that means it can be done and it should work.

On the other hand, I think that this "problem" you have is mostly in the eye of the gamers. The typical player who complains about lack of skill points is the player that max all his skills out, and find that he cannot have all the "necessary skills" of his class.

For instance, if he's playing a Fighter he'll say that the minimum is to have Jump, Climb and Ride max out as "every respectable fighter", and then complains that he cannot make a more original fighter with Use Magic Device or Tumble because there's no skill points left.

Along the same idea, many players think that every spellcaster should have at least Spellcraft, Concentration and Knowledge(appropriate) to start with, or that every Rogue should at least max out Hide, Move Silently, Tumble, Search, Disable Device, Bluff, Open Lock, Sleight of Hand... << oh look it's already 8 and I don't even have all the basics covered! >>

As I say, it's mostly in the eyes of the player. While it is true that a few skills work badly unless they're maxed out because the DCs are very high, most of the skill don't need to maxed out. Listen and Spot are absolutely the perfect example! Try to think about (1) do you really need to max everything out? (2) do you really need to cover all the "basics" for your class?

 

[Sithobi1]

Well, I think disable device should be fused with open lock, because open lock is almost useless, and it fits pretty well. Since you can jam a lock with disable, shouldn't you know how to open it without investing the same amount of skill points into something that is obsolescent as soon as a caster in your party reaches 2nd level spells?

 

[rvalle]

Well, I think disable device should be fused with open lock, because open lock is almost useless, and it fits pretty well. Since you can jam a lock with disable, shouldn't you know how to open it without investing the same amount of skill points into something that is obsolescent as soon as a caster in your party reaches 2nd level spells?

Hmmm. I disagree with that. Breaking something is much easier then tricking it open. Heck, I'm pretty sure I could disable a lock by jamming something in and I have no idea how to open it.

Disable device is already pretty powerfull as rogues are the only ones that can take it (I think. Bards too?) and its the only way to find magic traps. Adding Open Locks to it would be to much in my opinion.

And lastly... using a reusable skill is much preffered to using a spell. Save the spell for those, hopfully, rare doors you can't get open.

rv

 

[Abisashi]

Thanks to fuindordm:

Originally Posted by fuindordm, with some modification:

Acrobatics (balance, tumble)
Acting (bluff, disguise)
Athletics (climb,jump,swim)
Awareness (spot,listen,search)
Healing
Influence (diplomacy, intimidate)
Intuition (sense motive, sense magic/psi)
Mechanics (open locks, disable device)
Mystic (concentration, spellcraft)
Riding (handle animal, ride)
Scribe (decipher script, forgery)
Stealth (hide, move silently)
Streetwise (gather info, local knowledge)
Survival (survival, intuit direction, knowledge: nature)
Sleight of Hand (also includes escape artist, use rope)
Trader (appraise, diplomacy to influence prices)

Knowledge, Craft, and Profession skills are not grouped like this,
but offer synergy bonuses to the other skills where appropriate.

The skills don't have ability scores tied to them; use the appropriate one based on how the skill is used.

*************

But, I also agree with Li Shenron.

 

[Storyteller01]

Hmmm. I disagree with that. Breaking something is much easier then tricking it open. Heck, I'm pretty sure I could disable a lock by jamming something in and I have no idea how to open it.
rv

Agreed. You can use a drill to 'disable' a lock (no tumblers = open door), but that doesn't mean you can use lock picks to open the same lock. Open Locks goes a long way towards ensuring no one knows you've been there...

Not to mention, magic leaves an aura. Depending on your campaign, those auras can be tracked...

 

[yennico]

Like Li Shenron pointed out the combining several skills can be done but does not solve your problem. The player must realize that they must make choices.
They can not have every skill and every skill maxed out. Either they max out a few skills or they are a jack of all trades or a generalist. Not every rogue or fighter is the same in skills.

The usefulness of a skill depends on the GM. If the GM only runs adventures in dungeons some skills become useless in this campagain which are essential in other campaigns run by a different GM.

Even as a player playing the "skill monster" a rogue with Int 18, I have realized I will never have all the skills at that ranks I would like them. I had to make choices. If you have many skill points these choices are more difficult than with puny skill points.

 

[UltimaGabe]

Disable device is already pretty powerfull as rogues are the only ones that can take it (I think. Bards too?) and its the only way to find magic traps. Adding Open Locks to it would be to much in my opinion.

...?

Anybody can take ranks in Disable Device, it's just a cross-class skill for most of them. And the Search skill is used to find traps, not Disable Device- and the only way to find magic traps is to be a Rogue, and succeed on a Search check.