Concentration, Knowledge (arcana), and Spellcraft

[Sylrae]

I'd probably go with: dungeoneering, history>history for dragons. it makes the most sense out of the know. skills i can think of off-hand, there might be a better one though., and shove magical beasts into arcana. or you could shove them in 'the planes'.

 

[Kerrick]

Hmm. I was thinking of folding Know (arcana) into Spellcraft, and making it a skill related to magic and magical items - IDing spells, magic items (inc. constructs), magical auras, and magical diagrams/sigils/glyphs. I suppose magical creatures (dragons and magical beasts) could fall in there somewhere...

 

[StormingMarcus]

And what about dumping Concentration definitely?
The uses exemplified by Hawken can be achieved by Sense motive in some sort of a way.
So concentration remains only for casters; this skill is almost mandatory for them.
So, making concentration checks caster level checks would be a bad idea?

 

[Kerrick]

There's still the case of someone using a skill that requires focus (i.e., Open Locks) while being distracted. Granted, I've never seen it happen, but it could. Also, as I mentioned, Concentration is heavily used in psionics - gaining the psionic focus, for instance.

 

[StormingMarcus]

There's still the case of someone using a skill that requires focus (i.e., Open Locks) while being distracted.

Never seen anything such as this, i think you can simply ditch this use and no one will complain...

Granted, I've never seen it happen, but it could. Also, as I mentioned, Concentration is heavily used in psionics - gaining the psionic focus, for instance.

Oh yes, the psionic focus... Damn focus...

 

[jmucchiello]

Thoughts?

What is lost by keeping them as 3 skills? Is the gain by reducing the number of skills greater than the WTF moments you acquire by combining them? IOW, there are bigger fish to fry in 3.5 revisionism.

 

[Kerrick]

What is lost by keeping them as 3 skills? Is the gain by reducing the number of skills greater than the WTF moments you acquire by combining them? IOW, there are bigger fish to fry in 3.5 revisionism.

True, that. I had originally planned to keep them all separate, but do we really two skills that relate to magic? It could go either way, I suppose... I've got expanded rules for all the Knowledge skills, including arcana, so it wouldn't bother me much to keep it as is.

(And welcome to the forum. )

 

[jmucchiello]

(And welcome to the forum. )

Thanks. I'm hoping this place will be more speculative than the house rules forum. That forum seems geared more toward results.

I suppose I should join the social group....

 

[Hereticus]

Concentration is "ability to cast a spell under pressure" and "ability to maintain focus on a spell", but both the uses fall under Spellcraft, so it makes eminent sense to roll them together. Someone brought up psionics - it relies heavily on Concentration - but that would just as easily fall under Psicraft instead of Spellcraft. As far as skills are concerned, just increase the DC for the task depending on what's going on.

I do not use psionics in my game, so I can not talk about that. To me it does not add anything to the game except complexity, so it was canned.

I use Wisdom as the key attribute for Concentration, and it is NOT part of Spellcraft. That just makes no sense what so ever. 4.0E went to far in simplification.

 

[Crashy75]

I agree that these skills should be compacted a bit. I think they should be divided as follows:

Knowledge: arcana, religion, and (if you use it) psionics. Each of these skills would be used to identify spells/powers, items/sigils, etc. (arcana for arcane spells/items, Religion for divine and psi for psi of course). Spell casters, would also use them for 'practical knowledge' that you speak of. Personally, I think this helps to keep the different 'magic types' thematically distinct from each other.

Concentration, I see as something similar to what Hawken is talking about (and casting defensively and the like). I also think there should be an 'auto hypnosis' feat that acts similar to the skill (and so, no ah skill even with psi).

(side note, Speechcraft... interesting...)