Does anyone NOT use this house rule?

[Primitive Screwhead]

Just a side question for the pro-retroactive points side..

Most of the flavor/RL stuff used in the debate to support your side is valid...when your INT increases you should have found new ways to look at things and gotten better at some skills.

Oh wait..it does that for every single INT based skill!


The main disadvantage appears to be having to track class vs cross class and individual skill cap limits, acknowledged by most here as alot of bookkeeping.
The main advantage appears to be mainly in regards ease to building a high level character from scratch or fine-tooth comb reviews of characters.

If you are willing to handwave the disadvantage and not keep detailed accounting of skill point usage.. then what is the point of fine-tooth reviews of the character in the first place?

For my game, I use E-Tools so I dont have to review/nit pick characters and characters of any level are easy to make. I am not worried about a player 'cheating' a couple extra skill points by forgetting to build by level.. IMC it will only be a couple points as I rarely go over 10th level anyway.

Too much bother for too little return in my book. Much more important, and fun, fish to fry.. like how the Monk's unarmed attack works in conjucntion with a variety of things

 

[genshou]

Just a side question for the pro-retroactive points side..

Most of the flavor/RL stuff used in the debate to support your side is valid...when your INT increases you should have found new ways to look at things and gotten better at some skills.

Oh wait..it does that for every single INT based skill!


The main disadvantage appears to be having to track class vs cross class and individual skill cap limits, acknowledged by most here as alot of bookkeeping.
The main advantage appears to be mainly in regards ease to building a high level character from scratch or fine-tooth comb reviews of characters.

If you are willing to handwave the disadvantage and not keep detailed accounting of skill point usage.. then what is the point of fine-tooth reviews of the character in the first place?

For my game, I use E-Tools so I dont have to review/nit pick characters and characters of any level are easy to make. I am not worried about a player 'cheating' a couple extra skill points by forgetting to build by level.. IMC it will only be a couple points as I rarely go over 10th level anyway.

Too much bother for too little return in my book. Much more important, and fun, fish to fry.. like how the Monk's unarmed attack works in conjucntion with a variety of things

Took me forever to actually get down to your question which you referenced at the top of your post. I was actually confused about whether or not you really were asking a question at all for a bit.

The problem with multiclass characters and logical assignment of retroactive skills is something I've already covered:

If you need to regulate how the skills are spent to prevent someone who hasn't taken a cleric level for a while from spending them all 1-for-1 on cleric skills, then simply take the character's very first class, and assign level+3 in skill points, then for each subsequent class assign skill points equal to level. Then the skill points have to be spent for each class according to the class skill rules for that class. Using the example of your cleric 3/fighter 8, that would be 6 skill points spent via the cleric's class skill list, and 8 skill points spent via the fighter's class skill list. You could say that the bonus in Int (which, realistically, is something that's been happening progressively but very slowly over the course of four levels or perhaps the character's entire life) allows the cleric to pick up a few bits he might have been exposed to previously as a cleric but wasn't able to effectively learn. Maybe something from his childhood or pre-1st-level training finally clicks. Most of his retro skill points, though, come from what he has been doing the most--being a fighter.

If you are a cleric 3/fighter 7, you are 10th-level, with max ranks of 13. Now suppose you go to great lengths to purchase a magical tome to increase your Int from an odd score to an even score. The increase in Intelligence doesn't do anything to your skills immediately, but you suddenly have a lot of extra room in your brain. So, the next time you gain a level (or if this seems too soon, alternatively the level after that on the grounds that you must spend a full level with the Int bonus to get the retroactive benefit), your expanded mind is able to pick up a large number of skill points that you now have room for because of your Int and level. When you get your next level in fighter, you are a cleric 3/fighter 8, and you get the skill points for your fighter level as well as applying those from previous levels which you suddenly gained for your Int increase. Another suggestion I'd offer up is that you cannot spend more than 4 skill points on any given skill per level, in order to prevent a 19th-level character who bumps their Intelligence from suddenly getting the benefit of 23 ranks and maxing out a skill they have never used before when they get those retroactive skill points at 20th-level.

The following from another thread is getting more and more relevant to this thread as time passes. I've cleaned the text up a bit to better illustrate my point than when it was first written. Make note as you read of the definitions I use for Education, Intelligence, and knowledge (as opposed to Knowledge).

In this sense you refer to 'Education' as meaning less along the lines of Knowledge and the Intelligence bonus to said skill group, and more along the lines of all the character's skill ranks in all skills, right? Despite what many say I believe Intelligence and Education do go hand in hand but are not identical, nor is either an aspect of the other. At the risk of slight derailment: Physical training will only take you so far and in the end it is your brain's ability to retain information learned, whether of the scholarly type or the "I now know how to control my muscles better when competing in a triathlon" type, so Intelligence is always a key factor in skill points. At least that's my take; YMMV.

However, the separation of Intelligence and Education is that Education is reflected by a character class's skill points per level and is added onto by Intelligence. A Commoner gets as much Education as a Wizard (2 points per level), which is one flaw in this belief, but that's more due to an inconsistency in the D&D system. Look at d20 Modern. A Smart hero is the most well-Educated character regardless of what their Intelligence score actually is. Granted, a Smart hero with a 10 Intelligence won't go very far due to not being able to use their talents, but a well-Educated person with an average IQ would be best represented by a Smart Ordinary with a 10 Intelligence. They still get 9 skill points per level, and that's what represents Education: sticking it out and learning whether you are average or exceptional in Intelligence. Heck, saying my high school grades were less than stellar is an understatement. I didn't learn things in school, but if I got into the details here I'd derail this thread into political territory. I knew plenty of light bulbs who weren't particularly bright or dim but did well in school because they focused on learning, and that's what Education is. It is in no way an aspect of Intelligence. Intelligence merely boosts one's ability to further the effect of Education on knowledge (and by knowledge with a lower case "k", I mean my skill point total, not the Knowledge skill with a capital "K"). For example, I am as knowledgeable or more so than all those average-IQ perfectionists who always wanted straight A grades in every class. That is because my focus on learning (Education, via Smart Ordinary if you wanted to stat me up as a Modern character) coupled with a phenomenal capacity for memory retention (Intelligence 18) has allowed me to attain a great amount of knowledge (specifically, 13 points of it per level).

Brevity is not my strong point

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I don't use this House Rule. My in-game rationalization for the Int/skills mechanic is that smarter people learn things faster. So as you're experiencing things, you're gaining skills according to your intelligence, which is reflected in your skill points at each level up. It doesn't make sense to me that an increase in int now would affect how much you had learned then.

I do, however, allow magic item Int increases (+X Headband if Intellect, for example,) to count towards skill points for any levels earned after it was acquired. If you're wearing it whenever you're awake and learning, that's good enough for me. This is, I believe, a House Rule, as technically no magical Int gains are supposed to count towards skill point accumulation.

Now let's look at Constitution. You see, Constitution is a measure of how tough your body is at any particular moment in time. Hit points are a measure of how your body develops over time. If hit points were not a measurement of development over time, then everyone would have their points based exclusively on constitution (or maybe constitution and class)--level would have nothing to do with it. But since levelling *always* increases your hit points, obviously hit points are a measure of development over time. Therefore, hit points should not be retroactive. You gained 7 hit points on reaching level 2; how did you 'suddenly', retroactively, gain one more hit point for that level? If anything, it's worse than that: wear a necklace, and you retroactively gained 1 (or more!) hit points for previous levels. Take it off, those bonus hit points are gone. Put in on, take it off, put it on... --You can die from this silliness!

There are two distinct components to hp. Hp gained from class, and hp gained from Con. Both are then modified by level. I'm going to ignore the modification by level. Level is an abstract concept that incorporates so many things...skill, talent, training, dumb luck...a 20th-level character is just better than a 1st-level character, so the modification by level doesn't phase my sensibilities.

Aside from level, hp are gained from class, which I take to reflect training in dodging blows, rolling with the punches, etc. Fighters are constantly practicing how to minimize blows. Wizards, not so much. Hp gained from class aren't retroactive. You earn them, and that's it.

Hp gained from Con, on the other hand, represent physical hardiness now. A PC's current healthiness completely overrides however sickly he may have been then. Therefore, he can gain hp if he becomes tougher.

This works perfectly fine for me, though I can see how others would argue differently.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Now, perhaps you mean "backdating" skills? What so difficult in that other than the greuling paperwork? I'm reasonably sure if you gave it serious thought you'd find yourself in similar situations, and it made sense. Not RP, but RL. Getting smarter can certainly mean you are better in skills you haven't used for a long time. Like riding a bike, as the phrase utters.

Okay, lets take that, look at real life. Lets say we have two people. One works on a ranch riding horses all day. As such, he has max ranks in ride. He also has to cook his meals, but nothing fancy. He has a single point in profession(cook). Another works in the city as a professional cook, and has max ranks in cooking. He also rides a horse occasionally on his days off to relax, but isn't very good at it, so we'll give him one rank in ride.

Aliens come down and make them both smarter. Here's the question: will the ranch hand automatically get better at cooking, and will the cook automatically get better at riding a horse? Your answer is yes. Mine is no. We have a very different idea of how these things work. In fact, you would say that the cook can become just as good at riding as the cowboy, and the cowboy can become just as good at cooking as the cook, assuming they are both class skills. I can't see that at all. Smarter does not mean you learn things without working to learn those things.

 

[Crothian]

Smarter does not mean you learn things without working to learn those things.

Which means training, but there are no rules for training in the core game.. So, that gets invaliddated by the rules of the game. If training rules are used in a game as a house rule, then ya I'd agree that this would be a great circumstance for them. But in games without training, I don't see why this would require training and everything else would not.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I don't use training rules, I assume that there is some learning going on in the background between levels. The PHB on page 61 says "Ranks indicate how much training or experience your character has with a given skill." On page 62 it says "Ranks tell you how proficient you are and reflect your training in a given skill." It uses the word "training" a lot, actually. So, it seems the text backs me up on this one.

 

[genshou]

I don't use training rules, I assume that there is some learning going on in the background between levels. The PHB on page 61 says "Ranks indicate how much training or experience your character has with a given skill." On page 62 it says "Ranks tell you how proficient you are and reflect your training in a given skill." It uses the word "training" a lot, actually. So, it seems the text backs me up on this one.

Yes it does. So make the characters "train" to gain alll those retroactive skill points. Whatever that may mean in your game.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Yes, but my point being that I see no compelling reason to add the rule, and many reasons not to add the HR into my games (which I've been listing). I can't really see any merit to it. I'm not trying to convince you not to use it, because obviously it makes sense to you. It really makes little sense to me, though.

 

[genshou]

Yes, but my point being that I see no compelling reason to add the rule, and many reasons not to add the HR into my games (which I've been listing). I can't really see any merit to it. I'm not trying to convince you not to use it, because obviously it makes sense to you. It really makes little sense to me, though.

The reason to add it? Same as the reason to give characters more feats. It's beneficial to the character and it's another way to let your players have fun. Necessary to use to have fun? Hardly. Good rule for those of us who do like it, though.

 

[Crothian]

I don't use training rules, I assume that there is some learning going on in the background between levels. The PHB on page 61 says "Ranks indicate how much training or experience your character has with a given skill." On page 62 it says "Ranks tell you how proficient you are and reflect your training in a given skill." It uses the word "training" a lot, actually. So, it seems the text backs me up on this one.

So, when the character gains Int and gains retroactive skill points, why can't the training be hand waved like this?