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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
Feat/Skill based magic for 3e (brainstorm)
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<blockquote data-quote="Mike Sullivan" data-source="post: 783538" data-attributes="member: 9824"><p>I've tried this before, and here's the hurdle which I've always found difficult to overcome:</p><p></p><p>Skills behave <em>very</em> regularly in D&D. When it's a class skill, you get 4 ranks at first level, and then one every additional level. You get some kind of relatively fixed bonus (your attribute, maybe some synnergy bonuses or skill focus), and then the skill just crawls upward. At 9th level, you <em>will</em> have 12 ranks (assuming the skill is important to you). At 10th level, you <em>will</em> have 13 ranks. It's almost guaranteed that you'll get exactly that +1, and no more, to your skill every level.</p><p></p><p>Now, here's the thing. A Sorcerer who goes from 9th to tenth level gets one new 4th level slot, three new 5th level slots, and one new 5th level spell known.</p><p></p><p>That's a <em>lot</em> of new abilities to go off of one or two feats and one point of skill!</p><p></p><p>How do you even make the skill part useful? I mean, obviously you can't make it a matter of, "If you roll this DC, you can cast this spell," because otherwise there'll be almost no progression for spellcasters, and what there is of it will be more strongly influenced by stat bonuses than by levels of the class, until you get to quite-high levels. I mean, if it were "DC to cast a spell is 15 + 2*Spell level," or the like, it'd be three or four levels before you were noticeably better at casting any spells -- and getting Skill Focus in the skill you're interested in would be worth <em>two class levels</em> worth of "straight" spellcasting advancement.</p><p></p><p>In addition, unless the skill's exclusive (which, I think, removes a lot of the point of a skill & feat based magic system), it's really way too easy to twink multiclass spellcasters.</p><p></p><p>So, what can you use the skill for? You can make it never or rarely rolled, and just count ranks in it, but, honestly, who cares, then? It's just another name for "class or character level + 3."</p><p></p><p>That's what's hung me up every time I've tried to create a skill & feat magic system. If y'all can get me past that conceptual block, I'll whip out two dozen ideas for you -- I solemnly promise.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>EDIT: Aaaaaargh. UBB code! Not HTML! Bad Mike!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Mike Sullivan, post: 783538, member: 9824"] I've tried this before, and here's the hurdle which I've always found difficult to overcome: Skills behave [i]very[/i] regularly in D&D. When it's a class skill, you get 4 ranks at first level, and then one every additional level. You get some kind of relatively fixed bonus (your attribute, maybe some synnergy bonuses or skill focus), and then the skill just crawls upward. At 9th level, you [i]will[/i] have 12 ranks (assuming the skill is important to you). At 10th level, you [i]will[/i] have 13 ranks. It's almost guaranteed that you'll get exactly that +1, and no more, to your skill every level. Now, here's the thing. A Sorcerer who goes from 9th to tenth level gets one new 4th level slot, three new 5th level slots, and one new 5th level spell known. That's a [i]lot[/i] of new abilities to go off of one or two feats and one point of skill! How do you even make the skill part useful? I mean, obviously you can't make it a matter of, "If you roll this DC, you can cast this spell," because otherwise there'll be almost no progression for spellcasters, and what there is of it will be more strongly influenced by stat bonuses than by levels of the class, until you get to quite-high levels. I mean, if it were "DC to cast a spell is 15 + 2*Spell level," or the like, it'd be three or four levels before you were noticeably better at casting any spells -- and getting Skill Focus in the skill you're interested in would be worth [i]two class levels[/i] worth of "straight" spellcasting advancement. In addition, unless the skill's exclusive (which, I think, removes a lot of the point of a skill & feat based magic system), it's really way too easy to twink multiclass spellcasters. So, what can you use the skill for? You can make it never or rarely rolled, and just count ranks in it, but, honestly, who cares, then? It's just another name for "class or character level + 3." That's what's hung me up every time I've tried to create a skill & feat magic system. If y'all can get me past that conceptual block, I'll whip out two dozen ideas for you -- I solemnly promise. EDIT: Aaaaaargh. UBB code! Not HTML! Bad Mike! [/QUOTE]
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