Feats that Should Be Skill Tricks

[Derro]

I've been meaning to post this since my original post wandered off into incoherent rambling.

I like skill tricks but have been reluctant to use them for two reasons.

1) Yet another sub-system I have to cram into my brain. I mostly GM and I'm uncomfortable with PCs using anything I'm not relatively familiar with. I sometimes have to make on-the-fly rulings to keep the action moving and I'd rather not have to crack another book and skim text when I should be concentrating on the story or an encounter if it is not absolutely necessary.

2) Something indefinable has always bothered me about skill tricks. Until I read this post I didn't realize what it was. Turning skill points, a rather straightforward character resource, into yet another source of kewl powerz doesn't sit right with me.

My preference would be that skill tricks can be purchased in packages with the standard feats sans the skill trick pre-req. I would remove the one per two levels cap if I charged a feat for them. I think that gets taken care of by the feat acquisition rate.

This is probably not to some people's tastes and thats fine. It's also an off the cuff rules thing so there's probably a hole of some sort. But I just thought I'd offer my two copper on the subject.

Regarding the OP. Since somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% of feats are combat related I wouldn't go for the skill trick conversion. It's a can of worms not easily sealed. I know that's not what you asked for but I figured I offer my opinion anyway.

One thing to consider is that many existing feats are perceived as devalued as level increases since class features get more powerful and so do feats that have pre-reqs. So Dodge, for example, is more useful at lower levels than higher levels when a character is more likely to spend skill points rather than feats. I think that the underlying balance of class features/feats/skills is a bit more delicate than the skill trick sub-system might indicate.

But if you are really enamored with the idea converting feats to tricks here's a quick list of feats that I feel are suitably underpowered.

PHB
Martial Weapon Proficiency. One weapon for a feat! Come on. That is crap.
Shield Proficiency is very near this territory as well.

PHBII
Grenadier
Melee Evasion (it's actually just a supremely crappy feat, I don't know why anybody would take it, cheap or no)

Miniatures Handbook
Dash
Goad
Mounted Casting
Reckless Charge
Second Wind

Complete Adventurer
Improved Swim

Dragon Magazine
Too numerous to list. Feats in Dragon were usually very geared around a specific kind of campaign and generally offered a minor ability tailored to a specific situation. Not all of them, but leafing through some of the issues I have I see a lot of feats that I wouldn't blow that valuable resource on.

Anyway, I've said my piece.

 

[Imp]

What did I do with skill tricks...

...Many of them I found a little weak, plus I wanted to pump up skills a little, so I just rolled some of the tricks into the original skills as higher-DC uses. Some tricks I gave skill-rank qualifications in order to attempt – like, let's see, I rolled the "Assume Quirk" skill trick into the disguise skill, but required 5 ranks in both Disguise and Gather Information, and required that the impersonator observe the target for at least an hour (to pick up on the quirk – some requirement seemed natural).

 

[roguerouge]

Candidates for skill trickery (although perhaps with boosted requirements for ranks) :

Complete Adventurer source:

Brachiation: swing through the trees (Climb and Jump 4 ranks). That's probably a good set requirement, as you want goblins to be able to serve as monkees in jungle settings!

Extraordinary Concentration: concentrate on spells as a move or swift action. With a requirement of Concentration 15 ranks and casters with better things to spend their feats on at 12th level, I see this as a skill trick possibility.

Improved Diversion: Create a diversion to hide with; isn't this what you can already do? Requires Bluff 4 ranks, but should probably be more if you say it's not an existing use of Bluff.

Quick Recon: The move action cost to the deliberate use of spot and listen is a poorly enforced rule, IMO. If you took out the +2 to initiative, this would be a fine use of a skill trick: to streamline the game. Otherwise, scouts that move silently and take actions to spot/listen are moving at 15'/round.

Versatile Performer: Gets the 3.0 1 rank=1 new instrument proficiency Perform rules back; make the requirement more than 5 ranks in Perform and I can see this marking someone as a virtuoso without the bard wasting a feat.

 

[roguerouge]

PhBII:

Arcane Flourish: burn a spell to get a bonus on your perform roll. If you ruled out using it to boost Bardic Music rolls and added a minor Spellcraft requirement, I could easily see this as a bard's ego skill trick.

Cunning Evasion: Hide and move after evasion. Requirement 9 ranks. I'm torn on this one, as there's obvious combat benefits to it that might be abused.

Fade into Violence: makes foes ignore you in combat. Bluff and Hide 6 requirements. Given that you and an ally have to be in melee and your allies either don't notice or don't care about your cowardice, I think it's narrow enough in its use to qualify for skill trickery.

Leap of the Heavens: use only the part that makes standing jumps have the normal running jump DCs. Jump 4 requirement should be boosted, but otherwise a cool thing not worth a feat.

Master Manipulator: split into two skill tricks. a) -4 penalty to spot/listen/SM while you spew the blarney. b) get truth from foe's failed bluff 1 minute later. In either case, I can see a skill roll accomplishing the same thing. Requires Diplomacy 9.

Wanderer's Diplomacy: split into three skill tricks. a) find an item too rich for this city. b) understand someone who doesn't speak your language through their gestures. (Duh?). c) Use bluff rather than Diplomacy or Intimidate to change attitude. Again, narrow applications.

Complete Warrior:

Combat Awareness: How many times do your players ask, "How's he look?" Now you can tell them to earn the answer. Change this Combat focus feat to a skill trick requiring 8 ranks in Heal to find out how many HP adjacent foes have.

 

[roguerouge]

Complete Mage:

Magic Device Attunement: Eliminate a UMD roll with one commonly used MD. Speeds the game. Fosters a signature item for more stylish characters. The requirement, 1 rank, is silly. Have it be 5 ranks and we're in business. Can take this trick multiple times.