Have "cross-class" skill deliniations finally been removed?

Derren said:
It isn't, but you can't expect that a wizard practices swimming all the time and studies spellcasting. Either, or but not both.
Watch me.

Seriously. I'm expecting the crap out of it right now.

How do you think 3.X Wizards get such high Con and Dex scores if not by being fit? Detect Weight Room is a cantrip these days.
 

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delericho said:
"My Wizard grew up on a small island, and spent his youth on and around boats. His Wizard mentor was an Aquatic Elf, who insisted that lessons be conducted in his native waters. My character has been swimming all his life."

Oh, wait - Swim is cross-class for Wizards. Guess that flavour is invalid, then?

Well in all fairness under the current rules you can still train swim as cross class. You are penalized a bit for doing that, but you can still play that wizard who is unusually good at swimming for a wizard. If we use SWSE rules of course that's quite a bit tougher, we will just have to see what the options are in 4E.

delericho said:
In the rules as they stand, any sufficiently Intelligent character can forge a sword, build a bridge, or brew up deadly poison. Any sufficiently Charismatic character can play the violin like a master. But no character, no matter how Dextrous, can turn a somersault without training. No character, no matter how Wise, can make a living as a butler without training.

And it gets worse. Want to track that band of fast-moving orcs, in ideal conditions, when they're not making any effort to disguise their passing? Well, unless you have the Track feat, you can forget it. If your buddy has fallen down six identical pit traps in the adventure so far, and you want to find the next one before it gets him, you'd better hope you're a Rogue, 'cos otherwise you have no chance.

Well some of these points are valid, but some are a bit exagerated. I don't know if you've seen some of the skill checks required for forging swords, but if you want to do it at all competently and without spending 4 years and 3 times the cost of the item, you need some pretty serious skill ranks in it, in addition to a decent base stat. Same thing for playing a violin like a master....there is no way an untrained character is going to equal my bard no matter how charismatic he is. You can in fact track the orcs by the current rules, really easy track checks can be done with untrained search. And the rogue finding traps has nothing ot do with skill checks, that's just about his find traps class ability (and rogues in 3.x are weak enough I'd be loath to take away one of their few useful abilities). Finally there is no reason somebody can't do a sumersault without tumbling skills, they just can't do advanced combat tumbling.

Part of the wierdness though is the whole 1 skill point meaning the difference between trained and untrained. My grey elf wizard in LG had 1 skill point in every trained only skill in the game that he was allowed to take, because his int was so high. Since he had high int and dex, that often meant that 1 point made the difference mean not being able to do it at all, and being incredibly good at it. This is at least something that the saga edition skills does address.
 

Being fit doesn't automatically mean that you are a expert swimmer the same way as being smart doesn't automatically mean that you are an expert in playing chess.
You still require training but you can get better results (Ability score bonus to the skill check).
 

Derren said:
It isn't, but you can't expect that a wizard practices swimming all the time and studies spellcasting. Either, or but not both.

I can expect a wizard to learn to fight with weapons but not have time to learn to swim, which lots of people pick up during childhood? Hmmm.
 

Considering its low BAB a wizard isn't really learning how to use weapons expect for basic self defense. In fact a wizard fights as well with weapons as a commoner except that the wizard got instructions how to use the weapons and the commoner didn't.
 

Derren said:
It isn't, but you can't expect that a wizard practices swimming all the time and studies spellcasting. Either, or but not both.

And yet, it's entirely reasonable that my Wizard be an expert Blacksmith in addition to being a Wizard? (Craft being a class-skill for Wizards. And, in fact, since Craft is Int-based, my Wizard/Blacksmith will be much better at it than your Fighter/Blacksmith will be. Better still, my Wizard/Blacksmith will be better than most Dwarven Fighter/Blacksmiths.)
 

Considering that crafting items is related to spellcasting (crafting magical items) its possible that the wizard learns this as part of his studies (How to craft an item so it can be enchanted).

But I see what ou mean, I just say that this is not a problem of having cross class skills.
 

FadedC said:
Well some of these points are valid, but some are a bit exagerated.

That was intentional.

FadedC said:
Same thing for playing a violin like a master....there is no way an untrained character is going to equal my bard no matter how charismatic he is.

Actually, no. No matter how good your bard is, a character with a high enough Charisma has him beat, even if said character has never before looked at a violin.

Consider: suppose you're 12th level Bard has maxed Perform (stringed instruments), has a Charisma of 22, Skill Focus (perform(stringed instruments), and a masterwork instrument. That gives him a skill modifier of +26.

A character with a Charisma of 64, and none of the other advantages listed, has a skill modifier of +27. So, he's better.

Now, the example is clearly extreme, a 64 Charisma is in the realms of Pun-Pun, and one can argue that if you can get a Charisma of 64 then you deserve to play like a master. I tend to agree.

Unfortunately, we now take the character who manages to get a Wisdom of 64, give him any and all advantages we see fit short of anything that will allow him to use Profession untrained. Compare him with a 1st level Commoner with a 10 Wisdom (or even a 1 Wisdom), and a single rank in Profession(butler). Which one is the better butler?

Stacked up together, these are clearly absurd examples, and yet that's what the rules support.

FadedC said:
You can in fact track the orcs by the current rules, really easy track checks can be done with untrained search.

Not without the Track feat.

FadedC said:
And the rogue finding traps has nothing ot do with skill checks, that's just about his find traps class ability (and rogues in 3.x are weak enough I'd be loath to take away one of their few useful abilities).

I'll submit that the solution to the problem of 3.x Rogues being weak is to empower the class more, rather than arbitrarily restrict a fairly vital dungeoneering function. At the very worst, trapfinding should be a feat (so that the Ranger can step up if the group has no Rogue). Frankly, though, it should just be available to everyone with sufficient ranks in Search (IMO, of course).
 


delericho said:
I believe these are gone in Star Wars Saga Edition. Certainly, I hope they're gone from D&D 4e as well.

Not really. While you can only be either trained or not, you may only be trained in class skills. If you are not trained, you are 5 points behind and can't do some restricted tasks, though you still get the +1 per 2 levels progression. Skill Focus also gives +5, but you'll only want this to improve a cross-class skill or an already trained skill.
 

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