House rule: any class, any skill choice

[JohnBiles]

My own experience in 26 years of gaming is that your proposal will end up with everyone taking the same skills in the belief those skills are most important, leaving wide areas of skills untaken. This, of course, will vary by group.

But my own inclination is to say you'll end up with a bunch of people all having the same skills.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Anybody foresee any problems with the following house rule? "Up to their limit, any class may choose any skill in which to be trained."

Anticipated problems? Unbalancing?

jh

I house ruled out cross-class skills in 3e and it was my first house rule of 4e. I'm not holding my breath to see if the game breaks because of it.

TS

 

[ryryguy]

My own experience in 26 years of gaming is that your proposal will end up with everyone taking the same skills in the belief those skills are most important, leaving wide areas of skills untaken. This, of course, will vary by group.

But my own inclination is to say you'll end up with a bunch of people all having the same skills.

I agree with this. I don't see the class skill lists (and, in particular, the mandatory ones like Thievery for rogues) as so important for limiting classes and/or protecting niches, as much as they are helpful in producing a wide selection of skills covered across the party.

I think as long as your players understand this potential pitfall, it shouldn't be a big problem. It's not that important that the rogue knows Thievery as much as that someone knows Thievery.

 

[Deodanth]

My own inclination is to say you'll end up with a bunch of people all having the same skills.

Good observation. And to embellish what Ryryguy said, a key design principle of 4e is the teamwork vs. solo dynamic, as well as the delineation of party roles. (Both combat and exploration roles. And it just so happens that strikers in D&D have always had the most & coolest skills.)

Therefore, as long as the players make sure they have every role and power source covered, it's a good bet they'll have every skill covered as well (without having to compare notes, which sometimes leads to bitter accusations of "Metagaming!") Meanwhile, a good DM is going to set up situations and skill challenges that will test the weak points of the party. If nobody bothered to take Streetwise, they will run into obstacles sooner or later, no matter if everyone took Insight.

I see class skill rules as sensible, as well as a carefully written mechanic in 3.0, 3.5, and 4.0. I have always run them by the book. 4.0 offers some built-in ways around these restrictions -- the main one being the Skill Training feat, whereby you can have any skill your heart desires by the time you reach paragon tier. Eladrin Education is a similar workaround. A perfect example of Exception-based rules design. Is it really necessary to drop class skill restrictions for the rest of the starting characters?

I'd probably only grant a +3 Training bonus to outside-of-class abilities for standard Skill Training, and only an additional +2 for Skill Focus.

Those numbers do make sense, and I might use them.

And that reminds me... I also allow every PC to split one of their training slots, +2 to two class skills instead of +5 to one. The split training also stacks with full training (+7 total) should the PC choose the Skill Training feat later in her career. Anyone else?

 

[2eBladeSinger]

I like this rule. It's quite simple; I don't see it as unbalancing or lending itself to abuse. It allows the players more freedom to think outside tradition (stereotype) when creating characters. However, I agree that it might result in every player to grabbing similar skills

Which skills are likely to be the most popular with an ad-libitur skill system?

 

[Aust Diamondew]

My own experience in 26 years of gaming is that your proposal will end up with everyone taking the same skills in the belief those skills are most important, leaving wide areas of skills untaken. This, of course, will vary by group.

But my own inclination is to say you'll end up with a bunch of people all having the same skills.

While this may happen with some groups, this has not been my experience with the people I play with.

In 3e we made all skills class skills to all classes. And with the exception of a lot of people putting 1 rank in tumble (a trained only skill) I didn't see characters only having the same skill sets.
Same goes for shadowrun 3rd/4th edition. Except for infiltration/stealth and maybe perception I don't see ubiquitous skill choices even within a given SR archtype (besides all mages having sorcery).


Therefore since it obviously varies by group, I'd recomend for the OP to give it a shot. I know my group will in the future after we play RAW for a while.

 

[Lord Xtheth]

Mechanically I believe it's meant to let every class "shine" in its areas of expertise. It makes it so that every character can't up and have the "big few important skills" or whatever, and promotes teamwork.
"I'm not so good at climbing, maybe you should climb up and toss a rope down?"
"Well sure, I mean, you disarmed those traps last time"
"Don't forget how I sweet talked the noble into paying us TRIPLE!!!"
So on so forth.
I'll just leave skills as they are. Besides, take Jack of all Trades, it give all untrained skills a good enough bonus to "make due" ... if not, theres always skill training feats.