roguerouge
First Post
What, they can't make a DC 10 Aid another check? The face makes the primary check and everyone else is helping him out, boosting his score with their +2s. No reason to have everyone at the table shut up.
How do you guys handle Snese Motive?
- Thread starter Muddman
- Start date
What, they can't make a DC 10 Aid another check? The face makes the primary check and everyone else is helping him out, boosting his score with their +2s. No reason to have everyone at the table shut up.
JiffyPopTart
Bree-Yark
Except that in 3.X the amount of skills you learn as you go through life is somehow based on you propensity for book learning (INT) which tends to eliminate a lot of character concepts as far as skills are concerned. Its a broken system.
DS
StreamOfTheSky
Adventurer
1. The only two editions of D&D with full-fledged skill systems both use int for how many skills you can have. 4E simply reduces to a binary yes-no whether you have ranks or not. It's still int-based, and you need at least some int to learn new skills via feat. What would you do? Just have skill points be a flat number w/o variance for each class? I like that int is at least slightly useful to anyone.
2. Int represents more than just book learning.
3. What character concepts is it eliminating? Min-maxed ones with a negative int in order to have more room for other stats that you then cry over because you can't have your cake and eat it, too (have lots of skill points)? There's only playing a human (+1 skill point/level), the Nymph's Kiss feat (ditto), Open Mind feat (+5 skill points), dipping at level 1 in a class with a bucket load like the Rogue, feats to add to your class skill list to make purchasing a specific one cheaper... Man, 3E sure is crushing your "high skill points, low int character" options, huh?
4. It's nice you think that it's a broken system. Most in this forum probably disagree.
Anyway, as for what aboyd was saying, a higher level character can up his charisma to improve said skills, go for synergy bonuses, try and get an item that increases the skill bonus, or *gasp!* put some ranks in, because 3E lets you "train" in any skill you like. It's just a slower and more costly process if it's not a class skill. Doesn't change the fact it can easily be worth it. My wizards and sorcerers GLADLY pay double for ranks in tumble.
Vegepygmy
First Post
If you had written this, I'd have agreed with you.
Vegepygmy
First Post
QFT. (The rest was excellent, too, even if you did ninja me.)
JiffyPopTart
Bree-Yark
1. I will assume by "You" you are actually referring to "people that play DnD in general" because I neither min-max my characters nor have I cried about them.
2. Having a 9INT isn't exactly min-maxing a stat. It actually fairly common for a paladin (the most common victim of low skillitis) to have such an ability score due to them needing many other stats in the positives just to use their class features. This gives you 1SP per level, or 23 at the top end.
*************
I will try to make a decently skilled paladin.
I will make him a human to get the extra feat and SPs. This brings me up to 46 SP at 20th level. Since I want my guy to be skill heavy for a paladin I bump up my INT to an even 10 to help. Now I am working with 69 skill points.
In my opinion, any 20th level adventurer with years of experience under his belt would have picked up at least a smidge of the following skills, so I spread out my skill points to reflect this.
Looking through the d20 NPC wiki I find a decently balanced paladin character and grab his stats
Str 20, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 20
I also blow 3 of my 8 feat slots on open-minded for an additional 15 points (assuming you can do this, I don't have the non-core stuff memorized.) This would give me 84SP. Since I am dividing evenly in 11 skills, I will bump that up to 88SP for easy math.
I will further increase each skill by an additional 4 points to reflect synergies and magic items and equipment (which I am not going to purchase for this sample guy)
This give me the following skills with a 20th level character.
Appraise +8 (Can't automatically appraise a dagger)
Climb +13 (Can't automatically climb a rope)
*Diplomacy +17 Decent score here
Gather Information +13 Decent score here
*Heal +14 Good score here
Jump +13 Decent score here
*Knowlege (Religion) +12 Decent score here
Listen +10 Is NEVER going to hear a threat coming.
*Ride +13 Decent score here
Spot +10 Is NEVER going to see a threat hiding.
Survival +10 (Can't automatically keep from getting lost)
So, my synopsis.
I wanted to create a paladin who was a skill monkey. I chose my race solely because of its bonus feat and skill points. I gave very generous bonuses to all the skills to not have to choose items (an no way would you get +4 bonuses to all 11 skills and still have basic gear if you actually did spend the gold). I didn't even subtract Armor Check Penalties (which would push the skills even lower).
I end up with only half of my skills at the power level that they SHOULD be with a 20th level seasoned adventurer. With all the character building resources I put into being able to do skills well....he just doesn't do them well. He does them OK...and thats only because I invested so much to make them just OK.
And, to take us all the way back to the top of the thread.....he will never sense anyones motive.
DS
*Note: you can recreate this same dilemma with any class that has 2SP/lvl and requires that you have decent stats other than INT (fighter/cleric/druid/sorcerer). That's why I say its a broken system.
*Note2: My 4th edition character is a 10INT human paladin. He has the highest skill level in the 5 man party for diplomacy, intimidation, insight (aka Sense Motive), and Perception (aka Spot and Listen). It only took me one of my feats to achieve this (skill training: Perception). Your supposition that the skill systems are similar is incorrect.
aboyd
Explorer
You took a class that was never intended to be a skill monkey, and failed to make it a skill monkey. This is compelling how?
It's about as compelling as me making a Fighter with a 10 int and trying to get him to be a magic user type via UMD...
And then complaining that the rogue is better at it...
Vegepygmy
First Post
Okay, the first thing you should do is consider multiclassing. But I'm sure you don't want to give up any "paladin power" to do so, so you won't. Then you'll complain that he's not "decently skilled." Boo hoo.
Wrong. The DC to Appraise a dagger (common or well-known object) is 12. Since you're unlikely to ever need to Appraise a dagger while in combat, you're going to take 10 on the check, and automatically get an 18.Sabathius said:
Can't automatically climb an unknotted rope hanging in midair while being threatened or distracted (only 95% of the time). Yeah, I'm not seeing a problem here.Sabathius said:
Oh, BS! Listen +10 is good enough to conceivably hear "an owl gliding in for a kill."Sabathius said:
Again, BS. Spot +10 is good enough to notice an invisible opponent.Sabathius said:
Perhaps not if he's being chased by a tribe of bloodthirsty orcs or something, but under normal (take 10) circumstances...yes, it's plenty high enough to automatically keep from getting lost.Sabathius said:
How do you figure? Those skills look quite decent to me for a 20th-level paladin (who isn't supposed to be particularly skilled at most of them in the first place).Sabathius said:
Maybe the problem is what you think a 20th-level seasoned adventurer's power level should be.
Actually, he does do them quite well. He doesn't do them as well as a 20th-level character who actually focused on being a skill monkey instead of a holy warrior, but compared to other holy warriors, he's quite skilled.Sabathius said:
Because you didn't spend even a single skill point on Sense Motive! Duh.Sabathius said:
I find your conclusion to be unsupported by the evidence.Sabathius said:
StreamOfTheSky
Adventurer
Others did pretty good deconstructing this, I'll just add a technical note here: ANYONE with 5 ranks in Survival can automatically intuit the direction of true north. So, your sample Paladin would be just fine.
Another thing: As a Human, you could have taken the Able Learner feat (Races of Destiny) to pay for cross class skills at the "class skill rate" (still limited to the same cap for non-class skills, though). That could have saved you quite a bit of skill points to pay for other nice things. I know, I'm sorry to use all this non-core stuff. But the Paladin, w/o a large int score especially, as others noted, was never meant to be a skill monkey. If you stick to core, you will be much more limited in doing "abnormal" builds. If you're able to use other resources, it's not nearly as bad. Nymph's Kiss is an exalted feat, Paladins are just about exalted by default anyway. With that and human, you're already effectively up to 4+int skill points. Able Learner lets you advance without steep cost in cross-class skills. Two feats, a common race, and...done!
Want a dirty trick? Multiclass. One level will do. And if you're stuck to mostly core, you'll have to do the other class before paladin (as without non-core feats you cannot leave paladin and come back). Here's the trick: If a skill is ever a class skill for you (ie, you multiclassed), it has a maximum amount of ranks equal to your Character level +3, as if it were a class skill for all your classes. The problem is, normally, you have to pay the cross-class (double) rate if you advance the skill in a class that does not have it on its list. So...back to Able Learner. With one feat, you now always pay 1 skill point for 1 rank, regardless of it being on your skill list or not. The multiclass rules kick in, and now you can fully advance the ranks as far as you'd like. The BEST class to do this with is Factotem (Dungeonscape), since that class literally has "all skills are class skills," but Rogue works fine otherwise. So now, your Human Paladin x / Factotem or Rogue 1 has spent just two feats (one comes free with race, yay!) and is effectively a 4 +int skills class with every/nearly every skill opened up as a class skill.
Source: Multiclass Characters :: d20srd.org
"If a skill is a class skill for any of a multiclass character’s classes, then character level determines a skill’s maximum rank. (The maximum rank for a class skill is 3 + character level.) "
If you mean skills are precious and everyone could use more, I'd agree. Of course, even if left alone, that self-balances because everyone's suffering from a skill point deficiency . I've played lots of Rogues, many with 14-16 int, and I know full well those 8 + int points are often not enough to have high ranks in every little thing the party expects you to handle. If you want to give everyone more skill points, cool. If not, then your Paladin may not have good Sense motive, but all but the very dedicated of liars will also not have the best Bluff check, for the exact same reason. And even if your Paladin had the intelligence of an infant, the rules still give him 1 skill point per level (x4 at first), so if he REALLY wanted to be good at Sense Motive, nothing is preventing him from pouring all his skill points into it.
As for 4th edition: Yes, you can also choose to focus on and master a few specific skills in 3E. The 3E Paladin could easily be the best in the party at 2-4 skills, depending on race and int, if he maxes them all and they're wisdom, strength, or charisma-based. He won't be very good at any other skills...but neither will anyone else that ignores those skills. In 4E, he may get 1/2 level to his skills, but so does everyone else. So...in either system, if he's not trained in a skill, he's about equal to another guy who isn't. Not only that, but with 3E's greater degree of differentiation in *how* trained you can be, the Paladin may not also be better than the other PCs at certain skills, he could very well be better by a MUCH larger degree.
