Huh, I apparently have a +28 tumble

[Pielorinho]

The downside is you are significantly enhancing Rogues, Monks, and Rangers over Fighters, Barbarians, and Paladins. IMHO, that is the real problem with the skill system when used in the manner you suggest. Game balance assumes that skills are secondary factors with respect to combat prowess. If you want an impressive combat effect with a skill, you should have bought a feat like Quicker Than The Eye or somesuch.

Not at all. Barbarians, first off, get as many skill points as rangers, so they'll be able to join in this fun. Second off, I'm talking about setting the DCs low enough that everyone can try them. Third, rogues at least have a lot of other stuff to spend their skill points on; I don't currently see many rogues putting points into climb, jump, or balance, and this would be a way to encourage such skill use. Fourth, fighters currently don't do much of anything with their skill points; this would be a way for them to actually get to use those points once in a while.

Again, restricting maneuvers to feats mean that each person will get a very small range of maneuvers which they'll attempt over and over. Restricting maneuvers to epic levels mean that I'll probably never see them in practice (since I've not yet gotten a character above 11th level though I've played the game since the mid eighties). The way I'm describing gives some combat advantages to some characters, sure, but it doesn't break the system. Trust me: I currently allow such maneuvers, and nobody's complaining.

Daniel

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Originally posted by Pielorinho Not at all. Barbarians, first off, get as many skill points as rangers, so they'll be able to join in this fun. Second off, I'm talking about setting the DCs low enough that everyone can try them. Third, rogues at least have a lot of other stuff to spend their skill points on; I don't currently see many rogues putting points into climb, jump, or balance, and this would be a way to encourage such skill use. Fourth, fighters currently don't do much of anything with their skill points; this would be a way for them to actually get to use those points once in a while.

You would be right about barbarians, but I couldn't disagree more with respect to Fighters, Paladins, and Clerics. IME thse classes cherish each and every precious skill point -- none are wasted. Having them spread their skill points thinner just to maintain combat competence would be a significant change. Maybe that would not be a big deal for the overpowered cleric, but it definitely would be for the other two classes.

I can tell you from experience that a properly designed Rogue is already very comparable to a Paladin in combat. The Paladin's class skill list is also notably lacking in Jump, Climb, Balance, Tumble, or Bluff. Applying your suggestions will make the Paladin a sad joke.

Your ideas are good, but you need to rewrite the skill points and skill lists for all the D&D classes or it will be woefully imbalanced. YMMV.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Originally posted by Pielorinho The way I'm describing gives some combat advantages to some characters, sure, but it doesn't break the system. Trust me: I currently allow such maneuvers, and nobody's complaining.

It gives some combat advantages to some characters and almost nil to others, but it doesn't break the system? How do you define 'break the system' then?

 

[Celebrim]

Pielorinho: Well, if you set low DC's for them like that you are essentially saying two things:

1) By mid-levels it is always going to work for a rogue/monk/ranger/barbarian. By 7th level or so, much less level 10 or 12, DC 15 is just about automatic if you really focus on a particular skill.

2) DC's are open to DM fiat and the difficulty of doing something is in danger of scaling with level so as to avoid that automatic effect.

RC: Allowing combat manuvers might help high skill classes a little, but as I said I don't think that you are actually gaining a direct benefit with this flashy stuff. You gain probably more benefit with trips, sunders, disarms, ect. and these manuevers depend very directly on BAB - which fighters shine in and which feats will most certainly directly improve.

Alot of the problem I see in fighters is that the people who play them are usually interested in little more than maxing out thier to hit and damage bonuses. That's fine, and certainly useful in alot of situations, but if your fighter has that narrow of a focus then you can hardly complain if other classes are shining in every endeavor except straight up combat. To really maximize the survivability of a fighter you need to select feats and items which plug the fighters weaknesses - and by that I mean more than just Iron Will. You need back up plans because the DM (or at least me) is not going to let every encounter be decided solely by straight up dice combat. So basically you need to be looking for feats and abilities which thwart the DM's design and let you turn the encounter into a straight up fight - one you will almost assuredly win.

The smart rogue spends skill points on Escape Artist because Improved Grab is ROUGH. A smart fighter spends a feat on Close Quarters Combat and then is even better against grapplers than the Rogue. If he doesn't, he can hardly complain that the rogue survived a combat manuever (by an NPC) and he didn't. A smart rogue spends skill points on Tumble to help with manueverability and AoO. A smart fighter tries to acquire a Cloak of Displacement, or boots of striding and leaping, or the spring attack feat, or some other way of achieving the same effect. A smart rogue has a few points in balance, jump, and climb. A smart fighter has a few points in balance (yes, crossclass), jump, and climb and makes up the difference with an item that allows flight.

A smart player doesn't hamper the fighter with a 8 intelligence, making a bad skill situation worse. Instead he spends points frugally on important cross class skills like tumble, listen, and spot. A human fighter with average or better intelligence probably has more skill points than he can spend usefully on class skills. The same is probably true of a cleric with above average intelligence.

I don't have alot of sympathy for the character that squeezes the system for every last +1 bonus to damage so he can do two or three extra damage a round, and then dies because he drowns, falls from a high place, is crushed by a squid, ect. There is more to the game, and more you can do with feats and equipment, than just three more damage a round. Which fighter could defeat the other in a fair fight has nothing to do with which one is going to need to be raised at the end of the adventure.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

A smart player doesn't hamper the fighter with a 8 intelligence, making a bad skill situation worse. Instead he spends points frugally on important cross class skills like tumble, listen, and spot. A human fighter with average or better intelligence probably has more skill points than he can spend usefully on class skills. The same is probably true of a cleric with above average intelligence.

I usually play humans with a 12 or better Int. I find that getting a very modest Spot and Listen chews through a lot of skill points when paid cross class. I pick up a little Ride. A couple token ranks in Knowledge or some other background skill and I am about done.

I put a lot of thought into skills. I even sometimes use Cosmopolitan to boost a skill that would be a particularly good fit for a character concept.

What I am hearing is that if I play a Fighter or Paladin it is my own damn fault that 'everyone else' gets +2 or +4 to hit in funky terrain because they have skills and I don't.

I have no idea where you expect me to muster the skill points to even hit a DC 10 regularly (while it would be an autosuccess for a balanced Rogue). All the funky skills that have been mentioned have ACPs!

Within the context of D&D game balance mechanics, some character classes are getting the equivalent of 1 or 3 free feats and others are getting nada. That is most definitely breaking game balance, and I have trouble believe assertions to the contrary.

 

[Tellerve]

I guess I don't want to wait until epic levels to pull this stuff off: I want it to be attemptable at first level, and I want folks to just get better and better at it. That's why my example contained two (or one) extra rolls and set low DCs for them and gave bonuses for succeeding: I want to encourage folks to try this stuff, to do outlandish maneuvers instead of just saying, "I fire at him three times with my bow, hitting AC 25, 23, and 27; do I hit?"

That said, I'm totally talking house rules here; I agree that your way of handling it is a lot more faithful to the rules as written.

Daniel

Ya know Daniel, I for one am surprised at this, since from my opinion I am not even going to go close to trying these kinds of stunts in your game as I've never felt that I could reasonably pull these off. I tend to think your DCs for skill checks, or lack of them at times to be off. I hope that you do have some checks that are lower, and then I will start jumping n' flipping over enemies, running up walls and flipping back over and other cinematic scenes. I'll be all for it, but I don't think your practicing what your preaching.

Tellerve

 

[Tellerve]

A smart player doesn't hamper the fighter with a 8 intelligence, making a bad skill situation worse. Instead he spends points frugally on important cross class skills like tumble, listen, and spot. A human fighter with average or better intelligence probably has more skill points than he can spend usefully on class skills. The same is probably true of a cleric with above average intelligence.

[/B]

Yeah, I don't agree with this much at all. I've always thought fighters were a bit light on skill points and clerics as well. I'd like to see some characters you've made up that were suitable. I'm guessing you didn't have much in the way of character development skills. Things like any knowledge skills for your learned cleric. Or for your fighter example. How does an average fighter, getting 2 skill points manage to get climb, swim, jump AND cross-classed balance spot and listen. Because we all know that spot listen and sense motive seem to be the most used skills in dnd. You'd probably wanna throw knowledge in there as well, but then you wouldn't as a fighter, since it is cross class and intelligence based it just doesn't make sense to "waste" them there unless your implying some character background issue. But really, would you? You spend 2 pts, you get one rank and you unless your DM is generous, which I've found most don't, you can either take 10...and get no information or risk a d20 roll, with that whopping +1. So you don't bother, you keep getting class skills instead.

Tellerve

 

[Pielorinho]

I'll be all for it, but I don't think your practicing what your preaching.

Tellerve

bitch, bitch, bitch. Got a problem? Email me. Short version: you've never tried it, and despite my encouragements, few players have.

Daniel

 

[Tellerve]

ROFLOL Rarr!!! k, I'll attempt some stuff next session.

Back onto the quasi-topic, but more related to the 3.5 tumble thread. While I do think adding some interesting effects to the tumble skill, like a kip up are good ideas. I do think pulling it down a good many notches in terms of automatically making it through lines of enemies is good. As was said in that thread, a fighter with one rank could pass by an ogre guarding a door. While he'd probably get an AoO, at least he is past the ogre. I'd have liked to seen more solid rules on AoOs stopping movement. Along with more stringent tumbling DCs it would make monks/rogues less omnipresent on the battlefield.

As for making lots of checks, I think a possible better way to achieve the results would be successful checks giving a bonus to a main DC check. For instance, a monk trying to jump over some pikemen for example could be a jump check with a success giving a +2 to the tumble. And then have a fairly nice DC for the tumble check, with failure having him being skewered and failing down in front of the pikemen. *shrugs* not overly steamlined but I'll have to think about it a bit more.

Tellerve

 

[Pielorinho]

It gives some combat advantages to some characters and almost nil to others, but it doesn't break the system? How do you define 'break the system' then?

You do something that make the game no longer fun for your players. That's how you break the system. I'm not a C++ programmer, I'm not a legislator, and I'm therefore not much interested in any other definition.

I'm completely willing to break rules if it encourages my players to come up with unusual ideas. An example from last session (not involving skills, and indeed showing how my philosophy doesn't just benefit the skillsmonkeys out there):

The characters were fighting the undead "ghosts" (closer to wights in stats, a homebrew monster) of the massacred inhabitants of a monastery devoted to a moon goddess. I described them as glowing with faint silvery moonlight as they fought, described how the shimmering light made it difficult to hit them.

The party shadowdancer was unconscious, but her shadow (which I'd already ruled was semiautonomous) was up and moving. Rather than try to strength-drain or wrestle the ghosts, she declared that the shadow would flow over them, shrouding them in darkness and cutting off their connection to the moon goddess.

I was completely surprised by this -- and how do you rule such an attack? What are the rules for an incorporeal being trying to flow over a corporeal being? And what effect would it have -- obviously, I hadn't come up with stats on what would happen if these critters were covered in shadow?

Screw the rules, I decided: it's a totally cool thing to do. So I let her do it with a simple touch attack. And because I want to encourage cool combats, I allowed her shadow to hold a brief conversation with the suddenly-freed soul of the monk she'd flowed over, before the monk slumped to the ground freed of the curse of being undead.

Too powerful? Naah -- it was unusual, and there were plenty of opponents for everyone else to fight, and so it gave her something fun and useful to do in the battle. She'll probably never get another chance to use the maneuver.

And while the party druid couldn't have pulled it off, the party druid has her own arsenal of tricks. Next combat, the druid might decide to turn into a raven and fly at the eyes of the enemy's warhorse, and I'll decide that that's a cool maneuver and give her a handle animal check DC 20, +5 circumstance bonus, to panic the horse she's flying at. Everyone's got their own tricks, and the more creatively and spectacularly people use them, the bigger bonuses I'll offer them in reward.

Daniel