Knowledgeable PCs

[Elder-Basilisk]

Well starting out, the rogue can't get a broader knowledge base than a wizard without ceasing to be a rogue (for all practical intents and purposes). The multiplicity of skill points is one of the rogues primary class features and accounts for his ability to do what he could do in previous editions.

In most instances, a wizard will have an int bonus 3 points higher than the rogue and the rogue won't spend points cross class on knowledge skills. This neatly eliminates the problem. OTOH, if you want to play a sage character who doesn't use magic and has a little bit of knowledge about a lot of subjects (possibly including anatomy to help with the sneak attack), I don't see anything wrong with that. It's an odd concept, (and possibly better suited to an expert than a rogue class) but I don't see why a wizard should be inherently more knowledgable than such a character. After all, the wizard spent a lot of his time learning magic. . . .

Really, I don't see the problem with the way the core rules handles these things. If you want characters to have a skill that they used to be trained in before they began adventuring, why not give every character one craft, profession, speak language, or knowledge skill point per level. That will enable characters to learn a little bit more but won't give them so many skill points that all characters can afford to have all of the knowledge skills. If you force characters (except fighters, possibly) to also abide by the class/crossclass point costs, you probably won't allow early access to any prestige classes (although qualifying will be less of a sacrifice. . . .)

I agree about the fact they shouldn't be able to do everything, but it really doesn't make sense for a rogue to be able to get a broader knowledge base (base 8 at 2 ranks) than a wizard (base 2 at 4 ranks), which leads to my idea. How should I change it so it works (good points on the monster thing, BTW. It was more a side idea to this central one) without unbalancing the game? Should I cut all of it in half? What? I thank you for pointing out flaws in the system, but I I'm also after the other side of the coin (and again, I thank you for the suggested method of how to handle the specific monster skill).
Also, more knowledge/profession/craft skills are always appreciated.

 

[Spatzimaus]

EB: valid point, but I think you're overestimating how many points people have to work with. You're not going to see a caravan guard be a triple-grandmaster anything; first of all, he won't have enough levels to have a high skill rank, and secondly, we're talking about 2 skills at most.
People in the real world have these miscellaneous skills that put them above the average person. Most of us have had enough jobs to get certain Profession skills, and anyone who's had some schooling would have Knowledge skills in these other areas. Even if we assume we're only talking about adventurers here, they WILL pick up this sort of thing in the process of adventuring, or in the time they spend between adventures.

As for your class skills suggestion, I thought about that, but it has its own problems. Widening the class skills without giving more skill points doesn't help, since it forces the people to be less effective at their primary skills to pick them up. For example, I thought at one point that a solution was to let everyone pick one extra skill to be a class skill. That didn't really help, though.

If you think my system is too much, though, reduce it to 1 Race Skill Point per level (4 at 1st), drop each race's "unusual" skill, and have the Human bonus apply to Race Skills instead of Class Skills. That way, you can max out one extra skill or spread the points around a bit. Since the Race Skills won't (usually) be useful in combat, having one extra maxxed skill isn't too unbalancing.

 

[Magius del Cotto]

EB - I might try your suggestion out, since it does give characters some amount of knowledge, and I would keep (most) class/cross class restrictions (though I'll likely define the Knowledge class skill list some), and you do overestimate the number of skills that characters have. And I still don't understand why fighters have base 2 skill points, while Barbarians have base 4. Or why Fighters don't have Profession as a class skill. Or why only Wizards and Bards can really learn anything about agriculture. Or any number of other things. Yes, wizards are likely to have a higher Int than your other characters, but, assuming the same intelligence for both characters, a rogue, with the Education feat, can know more than a wizard. That's just not right. Rogues should know how to do the most stuff, and wizards should know the most about stuff, hence the split system.
Basically, what you're saying is "don't even try to balance it out," to which I have to say, "Thank you for the insight, now would you help me balance it?" I can think of a few ways to make sure it's not overwhelming, one of which is to add in more of these skills, but I want to know how you'd do it, within the confines of what I've already presented.
There's a reason I've turned to this board for this, and it's not to be told it's pointless. It has a point, and there's a reasoning behind it. I want this worked out, and right now, you're not helping much.
I'm sorry for going off on you like this, but you've told me it's wrong. Now help me make it right.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I was assuming that the caravan guard was a fighter of reasonable level. Since I saw 4 general skill points/level on the fighter list, I figured that a reasonable NPC might max out two or three skills. I also figured that a master is recognized by the ability to create a masterwork item while taking 10. Thus assuming, a relatively bright guard (int 14), he can expect to be a master of at least two skills by level 5 (5+3=max ranks+2 (int) is +10 to craft).

As for widening the class skills I don't expect it would have nearly as dramatic an impact as the suggestion being discussed here (that's the intention). What it would allow is a fighter who is a skilled and experienced soldier and tactician (represented by Profession (soldier) and knowledge (war) skills) and who could also be a good ruler (represented by sense motive and knowledge: nobility and royalty and possibly profession (judge) skills). The difficulty of the current system in my experience is not that there aren't enough skill points for that (does the fighter care if he's not the world's best horseman, animal handler, climber, or high jumper?--even on three or four skill point/level he can afford a variety of skills if he doesn't keep those skills maxed). Instead, it's the difficulty of getting useful levels of cross-class skills (especially opposed skills like Sense Motive) without multiclassing into Aristocrat that creates a problem for fighters, etc. who want to be rulers, leaders, or otherwise educated.

That being said, I don't think it would hurt the system much to allow one or two skill points per level for racial skills as you are suggesting. OTOH, allowing 4 to 8 (or 8 to 16 if you get a similar progression for both knowledge and practical skills) skill points per level will give most characters more skills than they really know what to do with and leave them experts in every field.

EB: valid point, but I think you're overestimating how many points people have to work with. You're not going to see a caravan guard be a triple-grandmaster anything; first of all, he won't have enough levels to have a high skill rank, and secondly, we're talking about 2 skills at most.
People in the real world have these miscellaneous skills that put them above the average person. Most of us have had enough jobs to get certain Profession skills, and anyone who's had some schooling would have Knowledge skills in these other areas. Even if we assume we're only talking about adventurers here, they WILL pick up this sort of thing in the process of adventuring, or in the time they spend between adventures.

As for your class skills suggestion, I thought about that, but it has its own problems. Widening the class skills without giving more skill points doesn't help, since it forces the people to be less effective at their primary skills to pick them up. For example, I thought at one point that a solution was to let everyone pick one extra skill to be a class skill. That didn't really help, though.

If you think my system is too much, though, reduce it to 1 Race Skill Point per level (4 at 1st), drop each race's "unusual" skill, and have the Human bonus apply to Race Skills instead of Class Skills. That way, you can max out one extra skill or spread the points around a bit. Since the Race Skills won't (usually) be useful in combat, having one extra maxxed skill isn't too unbalancing.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Well, giving fighters more skill points would be a very reasonable house rule and I don't think it would hurt anyone very much. Giving fighters the profession skill would also be a very good house rule and would go a ways towards alleviating the problems you're seeing without doing anything else.

IMO the reason that fighters have 2 skill points and barbarians 4 in the core rules is that Fighters are supposed to represent professional soldiers whose entire livelihood is based upon their fighting prowess. Barbarians are also dedicated to fighting but they make their living by hunting and gathering with their tribes which requires that they have a broader skill base (wilderness lore, etc) than Fighters. Fighters don't need many skill to represent the skills they're supposed to have. I don't think that that covers the full range of what fighters and barbarians are but it covers the majority of the examples of both classes.

Again, I realize that an educated rogue whose highest score is int could know more than a wizard, but I don't think that's a problem. In fact, I think that's a better way to simulate a sage or a scholar than using the wizard class--not all sages, scholars, and knowledgable men should be wizards.

I also think I have a rather good idea of how many skill points characters have--in most cases, enough to be good at a number of things or very very good at a couple of things but not so many that there is no opportunity cost associated with learning a skill. In fact, I think that the opportunity cost associated with learning a skill is a very good thing. None of my characters (ranging from an intelligent elvish fighter/rogue (approx 8 skill points/level) an 18 int human wizard (7 skill points/level)to a human fighter/wiz who spent most of his career at 14 int (5 skill points/level) to a 10 int elf cleric (2 skill points/level)) have had enough skill points to do everything they want to (although the human wizard came close). However, they've all had enough skill points to depict a character with some depth of personality and history.

If you think that characters should have more knowledge/profession/etc skills, then I would give one or two skill points/level that can only be used for those things. This will necessarily remove the opportunity cost associated with certain prestige classes (but that can be fixed by adding other pre-reqs if you want) but it will give characters enough skill points to have a broader base of skills without sacrificing combat skills like tumble or concentration (yeah, that's how my cleric got her skill points into knowledge religion, diplomacy, etc--she didn't max out concentration).

The more skills you give out the more of the Macgyver and Encyclopedia Brown you'll see in every character--regardless of intelligence score and the less difference intelligence will make to a character. But that's your choice. Like I said, I recommend in the interest of balance that you limit the increase in skill points to one or two. But if you want characters to be Macgyver and Encyclopedia Brown, then your system will probably accomplish that goal.

I'm not sure what else you want WRT making the system work. What this will do is pretty clear. The question is just whether or not that's what you really want.

EB - I might try your suggestion out, since it does give characters some amount of knowledge, and I would keep (most) class/cross class restrictions (though I'll likely define the Knowledge class skill list some), and you do overestimate the number of skills that characters have. And I still don't understand why fighters have base 2 skill points, while Barbarians have base 4. Or why Fighters don't have Profession as a class skill. Or why only Wizards and Bards can really learn anything about agriculture. Or any number of other things. Yes, wizards are likely to have a higher Int than your other characters, but, assuming the same intelligence for both characters, a rogue, with the Education feat, can know more than a wizard. That's just not right. Rogues should know how to do the most stuff, and wizards should know the most about stuff, hence the split system.
Basically, what you're saying is "don't even try to balance it out," to which I have to say, "Thank you for the insight, now would you help me balance it?" I can think of a few ways to make sure it's not overwhelming, one of which is to add in more of these skills, but I want to know how you'd do it, within the confines of what I've already presented.
There's a reason I've turned to this board for this, and it's not to be told it's pointless. It has a point, and there's a reasoning behind it. I want this worked out, and right now, you're not helping much.
I'm sorry for going off on you like this, but you've told me it's wrong. Now help me make it right.

 

[DreamChaser]

I think the heart of this issue lies in the definitions and preconceptions that we're all using.

Some people associate the concept of "wizard" with "scholar" and think that the two are always linked. This is true to an extent, but not every wizard has to study more than magic. The tone of the rules is that wizardry is a demanding discipline leaving little time for other pursuits.

There is also the issue of the rogue's large number of skill points. If a rogue chose all knowledge skills, then he would become an expert with sneak attack. He would not longer really fit as a "rogue" (IMO).

I like the idea of the Racial Skills (or Cultural Skills if racial skills don't fit in your game). These would reflect the activities that a character would most likely learn from the race/culture. For contemporary american culture, it would be unusual for a character to not learn how to operate basic electronics or drive a car, it happens, but not often. Perhaps each racial skill could be bought at cost and have the normal maximum. At 0 level (effectively 1st), a character would have 4 skill points to spend. They could spend them on any skill, but their racial skills are the only ones that can be bought at normal cost (others are doubled as usual). As the character advances, they would not gain any additional skill points for their race (except humans) but their Racial Skills would continue to count as class skills.

In terms of other knowledge/craft/profession skills, adventurers are adventurers. They might dabble in these pursuits, maybe even focus in one or two, but I think that the spirit of the rules is that the true masters of these three skills would aways be Experts (an NPC class for a reason). If a character is THAT into Craft(pasta making), why isn't she running a restaurant? Because she's a hero and has better things to do with her time than spend every single point she earns on a Craft skill.

If your wizard really wants to know everything, perhaps have them learn a Profession (librarian) skill (or something like that) to allow them to use written resources to find stuff out. They wouldn't know it off the top of their head, but they could find it out if they looked hard enough.

Just my thoughts.
DC