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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 359367" data-attributes="member: 3146">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.</blockquote>

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