Looking at alternate skill packages

[Elvinis75]

I was thinking about running a campaign where I let any character customize their character by trading one for one class/crossclass skills what are the pros and cons? Is there anything that I can do to avoid/overcome the cons?

 

[Afrodyte]

To answer your question, the pros are pretty obvious: flexibility and customization. With this option, you get to design your character as you see fit. This in itself is a major boon if this is what you want to do.

The cons have more to do with the gamers than the rule. There are some players who would take advantage of this to add options that are totally inappropriate for their character. For instance, somebody may decide that Use Magic Device makes perfect sense as a class skill for a single-classed Barbarian. Please.

If you don't mind a bit of extra work, though, I'd say let them pick their class skills and justify it via background or experience. I'd limit the number of skills they can have as class skills depending on the class. I'd choose a nice round number to make it simple. For instance, Rogues can have a maximum of 20 class skills; Barbarians, Bards, Druids, Monks, Paladins, and Rangers get 15; Clerics, Fighters, Sorcerers, and Wizards get 10. These are all approximate, so you can alter them to what you think is reasonable. Yet, I would rule that in order to take exclusive skills, you must have levels in the class it is exclusive to. So, to take Animal Empathy requires levels in Druid or Ranger.

For multiclass characters, this rule would only apply to the first class they take. All subsequent classes take the standard class skill list.

 

[Elvinis75]

I think that you miss understood it would happen like this:
Any of the classes can exchange up to their full complement of their class skills for an equal number of cross-class skills. Thus a fighter that would normally would have the following skill package:
Class Skills: Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Jump (Str), Ride (Dex), and Swim (Str).

Could have:
Class Skills: Wilderness Lore(Wis), Intimidate(Cha) , Spot(Wis), Jump (Str), Ride (Dex), and Listen(Wis).
This would yield more of a scout type.

 

[Spatzimaus]

I'm with Afrodyte on this one. Do NOT just let the player pick a list or trade one-for-one for whatever he wants. Use the existing lists as a guideline, and you, as DM, can think about swapping one or maybe two skills for others of equal power. No exclusive skills, no skills that only a few classes get, just the usual stuff.

I mean, look at the list you gave for Fighters. None of those skills are particularly appealing to most players. Instead, I'll change it to:
Hide, Move Silently, Spot, Search, Tumble, and Use Magic Device.
It's still 6 skills, right? Except that it's not even CLOSE to balanced now. Every one of those skills is something a player wants. Why bother playing a Rogue or Bard if no matter what class I am, I can get the three or so skills I really want? It also makes many PrCs pathetically easy to enter.

If he wants Spot, Listen, and Wilderness Lore as class skills, tell him to play a Ranger, because that's just not what a Fighter IS. None of the Fighter skills are good enough to trade for even one of those three, IMO.

 

[Witness]

I agree with what others have commented; a 1 for 1 trade is too good and open to abuse.

A somewhat complicated sollution is to give different costs for each skill. So Profession, which almost every class has, would cost 1-for-1, while Tumble or Spot would cost at least 3-for-1. One should not be able to trade or acquire exclusive skills.

 

[Elvinis75]

First of all the idea is to let them pick and choice as they will. But the part that you keep bringing up isn’t a valid argument for or again the idea. The idea is to let them change class for cross class. Not class for specific class only skills. Therefor Use magic device isn’t on the table. Neither is Animal Empathy, Dechiper Script, Read Lips, Scrye. So pla leeese lets put that to bed. Cross-class does not equal class specific.

As to the rest of that. I guess that it would depend on the character type that you want to play. The scout fighter concept was an example of one possibility. Hide and move silently are good for sneaking type of scout and yet another possibility and quite possibility a better option. The goal with the open skill idea is to let a character shape the character to be anything but the cookie cutter fighter. Telling a player that he/or she should be a ranger that they don’t want to be isn’t the idea.

 

[Elvinis75]

more thoughts

I’m not sure about any skill being worth 3 others. I think that the system will change but will it be broken? The more skill oriented classes will still have more class skills and skill points to spend.
Barbarian 11, Bard 29, Cleric 9 , Druid 13 Wisard Fighters 6 Monk 14 Paladin 8 Ranger 20 Rogue 33 Sorceror 7Wizard 7
The classes that are meant to be diverse in their skills are still diverse. They still get more skill points to spend. Barbarian Bard Druid Monk and ranger still get 4 per level and all nearly twice as diverse. The rogue is still the master with class access to over 5 times the class skills and 4 times the points of the fighter.

 

[RPG_Tweaker]

I see no problem with letting players switch out skills—as long as they give an acceptable reason why it fits their concept. The PCs are supposed to be heroes and adventurers, they should be adequately skilled.

As for 'balance', some people don't seem to realize that balance isn't all in the rules, it's in the make-up of the party and the judgment of the DM. If everyone has Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Spot, Search, and Tumble, so be it... the party is really good at stealth. However, they will suffer elsewhere. Especially since it's the DM's job to challenge the party. If they are too sneak-heavy, hit them with diplomacy-bluff-knowledge based adventures now and again to keep them spending cross-class points. Or even start having their opponents use very perceptive pets...

An option I'm using is to have "careers" that contain various skill-sets. For example:

FIGHTER
• BODYGUARD: Concentration, Intimidate, Listen, Profession (Bodyguard), Search, Sense Motive, Spot
• MERCENARY: Appraise, Climb, Craft, Intimidate, Profession (Mercenary), Ride, Spot
• OUTLAW: Appraise, Climb, Intimidate, Hide, Profession (Outlaw), Spot, Survival
• SEAMAN: Balance, Climb, Knowledge (Geography), Profession (Seaman), Spot, Swim, Use Rope
• SOLDIER: Climb, Craft, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Profession (Soldier), Ride, Spot
• SQUIRE: Craft, Diplomacy, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Knowledge (Nobility), Profession (Squire), Ride
• WATCHMAN: Gather Information, Intimidate, Profession (Watchman), Search, Sense Motive, Spot, Use Rope

Everyone gets Profession, which covers knowing the 'details' about their career.

Everyone also gets one free-choice skill to represent a specialty field in the career (i.e. Merc beast-master with Handle Animal). This skill needs DM approval.

Note that I've given the FTR 7 skills. As I think 2SPs are enough of a limitation, access to a wider variety does no harm.

Also note I removed Jump as a skill (it's an ability).

 

[Jaligard]

There's nothing--and with 3.5 literally nothing--stopping characters from taking skills as cross-class. Want a Fighter who is good at sneaking? Take ranks of Hide and Move Silently. They'll never be as good as a Rogue who works on those skills, but that's the point. I don't see the problem here.

That said, it seems reasonable to do this on a limited basis. Like, trading one class skill for a cross-class skill at character creation with good reasoning.

 

[Witness]

The classes that are meant to be diverse in their skills are still diverse. They still get more skill points to spend. Barbarian Bard Druid Monk and ranger still get 4 per level and all nearly twice as diverse. The rogue is still the master with class access to over 5 times the class skills and 4 times the points of the fighter.

True, but the selection of class skills is a more important balancing factor between the classes than the number of skill points. If a Fighter can drop his 6 class skills and pick up Hide, Move S, Spot, Listen, Tumble, and Wild Lore, he weakens the Rogue, Monk and Ranger. Not only does he have better hitpoints, armor, and fighting ability, but he can now use some of the best and most useful skills as well as they can. Consequently, the characters of those classes become considerably less effective. Thats why their are built in drawbacks to taking cross-class skills; so that their are things that characters of a class can to do and have a better chance of success than characters of another class.

I also agree with you however. I wish their was some built in mechanism for trading class skills. I just think their needs to be some built in drawback, otherwise the mechanism is open to abuse.

How about a system based on the key ability of the skills. For example, a Fighter could trade Handle Animals (Cha) and pick up Intimidate (Cha), but to get Hide or Move S (Dex), would have to trade 2 class skill, because he has no class skills with Dex as the key ability.