WayneLigon
Adventurer
The only thing I've ever seen do this is Iron Heroes; there, classes have skill groupings. Put points into, say, the Athletic group and all the skills in that group (climb, swim, jump) go up by the same amount.
Min-Maxing Skill Points -- Is There a Way Around This?
- Thread starter Aluvial
- Start date
the Jester
Legend
WayneLigon said:
This sounds like your solution, all right!
Reminds me- I gotta go pick up my copy of Iron Heroes from my FLGS... *puts on the list of stuff to do today*
I agree with Crothian that the DM can fix a lot of this problem.
Take a moment to skim through the skill lists, you'll notice that many skills only need 15's to succeed.
Use take 10!! Climb for example. In most sitations, its the pcs having to climp a wall or something. That's often just a DC 15. That means with 4 ranks in climb, a +1 str, and take 10 your golden. You need more if your wearing armor, so characters with armor can invest more points.
Balance is another example. If you look hard at the actual widths of those surface, a 15 should suffice most of the time. A DC 10 check is sometimes used in combt with uneven surfaces, so a few ranks is all you need to make that consistently.
Spot and Listen are probably the worst skills as far as DM inflatation. I've been very guilty of this in the past. Realistically, the DC for seeing a medium sized creature or object is 0, increased by 1 for 10 feet of distance. So the average commoner can see a medium sized object or person at 100 feet, 50% of the time with just a glance. A person with 4 ranks in spot and a +1 wis should be able to see that object at 50 feet ALL THE TIME!!! Only when the objects are smaller (size modifiers), they are very far away, or the person is hiding is when that 20 spot check is really needed.
Finally, a lot of the skills you see in the pc that have base 20 or 30 DCs, are skills that you are supposed to take 20 on. Open lock is a great example. Being able to pick a lock in 6 secs is supposed to be a fantastic feat. Normally a character would take 20 on that check, taking 2 minutes of time. Escape artist works very much the same way.
Take a moment to skim through the skill lists, you'll notice that many skills only need 15's to succeed.
Use take 10!! Climb for example. In most sitations, its the pcs having to climp a wall or something. That's often just a DC 15. That means with 4 ranks in climb, a +1 str, and take 10 your golden. You need more if your wearing armor, so characters with armor can invest more points.
Balance is another example. If you look hard at the actual widths of those surface, a 15 should suffice most of the time. A DC 10 check is sometimes used in combt with uneven surfaces, so a few ranks is all you need to make that consistently.
Spot and Listen are probably the worst skills as far as DM inflatation. I've been very guilty of this in the past. Realistically, the DC for seeing a medium sized creature or object is 0, increased by 1 for 10 feet of distance. So the average commoner can see a medium sized object or person at 100 feet, 50% of the time with just a glance. A person with 4 ranks in spot and a +1 wis should be able to see that object at 50 feet ALL THE TIME!!! Only when the objects are smaller (size modifiers), they are very far away, or the person is hiding is when that 20 spot check is really needed.
Finally, a lot of the skills you see in the pc that have base 20 or 30 DCs, are skills that you are supposed to take 20 on. Open lock is a great example. Being able to pick a lock in 6 secs is supposed to be a fantastic feat. Normally a character would take 20 on that check, taking 2 minutes of time. Escape artist works very much the same way.
IronWolf
blank
genshou said:
Well in this case the story isn't necessarily all that. The wizard stuck around despite casting Expeditious Retreat first, so IC wise my poor dwarven cleric will never know that the mage's first instinct. Now, had I had spellcraft and known that, oh the chiding fun my dwarf cleric could have had. (and for reference the encounter was 5 4th level PCs running into 4 ogres and a hill giant).
LostSoul
Adventurer
Aluvial said:
The first thought that came into my head is a 'skill pyramid' where you have 1 skill at the best value (let's say 8 ranks), then 2 at one lower (so 2 at 7 ranks), then 3 at one lower (so 3 at 6 ranks), etc.
Although you'd probably need to tinker with the system somewhat to make it work.
Or you could increase the synergy bonus to +4 when a character has 10 ranks in a skill (although that would reward specializing).
Altamont Ravenard
Explorer
I really like Iron Heroes' idea. I've been mulling over something quite similar for a while now. I'd probably try to make it so you can "specialize" within a skill group, but to much less extent than how it's possible to do it with the current system.
For example, every group contains three related skills. When you put one point into a group, one skill could get 1 rank, one skill could get 0.75, and the last one, 0.5 (player's choice).
AR
For example, every group contains three related skills. When you put one point into a group, one skill could get 1 rank, one skill could get 0.75, and the last one, 0.5 (player's choice).
AR
coyote6
Adventurer
Iron Heroes also gives more skill points, and ditches the idea of "cross-class" skills; the net effect is that characters can easily have a variety of skills at useful skill levels.
People max out skills like Tumble & Concentration because it's always useful to have them maxed out; the DCs can get really high, and failure can have bad (possibly life-threatening) consequences. A lot of times, it's better to have one skill at a useful level than to have two or three skills at non-useful levels.
With a skill like Jump or Climb, many characters won't have it at all (e.g., Jump is cross-class skill for about half the classes, not important to most bards, and not a priority for most rogues), so if a party needs to jump a gap or climb a cliff, several characters are going to need an alternate means of overcoming the obstacle (e.g., magic). What does it matter if there's one more character that needs the braced & knotted rope, or needs to be ferried across via fly spell?
That said, most tumblers I know get at least 5 ranks in Jump, for the synergy bonus. After all, your Tumble skill is unlikely to ever get too high.
People max out skills like Tumble & Concentration because it's always useful to have them maxed out; the DCs can get really high, and failure can have bad (possibly life-threatening) consequences. A lot of times, it's better to have one skill at a useful level than to have two or three skills at non-useful levels.
With a skill like Jump or Climb, many characters won't have it at all (e.g., Jump is cross-class skill for about half the classes, not important to most bards, and not a priority for most rogues), so if a party needs to jump a gap or climb a cliff, several characters are going to need an alternate means of overcoming the obstacle (e.g., magic). What does it matter if there's one more character that needs the braced & knotted rope, or needs to be ferried across via fly spell?
That said, most tumblers I know get at least 5 ranks in Jump, for the synergy bonus. After all, your Tumble skill is unlikely to ever get too high.
Crothian
First Post
coyote6 said:
Not really. Tumble DC 25 you go through an occupied space, nothing higher then that on chart. Concentration only gets bad if the caster gets hit during a full round spell for the most part. But most of the time they cast defensively and that DC is not that hard.
Patryn of Elvenshae
First Post
Crothian said:
25 to go through the first occupied space, +2 for each person you need to tumble past beyond that, you take a -10 hit if you don't want to move at half speed ...
And that's assuming you're tumbling across flat, dry ground.
People with high Tumble skills tend to not have particularly impressive HPs or ACs, and therefore a missed Tumble check and AoO can be particularly nasty.
