Pathfinder 1E pathfinder skill system

[Donovan Morningfire]

I like the 3.5E skill system, but the current Pathfinder Alpha skill rules are surely vastly superior to the SAGA system: Unlike SAGA, they at least they make it possible to be bad at a skill.

Which isn't everyone's cup of tea, and can kill off some great ideas a DM might have if more than half the party don't even have a single rank in said skill, or even parts of a module. After all, how many characters honestly put more than a rank or two into Climb or Ride or Swim unless its a vital part of their concept? Pretty hard to have a climactic sea battle on a roiling ship in the middle of a storm if nobody's got any ranks in Balance (or Acrobatics as the case might be).

At least with the SWSE/4e approach, everyone can partake in a scenario regardless of whether they are trained or not... it's just the trained characters are going to have an easier time of it, and might be able to do some fancier stuff along the way.

 

[Squire James]

I'm kind of a "tweener" here. I like the idea of mostly selecting one's skills and going on with the game, but I agree there should be some variation in the game. So my thought is to kind of bastard-ize the systems as follows:

The skill list is re-worked to provide about 16 skills. There are no "choose one" skills... choosing Craft means you're good at Making Stuff, choosing Lore means you're good at Knowing Non-Magical Stuff, etc. I'm considering making Specialized and further rankings force you to choose a specialty within the skill (all non-specialty areas of the skill using the Trained rating), but I'm not sure I want to get that detailed or not.

Untrained Bonus = Ability Score Bonus + level /2 (like 4e)
Trained Bonus = Untrained +4
Specialized Bonus = Untrained +8
Mastered Bonus = Untrained +12
Grand Mastered Bonus = Untrained +16

Skill Points at Level 1: 4+ Int bonus for all classes.

Additional Skill Points are gained in each class according to how many base skill points the class would grant in the "normal" skill rules: 1 per 5 levels at base 2, 1 per 4 levels at base 4, 1 per 3 levels at base 6, or 1 per 2 levels at base 8.

One skill point will upgrade a single skill to the next tier (Untrained -> Trained -> Specialized -> Mastered). Specialized skills can only be taken at character level 10+, and Mastered skills can only be taken at character level 20+. Skill Focus can be taken for only one skill, and it increases the skill by one tier regardless of character level. Mastered + Skill Focus is the only way to attain a Grand Mastered skill.

 

[Greg K]

Which isn't everyone's cup of tea, and can kill off some great ideas a DM might have if more than half the party don't even have a single rank in said skill, or even parts of a module. After all, how many characters honestly put more than a rank or two into Climb or Ride or Swim unless its a vital part of their concept?

As a player, my reaction would be
a) DM don't make something mandatory and vital to the success of the adventure just because you think it is cool. I hated the example of the chase scene given as a rationale for the Star Wars skill system. If we the players don't follow through on the chase, we have a setback and have to find another solution.

b) if we are unskilled and go through with the chase or fight the battle on the rolling deck of a ship, the experience is a good reason for us to put ranks into a skill.

c) tell us prior to character generation that you are going to make skills important and that ignoring skills our characters should have a rank or two in based on character background and/or experience in order to keep a few skills maxed out is not a good thing and will hinder/hurt us in the long run.

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

Well, allow me to retort...

a) I never said it had to mandatory, but as a GM I've come across many instances where I had a great idea for a scene, but had to scrap it because only one person had a reasonable chance at success due to how they spent their skill points. If the GM knows that everyone will at least have a chance of success at something, then that can open up a while wide range of options.

b) From my experiences, most players in that situation would be pissed becuase their beloved character looks like a buffoon, and even afterwards may be leery of "tossing away good skill points" for something they may not ever need again, especially if they only get a couple skill points per level. Heck, the players may even revolt if they feel the DM deliberately screwed them by creating a scenario they had no chance of successfully completing. Maybe some players are masochists and like to see their character beaten and humiliated and generally not succeeding, but most of us play to be Big Damn Heroes.

c) Not every DM plans things out that far ahead. I know several GM's that pretty run their games improv-style, with only the most basic plot outline and goal established before hand, that only concocted shortly before the game begins.

I know I'm probably not going to convince you that the SWSE/4e skill system isn't the "total rubbish" you believe to be. If you're happy with the current skill point system, more power to you. Me, I think it stinks and is more trouble than it's worth.

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

I know I'm probably not going to convince you that the SWSE/4e skill system isn't the "total rubbish" you believe to be. If you're happy with the current skill point system, more power to you. Me, I think it stinks and is more trouble than it's worth.

I'm with ya here I love the new system even if it may need a little work still I find it better then the skill point system. And as a DM It makes my life so so sooooooooooo much easier.

 

[Gallo22]

Getting rid of skill points is one of the easiest ways to simplify the game and reduce DM prep time, two of the biggest criticisms I have of 3.5. Skill points create a lot of needless bookkeeping that rarely comes into actual gameplay, especially when creating NPCs of improving/creating monsters.

I am not 100% satisfied with the Alpha sills system, I would like to see an elimination of the cross-class/class skill distinction. However, I think eliminating skill points was a huge step in the right direction. I am looking forward to the Alpha revision dealing with the skills they mentioned was in the works and hoping that it does not make a step back to skill points.

The way we currently houserule the acquisition of class skill/cross skill distinction is that the number of skills you get to choose for your class must choose from among your class skill list, as these represent what you learned in training to become 1st level in your class, but those you get to choose based on your Intelligence modifier can be taken from the entire skill list as they represent things you learned before you began "training to be an adventurer in a particular class." Any new skills you learn after character generation have to reflect things you would have learned in play or during downtime between adventures. Example: your wizard is travelling with a group of adventurers and has to spend time on watch, the experience makes him better at doing so, and when he learns a new skill he chooses Perception. It is an outgrouth of the character. He did not spend any time learning about the outer planes during his adventures and had no time to spend in a library or tracing down scrolls, so he cannot add Knowledge (the planes) as a new skill until that opportunity presents itself. It can also ad potential hooks for future adventures if the character wants to learn about the outer planes (or any other skill for that matter).

I like this!! Mind if I steal the idea?

 

[Kalis]

There were things I liked about each system. For Pathfinder, I liked the combining of certain skills into a single skill. I also liked adding more skills as you level up.

One of the big things I love for 3.5 is skill tricks from Complete Scoundrel. Without skill points, Pathfinder isn't really backwards compatible with them. So in the end I went with 3.5.

Also, I always felt 3.5 treated hp and skill points the same. They both influence the future. Retroactive hp from con helps you survive better in the future, it doesn't let you survive past encounters that you could have won if your con now affected your hp back then. Similarly, int increases affect how well you learn in the future.

 

[wickederror]

OOPS...

The skill system has changed. We need a new poll

As for me, I like the 1.1 change but consider the 2.0 change better than the original by a stride.

I may plan to use the 1.1 rules anyway as a houserule, and would be thrilled by the concept of an optional sidebar.

 

[Roman]

The Pathfinder Alpha skill system is vastly preferable, in my mind, to the skill system of SW Saga or 4E, where it is impossible to be bad at a skill at higher levels. Indeed, in practice I almost always give both my PCs when I play and NPCs when I DM max ranks in their skills, so it works out like the Pathfinder system. That said, however, there are players who do like to tinker with their skills and assign different numbers of ranks to different skills. 3.5E system supports both: I can assign max ranks to my skills and have it simple, whereas those who like it can really fool around with their skills. As such, I don't see any major benefit of the Pathfinder Alpha system over the current 3.5E skill system that supports both simplicity and detail depending on what one wants to get out of it. (Still, unlike the 4E skill system, the Pathfinder Alpha skill system works fine for me.)

It is a bit of a bad form to quote oneself, but I am doing this, beacause I feel that Paizo have run along with this kind of thinking with the new skill system in Alpha 2, which makes it even easier to max skills than the 3.5E system, but still supports tinkering for those who want it. Kudos to Paizo all around on the new system - I really like it!

If I were to have one suggestion, though, I would recommend increasing the bonuses to class skills with level, so that the distinction between a maxed out class skill and non-class skill at level 20 is not +20 vs +23. I would suggest a progression that increases the bonus to class skills by +1 every four levels, starting with level 2. This would result in the following bonus to class skills:

Level 1: +3
Level 2: +4
Level 6: +5
Level 10: +6
Level 14: +7
Level 18: + 8

Why did I chose a progression every 4 levels starting with level 2? I would recommend it, because it meshes well with the other progressions in Pathfinder - it gives a bonus at levels, where the universal progression grants neither a feat nor an ability score increase. It also seems to work out pretty well in terms of final numbers. +28 for a maxed out class skill versus +20 for a maxed out non-class skill is a substantial difference, but maxed out non-class skills can still be useful at that spread.

(If we have a progression of this sort, it could be possible to remove the front-loaded +3 bonus at 1st level in lieu of a +1 bonus, or even a complete absence of an initial bonus, but I think the initial +3 bonus, although a bit front-loaded, is fine.)

I should also mention that a decent idea to prevent dipping a skill point in each class skill just to gain the bonus, might be to rule that the class skill bonus cannot exceed the number of ranks one has placed into the skill.

None of these changes are really necessary - from my perspective the skill point system is already good. Nonetheless, I do feel that especially the first change would improve the skill system further.

 

[nytflyr]

Im seeing all this complaining that the old system was hard on GMs... just how many NPCs are you stating up anyhow? I have found that 99% of the prep work done on an NPC is ignored anyway.