Please help me with creating a new skill.

[SS]

I have a problem with the skill Survival. I do not like the skill because I feel it is too broad. I can't see allowing one skill to be used for all types of terrain, or climate. Tracking someone through snow, sand, grass or, dense vegetation, is totally different. Not to mention hunting and foraging in those environments. I started to make a new skill, BUT I found a problem. I added way too many new skills. My next idea was to break the skill down into just terrain, Aquatic, Desert, Mountain, Plains, Urban, Woodland. You then put ranks in them like other skills. But I think it's still too many new skills and it hurts the Ranger the most. Please give me any advise you can, or tell me why I'm wrong in thinking Survival is too broad.



LORE (WIS)
Like the Craft, Knowledge, Perform, and Profession skills, Lore actually encompasses a number of unrelated skills. Lore measures your savvy in dealing with naturally occurring events in a given environment. Quite the opposite of the knowledge skill, Lore is a hands-on training, learning through doing, whether self-taught or trained.
Below are listed typical terrain types.

• Aquatic (living on or near a great body of water, a sailors second most useful skill after rope use)
• Arctic (frigid region between the Northern Wall and the northern timberlines, region of permanent cold that is largely or entirely devoid of life)
• Desert (barren or desolate area, often sandy region of little rainfall, extreme temperatures, and sparse vegetation)
• Mountain (natural elevation of the earth's surface, air is colder, thinner, and dryer proportionate to the elevation)
• Plains (extensive, level, usually treeless area of land)
• Savanna (flat grassland of tropical or subtropical regions)
• Scrubland (uncultivated and covered with sparse stunted vegetation)
• Subaquatic (living beneath the surface of water)
• Subterranean (situated or operating below the earth's surface)
• Tropical (hot, humid, torrid, rain forests)
• Urban (city life, to many the harshest environment of all)
• Volcanic (existing in, around, or near lava, as well as toxic sulfurous gasses)
• Wetland (including, bogs, swamps, and marshes)
• Woodland (forests, coniferous or deciduous, dense growth of trees, plants, and underbrush covering a large area, of temperament climate)


Check: Varies, follow tracks (see the Track feat).
Lore does not allow you to follow difficult tracks unless you are a ranger or have the Track feat.

 

[librarius_arcana]

I have studied Survival for a few years in real life,

And you're right (and I also don't like the way they just lumped Tracking in there either, it's a skill in itself, by the same logic you would have to also put "Healing" under the same skill as well)


What about this, you have your "Survival" skill at "x" this is your basic area of knowledge,

then you have your "Lore" skill (may be a good idea to let this be cheaper to buy) knowledge covering one of your different zones

when in the related (Lore) zone you would add the two skill
outside of that zone you only use your basic "Survival"

 

[SS]

Well my original plan was to eliminate the Survival skill completely, and substitute in the Lore skill. The Lore skill would mimic all of the effects of the Survival skill, but in a more specialized way. By climate.

Alternatively, I could keep the Survival skill but, break it down by temperature Hot, Temperate, or Cold. As you put ranks in the Survival skill you would choose Hot, Temperate, or Cold. If you are in a region you don't have ranks in you would get a higher DC. A problem with this is that a hot Desert is still totally different than a rain forest.

 

[librarius_arcana]

A problem with this is that a hot Desert is still totally different than a rain forest.

True, but you would still make use of many of the skills covered by Survival no matter what zone, so you will still need a root skill of some kind, what about making in related to a feat?

Hot, Cold, etc?

 

[SS]

Alternatively, I could keep the Survival skill but, break it down by temperature Hot, Temperate, or Cold. As you put ranks in the Survival skill you would choose Hot, Temperate, or Cold.

So basically you would break the skill into three skills IE...

Survival (WIS) Hot - Places closes to the equator.

Survival (WIS) Temperate - Climates without extremes.

Survival (WIS) Cold - All frigidly cold regions.


But, again I don't care for this solution.

 

[librarius_arcana]

So basically you would break the skill into three skills IE...

Survival (WIS) Hot - Places closes to the equator.

Survival (WIS) Temperate - Climates without extremes.

Survival (WIS) Cold - All frigidly cold regions.


But, again I don't care for this solution.

No not at all, you missed my point, you still have just the one skill "Survival" but you have feats for the other zones (think "skill focus") that would give you +3 in that area,
thats the easiest way,

 

[Tonguez]

I like the idea of Having Skill specilisations and buying them with skill points

1. For the ranger I'd add a new Lv 1 class ability called say 'Adaptibility' which means the ranger is specilised in Wis-mod number of terrains (ie gives free specilisations)

2. Raise DC for Basic Survival (so it is harder for someone to track through an unfamiliar environment)

3. Use standard DCs for specilised terrain

4. Create an optional Terrain Mastery feat which gives lower Survival DCs, Skill bonuses to spot etc and a bonus to BAb (better use of terrain advantage)

 

[SS]

The problem with applying a feat to gain a bonus in a given zone is, the same one skill SURVIVAL would still work for all climates. Be it an Arctic or a Woodland setting. I would like to split the skill up, in the same manner as CRAFT, KNOWLEDGE, or PREFORM.

Although you're right it would be a fix to not eat up so many skill points.

 

[Krelios]

The problem is with the way D&D handles skills in general. I would love to see the skill system become independent of the combat/level system, but that has its own problems. (Once you start trying to make D&D realistic, it ceases to be D&D.)

It sounds like the best solution would be to leave the existing skill list intact and come up with a system of "specializations." In other words, the Survival skill gives you a basic understanding of first aid, tracking, etc., but some tasks will be more difficult or even impossible, without a specialization in the specific terrain involved. So you might have Survival (Arctic) or Survival (Jungle).

Just making these skills in and of themselves isn't a good idea for several reasons, one of which you pointed out--the lack of skill points means the ranger gets very much screwed over. It also doesn't make sense that someone who knows the basics of survival (how to make fire, find water, etc.) in one environment knows nothing about them in another.

For example. Rogar the Barbarian has 5 ranks in Survival and no specialization. He can use this basic information to start a fire or try to find water at the normal DCs listed. However, when confronted with the challenge of finding shelter in the desert, or surviving the night in the jungle, he is treated as unskilled since he doesn't have the specialization for Deserts or Jungles.

Then we have to decide how characters acquire specializations. I'd say that the easiest way to do that is to let characters buy them with skill points. The first one costs 1 skill point, all others cost 2 skill points each. Then give every character an extra two skill points per level (up to the maximum of 8+Int modifier) and you're good to go. The more skills you apply this specialization system to, the more skill points you'll have to give your characters and the more open to abuse the skills that don't have emphases become.

It's a balancing act, but maybe this gives you some good ideas.

 

[librarius_arcana]

The problem is with the way D&D handles skills in general. I would love to see the skill system become independent of the combat/level system.

Did you see my thread on "BAB to skill" (should be lurking on page two about now )