Profession every Class Skill?

[JoeGKushner]

I was looking through some of the various skills in different books and one of them, profession (soldier), struck me as a pretty sound thing for a fighter to take, but then I realized, it's cross-class.

Should every class has at least a few professons for it?

 

[d4]

IMO yes. every class should get Profession and Craft as class skills.

(it's one of my few house rules.)

 

[Norfleet]

I'd rule that every class, even those for which knowledge/craft/profession are cross-class, may still take knowledge/craft/professions which are relevant to their class as class skills. Thus, fighters who like swords can take things like Knowledge(Swordology) as class skills.

 

[Sanackranib]

I was looking through some of the various skills in different books and one of them, profession (soldier), struck me as a pretty sound thing for a fighter to take, but then I realized, it's cross-class.
Should every class has at least a few professons for it?

Yes. while you wouldn't see many fighters practiceing alchemy you would see a lot of Soldiers or Sailers

 

[Norfleet]

Personally, I'm not a terribly large fan of the cross-class skill idea anyway. When skills are pretty much defined for you as "you can take this skill" and "you probably shouldn't bother taking this skill because you'll never be any good at it no matter how hard you try", that pretty much caters to stereotyping. Everyone knows, for instance, that fighters are blind as a bat and couldn't pass a spot roll to save their lives.

In 2E, at least, purchasing a proficiency across class lines may cost you extra, but you'll still be able to be good at it. In 3E, not only does it cost you extra, but you'll always suck at it no matter how hard you try. It's rather restrictive in that way: You can't REALLY develop a character which is somehow "different", even if you wanted to: A fighter, for instance, could never really be someone with a passionate interest in security, particularly traps: Even if you tried really hard, and had a good int, all of those skills are cross-class: No matter how many points you'd want drop into it, you run into a hard cap of half that of anyone else. Rogue skills are similar: In 2E, you could really begin to develop a field of specialty by 3rd level. In 3E, the limit of how many points you can even put into a skill at all effectively forces you to spread them out, and as a result, many of the skills are mostly useless until higher level.

 

[Marimmar@Home]

There are some possible exceptions via feats though,

1) take Cosmopolitan
2) add Skill Focus to this and
3) finish with a Feat that adds +2 to this skill and a related skill

You should be pretty much as good as someone who has the skill in question as a class skill, even without Cosmopolitan you can keep up for a long time.

~Marimmar

 

[Wombat]

In my campaigns, we make no distinction between Craft and Profession (a rather artificial division anyway), nor do we automatically link one stat to either -- whatever appears to be the most appropriate stat at a given moment is used (thus Blacksmithing is often tied to Strength, but could be tied to Dexterity, Endurance, or even Intelligence, based on the situation).

We found this worked rather well.

 

[Starman]

I also tend to drop the limit on cross-class skills and let players raise them as high as class skills. The only problem with that is that some classes get a paltry number of skill points. I'd like to give them more, but that chips into the rogue's benefit. So, I haven't figured out a good solution for that, yet.

Starman

 

[Sanackranib]

There are some possible exceptions via feats though,

1) take Cosmopolitan
2) add Skill Focus to this and
3) finish with a Feat that adds +2 to this skill and a related skill

You should be pretty much as good as someone who has the skill in question as a class skill, even without Cosmopolitan you can keep up for a long time.

~Marimmar

thats all fine if you are a fighter but a non human, non fighter is going to be at least 9th level to get those feats and then that only helps with one skill. in the combat oriented system we have I really don't see anyone burning 3 feats for thet when non fighters only get 1 feat every 3 levels.

 

[Heretic Apostate]

thats all fine if you are a fighter but a non human, non fighter is going to be at least 9th level to get those feats

I fail to see what being a fighter or a non-fighter has to do with these feats. They're all general feats, not on any class list (wizard and fighter). The only difference I can see is between human and non-human. Human can get the three feats by sixth level, non-humans by ninth level.