Eldragon said:
I prefer to play games where cross-class skills are removed. We have done it at high level, and low level, and it always just works.
I have found that its your skill points/level and your prime ability scores that really separates the classes.
Take say the Stealthy Fighter vs. the Stealthy Rogue. The Rogue has 4x more skill points to choose from, and will almost always have a much better dex score. Finally, the Fighter is probably wearing armor with some kind of check penalty.
If your goal is to obtain less cookie cutter characters, this description sorta precludes it. I was unaware that D&D still had prime ability scores. I've had games where the smartest character at the table was the rogue, and the fighter had higher dex. I've rarely had games where the fighter was wearing armor with a significant armor check penalty - it simply doesn't make since to wear heavy armor while crawling through caves and ancient ruins. The few extra points of AC aren't worth the encumbrance.
At Higher levels, removing cross-class skills works even better. Lets face it, by level 15 or so, having 9 ranks in Hide or Open Lock just isn't going to cut it.
Why should locks in the world get harder to open just because one person was getting better at doing it? Why should everything get more perceptive just because one character was getting sneakier? If the difficulty things is going to scale with level, what's the since in having skill points at all? There are all sorts of skills where you get a good benefit out of having just a few points in them: balance, ride, knowledge, etc. Anything with a static difficulty doesn't need to be maxed to get some benefit out of it.
When it comes to spellcraft and Use Magic Device, Whats wrong with letting a Fighter or even a Barbarian know a thing or two about magic? A good backstory is more important than trying to fit into pre defined roles. Since they can't cast spells, and their Int score is usually going to be lower, It won't upset game balance.
What's wrong with a smart barbarian? What's wrong with a highly charismatic barbarian? If you system isn't flexible enough to support that, then you can give up pretentions of getting rid of pre-defined roles. Cross-class skills already support 'knowing a thing or two' if you choose to, and I've mentioned all sorts of other options. Your whole post has been an explanation of how the predefinded roles are so strong that they'll resist even removing the notion of cross class skills from the game. (You are actually right, which is one of several reasons why I said my approach was a more elegant solution.) And a good backstory is worth squat, and worth less than squat if it is being used to justify in-game mechanical advantages. I speak from 20+ years of experience, and I can tell you that 90% of all 'good back stories' are worse than useless and simple Onanism on the part of the player. The good ones aren't even interested in defining who the character is via the story - they have a completely different goal. A good RPer is quite happy to define his character through play. What a backstory is for is defining things that can't be defined through play or a stat block.
As for UMD, all class specific skills aren't merely skills but class features. Asking for it on your class skill list is like asking for a bonus feat, just because your backstory is so 'kewl'. Everyone keeps talking about how this system opens up the possibility of diplomatic wizards or stealthy fighters, but no one has yet mentioned what the rogue gets out of this. What sort of new character concepts does it open up for rogue? Anyone? Basically what it comes down to is you want the other classes to kill rogue and take his stuff because its just too hard to multiclass to fit your concept.
For Example... Kelfish, Is a 7th level fighter. He has spent the last 10 years serving as a bodyguard to a Red Wizard. The Red Wizard was careful to teach his Kelfish how to recognize spells in order to better defend his master in combat. A Bodyguard to a wizard who cant tell the difference between hostile and harmless spells.
To be perfectly frank, this is a sh177y background. It tells me as the DM absolutely nothing useful. Spend points on a cross class skill - you should be able to get 5 ranks or so by 7th level. Or else take a level in something other than fighter to represent all that non-fighter specific training you've supposedly had. Don't come whinning to me with a useless background telling me that you deserve something for nothing. You know what this kind of background really tells a DM? It tells the DM that the background isn't all that important to the player, because if the background was really important to the player he'd be perfectly willing to design and play a 'sub-optimal' character because it fit the background. But what you are really saying here is having Spellcraft on your character sheet is important and you've come up with some useless background information to justify it. Besides which, this is a fighter we are dealing with. With all the feats out there that enhance skills, and all the feats that a fighter qualifies for, you can't tell me that the fighter couldn't have sacrificed a wee bit of combat skill to take a feat that enhanced his spellcraft. After all, all those hours spent over the last 10 years learning spellcraft weren't spent learning other things. Ride, climb, or jump might be something you'd naturally train while learning to fight, but spellcraft isn't.
