Reshuffling Skills ...

[Jeff Wilder]

That's an awesome House Rule that would make standard dungeon crawl, high action gaming a little less messy. However, for a Core Rules book it would be neglecting a game style that was possible with the 3.5e rules.

Are you contending that folding Appraise into Observe -- note, not even removing Appraise, just combining it with another skill -- renders an entire style of game moot?

If so, I very much disagree. I do appreciate the comments, though.

From my own experience, which includes gaming with at least 20 other players, nobody takes or uses Appraise. While Pathfinder does make it more useful, it does it in a way that also means that when people don't take it -- and the players I know won't, because it doesn't really stand alone in a heroic fantasy game -- they're likely to end up screwed in a fundamental way, but being unable to get full value for treasure or full use from magic items. Combine that with the fact that I want my PCs to be able to identify the loot they find, and combining Appraise with a reasonable, more often used, skill is just good sense.

(BTW, a "country bumpkin" who has been adventuring long enough to be able to reliably find traps is no longer a country bumpkin. He's a professional adventurer, and I really don't have a problem with a professional adventurer being able to "observe" the value of the treasure he finds. Even if he was originally from BFE.)

 

[Krensky]

For Appraise, have you considered renaming it and adding some uses? Something similar to, say, Spycraft 2.0's Analysis skill. Appraise (or whatever) could be used for identifying items, determining value, solving riddles and puzzles (or giving the players hints about how to do so), identifying the language those weird ancient runes are, analyzing a market or organization based on observation and interviews. Basically, make identifying and appraising items almost secondary to it's ability to figure (or to provide clues to help the players) things out in the game from disparate sources.

 

[Wolv0rine]

...which is just odd, because I've seen more than a few character sheets with skill points put into Appraise. It really does depend on the game style, if your DM empowers it (gives it a chance to ever be of any use or not), and your own gaming style/character concept.

Then again, I remember at one point (not here, in rl discussions some years back) people arguing the validity of the Ride skill without ever having ridden an animal or having the vaguest idea how easy or difficult it is to ride and control even an animal trained to be ridden. Me, I liked the Appraise skill before Pathfinder's changes to give it more oomph, and I like it now.

 

[Tilenas]

Concerning the language skill: I love the system used in Midnight, according to which there are three different levels of competency (pidgin, basic and fluent), as well as literacy.

All characters start off illiterate and have to acquire literacy in each language separately. A high Int score yields bonus skill points redeemable for ranks in speak language only. So to be able to speak a language fluently and read/write it, a character would have to spend 4 skill points. You can only increase your skill one level at a time, however. Picking up a new language will thus take three levels.

There are no language skill checks as such, but pidgin and basic proficiency incur penalties on other skills like bluff, diplomacy, etc.


The system makes knowing a language a more important aspect of the game, a useful skill to have.

 

[Kaisoku]

There are two mechanics for the skill system that I tend to dislike.

I really, really, really don't like the mechanic of "each skill point gives you one more of the following list". Perform and the current Speak Language both do this, and it's a mechanic that irks me.
I know it's done to simplify a corner case of the game that most people would gloss over anyways... but it just feels weird to have a person that's really REALLY good a piano, be JUST as good at 20 other instruments as well...
I can understand having some basic knowledge of music allowing quicker learning or even some aptitude for other instruments... but an Epic piano player should not automatically be an Epic violinist or cello or vocalist, etc.

The second mechanic I dislike is broadening a skill that thematically shouldn't require it. Meaning.. opening up Speak Language to be like Knowledge or Craft... you just don't need a 23 grade differentiation between fluency of a single language.
Perform could be made into how Knowledge works, being better and better at a specific instrument/style, etc. But speaking or writing a language is fairly binary after a certain point. Either you know the language well, or you are learning it... there's not enough distinction after that in real life, let alone required for a game like D&D to warrant it.


So Languages become this corner case that I've always had to just basically gloss over.

Probably the best way to handle it is to make it separate from the skill system, at least once you are fluent in it. Meaning... you don't use Speak Language to "know" a list of languages. If you know the language, be done with it.

Speak Language would instead be used to try to converse when you DON'T know the language. Meaning, those scholarly people that can try to converse with people by picking apart things they might recognize in body language and build from similar languages.

Actually knowing a language could have a different mechanic for learning, possibly just running a Complex Skill Check over the course of time, using the Speak Language skill (useable untrained, etc). Someone with a decent Int score could possibly eventually learn a language from exposure, without needing to dump skillpoints into it.

That makes Languages more campaign oriented, and something done over the course of the character's life... rather than just something you toss some points into.
And you'd still have the skill for the Polyglot characters that like to have the tongue of babel (or whatever). Spoony bards...


* Edit *
Checking Perform again, it works like the Knowledge skill since 3.5e. Still hate that kind of mechanic though, and it appears that Speak Language is the only one that still works like that.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Checking Perform again, it works like the Knowledge skill since 3.5e. Still hate that kind of mechanic though, and it appears that Speak Language is the only one that still works like that.

I think you may be confused on how Speak Language works, also.

In 3.5, learning a language costs 2 skill points. (1, if Speak Language is a class skill for you.) You don't have "ranks" in Speak Language ... you just spend the skill points and gain the language.

The Speak Language skill doesn’t work like other skills. Languages work as follows.

* You start at 1st level knowing one or two languages (based on your race), plus an additional number of languages equal to your starting Intelligence bonus.
* You can purchase Speak Language just like any other skill, but instead of buying a rank in it, you choose a new language that you can speak.
* You don’t make Speak Language checks. You either know a language or you don’t.
* A literate character (anyone but a barbarian who has not spent skill points to become literate) can read and write any language she speaks. Each language has an alphabet, though sometimes several spoken languages share a single alphabet.

So, if I'm reading your objection right, it's moot.

 

[Kaisoku]

That's exactly my objection though.. using what should be a skill system (20 grades of skill for differentiating ability between characters) for something that's basically "buy one more out of a list".

3.0 Perform did this (to a worse extent, as it included perform checks too), and Speak Language still does this.

Like I said before though, if you can't give two squats about languages in your game, then go the Star Trek route. But the current Speak Language is using a mechanic that irks me, and could be done better to make it have a reason beyond buying fluency like it's candy at a store.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Probably the best way to handle it is to make it separate from the skill system, at least once you are fluent in it. Meaning... you don't use Speak Language to "know" a list of languages. If you know the language, be done with it.

Okay, somehow we're getting our wires crossed, because it sounds like what you describe above is your preference for how Speak Language should work. Is that right?

If so, good news. That's exactly how it works.

Speak Language would instead be used to try to converse when you DON'T know the language. Meaning, those scholarly people that can try to converse with people by picking apart things they might recognize in body language and build from similar languages.

Ah, I see. Yes, that's a good idea. If you'll look at the first post, that's exactly what we added to the Linguistics skill.

Actually knowing a language could have a different mechanic for learning, possibly just running a Complex Skill Check over the course of time, using the Speak Language skill (useable untrained, etc).

I'd actually rather kill myself than track the progress of a character learning a language. Holy crap, how dull. If you want that in your game, more power to you, though.

Someone with a decent Int score could possibly eventually learn a language from exposure, without needing to dump skillpoints into it.

By that reasoning, any PC can learn any skill at no cost in skill points, given enough time and exposure, including things like BAB, sneak attack, and spellcasting. No thanks. That's not how the game works. Skills are character resources.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

But speaking or writing a language is fairly binary after a certain point. Either you know the language well, or you are learning it... there's not enough distinction after that in real life, let alone required for a game like D&D to warrant it.

I'm not quite sure what you're really arguing for, but as someone that's been trained to be an interpreter, I've gotta say you're partially wrong.

There's some pretty big differences in terms of ability to speak a language. You've got things like "register" (how formal or informal your word choices are), grammar, overall vocabulary, regional differences (like whether someone says, "soda", "pop", "Coke" or "fizzy"), word play (innuendo, puns, etc) and so forth.

Language contains a wealth of cultural information nested in it, in terms of assumptions of status, education, values...

It's a pretty involved and complicated thing.

Having languages operate the way they do might not be "ideal", but it's really the easiest way to handle something that most people aren't interested in the actual details of. To be honest, I'd say the majority of people are kinda clueless about the way language operates, unless they've specifically studied language in a more formalized fashion than the typical reading/writing classes you take in school.

Unless your game is really focused on language in some fashion, then there's certainly no need to try and model the the subtle (and not so subtle) distinctions that do exist. That part, I agree with. But mainly because that sort of thing is just tedious and boring to most people. Not because it isn't present.

Languages operate the way they do in the game, because in most cases language isn't the focus of the play. It's killing something and taking its stuff. Language basically boils down to "can you make yourself understood to someone else?" because that's the only function it serves.

 

[Kaisoku]

Conveniently, I can answer both posts at the same time.

I am aware that languages are very complex, however even in a game that requires some level of distinction between languages (such as a non-action game, possibly a Cthulu horror style game), you don't need much more than "are you fluent: yes/no".

Now, since the game treats languages as a binary thing, and doesn't require a 20 level grade of fluency between them, that is why it should be removed from the skill system.
Other skills have a reason for having so much differentiation between each other... they are being used as a bonus on a roll for actually performing the act.

Basically.. in order to know 20 Languages, you HAVE to be Epic at forgery, etc.
And in order to be Epic at forgery, etc, you HAVE to know 20 languages.
This is as bad as a virtuoso (23 ranks Perform) HAVING to know how to play 23 different instruments/styles all that well.


So yeah, any game that has Language as an important factor would be better off having your Languages tracked. Yes, it would be inane in an action game, but we aren't talking about a game that is basically ignoring Languages anyways.