Skill Knowledge Feat (UA)

[Garnfellow]

Unearthed Arcana includes in its variant skill system section a new feat called Skill Knowledge. This feat lets you pick either two of your class skills or one cross-class skill; the selected skills are always hereafter considered class skills for you.

Is there any reason why this feat couldn't/shouldn't be used with the standard D&D skill system?

 

[Olive]

Is there any reason why this feat couldn't/shouldn't be used with the standard D&D skill system?

Not as far as I can see!

 

[UltimaGabe]

I believe there was a feat in either Oriental Adventures or Kingdoms of Kalamar called Skill Prodigy- I believe it had a prerequisite of Intelligence 13+. You choose one skill per point of intelligence bonus (so a character with an 18 could choose 4) and those skills are forever treated as Class Skills for you.

 

[Garnfellow]

I believe there was a feat in either Oriental Adventures or Kingdoms of Kalamar called Skill Prodigy- I believe it had a prerequisite of Intelligence 13+. You choose one skill per point of intelligence bonus (so a character with an 18 could choose 4) and those skills are forever treated as Class Skills for you.

I think Skill Prodigy is a Kalamar feat, and I believe the AEG Rokugon book has the Versatile feat, which allows you to pick any two skills, which are then always class skills.

These two feats are both from books using the D&D logo, licensed by third parties from Wizards of the Coast. I think WotC designers have to vet all of the game content in these licensed books. (Several third party d20 publishers have come up with similar feats.)

Skill Prodigy is clearly better than Versatile, which in turn is clearly better than Skill Knowledge. On one hand, Skill Knowledge is the only feat to come straight from WotC, so it carries a certain amount of weight in that respect. But on the other hand, Skill Knowledge is presented as part of a variant, simplified skill system that places less value on the number of skill ranks spent and more value on whether a skill is class or cross-class.

Within this UA variant skill system, Skill Knowledge seems reasonably powered.

But is Skill Knowledge too weak to be used in with the standard skill system -- especially in light of the Versatile and Skill Prodigy feats?

 

[dcollins]

Unearthed Arcana includes in its variant skill system section a new feat called Skill Knowledge. This feat lets you pick either two of your class skills or one cross-class skill; the selected skills are always hereafter considered class skills for you.

Is there any reason why this feat couldn't/shouldn't be used with the standard D&D skill system?

Well... it would at least need to get re-written since it's specific to the UA "Variant: Max Ranks, Fewer Choices" as I recall. Under that system this addition is effectively giving you more skill points, and instantaneously gives you ranks in the skills selected.

You would need to decide under the "standard" system whether it's actually giving you free ranks in the selected skills, or whether you then need to apply normal skill points into them.

 

[iceifur]

IIRC, the second option of the feat is supposed to apply to the normal skill system. Could be wrong, though.

-B-