Skill Points Per Class

[Prince Atom]

Could someone explain to me the reasons why the new game assigned skill points like it did?

I can see some classes. The fighter is feat-o-centric, the wizard is expected to have a high Int score, and the rogue can't do anything well, so they might as well give her more skill points.

But they give the rogue twice as many as any other class, and more than a few classes only get 2 skill points a level.

Could someone go through the classes and explain to me why each class gets the skill points they do? I am trying very hard to understand this, but I just can't grasp it.

Thanks!

TWK

 

[rushlight]

Each class is balanced by the amount of skill points it receives. For instance, a mage's main ability is spell casting, and most of the (for lack of a better term) "weight" of the class goes into that. A small portion goes to skills and feats, and the tiny remainder goes to hit points and base attack bonus.

Alternatively, most of the fighter's "weight" is in the form of feats, base attack bonus and hit points. These are the things a fighter needs to be half way decent at his job. Less of the weight goes to skills, and none to spell casting obviously.

Rogues get most of their ability from the skill set. These are the things that embody a rogue - picking locks, disarming traps, searching, and whatnot. Less of the weight for rogues goes to base attack scores and hit points, and fewer to feats, although a rogue gets several class features that no one else gets. Without all those skill points, a rogue would be useless.

The other classes function in similar manner. Where one class gets lots of special abilities, it will be weaker in another area. Druids have spells, but not as many or as powerful (usually!) as clerics or mages. But druids get wildshape. Barbarians don't get as many feats as fighters, but they get a larger hit die, and the rage ability. It's all a matter of balance.

 

[maddman75]

The reason the rogue gets so many skill points is simple - skills are what the rogue does! Most of the old 'thief abilities' from 1e/2e were adapted as skills. Now certainly, anyone can take them (most of them anyway) but the rogue tends to be really good at them. Saying 'rogue's can't do anything well' isn't true. They do skills well, and the combination of special abilities and sneak attack make them a very nice class.

Fighters, sorcerers, wizards, clerics, and paladins don't do skills that much. They might have a couple, but it isn't their main foucs.

Monks need the skill points for their martial arts type skills. Tumble, Jump, stealth, etc.

Rangers need stealth and wilderness skills.

Bards need social skills - perform, diplomacy, bluff, etc.

Barbarians need nature survival skills.

Druids tend to use a lot of nature lore as well.

Its simply another way that the classes are balanced against each other.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

class balance.

The problem is with classes and balance is what are they balanced for. Are they balanced for a very broad based, everything goes camapaign, are they balanced for a intrigue based campaign, are they balanced for combat etc. 3rd edition didn't try to hide that they primarily balanced things for combat. So those who were seen as the less than the best in combat would recieve some extra benefits, like class skills and skill points.

The more free you allow multiclassing(3rd ed fairly free) the less of a problem that can crop up when you play camapign styles that are away from what the game was balanced for. In 3e the balance sorta goes out the door if you are playing a we almost never get in a fight style campaign, there all the fighters feat mean nothing and all he really wants is a few more skill points and a decent class skill list. Spellcasters still look good even with thier 2 skill points a level, because spells substitute not only for combat but for skills as well.

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

I think they did a fair job balancing things out. However, with the sheer number of skills, some useful, some all but necessary, and because of the style of campaign we are currently playing, I increased everyones skill points by 2 per level. Fighters are still going to have to make hard choices, and rouges aren't made that much more insane. We also defined several new Knowledge skills, and made them important in game. Each race has 2-3 of these as racial skills, no matter what class they are.

 

[reapersaurus]

Could someone explain to me the reasons why the new game assigned skill points like it did?

Because they screwed up?

Seriously, I think they did.
They should have given 2 more skill points to everyone, and the MANY people that agree and have made that change without unbalancing classes means to ME that they screwed up, and in a bad direction: they made it less interesting to play with so few skill points, and made many character concepts not work well.

 

[CRGreathouse]

I generally find that there are often too many skill points - more skill points = less individuality as characters take the same core of skills. Still, I'd hate to drop it across the board, and in the end, I decided that the designers knew what they were doing.

IMC, the average skill points per level > 6. The barbarian gets about the right number of skill points (2), the rogue gets way too many (his fault for taking a high Int ), and the paladin gets too many (5). By "too many" I mean that they've taken all the 'basic' skills, then dumped the rest into something generic (Spot/Listen as cross-class, etc.).

I'm playing a game now with an Int 10 paladin. His skills: Diplomacy +11, Knowledge (religion) +7, Profession (barrister) +4, Ride +4. I certainly don't feel 'strapped' for skills - and I don't feel obliged to max out K(r) - even though I did. (It fits the character, trust me.)

 

[Duncan Haldane]

Has anyone else noticed a problem with Skill Creep?

Products often add a new skill - mostly different types of knowledges, professions and craft skills.

This leads to problems where knowledges are close together, but we have no official overlap. - eg, Knowledge (Religion) and Knowledge (Arcana) teach you nothing about the planes because of Knowledge (The Planes) - yet with magic, both divine and arcane, you can summon creatures from the planes.

How do you deal with this sort of problem in your game/s?

Duncan

 

[CRGreathouse]

How do you deal with this sort of problem in your game/s?

Old skills are just as effective. New, more specific skills have a bonus when dealing with their area, but can't go outside.

 

[Duncan Haldane]

Old skills are just as effective. New, more specific skills have a bonus when dealing with their area, but can't go outside.

Fair enough.

I've often wondered whether D&D now needs a knowledge tree, as it were.

Other skill based games systems often have a broad skill and specialisations within it, but this would be harder to implement in D&D because of the few number of skill points. At the moment it's a simple system which I don't want to complicate.

Duncan