Skills That Should be Handy for an Adventurer...But Aren't in Actual Play.
- Thread starter Felon
- Start date
danzig138 said:
I gotta wonder how you're getting all that much use out of Heal.
There's a big, big difference between D&D's Heal and D20 Modern's Treat Injury. Providing long-term care with Heal counts as eight hours of activity. Long-term care with Treat Injury only requires a half-hour minimum per patient. In the former case, the caregiver is essentially spending all day or night tending to a single character, and can't rest himself while doing it.
I like the ideas of combining skills and toning down the skill lists. Normally I wouldn't shove jump, climb and swim all into athletics but since this is D&D an adventurer probably SHOULD be able to confidently traverse all manner of obstacles.
One thing that I would NOT do is put search in with Listen and Spot. Listen and Spot combined into Notice would be fine, they are both based off of Wisdom and represent a kind of perceptual reation roll. How well does a character readily percieve things that are pretty much directly within line of.... whatever.
Search, however doesn't do any of those things. It is the skill of finding things that are purposefully hidden and is based off intelligence. I would certainly have search continue to be its own skill just because of that.
A rule of thumb might well be that one shouldn't combine skills unless they are based off the same attribute. Climb, Jump and Swim? all okay. Listen and spot? Okay. I like just ditching spellcraft since K:Arcana and K:Religion should do the job nicely. Tumble and balance should certainly both be acrobatics, but I don't know that escape artist should be lumped in there as well.
Cool stuff to think on though.
One thing that I would NOT do is put search in with Listen and Spot. Listen and Spot combined into Notice would be fine, they are both based off of Wisdom and represent a kind of perceptual reation roll. How well does a character readily percieve things that are pretty much directly within line of.... whatever.
Search, however doesn't do any of those things. It is the skill of finding things that are purposefully hidden and is based off intelligence. I would certainly have search continue to be its own skill just because of that.
A rule of thumb might well be that one shouldn't combine skills unless they are based off the same attribute. Climb, Jump and Swim? all okay. Listen and spot? Okay. I like just ditching spellcraft since K:Arcana and K:Religion should do the job nicely. Tumble and balance should certainly both be acrobatics, but I don't know that escape artist should be lumped in there as well.
Cool stuff to think on though.
Ahnehnois
First Post
UMD is my biggest gripe. Seems like it would be incredibly useful, but IME there's always someone of the right class to actually use any magic item.
People's complains on such skills as Appraise, Forgery, and Profession I don't get. Of course those are useless (except in certain campaigns).
I agree that some spells preempt skills, but I happen to think combining spells with Disguise is much better than the spells alone.
I can't believe anyone would mention knowledge. For what kind of D&D game is Know (Arcana) not right at the top of the list of most useful skills?
People's complains on such skills as Appraise, Forgery, and Profession I don't get. Of course those are useless (except in certain campaigns).
Sense Motive works against getting ripped off. And you can use it in other circumstances too.
I agree that some spells preempt skills, but I happen to think combining spells with Disguise is much better than the spells alone.
I can't believe anyone would mention knowledge. For what kind of D&D game is Know (Arcana) not right at the top of the list of most useful skills?
VirtualWizard
Explorer
I voted for four skills: Appraise, Craft, Forgery, and Profession. These skills should be useful, but in actual play they come up lacking.
Appraise: learning the value of an item. In practice, this skill eats up a lot of time that is better spent playing the adventure. As to why this isn't lumped in with the appropriate craft or knowledge skill, I don't know. It should be.
Craft: Create or repair an item. Everyone should have some crafting ability especially for repairing items. However, D20 games don't really deal with damaged items. An item is either fully functional or broke (kind of like characters
). When is the last time you've heard a GM mention that the magical +2 sword you've found in the dragon hoard has only 5hps instead of 12? As for crafting items, the time requirement isn't too bad. However, most characters want mastercraft items. By the time a character can create a mastercraft item with a good chance of success, the character should already be able to buy a better item.
Forgery: Make false or duplicate documents. This skill should be very useful in any setting where a person's identity is important. However, most D20 settings pay lip service if any to these very important documents.
Profession: Knowledge of a vocation and how to earn money. Usually by the time a person reaches his/her majority, they should be able to fend for themselves in the world. Therefore, most civilized people should have a few ranks in some craft, perform, or profession skill. (Nomadic cultures more likely rely on survival.) However, most characters earn their money from looting. The amount of money and equipment to be gained by adventuring so out weighs the pittance gained by a profession check that one wonders why everyone isn't an adventurer. Sure, it is dangerous work, but the rewards from a typical adventure can set one up for a year or more. Also, the knowledge gained from a profession typically has little use in most adventures. With skill points being at a premium, characters have better skills to spend them on.
Appraise: learning the value of an item. In practice, this skill eats up a lot of time that is better spent playing the adventure. As to why this isn't lumped in with the appropriate craft or knowledge skill, I don't know. It should be.
Craft: Create or repair an item. Everyone should have some crafting ability especially for repairing items. However, D20 games don't really deal with damaged items. An item is either fully functional or broke (kind of like characters
). When is the last time you've heard a GM mention that the magical +2 sword you've found in the dragon hoard has only 5hps instead of 12? As for crafting items, the time requirement isn't too bad. However, most characters want mastercraft items. By the time a character can create a mastercraft item with a good chance of success, the character should already be able to buy a better item.Forgery: Make false or duplicate documents. This skill should be very useful in any setting where a person's identity is important. However, most D20 settings pay lip service if any to these very important documents.
Profession: Knowledge of a vocation and how to earn money. Usually by the time a person reaches his/her majority, they should be able to fend for themselves in the world. Therefore, most civilized people should have a few ranks in some craft, perform, or profession skill. (Nomadic cultures more likely rely on survival.) However, most characters earn their money from looting. The amount of money and equipment to be gained by adventuring so out weighs the pittance gained by a profession check that one wonders why everyone isn't an adventurer. Sure, it is dangerous work, but the rewards from a typical adventure can set one up for a year or more. Also, the knowledge gained from a profession typically has little use in most adventures. With skill points being at a premium, characters have better skills to spend them on.
The only one I voted for is Decipher Script. Its best for the party if they invest in a few scrolls of comprehend languages and have you put the points into something more useful.
A lot of the social skills are campaign dependent, but if you get an opportunity to use them then they can be handy indeed. I even made use of disguise once against some orcs to get some suprise sneak attacks in. Disguise Self doesn't really replace Disguise, because its self only - Disguise works best as part of a suite of skills like Bluff, Gather Information, Diplomacy, etc. Cat burglars are fun, but so are James Bond types who walk right in the front door disguised and bluffing.
Survival stays off the list because its used for tracking - and when a character has Track it gets used constantly.
With regards to subcontracting a skill like Forgery: and how excatly are you going to find this quality forger, hire a town crier to announce that you're looking for someone to help you commit a crime?
I suppose if you have a party member with really good skills in Gather Information, Diplomacy and Sense Motive you can find yourself a good forger without falling afoul of the law, local thieves guild, etc or getting sold out or double crossed.
I wonder if I should have marked Craft. In regards to armor and weapon smithing, I've only ever found it to be useful *before* actual play, if I can make use of it in character creation to make my own gear. A fighter can effectively have double or triple their starting money and show up on day one in a nice suit of Banded mail.
Appraise - this is one that maybe I could have voted for, but nobody takes it because we just flat out ignore the mechanic. No one wants to take the effort to add that extra "Papers and Paychecks" accounting for one. But worse that the rules here seem incomplete.
Okay, you just valued the gem at 150% of real value - now what? And then it can just get worse if you add in rolls for the merchant: what if he's valued that same gem at 50% of value. How do you resolve that? I suppose for any session with a merchant you can assume that the final price offered is whichever appraise value is smaller (unlikely that players who undervalued item will succeed in bartering to a price of more than they offered with an experienced merchant). I think just hand waving this all away results in happier faces at the gaming table. They got their loot and everyone's spending more time on the fun stuff.
A lot of the social skills are campaign dependent, but if you get an opportunity to use them then they can be handy indeed. I even made use of disguise once against some orcs to get some suprise sneak attacks in. Disguise Self doesn't really replace Disguise, because its self only - Disguise works best as part of a suite of skills like Bluff, Gather Information, Diplomacy, etc. Cat burglars are fun, but so are James Bond types who walk right in the front door disguised and bluffing.
Survival stays off the list because its used for tracking - and when a character has Track it gets used constantly.
With regards to subcontracting a skill like Forgery: and how excatly are you going to find this quality forger, hire a town crier to announce that you're looking for someone to help you commit a crime?
I suppose if you have a party member with really good skills in Gather Information, Diplomacy and Sense Motive you can find yourself a good forger without falling afoul of the law, local thieves guild, etc or getting sold out or double crossed. I wonder if I should have marked Craft. In regards to armor and weapon smithing, I've only ever found it to be useful *before* actual play, if I can make use of it in character creation to make my own gear. A fighter can effectively have double or triple their starting money and show up on day one in a nice suit of Banded mail.
Appraise - this is one that maybe I could have voted for, but nobody takes it because we just flat out ignore the mechanic. No one wants to take the effort to add that extra "Papers and Paychecks" accounting for one. But worse that the rules here seem incomplete.
Okay, you just valued the gem at 150% of real value - now what? And then it can just get worse if you add in rolls for the merchant: what if he's valued that same gem at 50% of value. How do you resolve that? I suppose for any session with a merchant you can assume that the final price offered is whichever appraise value is smaller (unlikely that players who undervalued item will succeed in bartering to a price of more than they offered with an experienced merchant). I think just hand waving this all away results in happier faces at the gaming table. They got their loot and everyone's spending more time on the fun stuff.
I find that 'Bluff' is probably the most useless skill in mechanical terms.
If you want to bluff someone, it should be down to your role-playing.
As a DM, I would never allow a character to bluff his way past one of my NPCs on a die-roll, he needs to come up with a good story! I, on the other hand, might be rolling to see how gullible the NPC is, if the quality of the story is not readily apparent.
To this end, when playing I never put any skill points into ranks in Bluff, despite the fact that most of my characters tend to get themselves out of (or is that in to?) trouble by talking rather than brawling.
Tongue often hang man quicker than rope, after all!
If you want to bluff someone, it should be down to your role-playing.
As a DM, I would never allow a character to bluff his way past one of my NPCs on a die-roll, he needs to come up with a good story! I, on the other hand, might be rolling to see how gullible the NPC is, if the quality of the story is not readily apparent.
To this end, when playing I never put any skill points into ranks in Bluff, despite the fact that most of my characters tend to get themselves out of (or is that in to?) trouble by talking rather than brawling.
Tongue often hang man quicker than rope, after all!
Gold Roger
First Post
Depending on the DM all of the skills can be of great use.
However, many skills are so easily and early invalidated by spells that taking ranks in them is eventually nothing but window dressing.
However, many skills are so easily and early invalidated by spells that taking ranks in them is eventually nothing but window dressing.
danzig138
Explorer
You can use Heal to provide long-term care to up to 6 patients simultaneously, and it counts as 8 hours of light activity. So it can benefit the entire group, and still allow rest and other activities. It sees so much use because, God love em, they get their butts handed to them on a regular basis, even by low-powered encounters.Felon said:
