Skills That Should be Handy for an Adventurer...But Aren't in Actual Play.

[Wolfwood2]

The two biggest uses I see for Heal are not getting hitpoints back.

1. Poisons and DIseases. Having someone with good heal ranks really helps when you've got a poisoned/diseased party member and they need to make their secondary check. Yes, this aspect of the skill eventually gets overtaken by magic, but for the lower 10 levels it still comes in pretty handy. It's a while before the cleric gets to the point where they can blow a slot on Hero's Feast every day or several slots on Neutralize Posion, after all.

2. Autopsy. Not an official use of the skill, but one most DMs inevitably resort to. "What killed this thing? How long ago did it die? Was it magic or weapons that killed it?" Adventurers encounter a lot of dead bodies, and a successful Heal check can supply a lot of useful information.

 

[Felon]

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.

Hehe. Still, a wand of cure light wands is incredibly cheap.

 

[moritheil]

Decipher Script is largely seen as the province of NPC expert sages and the like, and I am inclined to agree that it rarely sees use. Few DMs would willingly design an adventure that hinges around someone having maxed ranks in Decipher Script, after all.

Heal is good for healing lorecall and for the occasional odd thing that demands a DC 20+ heal check to fix (such as injuries from a clay golem.)

Appraise is only good if you want to size up your targets' wealth - knowing that your enemies don't have masterwork weapons might help you decide to conserve firepower on an encounter.

I strongly disagree that 'Bluff' should not be useful even in RP campaigns - sure, you can beautifully RP bluffing the NPCs - but where else should the DM turn when he's not sure if an NPC ought to believe something?

The only skill I would really say gets useless at high levels is Jump - when everyone can fly at will, why bother making Jump checks?

The problem with sense motive is that it should be easier to lie than it is to detect lies. But as soon as one player says "I sense motive on the count" the rest of the party joins in with a dice-roll orgy of sense motive checks and one is bound to beat the bluff roll. And as soon as you say "the count seems like he's witholding something" or whatever they put him in the category of "enemy."

The solution is to let this also happen on a failed bluff check - chars wrongly sense something that isn't there.

 

[Blue]

Hide and Move Silently - while the are occasionally good, oftne if you're with a party (who don't all have it), you lose any chance to catch monsters unaware anyway.

Listen - sounds like the equivilant of Spot (which is by FAR the most used skill in the games I'mn in and the game I run), but it comes up so much less. I had to ask a DM out of game to occasionally have sound clues in one campaign where I specifically took listen (when both Listen and Spot were class skills) just to be different.

Cheers,
=Blue(23)

 

[Buttercup]

I don't think any of the skills are categorically useless. It is possible to design adventures that require the use of any of them. And it seems to me that if one's players are going to the trouble to create highly skilled characters, one might take that as an indication that they want to play the kind of game were there are frequent opportunities to use those skills.

Just my two cents.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Skills that seem useful for adventuring but aren't? Well some skills certainly look useless from the get go, like Forgery or Appraise or Use Rope.

For me, I voted:

Balance: too many DMs just substitute Reflex saves because they can't grapple their mind around how to differentiate Balance from Reflex saves. They just instinctively toss out "make a Reflex save".

Decipher Script: So rarely ever shows up. Poor adventure authoring seems to ignore this, and then when it's there and PCs don't have the skill... so frequently the PCs just get screwed because they can't figure out a critical code.

Handle Animal: I just never see it show up in play beyond animal tricks and those are a hassle that many don't bother getting an animal companion. Just roll it into Diplomacy and those characters with Wild Empathy get bonuses. For those NPC classes make up a feat that bestows Wild Empathy as an ability.

Slight of Hand: Never ever see it in play. By changing the name, players of rogues seem to have forgotten this is what they Pick Pockets with and thus rogues rarely ever seem to be picking pockets, or anything else involved with the broadened skill. It seems that it involves highly dextrous fingers, as much as does Use Rope... maybe those could be rolled in together.

Open Locks: This is the last skill I voted for. Once the trap is disarmed, opening the lock is meaningless after the knock spell is available. Wand of knock... Open Lock should be rolled into Disable Device... because when you pick a lock you are disabling a device!


I came close to voting for Use Rope... but that seems obviously useless. Maybe it is just after playing 3.x for years now it is obvious *shrug*.

 

[el-remmen]

I think the "usefulness" of skills is something that depends a good deal with the game culture at your table.

In my games, players tend to use starting skill points to show a little something about what their character is like - what they are interested in, what hobbies they might have and what their side-interests for getting through life might be.

Later points tend to be used more for "adventuring" stuff, but even then they tend to improved a few of their "downtime" skills as well - or even pick up new ones if things in the game are going in that direction that it might make sense to pick a few up.

Has the party rogue been spending time at point with the ranger, picking up some knowledge on tracking, finding food and shelter, etc. . ? If so, he might take a few ranks in survival - sure he is never going to be great at it, but it makes sense that he might learn a little bit of that stuff.

It is a matter of whether or not you play the kind of game where every point MUST maximized to its ultimate usefulness, or where you are creating a character in a more rounded world.

I chose Sleight of Hand as the least used, but Decipher Script fits the bill as well. . but that doesn't mean they are useless - just that the characters created so far have not had interest in that kind of thing, or opportunity to use b.c the nature of the campaign.

 

[Wolv0rine]

I don't think any of the skills are categorically useless. It is possible to design adventures that require the use of any of them. And it seems to me that if one's players are going to the trouble to create highly skilled characters, one might take that as an indication that they want to play the kind of game were there are frequent opportunities to use those skills.

Just my two cents.

And Buttercup nails it, nothin' but net.

Skills that seem useful for adventuring but aren't? Well some skills certainly look useless from the get go, like Forgery or Appraise or Use Rope.

I still don't understand Forgery or Appraise looking useless. Granted, not every character will be the type to use them, but then again Chongo the Barbarian has no business with ranks in Spellcraft, and thus that's about a pointless skill for HIM. It doesn't make the skill useless.

 

[Driddle]

Magic screws up the skill system badly.

 

[Agent Oracle]

from where I'm voting, only two skills have over 100 votes, and I voted for both of 'em.

Appraise is scarcely worth a mention. The only thing it's good for is determining the value of gems (which are an incidental portion of treasure). It's a skill a player can put one point in, and never need to improve again.

The second is "Decipher script". Never. used. ever. There's a spell that completely nullifies the need to even make a roll on this, and it is so low level that it is a crime not to use it!

For me, a close third would be (99 votes) use rope.

It's a friggin' knot. Oh, wait, it's only dc 15 escape check. Regardless of how well it's tied.