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

[el-remmen]

It's hardly enlightening to point out that magic can frequently overshadow skills. It's actually one of the reasons for this thread....

I don't think you get the point of his post.

Those were just examples of getting around poor skills on the part of some party members by creative thinking.

Then again, some people want to play a game where everyone has a decent chance of doing just about anything on their own, which is all well and good, but others don't.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

I say several skills are widely underused, and here is my roll-into-other-skills list. Keep the ability the old skills are associated with, but have common skill points (Shadowrun used to use this, sort of).

Spot + Listen = Perception

Swim + Jump = Athletics

Hide + Move Silently = Stealth (or Prowl, or Sneak, that sounds better)

Tumble + Escape Artist = Acrobatics

Open Lock + Disable Device = Disable Device

Climb + Balance = ? uhh, Climb/Balance

Decipher Script + Decipher Language (new, and needed skill, in a world of 50,000 languages) = Decipher

I'm also a fan of lower impact magic. I wanna roll the skill checks instead of reading off a scroll of: "I Can Do That Too, For Only 25gp"

Oh, and Concentration, so underused it isn't funny. Only see it used for casting defensively. No one ever uses it to do skills that might provoke, or to not stop drinking the potion they just got whacked for drinking. Should change it to Focus, and use it whenever you might get distracted to keep from provoking an AoO.

 

[Felon]

I don't think you get the point of his post.

Those were just examples of getting around poor skills on the part of some party members by creative thinking.

They were all examples of using magic as the all-purpose utility to get around obstacles, which is sort of a bette noir for people who want to see skills get a boost. I wouldn't really call most of them particularly creative.

On a personal note, real creativity is gettng around obstacles using mundane methods, stuff that's grounded in the laws of physics, not reality-cheating super-powers or magical versions of James Bond gadgets. But to each their own.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

This thread has really slowed down.

Do you suppose we could start a thread on how to make the "winners" of this poll more useful?

I'd love to see a non-stupid use for Sleight of Hand, for instance, beyond planting evidence in someone's pocket.

 

[Remathilis]

I was actually thinking about rolling Appraise, Forgery and some other "illegal" activities into "Streetwise" and perhaps rolling profession (sailor), piloting, and use rope into "Seamanship"

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Climb + Balance = ? uhh, Climb/Balance

Calling the skill "Agility" would be reasonable.

I agree that Concentration is a strangely limited skill. You would think that it would be plausibly useful for more than casting defensively. IRL the ability to concentrate is very potent.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I can't vote b/c there's no choice for "but we use *all* these skills!"

Appraise is used by the thief to figure out which item he should grab before the rest of the party catches up. Heal is a nifty thing for when something drops the cleric or they enter one of the Chaos Lands where magic acts funny. Balance is rarely used but only b/c the players forget about it until they really need it; there have been several instances of them running along rooftops or moving around a ship's ratlines where it proved its value.

Climb is used sporadically, depending on the presence of slippers of spiderclimb, but no one has ever called it useless. Decipher script...okay that's only been used a few times but that's as much due to the party's craving for learning languages as anything else. UMD sees use when the cleric is being eaten and the ranger is too busy to use the wand of CLW himself.

The social skills are useful since I have the GG roll d20s before the game that I use as needed. Net result is that they RP a bit and then I translate into what they actually said/did. (Go watch Beerfest and pay attention to the "beer goggles" scene and you'll see the difference between what they thought they said/did/saw and what really happened.) My group are good RPers so once they figure out how badly they blew it or aced it that they'll ham it up a bit and play up their roll.

Craft is used during winter to make their own MW items for enchantment or to maintain their gear after a bad day. Pick pock-errrr, sleight of hand hasn't seen use but that's a choice of the party; they tend to be pretty overt.

I've also ruled that forgery is the skill to reproduce any document including maps, heraldic devices, books, etc. As such, the party tends to make a Concentration check to memorize a thing and then forgery to try and reproduce it as best they can. Great for magical circles, mystic runes, and glyphs of all kinds.

 

[Drowbane]

The new Skills

House Rules excerpt...

Acrobatics = Balance, Tumble
Athletics = Climb, Jump, Swim
Disable Device = Disable Device, Open Locks
Legerdemain = Escape Artist, Sleight of Hand
Perception = Listen, Spot (alternately called Awareness about half the time)
Sneak = Hide, Move Silently (alternately called Stealth about half the time)

 

[Bardsandsages]

Use Magic Device is the most pointless, unless your rogue is willing to sacrifice his open lock, disable device, search, etc skills to spend enough points in it to make it useful. And then it is one of the more convoluted skills to use rule-wise.

Swim is VERY valuable, and all my players have at least a couple ranks in it. But then again I have a habit of putting them on boats and sinknig said boats.

And in actuality a lot of the skills get used quite often. And usually my players will learn to make sure at least someone in the party is good at any given skill because they know at some point it will come into play. I do, however, allow knowledge (general) as sort of a liberal arts catch all. You know a bit about a lot of stuff, but not a lot of detail. You can make a general knowledge check to know that X city has been ruled by the same family for five generations, but you would need a specialization (knowledge: nobility) to know the family's alliances and enemies and such.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

Ya know, my group keeps saying how important it is for the rogue to have all the roguish trap skills maxxed out, and if you don't, then your character is useless to the party. And we have yet to have more than 1 out of every 5 or 6 traps found and disabled, and even then, half the ones that are found go off anyway. :\ what a waste of skill points.
my very first 3.5 rogue died in a filling room trap right after rolling a natural 20, with maxxed disable and MW picks, and still missed the DC by 2.