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

[Kelleris]

That and since Forgery is trained only, even a crappy bonus will often be sufficient since not many other people will have Forgery. It doesn't matter how bad the check result is on your false papers if the guards looking at them don't have Forgery.

My group considers Sense Motive pretty useless, since there will often be no difference in apparent results on failure or success. And people who like to Bluff can usually blow away a defender's Sense Motive without much trouble.

Err, you might want to check that again. Forgery can be used untrained (at least according to the Hypertext SRD), probably precisely so that 1 rank doesn't give you nigh-unbeatable forging ability.

 

[Thurbane]

I personally believe that the various Profession skills should have synergies.

For instance, Profession (Hunter) should really have synergy with Survival and/or Knowledge (Nature).

 

[Victim]

Err, you might want to check that again. Forgery can be used untrained (at least according to the Hypertext SRD), probably precisely so that 1 rank doesn't give you nigh-unbeatable forging ability.

Huh. Oops.

When I was in high school, I played for a couple of years with a DM who was really into intrigue and politics. Diplomacy, Sense Motive and Disguise were quite useful in his campaigns. Since then, I've played mostly in combat-oriented campaigns, and. like most of the previous posters in this thread, I've pretty much never used them.

I suppose its much more difficult to create and run campaigns based around non-combat themes (since the DM has to match wits with 4-5 people, instead of simply laying out a bunch of orcs), so the skills intended for that type of play never get used.

No, I didn't mean it like that all. Even in the context of political situations or intrigue, the skill isn't all it's cracked up to be - at least in my experience. The problem is that it's easier to boost bluff than it is to boost sense motive. The "attacker" usually knows he's going to be making some important bluffs, so he can stack the deck in his favor with greater ease. Just an "okay" (maxed, but without tons of Wis or other specials) sense motive will generally be inadequate. And then there's Glibness...