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Message: <blockquote data-quote="shurai" data-source="post: 3080162">The real problem is a flaw with skill pointsI think the really big problem is the narrowness of D&D characters, which is partly encouraged by culture and partly encouraged by the rules.  Not all players have this attitude, but a common opinion is that nothing is worth doing unless you can someday become a stupendous badass at it.  This is completely against human nature.  I read it in somebody's sig:  Specialization is for insects, and it's true.  We're primates; we're meant to be versatile.Now we come to the rules problems:  The game is way too linear and way too zero-sum.  Characters can't be "awesome" at a thing unless they are also "terrible" at almost everything else.  It's the fundamental reason why min-maxing is popular.  A better approach is for characters to be "awesome" at a thing and "decent" at a cocktail of other things.To accomplish this, if I ever run another d20 game again (which is doubtful since I'm almost finished writing my own system that does what I want it to do), I'm going to rewrite the classes' skill points per level awards to give more out, and then I'm going to make high ranks cost more skill points than low ranks.  That way all classes will be encouraged to spread their skill selections out some more and pick up on those skills that aren't deemed to be so valuable.It'd probably be something like, roughly, most classes get +2 or +4 additional skill points per level (or a multiple of the old amounts; I haven't done the math).  Then, the first seven ranks of a skill cost as normal, then the next five cost +1 points per rank, followed by +2 points after that.  I'd probably not enforce the max ranks = class level + 3 rule, and possibly take away the bonus skill points a first-level character gets.  I could see tweaking the cross-class skill cost rule so that it instead alters the levels at which more ranks become more expensive, too.  The goal is to make it cheap for people to get to competence, and exensive for people to become true experts.The exact mechanics might need adjustment but the logic is sound.  The important thing is for a min-maxed character to look a lot less attractive, which is really great for the game if you ask me.For starters, there will be a lot more license for the DM to say to players, "Gee, guess you should've learned that skill, huh?"  ; D</blockquote>

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