Skills: To max or not to max?

[Asmor]

Ok, I wasn't sure whether this belonged in this forum or general, so I apologize if it's misclassified. It's not really a rules question so much as a strategy question...

Anyways, is it better to max out a small number of skills (for example, a fighter taking max ranks in int+2 skills) or to figure out what skills you think would be useful and distribute points among them? What if you're a class with a larger number of skills, such as a bard or rogue?

 

[Jeff Wilder]

There are two answers for this, one centered around character concept, and one centered around efficiency.

Obviously, certain character concepts might call for a larger number of skills that the PC in question can afford to max out. Similarly, some character concepts don't require a PC to be experts in narrow fields. In those cases, spread the skill points around. In my case, I use this idea most for knowledge skills: my mystic theurge is an expert at a few Knowledge skills, but he has the rest at an only moderate level.

Efficiency- and effectiveness-wise, for most skills, it's better to max them out, because generally the uses a character has for skills grow more difficult as the character gains power. (As one very obvious example, Search DCs for traps are directly related to the traps' CR, which is almost always tied the the heroes' CR.)

In some cases, though, a few ranks in a skill will tend to be enough for the uses a character needs. For instance, if all you want to be able to do with Craft (weaponsmith) is determine if discovered weapons are masterwork, you only need a few ranks in the skill. As another example, if you never plan to tumble through an enemy's space, you can stop increasing Tumble once you reliably can achieve DC 15. (For me, in that case, "reliably" is usually +14.)

Finally, some DMs use optional or house rules (or just seat-of-the-pants "fun rules") that tie the success and flashiness of success to the skill check result. Knowing if your DM does that, or intends to do that, will impact on your decision.

(The weirdest thing just happened. As I was typing that last sentence, a tiny spark jumped out of my keyboard from between the F and G keys. I've never seen anything like that before. But I digress.)

Generally, when I'm creating a PC or NPC at a low-level, I max out all skills. If I'm creating at a higher level, I max out half my skills, and put half-max ranks into twice as many other skills. (Which skills get maxed and which don't still get decided as above.) As a quick-and-dirty compromise, it works pretty well.

 

[Thanee]

It really depends on the skill and why you choose to learn it.

There are some, which require you to max out, because of the game mechanics, since otherwise they are mostly useless. Concentration is a good example here.

There are also skills, which have a fixed DC, which at some point you will beat easily enough, like Tumble (and to some degree Concentration, but that's only for really high levels).

In other cases it might be better to branch out more, to cover more breadth, like with the Knowledge skills.

Then there are skills, which you pick up to give your character a certain degree of ... well ... skill in a certain area, then you want to pick an appropriate level according to your background, like when a character has learned to ride, but isn't particulary good at it, you just put a few ranks into it, but do not max it.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Li Shenron]

IMXP it depends on very many factors.

It is true that some skills should better be as high as possible, UMD for example. Other skills don't benefit much from higher ranks as they do from lower ranks and at lower levels, such as Heal or Tumble.

There are even some skills with occasional use that are sometimes more worth to spend the smallest amount of sp you can, just to have them "trained". It may work for example to get 1 rank in a lesser Knowledge if you have a high Int, or 1 rank in Tumble as cross-class (2sp) if you have anyway +3 or more Dex, just to use it even once per adventure.

Then it depends on how many skill points the character has per level. My personal opinion is that if you have very few skill points it's best to forget about maxing which would limit your character to 1-2 skill only, and consider instead more skill at "half-maxing" for example. More sp give you more freedom of course, but to other end of the spectrum having too many skills to use can result in underusing many of them.

Finally, it depends on the rest of the group, since several skills don't need more than a character to have them. Therefore, the larger the party, the better it is to max less skills than to spread points to cover more.

 

[Blue]

Since you seem to be asking from a efficiency side and not a character development side, here's my take on that. Skills fall into a few categories:

Skills with DCs that scale by level: Bluff vs. Sense Motive. Search checks for higher CR traps. Spot vs. Hide. You need to keep these maxed because otherwise they'll fall behind.

Skills that allow you to do more wih a higher roll: These aren't quite the first category because their isn't anything directly opposing them, but if you keep high you can do amazing things. Like if you've bought a lot of ranks of jump, you probably use it often and you might as well keep it high or even maxed just so you can do heroic jumps.

Skills with static DCs: These you may want to get to the point to do what you want and then stop advancing them. You may want to get up to +5 with Heal so that you can stop bleeding by taking 10. There is a point where more climb or swim is pretty much useless.

Skills you use for synergy bonuses instead of checks: Why advance these beyond five ranks?

Again, this is just for efficiency - often characters will have skill ranks that follow their personality. That's a different conversation, and not a less important one by any means.

Cheers,
=Blue

 

[taliesin15]

Very sensible advice before--Thanee mentions getting a few ranks of Ride being sufficient, I would also add have just a few ranks of Swim, maybe that 3.5 Survival skill too