& Sneak Attack: Skills and Proficiencies

[SSquirrel]

"+6 racial bonus to atheletics when jumping"

Thanks for the hilarious mental picture Celebrim. I'm picturing a tough dwarven fighter arm wrestling a halfling barbarian, but the halfling in bouncing up and down to get the athletics bonus so he can pin the dwarf.

 

[Lizard]

That's honestly brilliant.

Feels more like rpg.net Lizard, though.

Is the preview throwing your scheduling off?

Is there more than one of me?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

How did they go from "Problem:Too Few Skill Points" to "Solution:No Skill Points"?

That wasn't really the problem they were trying to solve. The problem they were trying to solve is this one:

Players spend a lot of time looking at the list of skills trying to figure out which skills to put points into in a list of a LOT of options, and whether they should put 1, 2, 3, or 4 skill points in any particular skill, since they want a character who knows a little bit about nature(but not that much), a little bit about religion, a little bit about magic, and is really good at spotting and listening.

And after spending a bunch of time moving skill points one at a time from one skill to another trying to figure out the right mix, they'd get to the table and realize that any skill they didn't put max ranks into had nearly no chance of succeeding. The DM would tell them to make a DC 20 Knowledge(Nature) check when they put 1 rank into it with a Wisdom of 10 and they realized they'd almost never succeed. Meanwhile, they keep failing their search checks by 1 or 2 because they put 1 less point than max into Search in order to take the rank in Knowledge(Nature).

And this problem is completely solved using this skill system. You can ONLY take max ranks in a skill you want to be good at. The skills you don't want to be good at all still have a reasonable chance of succeeding. It reinforces character archetypes(Rogues are the ones who use Thievery), And it speeds up skill selection dramatically.

 

[SSquirrel]

Who was it saying Indy never rolls a one while dealing with traps?

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Is there more than one of me?

At first I thought so.

But since then I've come to recognize that there are simply many faces to Dr. Lau.

Either that or, like Shakespeare, you're simply the world's best run committee.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Where is the sap proficiency?

 

[Spatula]

It's not too hard to say your short sword looks like a rapier. The only difference between the two in 3.x was the threat range.

Not quite true, as the short sword is a light weapon and the rapier is not (all light weapons are finessable but the reverse is not true).

 

[Spatula]

Regarding the rapier, all melee powers refer to light blades. Considering rapier is still a light blade, I see no problems here.

It is? Where are the stats for the 4e rapier?

 

[SSquirrel]

Probably hiding in that unprinted 4E manuscript that WotC hasn't uploaded to the internet yet The fact that it has yet to be mentioned does not mean that it is not in the game. Nor does it mean it is. Patience grasshopper

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

R&C did say that Rogues with high Intelligence get a "flat bonus" to all trained skill checks, but that does not appear to be in the preview.

My guess is that it's one of those "utility" powers, or else a class feat (like Golden Wyvern Adept).

Other possible feats:

Jack of All Trades
Requires Int 14+
Add half your Int modifier to all untrained skill checks.

Skill Training
Requires Int 12+
Pick one new trained skill. You may take this feat a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier, each time affecting a different skill.