Wasting skill points on 'background' skills

[Voadam]

Re: Re: Re: Wasting skill points on 'background' skills

Most classes are based on attacks, feats and class abilities (including spells).

Very few classes are dependent upon skill usage for the majority of their class ability.

A fighter or wizard or sorcerer or cleric with no skills would do almost as well at their class functions as one with the standard skills.

Social skills can mostly be covered by roleplaying.

That leaves, scout spotting skills, and trapfinding as the biggies, tumbling and bluff can be useful combat skills but even concentration and spellcraft do not come up much.

At heart, D&D is about thumping things, taking their treasure and roleplaying, none of which necessitates skill points to do.

 

[buzz]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Wasting skill points on 'background' skills

Very few classes are dependent upon skill usage for the majority of their class ability.

It's paramount for bards and rogues, quite necessary for rangers and druids, and commonplace for most every other class. Any spellcaster who gets into combat needs Concentration, and Spellcraft if they hope to ever counterspell anything, or if a wizard wants to do anything useful with her spellbook. I also have yet to see a session go by without repeated calls from the DM for Spot and Listen checks.

Basically, any time you're not standing toe-to-toe hitting someone with a sword or asleep, you're using skills.

Social skills can mostly be covered by roleplaying.

Mostly... but if you totally ignore interaction skills you're penalizing characters who bothered to spend skill points on them; bards in particular get screwed when a DM does this.

Skills round out a PC; they're just as important as ability scores in describing the charcater and defining what they can do. Ignoring them is essentially going back to pre-NWP AD&D1e... which is fine for some, but something in which I have no interest whatsoever.

 

[LuYangShih]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Wasting skill points on 'background' skills

Voadam, your assumptions only hold true if the DM does not introduce situations into the game where skills are relevant. The fact that you think roleplaying is a substitute for social skills demonstrates you are playing in a game where skills have been rendered almost useless, and that would be the fault of the DM, not the game.

As Buzz pointed out, skills are very important in most games. As for the original topic, I would agree that it was a waste of skill points. Skills are far too sparse to justify putting them into a skill that will have little, if any effect on the game in the long run. Making or failing that concentration check could be the deciding factor in whether or nor your character lives through an encounter. Unless you look forward to roleplaying a corpse, you need to have the important skills fully maximized.

 

[Voadam]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Wasting skill points on 'background' skills

Skills round out a PC; they're just as important as ability scores in describing the charcater and defining what they can do. Ignoring them is essentially going back to pre-NWP AD&D1e... which is fine for some, but something in which I have no interest whatsoever.

I'm not saying ignore them, I'm saying they are not as important to most D&D characters as their class abilities and items.

A wizard's spells are more definitive about what the character does in mechanical effect then whether he takes some ranks in a knowledge vs. a craft.

I'm not advocating not spending skill points on appropriate skills, I'm saying it won't hurt a character overly much to put them in flavor skills rather than trying to optimize game mechanics.

For instance, my 12th level harper mage loremaster character has spent a lot of his skill points on social and knowledge skills, diplomacy, gather info, spellcraft, knowledge planar, etc.

I roleplay him as someone who interacts a lot and knows a lot of stuff so I put my points there. However, mostly he's defined by my interactions, the style of spells I learned and use, and the items I have. The fact that I have +13 on diplomacy is not a big deal, the fact that I actually interact with people and make lots of allies is.

 

[FoxWander]

Just to throw in my 2 pence...

Based strictly on the way the game was designed- yes, you wasted the points. D20 D&D really has no place for "background" or "flavor" skills. The skill points you earn as a character class are just that- the things you learned as a character class. AS far as the game is concerned, your wizard knew nothing until he was apprenticed to a mage. And that's exactly what those 2 pts + Int bonus are supposed to reflect. Just look at all the Iconic characters and template examples in the Class section to see this in action- not one of them has ANY point spent on a "background" skill.

Does this make characters that are one-dimensional and built solely for surviving a typical adventure- yes. But unfortunately that's what the rules are designed for- Creating an effective "Heroic character".

Now, that being said, I think it's a shame there isn't some kind of system in the rules for having an effective, realistic background for characters. At least 2e had an obscure, hidden table that you could use to randomly roll up a "background skill". I think freebie background or culture ranks are a great idea and I personally have house rules that allow them. But it really should be something that's in the core rules somehow. Otherwise if you have to move and take your character into another campaign you might get a DM that says- "There's no 'background skills' in the rules. Erase those points." And then all the flavor is gone from your character and your left with just a stat block.

I'd talk to your DM about some freebie background points or something. Because as others have said- if your not playing in a game that supports your rich background, then you're just handicapping your character. And hey- if he won't give you the freebie points. Put what you spent into more "useful" skills and then write- "Former profession: Farmer (4 ranks)" on your sheet anyway. Since it'll probably never come up anyway, then at least you can see it on your sheet and be satisfied that you created a real character rather than a collection of stats.

 

[buzz]

Re: Just to throw in my 2 pence...

But it really should be something that's in the core rules somehow.

It kind of is, on p.62, which is quote I mentioned earlier. It's simply the difference between "familiarity" and "heroic potential." d20's granularity is such that "familiar" isn't enough to register as a skill rank. So, you handle it with roleplaying.