What's your favorite way of increasing skillpoints?

[sinmissing]

I removed cross-class skills. I saw no reason to force a class to take certain kinds of skills, since the nature of the class sort of dictated what you would need to be effective. Bards need perform, rangers need survival, spell casters need concentration, etc. Fighters, with their piddly 2sp/level, have yet to wreck my game by taking a few ranks of Spot and Listen.

 

[AeroDm]

Grayhawk: I think you could even take it a step further and still impose the cross-class limits, just not at double the penalty. This keeps it equal as you'll never be better than those who should be good at it, but it also doesn't penalize you for wanting to try.

I also noticed that a lot of hte skills that are suggested for nerfing are rogue skills. Granted, rogues have almost every skill, but disable device and search are basically exclusive rogue imc and balance is rogue/monk. I personally don't think that rogues need any more skills, it is really the fighter/cleric/paladin I want to help out. Not sure how to go about this though...

 

[Grayhawk]

Grayhawk: I think you could even take it a step further and still impose the cross-class limits, just not at double the penalty. This keeps it equal as you'll never be better than those who should be good at it, but it also doesn't penalize you for wanting to try.

Let me try to write up how the two ways of doing it would work out:

(For a fighter taking spot using my idea (GH) or using AeroDm's idea (AD)

Level MaxRank(GH) MaxRank(AD)
1.________1________2
2.________2________2
3.________3________3
4.________4________3
5.________5________4
6.________6________4
7.________7________5
8.________8________5
9.________9________6
etc.
18.______18_______10
19.______19_______11
20.______20_______11

(Of course, these numbers should also be compared to someone having spot as a class skill.)

At lower levels, the difference is pretty small, but no so at higher levels.

I guess your preferrence will depend on whether you want your grizzled fighter veteran to be able to almost spot with the best, or whether you want your rangers and rogues to stand out (spot-wise) at higher levels. (At present I'm not sure which I prefer...)

Keep in mind, that both of these methods will allow for a max rank = level+3 if you have just 1 level in a class for which the skill is a class skill. Thus a rogue 1/fighter 19 could have 23 ranks of spot.

I personally don't think that rogues need any more skills, it is really the fighter/cleric/paladin I want to help out.

Me too.

 

[Grayhawk]

...Example2: The Balance skill doesn't actually do anything. Staying upright on shifting ground is a Tumble Check or a Reflex Saving Throw. You don't even make Balance checks to avoid being tripped - it has no reason to exist on any level. Dropping it frees up a little bit of skill points for people...

I agree that Balance is 'bad' skill, but I would be wary of giving any more power to Tumble.

For most instances I believe reflex saves are more appropriate than Balance. E.g. I don't think it's fair for an experienced fighter with a decent ref save to stumble as he's moving over a hewn stonefloor or for a dexterous rogue running on a sloping surface, just because neither of them dedicated skill points to Balance.

The only place where I feel that Balance is needed is for extremely narrow surfaces, like tightrope walking.

While letting Balance only apply to those situations lessens the power of the skill (which goes against reducing the amount of skills by consolidating those that overlap, like we're discussing in that other thread) I think it's worth it in this particular instance.

The reason being that if you really want to be a tightrope walking thief-acrobat like the one from 1e's Unearthed Arcana, it's your choise but you have to pay for it. While the more commonly met calls for Balance checks are nigh unavoidable, like moving over uneven surfaces, being caught in a Grease or Sleet Storm spell, etc.

 

[FrankTrollman]

I don't think that's a laudable goal. If something is so specific that only a select few character concepts would ever want it - and those character concepts shouldn't ever fail - it shouldn't be a skill at all.

It should be a feat. I have no problem with the feat "Balance" - where you can walk around on very small surfaces and probably get a bonus to avoid falling or tripping. But I have a very big problem with a "skill" that doesn't really do anything for people.

-Frank

 

[Grayhawk]

I don't think that's a laudable goal. If something is so specific that only a select few character concepts would ever want it - and those character concepts shouldn't ever fail - it shouldn't be a skill at all.

It should be a feat. I have no problem with the feat "Balance" - where you can walk around on very small surfaces and probably get a bonus to avoid falling or tripping. But I have a very big problem with a "skill" that doesn't really do anything for people.

I thought about making it a feat as well, and it might work. But I'm not sure what you mean by 'those character concepts shouldn't ever fail' - shouldn't there be a risk of the tightrope walker falling?

And unless you give the skill system a major overhaul there's quite a few skills that only have appeal for 'a select few character concepts', like Forgery or Profession(Stablehand).

Btw, does anyone have comments to my idea for doing skills, mentioned above?

Here's the gist of it:

'Characters can buy all skills on a point per each rank basis, but skills not labeled as 'Class Skills' have a maximum of rank = level (opposed to class skills being max rank = level+3).'

 

[Deset Gled]

One idea I like is requireing every character to have a level of an NPC class (Adept, Aristocrat, Expert, Warrior). If the player wants more skill points, they will take Expert.

 

[FrankTrollman]

I thought about making it a feat as well, and it might work. But I'm not sure what you mean by 'those character concepts shouldn't ever fail' - shouldn't there be a risk of the tightrope walker falling?

Of course not. The smallest margin of failure d20 can support is 5% on an unopposed roll. That's way too high for a "Tightrope Walker". Other people who happen to be walking across Tightropes can have a chance of failure (although it should still be very small) - but a "Thief Acrobat" should always succeed.

Flight has no chance of failure, neither does walking. If your character concept is that you are a nimble acrobat you should always succeed at tasks such as Tightrop Walking.

It's not a big trick to walk on a narrow surface when third level wizards can simply hover over no surface at all.

-Frank

 

[Grayhawk]

Good points.

And while I can imagine some instances where the thief acrobat should be able to fall (like when being hit by arrows, or having somebody shaking the rope he's walking on), I'm not really interested in exploring a possible mechanic for that at this time.

I would much prefer to hear your thougths on the skill thingy mentioned above.

 

[FrankTrollman]

I'm basically OK with the current cross-class system. Since people who want a skill will generally take at least one level with it as a class skill - the practical result is that people who want to maintain a skill outside of their current class need to spend double to keep their skills up when they are doing something else.

However, some specific classes don't get enough skills to warrant their current set-up. The Sorcerer and the Fighter could both use 4. Those classes also really don't get enough class skills (Sorcerers for example need to get Intimidate and Diplomacy minimum in order to fill out their supposed party role as defined in the PHB).

Further, I think that everyone should have an additional customizable class skill - probably chosen at level one. This could be accomplished with professional templates like in Modern, or just let everyone choose a skill to get Cosmopolitan in for free at first level - something to make being a "street rat Paladin" a little different from a "noble born Paladin". And more importantly, to allow people to play the kinds of characters they want easily at low level without shooting themselves in the foot.

-Frank