When Skill Focus loses its value

[Elder-Basilisk]

Your analysis is flawed because it doesn't take enough factors into consideration.

Now, starting out, lets admit that skill focus (anything) is not and probably never will be a power feat. If you want to be a powerhouse, spell focus, weapon focus, quicken spell, spirited charge, divine might, et al, are far more useful than skill focus (spot). So what good is skill focus?

1. It is useful for NPCs who are not high level but wish to be good in their core competency areas. If the middle-aged merchant is a 5th level expert with a 12 intelligence and a 13 wisdom, how will he able to figure out how much things are worth and avoid being cheated? Skill Focus. If he maxes out his sense motive and appraise, takes Diligent and Negotiator as his 1st level feats (he's human) and takes Skill Focus: Sense Motive as his 3rd level feat, he can have a +14 sense motive skill and a +11 appraise (more in specific areas of his expertise). That may not be enough to make him invulnerable to scams but he's likely to see through your typical 16 charisma 6th level bard's bluff (+12) and still has a good shot if that bard is wearing a circlet of persuasion (+15).

Similarly, an experienced safecracker in the thieves' guild might not be particularly high level but he still needs to be able to open DC 40 locks? How will he manage? Well, he can get masterwork tools for +2, Nimble Fingers, Skill Focus Open Locks, an 18 dex (he's got to have some natural talent) and take twenty. That's only DC 31 so he needs nine ranks. Now we know that the safecracker's minimum level is Rog or Expert 6 (which one will depend upon whether he's good at sneak attacking people or not--if he isn't, he's an expert).

2. It's useful for some skills to remain ahead of the curve. Traps in the DMG don't go much past CR 10 but they go up to DC 34. So, if one assumes that traps are supposed to track roughly the party's CR, then that means a 10th level rogue should be able to have a chance at beating the DC 34 trap. So, how does our tenth level rogue do? 13 ranks of disable device is a good start. Masterwork tools gives another +2. A 14 int brings him to +17. A Guidance spell brings him to +18 and a heroism spell brings him to +19. But he still needs to roll a 15 in order to disarm the trap. Since rolling a 9 or less sets the trap off, he has a 30% chance of disabling it and a 45% chance of setting it off on the first roll. By the second attempt, he has a 51% chance of having disabled it and a 70% chance of having set it off at least once (assuming these aren't mutually exclusive results, he could have set it off on the first round and disabled it on his second attempt). Not particularly good odds.

But, give the rogue skill focus and now he has +22 and only needs to roll a 12 to disable the trap and needs to roll a 6 to set it off. So his chance to disable is 45% and his chance to set it off is only 30%. Now his odds of disabling it in two attempts are 70% and his odds of setting it off at least once in two attempts are only 49%. That's a lot better.

Contrary to Green Slime's contention, skill increasing spells and items actually make skill focus more valuable in such cases rather than less. If we assume that the rogue has the tools from a vest of escape (+4 bonus instead of +2) or Greater Heroism instead of Heroism, the rogue's bonus goes up to +24 (+26 with both) and he can now take ten to disable the trap. Without skill focus, he needs to roll and that makes it a much riskier business.

Concentration can be similar. At low levels, skill focus makes the checks for casting defensively, etc easier and it makes the point that they become trivial come three levels sooner. At high levels, it makes checks for casting while grappled easier and can make the check for concentrating while damaged possible. (By 14th level, being struck for 25 points of damage while casting a spell is hardly inconceivable and the +3 makes a significant difference when rolling a DC 35 check--it's sometimes the difference between usually failing and succeeding as often as not).

For skills that are regularly needed at the top end of their game like search and disable device, skill focus is a good way to make situations that would otherwise be challenging trivial and situations that would otherwise be impossible doable.

3. Skill focus is sometimes useful as a substitute for skill points.
This is true of cross-class skills. The fighter who wants to be decent at spotting can be decent by wearing eyes of the eagle, maxing his cross-class ranks, and taking Alertness and Skill Focus: Spot. At 13th level, with a 12 wisdom, he'll have +19 to his spot score--about what a normal 13th level elven ranger might expect to have or what a 13th level rogue with eyes of the eagle and a wisdom penalty might have.

A cleric with a low intelligence who wants to be good at anything other than concentration will need to use skill focus--either to substitute for concentration skills or for the other skills he wants.

So, while it's quite true that there are often better choices in terms of raw power than skill focus, it doesn't follow that skill focus is a worthless feat.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Not so. Taking your example (hide), let's see how this plays out for our typical rogue who wants to do something rogueish--in this case, sneak into a fortified villa and steal some stuff.

Let's assume he's 8th level and has a 20 dex. With the boots and cloak of elvenkind, he has a +10 hide bonus. If he chugs the elixir of hiding, he has a +20 bonus. If he maxed ranks and had the magic items, he'll have a +21 bonus. If he maxed ranks, has the items, and chugs the potion, he'll have a +31 bonus.

There is an outer wall that is patrolled by guards (possibly guards with dogs). The rogue has to sneak up to this wall (let's say that requires one round of hiding while moving at full speed or two rounds while moving at half-speed). He then climbs over the wall after the guards have walked past, jumps and tumbles down the other side and crosses the villa's courtyard. Crossing the villa's courtyard requires a similar amount of movement.

Then, inside the villa, he takes a moment to pick the lock on the back door or open a window. (Let's call this another round of hiding). Once inside, he'll have to sneak through some inner rooms (let's call this 20 rounds of checks against foes who have -10 to -20 to their checks because they're asleep, behind walls or both and two rounds against foes who just have -5 to their checks for being non-alert). He then steals the macguffin and sneaks out the way he came in.

A few stipulations: The guards are pretty competent fellows. War 3s with max cross-class spot and listen, Alertness and skill focus spot. That gives them a +8 spot bonus and +5 listen. We'll assume the guards outside travel in pairs and that the rogue can pick a time to cross the courtyard when their torches don't illumine it but he'll still (theoretically) be in view of two guards on the walls and two on the courtyard when he crosses).

His chance to get to the wall unseen:
Items only: 33%
Items and elixir: 74%
Items and skills: 79%
Items, skills, and elixir: 100%

His chance to get across the courtyard unseen:
Items only: 11%
Items and elixir: 69%
Items and skills: 75%
Items, skills, and elixir: 100%

His chance to get through the inner rooms undetected:
Items only: 60%
Items and elixir: 97%
Items and skills: 99%
Items, skills, and elixir: 100%

His chance to pull everything off undetcted:
Items only: 0.5%
Items and elixir: 25%
Items and skills: 34%
Items, skills, and elixir: 100%

The odds go up dramatically for the items and skills character if he gets a few spells like heroism that give him a slight boost to his skills but Mr. Items or Items and Elixir is SOL.

I think that this analysis demonstrates that anyone who thinks he can get by without skill points in hide is fooling himself.

Invisibility makes it easier but the guards still have a fair chance to spot or hear the presence of an invisible opponent--especially one who, confident in his invisibility, approaches near them--and home in on him using the dogs (or break out some kind of item designed to ferret out invisible foes--if the villa has something that's worth a 10th level rogue's attention, it has something that generates enough profit to buy some kind of consumable invisibility detecting item for the guards--personally, I allow potions of See Invisibility and Invisibility Purge in my games).

Invisibility also suffers from two other drawbacks:
1. See Invisibility. If a rogue expects to ambush a high level group of characters using invisibility, he needs to come to terms with the fact that high level characters can keep See Invisibility active nearly all day if they want to. (At 12th level, it lasts 2 hours--with a lesser rod of extend spell, that's 4 hours, and with a pearl of power II, that's 8 hours). Now, see invisibility doesn't negate hide so if the character is hiding as well as invisible, he won't necessarily be seen but that presupposes some actual skill at hiding.

2. Limited duration. Invisibility would be helpful in the sneak and grab routine described above. However, if said rogue wants to sneak into the enemy castle, listen in on the king's council, and come away to report the contents of the discussion, even ten minutes won't be enough. A character very skilled at hiding might well have pretty good odds of pulling it off (see analysis above for skills, items, and elixir (or two--they last longer than invisibility but not indefinitely)). A character relying on invisibility won't. Similarly, if you're laying an ambush for foes who will be coming down the road "sometime in the afternoon" invisibility won't help-at least not without a forward scout who can actually hide and signal the rest of the party to cast invisibility before the foes show up.

There are indeed skills that items and spells can substitute for. However, Hide is not nearly as reliably such a skill as you seem to think.

I disagree that the feat skill focus is useless. It is only almost useless, due to how the game treats skills in general.

It is of limited use, when, using cash, a character can easily supplant the skill itself with magical items and/or spells.

Want to Hide? Don't bother placing skill points in hide; Just purchase a cloak of Elvenkind (+5 competence bonus 2,500 gp), or an elixir of Hiding (+10 competence bonus 250 gp), and raise your Dex. At 10th level, and using invisibility, why worry about the skill?

In general spells grant to high a bonus to skills. Magical items that increase skill levels are also still too cheap.

Cash is always present in the game, and indeed, it is to a high degree expeced that players will be able to purchase or create these items themselves. Spells are a readily renewable resource.

 

[Staffan]

Skill Focus is always useless from a pure min/max point of view. Feats are too valuable to waste being converted into skill points.

It's useful for skills where the DCs escalate with the opposition and/or level. It might be useful for Concentration, in order to have a decent chance to keep up with the damage you'll occasionally take while casting. It's not bad for Use Magic Device, especially for artificers (who have to make DC 20+caster level rolls when making magic items, getting one roll plus one roll per day). But for most characters, it's not that good a feat.

 

[Piratecat]

Under the theory "Detailed arithmetic deconstructions go into Rules," we'll slide this one over. Interesting thread.

 

[Al'Kelhar]

I've house-ruled that Skill Focus grants 3 ranks in the chosen skill, not a +3 unnamed bonus. These ranks are not counted towards the maximum number of ranks you can have according to level, but are treated as ranks for all other purposes. Sometimes, the absolute bonus you have to a skill is not so important as the number of ranks you have in the skill, particularly for meeting prerequisites for PrCs and handy feats. It also means you win any "tied" opposed roll. Sure, it's not a great difference in day-to-day play, but it does make the feat a little more attractive.

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[The Spectrum Rider]

I've house-ruled that Skill Focus grants 3 ranks in the chosen skill, not a +3 unnamed bonus. These ranks are not counted towards the maximum number of ranks you can have according to level, but are treated as ranks for all other purposes. Sometimes, the absolute bonus you have to a skill is not so important as the number of ranks you have in the skill, particularly for meeting prerequisites for PrCs and handy feats. It also means you win any "tied" opposed roll.
Cheers, Al'Kelhar

Why do you win any tied opposed roll? I thought that a tie went to the character with the higher base ability. Or did that change from 3.0 to 3.5?

Your way is very useful for synergy bonuses, though.

The Spectrum Rider

 

[The Spectrum Rider]

Your perspective, please -- at what general character level does the Skill Focus feat lose its attraction as a valuable addition to your developing character?

Consider this comparison:

1st level -- 4 skill points (maxed), +3 Skill Focus ... 20 percent chance of success raised to 35 percent ... but those three points mean a 75 percent improvement to the core ability.

13th level -- 16 skill points (maxed), + 3 Skill Focus ... 80 percent chance of success raised to 95 percent ... but those three points mean a 19 percent improvement to the core ability.

Where are you getting those percentages from? They depend on the DC, don't they?

IMC DC's tend to rise with character levels. A +3 is nothing to sneeze at. You'd need 6 more points in your base ability to match it.

I know the rules have a number of places with absolute DC's (so anybody with enough ranks just can't miss, and a +3 is of no value), and some places where the DC rises much more slowly than max ranks (for examle, Concentration for casting defensively). But if you don't like them, they can be house-ruled pretty easily (as many people have house-ruled Tumble to give the opponent a Reflex save). And many skills *don't* have such DC limits.

The Spectrum Rider

 

[Li Shenron]

Skill Focus is a great feat for two things: pushing a skill to the absolute max, and becoming competent in a cross-class skill.

I have used Skill Focus exactly for this two kind of reasons, and I'll use it again.

Sometimes you want a skill to be as high as possible and quickly, especially if its use is a very important part of your combat strategy: a Rogue may want the highest possible Bluff to use the Feint action and get sneak attacks every other round (or every round, with the Improved Feint feat); a spellcaster may want the highest possible Concentration to cast touch spells on the defensive.

But also I found the feat very useful for characters who want to use a cross-class skill effectively, as some skills don't really work if you have only a low bonus (like Use Magic Device). You shouldn't do this for more than one skill, otherwise it becomes quite feat-expensive, but it makes sense to me.
And Skill Focus is more valuable of course for characters who have very few skill points per level.

 

[Al'Kelhar]

Why do you win any tied opposed roll? I thought that a tie went to the character with the higher base ability. Or did that change from 3.0 to 3.5?

Your way is very useful for synergy bonuses, though.

The Spectrum Rider

IIRC, tied opposed rolls go to the person with the highest number of ranks; I'm sure Hypersmurf could track down the SRD reference (and probably prove me wrong, too!).

Yup, the synergy bonuses is another benefit of the bonus ranks which I forgot to mention.

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[Ranger REG]

I've house-ruled that Skill Focus grants 3 ranks in the chosen skill, not a +3 unnamed bonus. These ranks are not counted towards the maximum number of ranks you can have according to level, but are treated as ranks for all other purposes.

Be careful. "For all other purposes" will give your players the valid excuse to fulfilling prestige class requirements or feat prerequisites.

Sometimes, the absolute bonus you have to a skill is not so important as the number of ranks you have in the skill, particularly for meeting prerequisites for PrCs and handy feats. It also means you win any "tied" opposed roll. Sure, it's not a great difference in day-to-day play, but it does make the feat a little more attractive.

From the 3.5e SRD...

Opposed Checks
An opposed check is a check whose success or failure is determined by comparing the check result to another character’s check result. In an opposed check, the higher result succeeds, while the lower result fails. In case of a tie, the higher skill modifier wins. If these scores are the same, roll again to break the tie.