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Message: <blockquote data-quote="HeapThaumaturgist" data-source="post: 2717042" data-attributes="member: 12332">Currently your "best" BAB is 1/1 to level.Unless you totally rework the skill system, the moment you do this the BEST BAB becomes lvl+3.While not a problem, people are suggesting that to model the "middle" ground you ADD bonuses to the combat-classes ...So we're going from 1/1 to what might be 3/2 or 2/1 progression.  So then you need to rework all of the CRs, PrCs, class balances, etc etc.It's akin to taking your '85 Lincoln and saying:  "Why isn't this baby solar powered?!"I'm not saying a solar powered car isn't a cool idea ... but I'm not in the mood to try and retrofit an 85 Lincoln to do it.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I've been doing quite a bit of work with skills modeling other aspects of the game, specifically skill-based magic systems, and there's ALOT to think about when you start messing with it.  Some of the best work I've seen in that area are the Psychic's Handbook and Black Company magic system ... and in actual play, we've pretty handily broken them.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  Which set me off working again.A system that shares some things with d20, which has "Attack" and "Save" built into the skill system is the old Alternity game.It worked okay ... for genre-specific games, you tended to have people focus on genre-specific things.  Dark*Matter, everybody came in with good ranks in Pistols.  Which models agents rather well ... but if you were to try a "maybe we're not all great agents" game, somebody would have to conciously decide not to put alot of ranks in Pistol.  (Though Alternity helped a little by costing out skills differently between classes).One thing that came up that was odd, and which I didn't like ... it was entirely possible to FORGET to put ranks into your "saving throws".  It'd be something akin to walking into a Fireball and finding you had no Reflex save bonus.  Or playing a horror game and forgetting to buy in on that Will save.  Uh oh.  And while CONCEPTUALLY cool, in a "I'm thinking about it while reading boards" way, I'll tell you that alot of people have found that to suck pretty heavily.I eventually had to make a "cheat sheet" to remind people what skills they should buy up and to what level, just so they could bring functional characters to the table.  And with variable skill costs, it's sometimes upsetting to find that your flavorful Loads Of Ranks In Occult Lore has to be cut in half just to get your Will save up to acceptable levels.  --fje</blockquote>

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