YAVSS - Yet Another Variant Skill System

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

There are probably a lot of variant skill systems out there - let me add another one.
(Though it might be possible that someone else already thought of it before me, but if that was the case, I didn't see it. )

The basic idea is to remove skill point spending and to ease up character creation. It is not as easy as I first believed it to be, but I think it still has a few advantages:

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Characters no longer buy skills by rank.
Instead, there are 3 tiers of skills for each class:
Primary Skills: Your Rank in a primary skill is equal to your relevant class level. You gain a +3 bonus to a skill if it is a primary skill in your first character class.
Secondary Skills: Your rank in a secondary skill is equal to 1/2 your relevant class level. You gain a +1.5 bonus to a skill that is a secondary (but not a primary) in your first character class.
Tertiary Skills: Your Rank in a tertiary skill is equal to ¼ your character level, You are not considered trainined in a skill that is tertiary for all your classes and thus might be unable to use the skill despite having ranks in it.
After adding all figures, round down to determine the effective skill rank.
All cross-class skills for a class are treated as tertiary skills.
All class skills for a class are treated as secondary skills.
Upon attaining a class, you may spend its skill points to raise the tier of its ranks by one for each skill point (you cannot increase the tier by more than one step).
If your Intelligence increases and thus your skill points modifier, add or remove skills accordingly. You can not change your skill points unless you use the PHB 2 retraining rules. (Since the skills work different now, you might want to use the rules for feat retraining – the skill that improves plus the skill that decreases is treated as one single feat).

Special Rule:
The Skill Focus Feat increases the tier of a skill by one and lets it treat you as if it was a skill of your first character class. If it is already a primary skill in your first character class, you gain a +3 bonus instead. Remove all feats that add additional class skills to a characters skill list. (Existing characters should replace such feats with the Skill Focus feat).

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Notes:

Every character now has ranks in basically every skill. This is similar as every character gains a BAB increase, even those that never use weapons. It removes the typical complaint about "But every adventure should have a few ranks in Spot and Listen, why isn't it class skill for everyone?"
As a result, a character has effectively more skill points than using the standard system.

One of the key advantages is that a character of a specific class is guaranteed to have a few ranks in all his class skills, without having him to sacrifice his speciality skills. So every Rogue can blufff, search or tumble a bit, even if it it's not the focus of the Rogue in question.
Every Fighter can climb, jump, intimdiate and swim, but he might also be a fairly capable Diplomat (even if the Bard or Rogue will probably still overshine him)

It is a bit less flexible, as you cannot change your skill point distribution each level, but only each class, unlesss you increase your Intelligence Score.
Intelligence changes now have retroactive consequences. Thanks to the simplification, it should be a bit easier to handle now.

So, what are your thoughts on the matter?

 

[airwalkrr]

Not bad. I like it for its simplicity. But it does seem to make characters a bit more powerful.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Interesting...

ALtho I think I would go:

Grand Master Tier skills gain a bonus equal to the relevant class level + 3
Master Tier skills gain a bonus equal to the relevant class level.
Class skills = Journeyman tier skills gain a bonus equal to half the class level (round down) skill usable as if trained.
Cross-class skills = Apprentice tier skills gain a bonus equal to one fourth the class level(round down), if under 4th level, skill is untrained

Skill Focus raises the skill tier by one and provides a +2 bonus

1st level charactes gain +3 skill points that must be used to raise Apprentice skills.
{Humans gain +4 at first level}

It is alot simpler, relatively easy to judge on the fly for critters.. and makes lots of characters better at lots of checks.

Down sides,
- Rogue1/Bard1 could have 8 ranks of diplomancy unless you declare Grand Master can only be achieved once for each skill
- Synergy Bonuses.. would a 5th level Bard gain the synergies to Diplomancy from Bluff and Sense Motive?
- Single class characters can only adjust thier skill sets with Skill Focus or INT increases. Perhaps a +1 skill point per every 4 levels of a given class to allow for character growth.
- Multi-class characters benefit from high INT.. perhaps only use INT based skill increases only at first level

Additional: Perhaps can only change a skills tier by 1 each class, exceptions being Skill Focus feat and the additional skill points at first level..

Have you tried playing this?

 

[Stalker0]

So to make sure I understand, if spot is a secondary skill for me, and I bump it to a primary skill, I gain an additional 1.5 ranks to the skill, is that correct? It seems like that's the only advantage to having a primary skill.

Also, how many skill points does every class get now. A rogue with 8 skill points a level could easily get all of their skills bumped up in a very short order.

However, the general gist of the idea I like very much.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

So to make sure I understand, if spot is a secondary skill for me, and I bump it to a primary skill, I gain an additional 1.5 ranks to the skill, is that correct? It seems like that's the only advantage to having a primary skill.

Also, how many skill points does every class get now. A rogue with 8 skill points a level could easily get all of their skills bumped up in a very short order.

However, the general gist of the idea I like very much.

That was a mistake. The 1/2 multiplier got lost when I cut and pasted it from my word processor.

Remember that you "bump" skills only once per character class, not on each level. So a Rogue could have 8 primary skills, all his class skills as secondary, and all remaining as tertiary. He doesn't get any further increases as he increases his level. (unless he increases his INT modifier or takes the Skill Focus feat). The "Tier" bonus only applies to his Rogue levels, so multiclassing would not further increase his primary and secondary skills.

Maybe I should reword the system a bit to clarify.

 

[Stalker0]

Okay, so a rogue gets a total of 8+int "bumps" total unless he multiclasses or his int changes, is that correct?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Okay, so a rogue gets a total of 8+int "bumps" total unless he multiclasses or his int changes, is that correct?

Yes. And if he changes his class, he doesn't obviously increase in Rogue levels, so his skill only increases according to the new class (so, if he chose Fighter and doesn't spend Fighter skill points on Search (as an example), his Search skill would increase only as a tertiary skill for the Fighter (meaning that he wouldn't get an increase before fighter level 4).