Melee gets nice things... what about me?

[Morph Bark]

It seems universally accepted a party consists of 4 different roles, sometimes defined differently. The fighter, the skillmonkey, the arcane caster and the divine caster.
The guy taking the hits, the guy making the hits, the guy bringing in the utility and the guy keeping everyone alive and well (and the chick; switch all genders if it is for a girl-oriented cartoon).
The Defender, the Striker, the Controller and the Leader. (Thank you, 4E, even though this is about 3.5.)

Casters get nice things almost by definition and have done so since day one. Arcane casters can be switched up with full-progression psionic classes due to a large amount of similarities (though its not perfectly the same of course).

Melee-ers have gotten the short end of the stick for a long time, but Tome of Battle made that better and I would say Magic of Incarnum has helped it some too (though the latter isn't truly melee-oriented; it isn't really for one specific role unless you build for it). The good new stuff is mainly for the damaging folks though (i.e. "the fighter", "the guy making the hits" and "the Striker").

That leaves some things to be filled... "the skillmonkey", "the guy taking the hits" and "the Defender" (the last two are obviously the same). What nice things do they get? Incarnum gives a few skill-based soulmelds, but that is just a little bit, and I constantly hear that AC is almost redundant at higher levels. So where the casters have their spells and melee has ToB (which can help the Defender too, somewhat, through Counters and some Boosts and Stances), but skillmonkeys ain't got nuthin'?

[Caphi]

Complete Scoundrel skill tricks. You're welcome. See if you can get the GM to waive the 1/encounter rule.

[Frosty]

ToB gives you the ultimate Defender in the Crusader. If you want skillmonkeying, I suggest the Factotum from Dungeonscape.

And Kylarra has been Swordsage'd!! :smallbiggrin:

[Kylarra]

Skillmonkey has Factotum and Beguiler.


edit: partially swordsaged.

[Morph Bark]

I don't really mean this to be about skillmonkey classes really. There were melee classes since the start and they've gotten good with the addition of new stuff. Skillmonkeys still seem sub-par though, while Defenders have gotten out there more mainly because of classes and their options (Crusader and Knight mainly).

Is there more than just skill tricks? Because just that seems rather... lame, to be honest. I like the idea of them, but more is better.

[Optimystik]

Skillmonkey has Factotum and Beguiler.


edit: partially swordsaged.

Psychic Rogue is decent too. Hard to get caught when you can morph into a box or pixie.

Though they really should be combined with Lurk.

[Toliudar]

Well, the ToB classes were the upgrade for melee. How is it different to think of beguilers, psionic rogues and factotums as skillmonkey 2.0?

[Frog Dragon]

Well, skillmonkeys isn't that much of a role you can give more stuff. In the skills department ranks+ability+synergy+other is about as high as you go. Other mileage from them is skill tricks (already said), and alternative skill uses (found around the supplements).
Skillmonkey stuff is not so obvious, and since most D&D stuff comes down to combat anyway, you can basically optimize your skills the basic way, get some precision damage and go to town. Skillmonkeys can't really do anything in-combat with skills (skill tricks being the exception) so they're going to get their combat capability somewhere else. However, this is not hard. A swordsage dip at level 9 can give you +2d6 sneak attack just for starters.
My point is that the exact facet of skills per-se can't really be buffed. However, most skillmonkeys still have ways of achieving significant combat ability in addition to being skilly.

[Kylarra]

Human and changeling skillmonkeys have able learner. Honestly though, with the way the 3.x system is composed, being a skillmonkey isn't so much a primary role as a secondary effect of what you do, and only int-centric "skillmonkey" classes, beguiler/factotum, can even afford to be moderately competent in anything other than niche skills.


Psychic Rogue is decent too. Hard to get caught when you can morph into a box or pixie.

Though they really should be combined with Lurk.You mean just replace Lurk. :smalltongue: But yes, I often forget about the psy-rogue alternate class.

[mabriss lethe]

Skill monkeys were never given the short end of the stick. The skill system in 3.5 is pretty easy to break right out of the box. See UMD and Diplomacy for obvious starters.

Edit to add: ToB also effectively adds new uses for skills, since many maneuvers require skill checks.

[Morph Bark]

Well, the ToB classes were the upgrade for melee. How is it different to think of beguilers, psionic rogues and factotums as skillmonkey 2.0?

Because I don't see the classes as the upgrade, but the system. There is no upgrade to the way skillmonkeys as a class role work.

And while the skill system might be easy to break in 3.5, that is prettymuch why our group uses fixes for that. Plus the fact that magic items are in short supply.

[mabriss lethe]

And while the skill system might be easy to break in 3.5, that is prettymuch why our group uses fixes for that. Plus the fact that magic items are in short supply.
Ah, so you're saying that your group took away the skill-monkey's nice things and now you wonder where they went.... :smalltongue: (don't take me seriously, I'm just ribbing you.)

[PId6]

It depends on what you want to do. Pure skillmonkeying isn't really great in most campaigns, simply because D&D is so combat-oriented.

However, classes like rogue and scout can perform the role of "striker" in combat quite well, dealing very high damage if optimized correctly (for former, see handbook in sig; for latter, see Swift Hunter handbook). The beguiler, on the other hand, combines skillmonkeying with battlefield control and save-or-loses, and is quite strong out of the box without much optimizing. Factotum is a class of its own, with the ability to do a variety of things in combat, ranging from combat maneuvers to debuffing to pure damage (with Iaijutsu), and can take the utility caster role as well at higher levels.

So yeah, if you're just focusing on skills, you're going to be left underwhelmed once combat starts most of the time. But good skillmonkey classes can still be quite powerful in combat, as long as you build them right.

[Morph Bark]

Ah, so you're saying that your group took away the skill-monkey's nice things and now you wonder where they went.... :smalltongue: (don't take me seriously, I'm just ribbing you.)

Naw, I'm saying that I am the DM and I'm wondering how skillmonkeys can be useful with just the things they have by just being themselves rather than having tons of items. Melee-ers can do their thing without items (bar the use of their weapons of choice, mayhaps, considering ToB stuff can work with a spoon -- but these need not be magical anyway) and casters can do theirs likewise in the same way (barring material components and foci -- which aren't magical either). I just want to see how a skillmonkey can work out well without necessarily using magic items.

(See how I took you seriously and still came up with a dignified response? :smalltongue: )

[PId6]

Naw, I'm saying that I am the DM and I'm wondering how skillmonkeys can be useful with just the things they have by just being themselves rather than having tons of items. Melee-ers can do their thing without items (bar the use of their weapons of choice, mayhaps, considering ToB stuff can work with a spoon -- but these need not be magical anyway) and casters can do theirs likewise in the same way (barring material components and foci -- which aren't magical either). I just want to see how a skillmonkey can work out well without necessarily using magic items.
They can do their skillmonkeying duties fairly well without magic items. Rogues have always been able to find traps/see enemies/talk their way out of situations without too much trouble. It's when it comes to combat that they may start suffering if not optimized well. You may want to increase skill points for rogues (and everyone else too) though, so they can focus on multiple skill aspects. Beyond that, being a skillmonkey has never been that hard; it's just doing things beyond that which needs work.

[Eldariel]

Monkeys are really fine. And skill tricks were a nice expansion to their repertoire. But really, long as you know what you're doing with your skills, you'll get far. UMD and UPD in particular are potent and monkeys tend to have access to those, as are the social skills and then the combat skills.

[Morph Bark]

Hm, fair enough so far.

I don't suppose there is also an Incarnum expert around to indulge me in how Incarnum is totally rad for skillmonkeys again? I've seen someone do so before, forgot about it, and I myself with just looking it over don't really see it. Blame it on my ability to only slowly begin to start grasping things well, before it happens really well.

On something else: other than the stuff for Crusader and Knight, is there anything really feasible for a good Defender?

Is the Knight the only class with an ability that has others come to him rather than attacking the squishies first?

[PId6]

On something else: other than the stuff for Crusader and Knight, is there anything really feasible for a good Defender?
Just get reach, Thicket of Blades stance, and Standstill. Tripping optional. PsyWar can be awesome for this thanks to Expansion, but even regular ol' fighter can do this. You pretty much just stand there and stop things in their tracks whenever they try to move anywhere.

There's also the Deepstone Sentinel PrC in ToB.


Is the Knight the only class with an ability that has others come to him rather than attacking the squishies first?
There's the Goad feat, but knight does it much better.

[Optimystik]

You mean just replace Lurk. :smalltongue: But yes, I often forget about the psy-rogue alternate class.

Lurks do have some advantages. 6th-level powers. More base PP. 20 PK to the PR's 15. Int to Initiative. The augments can get killer with enough PP spent and a high enough ML, and they aren't even magic (Yes, a Lurk can SA Constructs and Undead, even in an AMF/NPF.) Steal PP. Turn off spellcasting. Roll the two classes together and you could potentially give a Beguiler a run for its money.

[Yorrin]

Diplomancy has always been broken. An optimized Marshal 1/Binder 1 can avoid getting into fights in the first place, if need be. But skills can be VERY useful in combat as well. Iajutsu Focus (and the PrC Iajutsu Master) is a great example.

Human Paragon 3/Marshal 1/Binder 1/Warlock 4/Full BAB 1/Iajutsu Master 10

with Iajutsu Focus as your Adaptive Learning skill, Eldrich Glaive, Beguiling Influence, and Leaps and Bounds as your Invocations, and minimum optimization on Tumble, Diplomacy, and Iajutsu Focus you're doing more damage than the striker in addition to your diplomancer abilities. Not to mention 16 BAB. Find some way to get pounce on this build (or just take Travel Devotion) and you're golden (Iajutsu Master requires lawful, or Barbarian would be a no-brainer).

At this point, however, the build really is a diplomantic striker more than a skill money- since the majority of his skills are spent on combat related abilities rather than finding traps and such. it's just his combat abilities are derived from skills and charisma rather than strength.

[Harris the Ford]

I just opened up epic level handbook and saw some of the crazy junk you can do with enough skill ranks. Things like swimming up waterfalls; completely ignore illusions; see an immobile, invisible, inanimate, object; balance on a cloud; detect surface thoughts just to name a few. Sure it will take a while to get there but once you do its a damn useful thing to have around.

[HunterOfJello]

as mentioned before:


Factotum -> Chameleon

if you want to truly excel at social situations you can take Changeling Rogue 1 -> Factotum -> Chameleon

[Dairun Cates]

That leaves some things to be filled... "the skillmonkey", "the guy taking the hits" and "the Defender" (the last two are obviously the same).

You get the girl or to tell the rest of the party that they're being wimps when you're the last one standing.

Seriously, skill monkeys aren't about combat mostly. They're about subtlety and solving the problem without violence and diplomatically suicidal mind control tactics that come back to bite you in the end because turns out the town guard doesn't like that sort of thing. Something that you'll be able to do better than anyone in the party if you're doing your role right. Now there might be some high level spells that negate most of this at higher levels, but at that point super twinked casters also become better melee fighters than the fighters. So, that point's a bit moot.

Meat Tanks... Well, yeah. You get to take the bad guy's ultimate attack to the chest that does 100 damage and not get liquified into bean paste all while laughing at the rogue that fell down from the secondary damage. Also, most meat tanks usually can hold their ale and are pretty strong. Try winning a drinking contest and an arm wrestling competition simultaneously.

[AmberVael]

I don't suppose there is also an Incarnum expert around to indulge me in how Incarnum is totally rad for skillmonkeys again? I've seen someone do so before, forgot about it, and I myself with just looking it over don't really see it. Blame it on my ability to only slowly begin to start grasping things well, before it happens really well.

I wouldn't call myself an expert, but I would say I'm familiar and competent with it.

The thing about Incarnum for skill users is that it can give you large boosts to a wide number of skills with just a little investment.
The relevant details:

-The caps on soulmelds are based on overall level, not meldshaper level.
-Essentia investments can be changed as a swift action each turn.
-You only need around four essentia to max out a single soulmeld, even at the highest levels.

This basically means that you can focus all of your essentia into a single soulmeld when you need to use a particular skill, even while under pressure (it's just a swift action, after all), granting you not only a large bonus to skills, but a large variable bonus to skills. And you don't even need much incarnum to do it. You can get 4 essentia with a one level dip, a race, and a single feat.

Further, you can change soulmelds from day to day, meaning you can change whatever broad selection of skills you want to focus on for any particular mission/time/whatever.

[Kylarra]

Lurks do have some advantages. 6th-level powers. More base PP. 20 PK to the PR's 15. Int to Initiative. The augments can get killer with enough PP spent and a high enough ML, and they aren't even magic (Yes, a Lurk can SA Constructs and Undead, even in an AMF/NPF.) Steal PP. Turn off spellcasting. Roll the two classes together and you could potentially give a Beguiler a run for its money.It's honestly been a while since I read up on what Lurk can do, I just remember not being very impressed. :smallredface:

[Endarire]

Being a skill ape (the evolution of a skill monkey) requires you be a Cloistered Cleric with the Kobold domain for Trapfinding and Disable Device. You can still be CoDzilla, but you're a sneaky CoDzilla. And an ape.

[taltamir]

the "skill monkey" is a guy who has lots of skills and is useless in combat... 4E wisely REMOVED this archetype completely. It is simply not available as a PC classes.

In 3.5e if you want to be a skillmonkey that doesn't suck, then be a "skill monkey on the side"...

Your options are:
1. Factotum
2. Wizard (tons of skill points from very high int)
3. Bard (bard has other roles except skill monkey)
4. Cloistered cleric.

Rogue is to skillmonkey what monk is to tank

[AslanCross]

The knight can tank somewhat, at least compared to the fighter. A crusader can take hits better.

A knight/crusader can potentially do what all tanks pretty much want to do.

[Caphi]

Skills alone don't really do anything in D&D3. All the utility is covered by magic, and to a lesser extent, by gear (magical or not). That's why beguilers, factota, and certain psions make the best "skill monkeys" - because they don't, in fact, depend on skill points alone, but combine them with techniques that actually do stuff. All the Bluff in the world can't replace minor image, but they do taste pretty good together.

[PId6]

Rogue is to skillmonkey what monk is to tank
That is not true at all. Splatbook support has opened up quite a lot of support for the rogue, covering several of their key weaknesses (inability to Sneak Attack many enemies, difficulty of pulling off Sneak Attacks). A well built rogue can outdamage any factotum, and is nearly as good a skillmonkey. He's less versatile, but can still contribute very well if optimized correctly.

Rogues are high tier 4; monks are bottom of tier 5. Huge difference.

[taltamir]

That is not true at all. Splatbook support has opened up quite a lot of support for the rogue, covering several of their key weaknesses (inability to Sneak Attack many enemies, difficulty of pulling off Sneak Attacks). A well built rogue can outdamage any factotum, and is nearly as good a skillmonkey. He's less versatile, but can still contribute very well if optimized correctly.

Rogues are high tier 4; monks are bottom of tier 5. Huge difference.

Fair enough. I was thinking "well, good skillmonkeys are wizards, cloistered clerics, etc... this is tier 1 vs tier 4. Good tanks are warblades, crusaders, etc, that is tier 3 vs tier 5 of monk"
However, in retrospect, the best tanks are clerics and druids :P

So a fairer example would be "rogue is to skillmonkey as barbarian is to tank". both are tier 4.
That being said:
1. You can optimize the heck out of any class, even monks... heck, even commoners (chicken infested, pazzazu + chaingate solars, etc)
2. rogues are still very sub optimal skillmonkies.

but yes, my original analogy was wrong.

[JaronK]

Factotums and Beguilers were the upgrade skillmonkeys got. They're just like ToB for melee. And yes, they've got all kinds of nice things. The fact is, skillmonkeys needed some magic. Spells like Arcane Lock just straight up trump skills like Open Lock, and you need magic to deal with that, so the result was the creation of magical skillmonkeys. The Factotum is a Rogue with just enough magic to get by, while the Beguiler is a hybrid mage/rogue. And they definitely work.

JaronK

[Curmudgeon]

That leaves some things to be filled... What nice things do they get?
Well, if you had the skills to acquire more wealth than anyone else around you, what would you get? You've got at least an extra hour each day while Wizards and Clerics do their spell preparation. If you're an Elf (for the DEX bonus, primarily) you've also got an additional 4 hours each night when you don't need to sleep, plus low-light vision. While the party Wizard is required to rest during that time, you should be out supplementing your income. 5 hours of non-party time every single day is a huge opportunity.

If a Rogue isn't at least 30% above the standard "Wealth by Level" guidelines their player simply isn't paying attention. I consider it a personal failure if one of my Rogues falls below 150% of WbL.

[Andion Isurand]

If you are using the Bardic Knack class feature varient from PHB2, then your Bard, Cloistered Cleric and Filidh** .... into Lore PrCs... etc etc... you can do well as an all around skill monkey.

Then you work in as many synergy bonuses as you can.

**(Dragon 324, pg. 90 varient wizard base class with lore instead of bonus feats, +1 CL to divination spells every 5 lvls)

[Akal Saris]

A sidenote, but I think Pathfinder did some nice things for skill monkeys by changing the skills system into a 1 rank flat system (with +3 bonus for being trained in the skill) and combining several of the less useful skills into one.

Rogues kept the same number of skills but have 3-4 more "effective" skills to play with. Meanwhile bards get to use their perform in place of up to 8-9 other skills, effectively giving them 8 new skills. And with the changes to cross-class skills, wizards became skillmonkeys too, frankly.

But then they released 6 new classes, and none of them are skillmonkeys (though alchemist comes very close) or have trap-finding. I just don't get it.

[Optimystik]

It's honestly been a while since I read up on what Lurk can do, I just remember not being very impressed. :smallredface:

If you think of them more as assassins than skillmonkeys, they have a slightly better niche.

Yet they still have problems actually assassinating anyone. Their poor skills and lack of invisibility means you have a hard time working without items. Most of their class features require PP to function, which leaves them a lot less to spend on powers, so the fact that they can go up to 6 isn't really saying much. And the ACFs aren't much help - rather than being allowed to cherry-pick the augments you want, you have to choose a "track" with preselected augments. (Though one of them at least gives Trapfinding and Trapsense... needlessly nerfed by tacking "Psionic" onto them.)


Factotums and Beguilers were the upgrade skillmonkeys got. They're just like ToB for melee. And yes, they've got all kinds of nice things. The fact is, skillmonkeys needed some magic. Spells like Arcane Lock just straight up trump skills like Open Lock, and you need magic to deal with that, so the result was the creation of magical skillmonkeys. The Factotum is a Rogue with just enough magic to get by, while the Beguiler is a hybrid mage/rogue. And they definitely work.

JaronK

Also, Force Chest and Secret Chest. Really, there's a lot you can do to stymie a mundane rogue.

[Morph Bark]

Hm, interesting points. Will make it curious to see how a party of Rogue, Bard, Scout, Spellthief, Factotum and Beguiler would work out.


Also, Force Chest and Secret Chest. Really, there's a lot you can do to stymie a mundane rogue.

Excuse me: "stymie"? :smallconfused:

[Curmudgeon]

The fact is, skillmonkeys needed some magic. Spells like Arcane Lock just straight up trump skills like Open Lock, and you need magic to deal with that
Huh? No, for Arcane Lock you just need an adamantine tool to break the item. Arcane Lock can be removed via magic, but there are more straightforward approaches than that. Anyway, Rogues have Use Magic Device as a class skill. They're at least as likely to have a useful magic gizmo they can activate as a Factotum is to have prepared the needful thing as one of their few daily SLAs.

[Hague]

The tier system makes me laugh. I've got a lot of fixes for how a lot of the broken things in this game work. For instance, I make clerics require learning a spell as a wizard does. Now, they don't have a book per say, as the prayers they learn are simple enough, but without learning it, they can't pray to acquire a particular spell. In that vein, sorcerers, favored souls and other casters have a period that they must spend to train their new spells.

I also like Rich's rules in the gaming section (Rock skipping champion is the best!) for Diplomacy and Polymorphing (though, i change his a bit, the size category changes and type changes are a little off) but I agree with the other ones. The whole "let's play an outsider and abuse low level spells" shtick really irks me. Generally, I try to avoid letting magic-users outdo the other players without access to such things usually by cost or rarity prohibition. They won't be impossible to acquire, but they'll be rarer than what it might be otherwise.

As for skillmonkeys, there are plenty of ways for them to act in my games since I hardly have a cohesive plot. There's always some way to make money and XP without an explicitly prepared adventure. I could make a cohesive world for players to play in if they all chose to be Experts or Commoners. After all, finishing that order of chainmail for the duke's army is a challenge right? Easily worthy of experience and so on.

[shadow_archmagi]

I laugh at the tier system because I've made all my own fixes.


Congrats; that's what the tier system was meant to do. The idea was for it to say "Hey, casters tend to be better than melee" so that you could reply "Cool, nerfing casters now."

If you've applied your own houserules to balance things, then you havn't "beaten" the tier system, you've just proven its point.

[Hague]

Good thing too. I can still laugh at it, though. The inherent system isn't really broken, it's more over all the extra powers and abilities that work in tandem that really aren't granted to other classes. I'm not gonna blame the designers for not thinking of every possible class/feature combination. It's been a while since 3.5 has been out of print and people are still coming up with balance issues.

However, when you have lots of dead magic areas like my campaign has, it's not so bad: "Oh, you don't have ranks in climb? Hrm... that is a problem. Guess you need to find someone who can help you climb this mountain because all the other wizards before you effed up the fabric of magic around the world. Tough beans, eh?"

Is this unfair? Nope. The player's knew well beforehand that they were getting into this sort of situation but chose to ignore it anyway. I heartily encourage my players to think outside their stat sheet. If they can't do that, then they fail. Which is why you should put at least one rank in each climb and swim in my campaigns because Teamwork Benefits like Expert Mountaineering can make all the difference in making up for poorly skilled characters.

[Tinydwarfman]

Good thing too. I can still laugh at it, though. The inherent system isn't really broken, it's more over all the extra powers and abilities that work in tandem that really aren't granted to other classes. I'm not gonna blame the designers for not thinking of every possible class/feature combination. It's been a while since 3.5 has been out of print and people are still coming up with balance issues.


What multitude of class features are being combined with a single classed high level wizard? Wizard only get 1 class feature, and it still breaks the game solidly enough. It's not a matter of the players being too smart(ok, for TO it is, but not for PO), it's a matter of the designers not thinking enough, and not playtesting enough.

[Optimystik]

Excuse me: "stymie"? :smallconfused:

"stump, mystify, frustrate, confound." (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stymie?o=100074)

In other words, there is magic designed to prevent a rogue from doing his job, which he will then typically require magic of his own to defeat.

[Hague]

So how long should they have playtested it? There are realistic expectations that shareholders and company managers have when it comes to profit. Do you honestly believe that every bit of info from every sourcebook could be tested together at any given time? Sure. It's easy to say that but look at the size of this community. If we were to pay every person here to playtest the original release of 3.5, to acquire the degree of knowledge, in and out, of the game that the people here have regarding play imbalance? I imagine it would cost an awful lot. Frankly, with the actual income that a pencil and paper game would make (a dying genre, frankly with the attention spans that younger people have today) against the cost of playtesting to iron out every detail, every combination of spells, feats, and class features would more than likely ensure that there wouldn't even be a game to play in the first place. How long has it taken to find the super-combos, to pore through every book to find infinite spell loops, infinite damage loops, to min-max specific abilities? Yes, wizards and casters are powerful, and yes, they need foils to make them play nice with other players, but this hasn't changed since 1st edition, where spell casters were always absurdly weak at first, growing to absurd power levels and this was before spell resistance, counterspelling, and other foils were introduced. If a wizard is completely owning the game, then the DM isn't doing his/her job.

Do you believe that the demographic of people that originally playtested the game are as heavy optimizers and rules lawyers as the dearth of regulars in the Playground and other communities? I don't. Furthermore, I'd rather have a game that could be continued to be produced with flaws than to not have a game at all.

[Curmudgeon]

Also, Force Chest and Secret Chest. Really, there's a lot you can do to stymie a mundane rogue.

Force Chest: just haul it away, and wait. You'll get the stuff as soon as the spell expires.
Secret Chest: it doesn't matter, because the spellcaster is dead by the time you discover the focus component for the spell, and even magic doesn't provide a way for someone who didn't cast the spell to retrieve the chest.
So magic isn't really needed here. (I've already covered using a simple adamantine tool to get through Arcane Lock.) You'll need to try just a bit harder to stymie a mundane Rogue.

[Optimystik]

Force Chest: just haul it away, and wait. You'll get the stuff as soon as the spell expires.

Which gives its owner days to track you down - something he can do with a 2nd-level spell.


Secret Chest: it doesn't matter, because the spellcaster is dead by the time you discover the focus component for the spell, and even magic doesn't provide a way for someone who didn't cast the spell to retrieve the chest.

If the goal is "keep the rogue from finding X" then yes, Secret Chest stymies him. Say a phylactery is in the chest, said rogue is quite simply screwed.


You'll need to try just a bit harder to stymie a mundane Rogue.

No, not really.

[Captain Six]

I hate Skill Tricks. I'm not going to spend MORE skills to use my skills. That's why I put ranks in those skills in the first place. :smallmad: Why can't I just do those things already?

If you're willing to alter the skill system make more options open up when enough ranks are put into them. When Jump hits 9 ranks (level six) you get access to wall jumping. It's the same level warlocks get 24/7 fly. I think the skill system already had this in mind, the players asking to do something and the DM setting the skill check DC. Unfortunately 3.5 has a very strong "wait for the rules to tell you that you can do it" vibe to its rule overhaul which is the biggest nerf that skills have to endure.

[Greenish]

But then they released 6 new classes, and none of them are skillmonkeys (though alchemist comes very close) or have trap-finding. I just don't get it.Isn't the inquisitor (or something like that) pretty close? 6+int skills and a decent list, I seem to recall.

So how long should they have playtested it? There are realistic expectations that shareholders and company managers have when it comes to profit. Do you honestly believe that every bit of info from every sourcebook could be tested together at any given time?

<Snip-snap>There is a name for the fallacy that the game isn't broken because you can fix it with rule 0, but the name escapes me.

Regardless, nothing in the post quoted has anything to do with the usefulness of the tier system.

[Oslecamo]

Regardless, nothing in the post quoted has anything to do with the usefulness of the tier system.

On the contrary, it shows the inherent flaw of the tier system assuming that casters are being played by very experienced knowledgable players while fighters are picking toughness as all their bonus feats.

Again I point to Saph's campaigns with no house rules at all where fighters and rangers fight alongside archivists and druids and still everybody has plenty of fun.

[Greenish]

On the contrary, it shows the inherent flaw of the tier system assuming that casters are being played by very experienced knowledgable players while fighters are picking toughness as all their bonus feats.I'm not certain those are the assumptions made.

Again I point to Saph's campaigns with no house rules at all where fighters and rangers fight alongside archivists and druids and still everybody has plenty of fun.Anecdotal second-hand information, and even in the journals you can see the tiers in action: the sorcerer and the druid are obviously more powerful than the other characters. Just because everyone is still having fun only proves that it can happen, not that it will, nor that the tier system is without it's merits.

[PId6]

On the contrary, it shows the inherent flaw of the tier system assuming that casters are being played by very experienced knowledgable players while fighters are picking toughness as all their bonus feats.
That's... not true at all. It assumes the same level of optimization and play skill between all classes, and sets the bar fairly high. However, the tier system measures versatility, not power; a fighter can never be as versatile as a caster regardless of how much damage it deals.

You can't even pick Toughness as a fighter bonus feat.


Again I point to Saph's campaigns with no house rules at all where fighters and rangers fight alongside archivists and druids and still everybody has plenty of fun.
The ability to have fun has nothing at all to do with tiers. Some people can likely have fun playing commoners while the other players play everything else. And for Saph's game, in the end the druid and sorcerer were still the most useful members of the party. I don't see any contradictions with the tier system there at all.

Bah, bloody ninja pirate zombie robot.

[Morph Bark]

I hate Skill Tricks. I'm not going to spend MORE skills points to use my skills.

That's part of my gripe with skill tricks, even though I love the concept of them, since they give you something extra and affect skills in unusual ways. I mainly was hoping to hear something new with regards to skills in this thread, but guess not...

...unless either Dragon or Dungeon came with something, perhaps?