Amechra
2011-04-06, 02:28 PM
Alright, first of all, I'm going to crib the following off of the user Leziad over on DnD-Wiki.
He suggested that you should cap the collective bonus to a skill (ie luck bonuses, competence bonuses, untyped bonuses, etc, etc) at HD +13.
Here is my variant on this:
Capped Skills
All skills can have a maximum bonus equal to the number of ranks that character has in that skill +10. This includes the skill ranks themselves. For example, a rogue with 6 ranks in Move Silently can have up to a +16 to any Move Silently check.
Skill synergies still give their bonuses, but also have the following effect: the cap on skill bonuses is increased by half the bonus derived from synergy to that skill. For example, a character who gets a +6 bonus just from synergies to Diplomacy would have their cap on diplomacy checks increased by 3, from a 16 to a 19, for example.
The Skill Focus feat increases the cap for any skill you have it for by 3, so a character with 6 ranks in Hide and Skill Focus (Hide) would have a cap of 19 instead of 16.
Those +2/+2 skill feats increase the cap on both skills by 2. So a character with 4 ranks in Hide and Move Silently with the Stealthy feat would have a cap of 16 for both, instead of 14.
Any feat that acts like Skill Focus for the purpose of requirements also has the same increase, restricted to the amount that the feat grants.
And now...
Casting (Spontaneous/Prepared Arcane Divine) (Special); Trained Only
Like the Craft, Knowledge and Profession skills, Casting is actually a collection of related skills. Casting represents study the character has undertaken in a particular magical discipline, such as wizardry, sorcery, or clerical.
Check: Casting a spell requires a successful check against DC 18+(3*Spell Level); failure causes the spellcaster to lose that spell/spell slot. If this skill is used, Arcane Spell Failure is replaced with a penalty equal to (failure chance/5) for all Arcane versions of this skill, unless that caster class has the ability to cast without penalty in armor of that type.
Action: Requires the length of time that it would normally take to cast that spell.
Try again: Yes, but only with a different spell slot.
Special: You may Take 10 or 20 with this skill only with a successful concentration check of DC 10+(2*spell level of the spell you are trying to cast); if you take 20, the spell's casting time is multiplied by 20. The ability score this skill is based off of is the same as the ability score that determines the spell DCs of the class that grants this skill; if multiple classes are taken with that given skill, they all use the ability score from the first class that grants that skill. No classes have this as a skill unless they explicitly state that they have every single skill; this includes classes that state that they have all skills as class skills.
Synergy: If you have 5 or more ranks in a particular Casting skill, you get a +2 to all Casting skills that share half of their descriptor with that particular Casting skill (for example, 5 ranks in Casting (Spontaneous Divine) would give a +2 to Casting (Spontaneous Arcane) and Casting (Prepared Divine)).
Trained only: You can not use this skill if you do not have ranks in it. No, not even with Jack of All Trades and the like.
Changes to classes, Core only for now
Assassins get Casting (Spontaneous Arcane) (Int)
Bards and Sorcerers get Casting (Spontaneous Arcane) (Cha) as a class skill.
Blackguards, Clerics, Druids, Paladins, and Rangers get Casting (Prepared Divine) (Wis)as a class skill
Wizards gain Casting (Prepared Arcane) (Int) as a class skill.
Design reasonings:
Ever since looking at the capped skill idea, I really liked it. It struck a chord, you might say. I decided to change it to ranks+10+cap raisers rather that HD+13+(1 reroll for any point of bonus over that amount) because I feel that it reflects more on the skill user being skilled than the original version. I mean, Frank the Fighter and Randy the Rogue would both get the same maximum for how skilled they can be in the original version. Some changes this brings about:
-Skill monkeys don't get replaced by casters with ****loads of buffs. It is far more effective to just buff the skill monkey when you need a skill done.
-Half Elves are useful for stuff beyond getting record diplomacy bonuses; there is a Half-Elf only feat that changes Synergy bonuses from +2 to +3, meaning that they effectively have a cap that is .5 to 1.5 points higher than anyone else.
-Skill Focus and those +2/+2 feats are useful for things beyond being road-bumps to getting into a PrC.
-You can tell, pretty easily, what kind of checks a character of a given level will be able to achieve. VERY useful.
As for the Casting skill... thanks to the capping on Skills, Casting isn't going to be trivial. Even with full synergies, a 9 is required to be rolled to cast a 9th level spell at 20th level; sure, you could take 10, which would require a trivial DC 28 concentration check.
-Casting Removed for now because it is imbalanced-
Next up will be messing around with spells so that auto-successes at skills (such as Knock) have some other effect, so that Skill Monkeys have something to do.
Please PEACH. I had no space in the title to ask for such.
He suggested that you should cap the collective bonus to a skill (ie luck bonuses, competence bonuses, untyped bonuses, etc, etc) at HD +13.
Here is my variant on this:
Capped Skills
All skills can have a maximum bonus equal to the number of ranks that character has in that skill +10. This includes the skill ranks themselves. For example, a rogue with 6 ranks in Move Silently can have up to a +16 to any Move Silently check.
Skill synergies still give their bonuses, but also have the following effect: the cap on skill bonuses is increased by half the bonus derived from synergy to that skill. For example, a character who gets a +6 bonus just from synergies to Diplomacy would have their cap on diplomacy checks increased by 3, from a 16 to a 19, for example.
The Skill Focus feat increases the cap for any skill you have it for by 3, so a character with 6 ranks in Hide and Skill Focus (Hide) would have a cap of 19 instead of 16.
Those +2/+2 skill feats increase the cap on both skills by 2. So a character with 4 ranks in Hide and Move Silently with the Stealthy feat would have a cap of 16 for both, instead of 14.
Any feat that acts like Skill Focus for the purpose of requirements also has the same increase, restricted to the amount that the feat grants.
And now...
Casting (Spontaneous/Prepared Arcane Divine) (Special); Trained Only
Like the Craft, Knowledge and Profession skills, Casting is actually a collection of related skills. Casting represents study the character has undertaken in a particular magical discipline, such as wizardry, sorcery, or clerical.
Check: Casting a spell requires a successful check against DC 18+(3*Spell Level); failure causes the spellcaster to lose that spell/spell slot. If this skill is used, Arcane Spell Failure is replaced with a penalty equal to (failure chance/5) for all Arcane versions of this skill, unless that caster class has the ability to cast without penalty in armor of that type.
Action: Requires the length of time that it would normally take to cast that spell.
Try again: Yes, but only with a different spell slot.
Special: You may Take 10 or 20 with this skill only with a successful concentration check of DC 10+(2*spell level of the spell you are trying to cast); if you take 20, the spell's casting time is multiplied by 20. The ability score this skill is based off of is the same as the ability score that determines the spell DCs of the class that grants this skill; if multiple classes are taken with that given skill, they all use the ability score from the first class that grants that skill. No classes have this as a skill unless they explicitly state that they have every single skill; this includes classes that state that they have all skills as class skills.
Synergy: If you have 5 or more ranks in a particular Casting skill, you get a +2 to all Casting skills that share half of their descriptor with that particular Casting skill (for example, 5 ranks in Casting (Spontaneous Divine) would give a +2 to Casting (Spontaneous Arcane) and Casting (Prepared Divine)).
Trained only: You can not use this skill if you do not have ranks in it. No, not even with Jack of All Trades and the like.
Changes to classes, Core only for now
Assassins get Casting (Spontaneous Arcane) (Int)
Bards and Sorcerers get Casting (Spontaneous Arcane) (Cha) as a class skill.
Blackguards, Clerics, Druids, Paladins, and Rangers get Casting (Prepared Divine) (Wis)as a class skill
Wizards gain Casting (Prepared Arcane) (Int) as a class skill.
Design reasonings:
Ever since looking at the capped skill idea, I really liked it. It struck a chord, you might say. I decided to change it to ranks+10+cap raisers rather that HD+13+(1 reroll for any point of bonus over that amount) because I feel that it reflects more on the skill user being skilled than the original version. I mean, Frank the Fighter and Randy the Rogue would both get the same maximum for how skilled they can be in the original version. Some changes this brings about:
-Skill monkeys don't get replaced by casters with ****loads of buffs. It is far more effective to just buff the skill monkey when you need a skill done.
-Half Elves are useful for stuff beyond getting record diplomacy bonuses; there is a Half-Elf only feat that changes Synergy bonuses from +2 to +3, meaning that they effectively have a cap that is .5 to 1.5 points higher than anyone else.
-Skill Focus and those +2/+2 feats are useful for things beyond being road-bumps to getting into a PrC.
-You can tell, pretty easily, what kind of checks a character of a given level will be able to achieve. VERY useful.
As for the Casting skill... thanks to the capping on Skills, Casting isn't going to be trivial. Even with full synergies, a 9 is required to be rolled to cast a 9th level spell at 20th level; sure, you could take 10, which would require a trivial DC 28 concentration check.
-Casting Removed for now because it is imbalanced-
Next up will be messing around with spells so that auto-successes at skills (such as Knock) have some other effect, so that Skill Monkeys have something to do.
Please PEACH. I had no space in the title to ask for such.