Altering Skills. Thoughts?

[Alleine]

Chances are really good that I'll be running my very first campaign soon. I've heard what classes a few of the PCs are thinking of, and it looks like there won't be a skill monkey. On top of that we've been playing 4e recently, and the skill changes caught my eye as a fairly smart move, so I'm deciding to implement some of them in my campaign, and a few extra changes on top of that.

First, spot/listen/search would be consolidated into Perception, or at the very least spot/listen would be.

Second, move silent/hide would become Stealth.

Third, everyone gets 1/2 level to all skill checks. Maybe only 1/3 level?

Fourth, all skills are class skills as long as the player can justify it for their character. Or maybe just ditch cross class skills altogether.

And lastly, bump the number of skill points everyone gets. Having an int penalty would mean nothing. Allowing, say, the BSF to do something other than grab jump. I'm not sure how many skill points everyone would get, but I'm toying with the idea of everyone acting as if they have at least 16 int for the purposes of skills.


Has anyone tried something like this before? How did it turn out? Are any of these changes likely to be outright broken?

[ericgrau]

Yes 30,000 people have lol. I have one but the server is always shoddy. PM me and I can e-mail it to you if you want or temporarily fix the link (though it'll only break again). One mistake I haven't gotten around to updating was pushing appraise and knowledge(architecture&engineering) into 5 different craft skills. That's anti-consolidation. I'd eliminate craft, perform and profession and maybe put those 2 into a skill called Objects or something.

On the matter of low ranks and cross-class skills, it only becomes a problem when the DM sets the DCs according to party level. Then ya granting everyone a scaling modifier is the only way to keep up. But if you stick with the low DCs then anybody can do at least something with a mere +5 in a skill. It also helps to not over-use certain skills, particularly perception and stealth, or else everyone will put ranks in them and those who can't get full ranks feel shortchanged. It becomes a bit of a skill point tax. Stealth has heavy restrictions which keeps it from being useful too often, and if you're not using perception against stealth 90% of the time, you're using it wrong. See the skill rules for more info. Once monsters and PCs can't use stealth 80% of the time and thus the endless calls for perception checks stop, suddenly these two skills simply die off.

[ShriekingDrake]

Chances are really good that I'll be running my very first campaign soon. I've heard what classes a few of the PCs are thinking of, and it looks like there won't be a skill monkey. On top of that we've been playing 4e recently, and the skill changes caught my eye as a fairly smart move, so I'm deciding to implement some of them in my campaign, and a few extra changes on top of that.

First, spot/listen/search would be consolidated into Perception, or at the very least spot/listen would be.

We include Sense Motive in the perception category in one of my games.

[Fax Celestis]

You might want to try this variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/alternativeSkillSystems.htm#levelBasedSkills) from Unearthed Arcana. It basically evolved into 4e's skill system.

[John Campbell]

Check out Pathfinder's skill system (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills). It's, IMAO, the best change they made to the game.

It includes heavy consolidation of skills, removal of a couple skills (Concentration and Use Rope) in favor of other mechanics, and changes to the way class skills work that make cross-classing cheaper and more effective, eliminate the weirdness where skills cost twice as much if you take them at the wrong level that afflicts multiclass characters in 3.5, get rid of the 4x skill points thing at 1st level that makes a 3.5 Rogue 1/Fighter 1 have twice as many skill points as a Fighter 1/Rogue 1, without reducing actual skill modifiers (probably generally improving them, really), and encourage putting at least a point into all of your class skills.

It also slightly improves most class skill lists... as a rule, any class that got any of the component skills gets the consolidated one as a class skill, and then it just straight-up adds things to several lists.

I think Fighter, Paladin, and Cleric, and possibly Sorcerer, are still a little low on skill points, and might want to up their base allocation to 4, and there's some weirdness with the lumping of both Forgery and Speak Language into Linguistics that means that all competent forgers are incredible polyglots, and vice versa, but other than that, I don't have any complaints about how the system works in practice. It makes skill points go a lot farther, and makes it possible to be competent at non-class skills and, even for low-skill classes, at least effective at all of your class skills.

[Honest Tiefling]

Thanks for the link, John Campbell. I am not the OP, but I like some of the decisions they made. Open Lock being different from Disable Device always bugged me, isn't a lock a device?

I guess I can see the polygot/forgery business if the world has a lot of languages, especially if a lot of them wind up on official documents. Still a bit weird, however. But then again, I never liked how forgery was countered by forgery, because I imagine a lot of people train to spot a forgery without learning to make them.

[ericgrau]

They have the basic ones down, so if that's what you want then you're good to go. Otherwise the list seems only halfway done, as if they said let's consolidate a few and leave the rest alone. And oh ya, let's add a couple skills so that the overall list is almost as long and complicated as before. Though again at least they got the essentials which may be all you want.

[Alleine]

On the matter of low ranks and cross-class skills, it only becomes a problem when the DM sets the DCs according to party level. Then ya granting everyone a scaling modifier is the only way to keep up. But if you stick with the low DCs then anybody can do at least something with a mere +5 in a skill. It also helps to not over-use certain skills, particularly perception and stealth, or else everyone will put ranks in them and those who can't get full ranks feel shortchanged. It becomes a bit of a skill point tax. Stealth has heavy restrictions which keeps it from being useful too often, and if you're not using perception against stealth 90% of the time, you're using it wrong. See the skill rules for more info. Once monsters and PCs can't use stealth 80% of the time and thus the endless calls for perception checks stop, suddenly these two skills simply die off.

Most people in my group would probably take more skills if they could. There have been situations where a lack of int resulted in someone being only able to jump well, or craft one thing well. Ideally the changes I make would allow everyone to have most of the skills their character can use AND make sure that at level 20 they aren't defeated by a grease spell because they never thought to put ranks in balance. It would also be nice to have several skills covered by someone else if the skillmonkey doesn't show.


You might want to try this variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/alternativeSkillSystems.htm#levelBasedSkills) from Unearthed Arcana. It basically evolved into 4e's skill system.

The only problem with that system is the restrictions. I want the theoretical fighter to be able to use Knowledge checks just as well as a wizard could if he really wants to. Thanks for the link though, its given me some ideas.


Check out Pathfinder's skill system (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills). It's, IMAO, the best change they made to the game.

Thanks, I'll take a look. I suppose more skill consolidation isn't bad as long as it makes sense.

[John Campbell]

They have the basic ones down, so if that's what you want then you're good to go. Otherwise the list seems only halfway done, as if they said let's consolidate a few and leave the rest alone. And oh ya, let's add a couple skills so that the overall list is almost as long and complicated as before. Though again at least they got the essentials which may be all you want.

Uh what? Pathfinder added one skill: Fly. They completely eliminated two (Concentration and Use Rope), and consolidated 15 skills (Balance, Jump, and Tumble; Decipher Script, Forgery, and Speak Language; Diplomacy and Gather Information; Disable Device and Open Lock; Hide and Move Silently; Listen, Spot, and Search) down to 6 (Acrobatics, Linguistics, Diplomacy, Disable Device, Stealth, and Perception). Net effect is shortening the core skill list by ten skills, or about a quarter of its length, and merging most of the near-worthless skills into more useful ones.

[Yora]

You might want to try this variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/alternativeSkillSystems.htm#levelBasedSkills) from Unearthed Arcana. It basically evolved into 4e's skill system.
Star Wars Saga does the same, but adds half your level to cross class skills.

[ericgrau]

Uh what? Pathfinder added one skill: Fly. They completely eliminated two (Concentration and Use Rope), and consolidated 15 skills (Balance, Jump, and Tumble; Decipher Script, Forgery, and Speak Language; Diplomacy and Gather Information; Disable Device and Open Lock; Hide and Move Silently; Listen, Spot, and Search) down to 6 (Acrobatics, Linguistics, Diplomacy, Disable Device, Stealth, and Perception). Net effect is shortening the core skill list by ten skills, or about a quarter of its length, and merging most of the near-worthless skills into more useful ones.

Ok they consolidated about half of them. Ya that's still something. It just seems odd to me to get appraise at the same price as spot/listen/search. In depth concentration rules still exist though; essentially you get a skill point each level for free to get that essential skill. Ya I thought there was more than fly; I must be thinking of alpha/beta or another system maybe.