About skills (3.5)

[Seharvepernfan]

Do you prefer how 3.5 does them:

-Broken up skills (hide and move silently are separate, etc.)
-ranks are bought one at a time, cross class ranks are .5 at a time
-synergy bonuses

Or how PF does them:

-Combined skills (hide and move silently are Stealth, etc.)
-class skills with one rank gain a +3 bonus, cross class are bought one point at a time

Which do you prefer, and why?

I'm torn between the two. On one hand, I like ranks in a skill meaning something special, and some of the combined skills in pathfinder, while often being used together, aren't really similar enough to be "the same skill". I like that having lots of skill points is mostly the domain of intelligent characters.

On the other hand, I hate not having as many skills as I would like, even on an 18 Int human rogue. Though while in PF you can have all the skills you want, so can everybody else, which kinda brings you around to square 1 - at least with opposed skills.

I think it would be an easier choice if there were some way to know how your DM handles skills. For instance, some DMs tend to keep the DCs fairly low, which encourages spreading your skill points around. Other DMs hardly require skill checks, or there aren't many situations where you need skills, which encourages maxing your opposed-skills.

[Kol Korran]

Do you prefer how 3.5 does them:

-Broken up skills (hide and move silently are separate, etc.)
-ranks are bought one at a time, cross class ranks are .5 at a time
-synergy bonuses

Or how PF does them:

-Combined skills (hide and move silently are Stealth, etc.)
-class skills with one rank gain a +3 bonus, cross class are bought one point at a time

Which do you prefer, and why?


I prefer pathfinder, and even grouped in most of the social skills under "Influence" and the Str skills under "Athletics", and most of the non stealth rogue skills under "thievery". why?
- character can do more things. which i like because it makes adventuring more easy and fun.
- it makes things simpler to run and the game more flowing. people remember their skills more easily (we play once every 3-4 weeks, so people forget) linking similar themed skills together makes jumping to them quicker and less annoying.

maybe these seem not important reasons, but they served my group FINE.

[Ernir]

I greatly prefer the "class skills with one rank gain a +3 bonus, cross class are bought one point at a time" system. It's still one of the things I like the most about PF.

But there are endless possibilities for creating new skills and merging the existing ones, how exactly (or whether) that is done I care less about.

In my last two 3.5 games, I've used the PF skill system with the 3.5 skill list. Has worked okay so far.

[bloodtide]

I greatly dislike the way Pathfinder does skills. The grouping together of skills makes no sense to me.

Take 'Stealth'. The way it works in the rules is that you can hide and move silently all warped into one. And it sounds fine that everyone that can hide is also quiet. But that is simply not true. Just as you can stay still and be quiet, does not equal great skill at hiding. Nor does your ability to hide automatically make you quiet.

'Perception' is even worse. Not everyone can see and hear and use all thier senses equally. Some can hear good, some can see good, but few can do both equally.

And it leads to all sorts of goofy stuff. Like a Hawk they have a good perception score so they can hear things and identify potions? undead have senses of taste and touch? (A wraith has +10 so they can taste and smell things?)

But the big thing it does is give a character too many skill points. When you combine all the 'automatic skills all the players take', then you give the player a ton of extra skill points. So a character will have maxed out skills in everything. And this quickly makes the game boring. DM: the DC to do it is 15; Player:Ha my total bonus is +10!

And it does ruin all sorts of role playing. Such as when a guard might have a good listen check, but have a poor spot check and such.

[Absol197]

I greatly dislike the way Pathfinder does skills. The grouping together of skills makes no sense to me.

Take 'Stealth'. The way it works in the rules is that you can hide and move silently all warped into one. And it sounds fine that everyone that can hide is also quiet. But that is simply not true. Just as you can stay still and be quiet, does not equal great skill at hiding. Nor does your ability to hide automatically make you quiet.

'Perception' is even worse. Not everyone can see and hear and use all thier senses equally. Some can hear good, some can see good, but few can do both equally.

And it leads to all sorts of goofy stuff. Like a Hawk they have a good perception score so they can hear things and identify potions? undead have senses of taste and touch? (A wraith has +10 so they can taste and smell things?)

But the big thing it does is give a character too many skill points. When you combine all the 'automatic skills all the players take', then you give the player a ton of extra skill points. So a character will have maxed out skills in everything. And this quickly makes the game boring. DM: the DC to do it is 15; Player:Ha my total bonus is +10!

And it does ruin all sorts of role playing. Such as when a guard might have a good listen check, but have a poor spot check and such.

I'm going to have to disagree with you here. Especially about Perception; it's always bugged me that Spot and Listen were different skills. Remember, skill points represent training in that area, not natural ability. All of your senses are sending your brain much, much more information than you realize; you've trained yourself to ignore background sounds, tiny movements, the small whiffs of smells, and a lot of other sensory information that's all around you. A person can learn to become more perceptive simply by allowing themselves to notice all those things that they had previously ignored. It's not easy, but it can be done, and it does, literally, affect all of your senses at once.

Sure, certain professions will have biases to some senses. If you make perfumes for a living, you'll likely have learned to be perceptive to smell, and if you're a musician, your ears are more sensitive than others through practice. But in general, Perception rolling all the senses together into one skill makes a lot of sense.

And just because a creature has a high Perception modifier, it doesn't mean that it can use senses it doesn't have. A blind character has a +20. Okay, he's still blind. He automatically fails any Perception checks to see things, but he can hear and smell well. A wraith (as in your example) can't taste or smell (and likely can feel, either), because it doesn't have those senses. The senses it does have, however, are rather sharp. Oh, and hawks actually do have really good hearing, as well as sight :smallsmile:

As for Stealth, I can't make as good an argument, as I don't have personal experience with it. But, sticking with the idea that skill points represent training, I still think it makes sense. If you're training yourself to be better at not being seen, why would you neglect also training at not being heard, and vice versa? Being great at one and awful at the other means you'll be found nearly as often as you would with no training at all. Most people who put lots of effort into stealth practice both in tandem, so why wouldn't they be the same skill?

[Duke of URL]

One of the strengths of the 3.5 system is the diversity of skills. Collapsing them weakens the system, and is typically done because of the problem of the skill ranks mechanism being so shoehorned into min/max territory -- that is, it is almost never worth it (except for specific circumstances) to "dabble" in skills, but instead to focus on a small set and maximize them.

So, you're really, really good at a few (or more than a few for the high skill classes) things, but you're no better than a commoner could be at pretty much everything else.

Some people try to fix this by awarding more skill points or collapsing skills, but they're band-aids. Fortunately, there's a better way (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=81778) (if I do say so myself), which we've incorporated into Boundless Horizons (hopefully coming out soon!) as well.

[Arbane]

One of the strengths of the 3.5 system is the diversity of skills. Collapsing them weakens the system,

I don't really agree with this. One of the Exalted developers commented that the more skills a system has, the less competent the PCs are. (So they made a system that has 25 skills that cover every possible area of human endeavour...although how well it works is questionable.) Feng Shui gets by with about 18 skills, but it's a more focussed game (Action movies, and the rules philosophy tossed 'realism' through a plate-glass window in scene 1).


So, you're really, really good at a few (or more than a few for the high skill classes) things, but you're no better than a commoner could be at pretty much everything else.

Yep. The big weakness of the 3.5 skill system is that unless you're playing a Factotum or similar, there's NEVER enough skill points to have any measure of all-around competence.

[FMArthur]

The thing is that while a lot of these collapsed skills are independent in real life, a real fantasy hero would almost never have them separately. That's what you're trying to play as, and it's borderline impossible without being a legendary genius or a street thief type in D&D 3.5. So I really appreciate Pathfinder's skill condensation and not-retarded cross-class skill system in that way.

But even Pathfinder doesn't give enough skill points to fully accommodate heroic character archetypes in actual warrior classes. 2+Int on mundanes should have never been a possibility from the very beginning and it's still carrying on somehow. So they made a system change and use it as an excuse to ignore the persisting problems on the individual level; it's a job half-done made in the spirit of appeasement without understanding the whole problem, like many things with Pathfinder.

[Duke of URL]

I don't really agree with this. One of the Exalted developers commented that the more skills a system has, the less competent the PCs are.

That's true, as long as you subscribe to the mechanic of "you have a fixed number of skill points to increase your skills with." It's the underlying mechanic at fault, not the number of skills or skill points.

[Arbane]

That's true, as long as you subscribe to the mechanic of "you have a fixed number of skill points to increase your skills with." It's the underlying mechanic at fault, not the number of skills or skill points.

True, that. the BRP system can get away with having individual skills for EACH WEAPON because you increase them with practice, not points. (Which has its own problems - the World's Greatest Swordsman can become utterly helpless if he has to use an axe, for example...)

[Duke of URL]

Well, within the framework of fixing 3.5 as opposed to totally throwing out the skills system, the fix I linked above works well to even out the min/max skill problem.

In a nutshell, for those who didn't follow the link, the highlights are:


1) Your class skills list are automatically "familiar" to you, and you gain ranks in all of them at 1/2 the maximum rate (level/2 + 1)

2) You have a number of skill points equal to a specified number per class plus your INT modifier (minimum 0). Once per class (not at each level), you assign skill points to various skills -- each skill point may used to "focus" on a class skill (increasing its advancement to (level + 3)) or to make a cross-class skill a class skill (and therefore "familiar")

3) All other skills are "foreign" and progress at a minimal rate (level/4).

So, what does this accomplish? Well, your class skills list should represent things that you should be good at, simply as a side-effect of having the capability of being a member of that class. As you progress in that class, those skills will automatically develop, even without specific training. However, specific training can either expand your skills base or improve a subset of your skills. This also allows the additional of new skills without breaking things, as long as they are appropriately added to the class skill lists.

-------

Another approach, used in our sister project Wayward Chronicles, is the split the skills list into combat and non-combat skills, and award a pool of skill points within each group, so that you encourage players to take "character" skills as well as those that have direct mechanical benefits.

[ericgrau]

Do you prefer how 3.5 does them:

-Broken up skills (hide and move silently are separate, etc.)
-ranks are bought one at a time, cross class ranks are .5 at a time
-synergy bonuses

Or how PF does them:

-Combined skills (hide and move silently are Stealth, etc.)
-class skills with one rank gain a +3 bonus, cross class are bought one point at a time
I do like combining skills, but I don't like PF's way because they did it for less than half of them. You do lose something but I think 3.5 skills are too complicated for too small a part of the system which only discourages them more and makes them an even smaller part of the system.

I think there's a problem with skill DCs rather than the max ranks. Not by RAW, but b/c DMs don't often enforce rules making DC 20-30 exceptional and the ability to take 20s and 10s on some skills, and the nonexistance of nat 1s by RAW. That makes maxing out half the skills pointless. It also makes having those skills as cross-class in PF likewise pointless b/c anyone can get them plenty high even cross-class by RAW (w/o inflated DCs). Meanwhile even in PF b/c of those inflated DCs (and heck, PF even inflated a couple as part of the system itself rather than DM error), skills remain a high risk for little gain and thus still not worth investing much in. All basically because way too many DMs refuse to let skills auto-succeed on minor things even when the negative consequences of failure are high. Thus smart players don't even bother with skills anymore, cross-class or not. Sure cross-class skills have no hope of meeting inflated DCs at all, but those DCs are the real problem as even class skills aren't worth it.

So PF tries to let cross-class skills "keep up" to address a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place and then fails to solve that problem anyway.

I did enjoy the way in PF you could put 1 rank in 6 skills and be ok at them. But really if more DMs stuck to the rules of DC 10 and DC 15 checks for simple things people would get that benefit anyway.

[Tvtyrant]

I prefer Pathfinder of the two you mentioned; people have skills more in keeping with real life.

[Big Fau]

I don't really agree with this. One of the Exalted developers commented that the more skills a system has, the less competent the PCs are.

Take that with a salt shaker because WW as a whole can't balance on one leg, let alone an RPG.

Edit:


I prefer Pathfinder of the two you mentioned; people have skills more in keeping with real life.

You do know that skills in PF are no more realistic than skills in 3.5 were, right? You can still jump hundreds of feet into the air, for example.

[Yahzi]

Wow, I did not expect to see anyone defend 3.5's system. PF's skill system strikes me as so obviously better.

I agree, though, that the real problem is not taking 10 on skill rolls. This is one of the reasons magic is so dominating; skills and melee attacks require rolls, which 5% of the time result in catastrophic failure. Wish? No roll at all.

[Curmudgeon]

The fundamental issue from a gaming prespective is this: Do you want being skillful to represent a significant character archetype? If so, you want fine details in skills so that most characters will have only a few such areas of distinction, and will obtain most of what makes them distinctive elsewhere (through magic, class features, being stronger/quicker/whatever, & c). Only a few character classes will distinguish themselves through mastering a large number of skills.

If you feel threatened by select characters commonly having subtle answers to most situations, short of breaking out the "big guns" of magic or weapons, then you'll probably like the Pathfinder simplification. Personally I find that "dumbing down" the skill system removes a lot of the fun from the game.

[some guy]

I'm using the combined skills of pathfinder, but not the +3 bonus for class skills with one rank in it (I don't know really why I don't do the latter).

I like that, with combined skills, a skill monkey can be stealthy and perceptive and still have enough skill points for other skills. In normal 3.5 as a ranger you'd probably want move silently, hide, spot and listen, congratulations, you now have 2 skills over to choose from. As a standard rogue you'd probably want move silently, hide, spot, listen, search, disable device and open lock. That's 7 skills for your 8 skill points. In pathfinder that's stealth, perception and disable device, you've now spent 3 out of 8 skill points and have more than enough points to differentiate your rogue from other rogues.

But really, what's bothering me the most with the 3.5 skill system is that when someone's trying to sneak there need to be at least 4 dice rolls. 2 for stealth and move silently and spot and listen for the opposing party. Pathfinder reduces these rolls to 2 (and with that, it reduces the out of game time needed for that single action).

Sidenote:
I once ran a d20 Call of Cthulhu campaign. Separate spot and listen checks can be used wonderfully to create a tense feeling of paranoia.

[prufock]

I like condensed skill lists to a point. Never played pathfinder, but I've been thinking about houseruling the skill list down, maybe by half or more. I like this for a few reasons:

1 - Ease of use. A character sheet now contains 20-30-odd skills to scan through when looking for your Decipher Script bonus.
2 - Character creation. It's easier to decide between 10 skills than 20 skills. It makes character generation quicker.
3 - Reducing rolls. For example, when you are sneaking along a corridor with the normal skill list, there are 4 necessary rolls - hide and move silently opposed by spot and listen. That also makes 2 chances of failure instead of one. Using stealth/notice, there are only 2 rolls and one chance of failure.

Reducing the skill list is a bit tricky, because I'd also want to reduce the number of skill points to reflect that. This can affect some classes more than others.

My tentative list of changes:
Appraise is gone, folded into Craft for the relevant type of item.
Balance and Tumble are folded together.
Decipher Script and Forgery are folded together.
Disable Device and Open Lock are folded together.
Gather Information is gone, the uses folded into any of the other social skills.
Diplomacy no longer has flat DCs.
Handle Animal and Ride are combined.
Knowledge Nature now covers Survival.
Spot and Listen are now Notice.
Hide and Move Silently are Stealth.
Climb, Jump, and Swim are combined.

I'm still debating other combinations.

[Absol197]

My tentative list of changes:
Appraise is gone, folded into Craft for the relevant type of item.
Balance and Tumble are folded together.
Decipher Script and Forgery are folded together.
Disable Device and Open Lock are folded together.
Gather Information is gone, the uses folded into any of the other social skills.
Diplomacy no longer has flat DCs.
Handle Animal and Ride are combined.
Knowledge Nature now covers Survival.
Spot and Listen are now Notice.
Hide and Move Silently are Stealth.
Climb, Jump, and Swim are combined.

This is almost exactly what Pathfinder did.

Their list was:
Balance, Tumble, and Jump became Acrobatics;
Decipher Script, Forgery, and Speak Language became Linguistics;
Disable Device and Open Lock became Disable Device;
Gather Information and Diplomacy became Diplomacy;
Spot and Listen became Perception;
Hide and Move Silently became Stealth.

The other major change was to the cross-class skill system. All skills grow at one rank per skill point. If you have at least one rank in a class skill, you get a +3 to that skill (also, no more x4 skill points at first level). IT keeps the max ranks the same, but characters can actually be competent at their cross class skills.

[Seharvepernfan]

Balance, Tumble, and Jump became Acrobatics;


Wasn't it Balance, Escape Artist, & Tumble?

And didn't Climb, Jump, and Swim become Athletics?

[georgie_leech]

So, you're really, really good at a few (or more than a few for the high skill classes) things, but you're no better than a commoner could be at pretty much everything else.



To give Commoners their due, no more competent can still mean quite good. After all, how many people do you know that can jump 20 feet at once?

[Coidzor]

Well, within the framework of fixing 3.5 as opposed to totally throwing out the skills system, the fix I linked above works well to even out the min/max skill problem.

In a nutshell, for those who didn't follow the link, the highlights are:


1) Your class skills list are automatically "familiar" to you, and you gain ranks in all of them at 1/2 the maximum rate (level/2 + 1)

2) You have a number of skill points equal to a specified number per class plus your INT modifier (minimum 0). Once per class (not at each level), you assign skill points to various skills -- each skill point may used to "focus" on a class skill (increasing its advancement to (level + 3)) or to make a cross-class skill a class skill (and therefore "familiar")

3) All other skills are "foreign" and progress at a minimal rate (level/4).

So, what does this accomplish? Well, your class skills list should represent things that you should be good at, simply as a side-effect of having the capability of being a member of that class. As you progress in that class, those skills will automatically develop, even without specific training. However, specific training can either expand your skills base or improve a subset of your skills. This also allows the additional of new skills without breaking things, as long as they are appropriately added to the class skill lists.

Seems like you'd run into some odd things with PrC requirements, since a lot of them assume you'd have a few spare points to set on fire grabbing 3 ranks of a cross-class skill by 5th level, but without changing the pre-requisites, you'd have to either burn a point to make it familiar skill that wouldn't be used or wait until 13th level to take a PrC one should've gotten access to at 6th.

Did you just eliminate the frivolous and asinine skill rank pre-reqs then or do something else? :smallconfused:

[Hunter Noventa]

Wasn't it Balance, Escape Artist, & Tumble?

And didn't Climb, Jump, and Swim become Athletics?

No, Escape Artist is still it's own thing, Acrobatics is Balance, jump and Tumble.

Climb and Swim are still separate as well.

And I personally enjoy the way Pathfinder has done it.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Seems like you'd run into some odd things with PrC requirements, since a lot of them assume you'd have a few spare points to set on fire grabbing 3 ranks of a cross-class skill by 5th level, but without changing the pre-requisites, you'd have to either burn a point to make it familiar skill that wouldn't be used or wait until 13th level to take a PrC one should've gotten access to at 6th.

Did you just eliminate the frivolous and asinine skill rank pre-reqs then or do something else? :smallconfused:

This is part of the reason why I'm personally divided on skills between 3.5 and PF. Pathfinder makes it easier for the Fighter to actually spot enemies, even he is still behind (stealth checks still favor DEX-monkeys, but c'est le vie), but it has poor interactions for other things.

I hate doing skill point math on characters in 3.5 due to how dangerously expensive cross-class skills can be for fightin' characters, like Ranger/Barbarian. Suddenly, the power to get angry impacts my ability to spot things, but not hear things.:smallannoyed: It's the reason that all of my human characters grab Able Learner.

As for condensing the actual skills, it helps those with less and can reduce table time. It makes more sense for a rogue to have to roll once for hiding and once for move silently, but just rolling stealth once with one perception check can help things flow faster.

[sonofzeal]

I think PF's skill system is a better idea than 3.5's, but there's a few things that didn't go far enough and a few others that are just strange. Knowledges, for example, should have been consolidated - the game seriously doesn't need ten different skills for "knows lots of stuff", or thirteen if you count Appraise, Speak Languages, and Spellcraft. And that number didn't even go down by one in PF. Know:Arcana and Spellcraft could have been bundled, as could Know:Engineering and either Dungeoneering or Appraise.

On the other hand, I will never understand why they made Armor Check Penalty apply to Ride checks. It's seriously incomprehensible to me why they'd want to punish such an archetypal character role. It can be mitigated at higher levels depending on your class and archetype, but the fact is it's still something you have to work around and deal with, and limits your build choices if you're going to jump through the hoops to get it back off where it should have stayed in the first place.

But overall, yes, I think it's an improvement and one of the elements I'd consider porting from PF back into 3.5.

[Coidzor]

Consolidation is one of those things that helps make it so that skillful characters aren't skillful largely because everyone else is starved for the points to not be incompetent at them. Though rectifying that problem truly and fully would require a lot more than the change from 3.5 to PF.

[JonRG]

Knowledges, for example, should have been consolidated - the game seriously doesn't need ten different skills for "knows lots of stuff", or thirteen if you count Appraise, Speak Languages, and Spellcraft.

Huh, I never thought about it like that. I guess because most adventurers snag one or two class-relevant Knowledges, and a know-it-all can just put one point in all of them. Definitely could use some work, though Linguistics does grant a language for every point you put in it.

[Godskook]

Me, I hate how the d20 system in general handles the skill system, compared to how oWoD handles it, particularly in OWBN. Sure, you can have 80 different skills for handling similar situations, but since skill growth isn't tied to to character growth the same way it is in D&D, its not as big of a deal to make adjustments on the fly, or have characters who are great at spotting but bad at listening(although that particular distinction isn't in OWBN, similar ones are, such as being really good at stabbing someone with a knife but bad at doing so with your own claws).

Its a feeling I've been trying to port into 3.5 without drastically changing class balance too much.

[sonofzeal]

Huh, I never thought about it like that. I guess because most adventurers snag one or two class-relevant Knowledges, and a know-it-all can just put one point in all of them. Definitely could use some work, though Linguistics does grant a language for every point you put in it.
Honestly, even grabbing "one or two class-relevant Knowledges" is often difficult. My last Cleric had 9 Int and couldn't even afford Know:Religion, which resulted in mockery from the rest of the party. And a more recent character had something like 15 languages known, but that still wasn't enough to make much of a dent in Faerun's linguistic potpourri.

[Absol197]

Honestly, even grabbing "one or two class-relevant Knowledges" is often difficult. My last Cleric had 9 Int and couldn't even afford Know:Religion, which resulted in mockery from the rest of the party. And a more recent character had something like 15 languages known, but that still wasn't enough to make much of a dent in Faerun's linguistic potpourri.

To be fair, though, fifteen languages isn't all that much in the real world, either.

I mean, yes, it takes an incredibly gifted person to be able to speak fifteen languages, but there are thousands of languages spoken across the world. While fifteen spoken by one person is something special, it doesn't make much of a dent in our linguisitic potpourri, either.

[Tvtyrant]

You do know that skills in PF are no more realistic than skills in 3.5 were, right? You can still jump hundreds of feet into the air, for example.

That has nothing to do with my point. A modern humans has the equivalent of tens of thousands of skill points, in everything from skateboarding to plowing a field to tying shoelaces. Building a system with separate skills for all of those is impossible, so in a weird way you make the game less realistic by trying. If you have big lumped skill sets you can be assured of being able to do everyday tasks, while with extremely split skills they either fall in the cracks or end up in categories you cannot possible have enough skill points to fill. Like Forgery and Balance skills in 3.5, where they become easy ways to abuse the system because monsters and NPCs don't have the skill points to fill them.

TL;DR: I think broad categories represents the breadth of human existence better.

[Novawurmson]

Pathfinder's skill system helps those with the fewest skill points the most; honestly, they're the biggest buff that "mundanes" got in Pathfinder.

Try to think of one character in fiction who can move silently but can't hide or one who can jump and tumble, but has no balance. It doesn't happen; they are all the same archetype.

[Duskranger]

I actually like the skillpoint system in DnD 3.5.

For one, I find multiple things to be seperate. The only thing is it needs a more experienced person to know what you should specialize in and the skillpoints/class are most of the time not that high.

It just does not mean I don't like it, just that I need to know what I am doing.

It does help that I do play low-Op most of the time, and often with starting players.

[Dsurion]

When it comes to consolidating skills, it really depends on how important the skill in question is to the game itself, and whether or not they achieve the same task often enough. Hiding and Moving Silently are certainly entirely different skills, but what they accomplish is keeping you hidden from the opposition. Having one roll certainly reduces the amount of out of game time spent resolving a single action. The tradeoff is going to be a perceived lack of depth. But is it important to a combat-centric game to have multiple skills devoted to stealth? Most persons who want to be stealthy will take ranks in both either way, making it a bit of a tax.

Similarly, Spot and Listen fulfill the same function: to notice the opposition - either at a distance or when they don't want to be noticed. Obviously, some people are very good at picking up on sounds while not being able to scrutinize details as well, and the opposite is true. But is it necessary to have two separate skills to resolve the same action? Again, most people who want to be perceptive to find foes will take both anyway. As well, if you've consolidated the stealth skills above, you may as well consolidate the perception skills.

Of course, if the out of game time doesn't bother you, it's a simple matter to give out more skill points like candy - something one should've done in 3.5 anyway. No one should ever be shunted to 2 skill points.

It's really a matter of taste, so YMMV.

As a personal preference, I like the way Pathfinder handled skills a little better, though I can't say I entirely agree with all of the consolidations. I'm particularly divided on Open Lock being folded into Disable Device. On the one hand, in the context of unlocking doors and getting past traps, they fulfill the same function of eliminating a barrier of entry. Interestingly, Open Lock had nothing to do with jamming a lock, something which was in the domain of Disable Device. On the other hand, Disable Device had other functions to begin with, like sabotaging a device for later purposes.

[Duke of URL]

Seems like you'd run into some odd things with PrC requirements, since a lot of them assume you'd have a few spare points to set on fire grabbing 3 ranks of a cross-class skill by 5th level, but without changing the pre-requisites, you'd have to either burn a point to make it familiar skill that wouldn't be used or wait until 13th level to take a PrC one should've gotten access to at 6th.

Did you just eliminate the frivolous and asinine skill rank pre-reqs then or do something else? :smallconfused:

PrC requirements are indeed tweaked to ensure that entry can be made without too much trouble from classes that generally "make sense" as a precursor to the PrC. Or in at least one case, a class skill was added to a base class specifically to allow it to qualify for a PrC (and because it thematically fit anyway).

There's also a Skill Focus like feat (but better) that can help, too, by actually increasing skill ranks for non-focused skills, not just granting a skill check modifier.

[imneuromancer]

I actually like the way Castles and Crusades does it.

Basically, you get your Attribute Bonus + Level as a "check" (they don't have skills, per se, but the system is easily transferable). You also have two "prime" skills where you get a +6. So a Rogue would get have a high hide/move silently/sneak because they would have a high DEX and a +6 to DEX because it is prime.

You could VERY easily transfer this system to D&D 3.x, and then use pretty much the same DCs based on any of the versions you like. Need a tumble skill checK? Well, use the Tumble skill, but roll a DEX check (attribute + level + prime). Need a Knowledge: History check? Roll a INT check, etc.

Further, you could continue to customize or buff your "skill" checks with feats, etc. etc. etc.

[Kalim]

I would take the 3.5 skill list, couple it with Pathfinder's skill system, and give all the 2+Int classes more skill points. Maybe 4+Int as the standard minimum.

I feel less that there are too many skills, and more that a lot of classes simply do not get enough skill points.

[MukkTB]

How many skills there are in the game is arbitrary. Should we have stealth? Should we have sneak + hide? How about sneak on wood + sneak on ground + sneak on stone + sneak on carpet + hide indoors + hide outdoors? The last one might make sense if a rogue had more skillpoints to invest. However I'm pretty happy without that. As a game its not just about what is realistic. Its about what is convenient for play.

Every new skill makes the PCs less competent. Too few skills limits PCs' abilities to specialize into interesting niches. I'd guess 20 to 25 skills sounds about right. Whatever. 3.5 and Pathfinder both have an acceptable skill list, as compared to 4e which doesn't.

However PF has a superior mechanic with the +3 to class skills and getting rid of the 4x at first level. Its more elegant. And it punishes cross class training much less, which I consider to be a good thing.

[nedz]

However PF has a superior mechanic with the +3 to class skills and getting rid of the 4x at first level. Its more elegant. And it punishes cross class training much less, which I consider to be a good thing.
As several people have said, this is good. Especially with multiclassing. Characters can spend 1 skill point and have reasonable competance in a wide array of skills.
What annoys me about the 3.5 system are the perception skills.
Spot and Search in particular; also what about smell, taste and touch - how do you check for those ?
It does seem strange that most stealth based characters have to spend 4-6 skill points per level on their class features - thats why they get the points I know, but still.
So I think I prefer PF.

[Absol197]

As several people have said, this is good. Especially with multiclassing. Characters can spend 1 skill point and have reasonable competance in a wide array of skills.
What annoys me about the 3.5 system are the perception skills.
Spot and Search in particular; also what about smell, taste and touch - how do you check for those ?
It does seem strange that most stealth based characters have to spend 4-6 skill points per level on their class features - thats why they get the points I know, but still.
So I think I prefer PF.

In Pathfinder, Perception includes all of your senses. Sight, hearing, smell, and taste (and I suppose feeling, if you ever need to make a "feeling" check). It also includes supernatural senses, for creatures that have them, such as tremorsense, blindsense, etc. If there's a possibility of you noticing something through one of your senses, you roll Perception to see if you notice it.

[Boci]

As for Stealth, I can't make as good an argument, as I don't have personal experience with it. But, sticking with the idea that skill points represent training, I still think it makes sense. If you're training yourself to be better at not being seen, why would you neglect also training at not being heard, and vice versa? Being great at one and awful at the other means you'll be found nearly as often as you would with no training at all. Most people who put lots of effort into stealth practice both in tandem, so why wouldn't they be the same skill?

Sniper? (They mainly really on distance penalties to remain hidden, they only need ranks in hide because of the -20 penalty to remain hidden after attacking). Someone who uses invisibility to remain hidden and only needs move silently?

Edit:


I'm going to have to disagree with you here. Especially about Perception; it's always bugged me that Spot and Listen were different skills. Remember, skill points represent training in that area, not natural ability. All of your senses are sending your brain much, much more information than you realize; you've trained yourself to ignore background sounds, tiny movements, the small whiffs of smells, and a lot of other sensory information that's all around you. A person can learn to become more perceptive simply by allowing themselves to notice all those things that they had previously ignored. It's not easy, but it can be done, and it does, literally, affect all of your senses at once.

Again, sniper. They are going to be focused far more on the sense of sight than any other. Whilst a hunter regularly facing predators with an ability to turn invisibile would prefer hearing.

[Particle_Man]

I like Pathfinder. First time I can play a rogue without feeling like I am missing a vital skill or two or three. And the traits from APG allow some ability to get a skill onto the class skill list (if you don't wish to just multi-class).

The "fly" skill is weird though. And I do miss synergy bonuses.

[Boci]

I like Pathfinder. First time I can play a rogue without feeling like I am missing a vital skill or two or three. And the traits from APG allow some ability to get a skill onto the class skill list (if you don't wish to just multi-class).

The "fly" skill is weird though. And I do miss synergy bonuses.

That's why I prefer the 3.5 skill system with more points, like a 50% increase. keeps the good stuff whilst generally solving the lack of skill points problem.