Can you save skill points when you level up?

[Spuddles]

If you don't spend all your skill points at, say, level 2, can you spend them at level 3?

[Absol197]

Technically, no you can't. However, why would you want to? You don't really gain anything from not spending them, or spending them late, do you? I suppose if you could, you could spend them in skills that were cross-class at the level you earned them, and became class skills the next level, but tat's the only reason I could see for doing that.

Plus, if you use the Pathfinder skill system, that becomes a non-issue.

[Spuddles]

Technically, no you can't. However, why would you want to? You don't really gain anything from not spending them, or spending them late, do you? I suppose if you could, you could spend them in skills that were cross-class at the level you earned them, and became class skills the next level, but tat's the only reason I could see for doing that.

If you went rogue1/bardx, you could pick 6+int bard skills to max, then keep two cross-class skills maxed for three levels after your first.


Plus, if you use the Pathfinder skill system, that becomes a non-issue.

My group doesn't play PF, just 3.5.

[Absol197]

If you went rogue1/bardx, you could pick 6+int bard skills to max, then keep two cross-class skills maxed for three levels after your first.

Yeah, you could do that, if withholding skill points was allowed by the rules. No reason you can't house-rule it, of course, but that does mean you need to be able to reliably track how many you have withheld, and decide if you can withhold those points for multiple levels or not.


My group doesn't play PF, just 3.5.

That doesn't mean you can't use the skill system anyway. It's a lot more streamlined; I used it in a 3.5 game that I ran, but because the group wasn't ready mentally to try a new system, I didn't tell them it was from Pathfinder. They all said they liked it a lot better, and now none of them use the 3.5 system any more.

Basically, you no longer gain x4 skill points at first level (including with the human skill ability), and every skill is bought at 1 rank/point, there are no half ranks. If it's a class skill for any of your classes and you have a rank in it, you get a +3 bonus. If it's cross-class, you don't. You don't have to use the consolidated skill list; we didn't in our game.

It provides the same max skill modifier, but allows you to actually be effective in cross-class skills, and you don't have to fight the losing battle of buying the extra three ranks when learning a new skill at a level other than 1st. Plus, you don't have to track those annoying half-ranks.

[Spuddles]

Yeah, you could do that, if withholding skill points was allowed by the rules. No reason you can't house-rule it, of course, but that does mean you need to be able to reliably track how many you have withheld, and decide if you can withhold those points for multiple levels or not.


Okay, yeah, found it in the PHB. Had difficulty finding it on SRD.

[Absol197]

Okay, yeah, found it in the PHB. Had difficulty finding it on SRD.

Yeah, the SRD only gives the exact crunch of the rules, and only those in the Open Gaming Liscence. So any paragraph in the PHB that isn't absolutely necessary for rules gets cut in the SRD, which means a lot of small things like that get left out from the SRD.

[Vladislav]

To be more specific, the OGL (and therefore the SRD) doesn't include any rules for creating characters, and leveling up.

[ericgrau]

The rules don't let you withhold skill points but they do let you buy half ranks in your cross-class skills. Half ranks do nothing until you make them into full ranks later.

[Zjordan85]

FWIW, my DM allowed the carry over of skill points.

Situation was Multiclassing into Psychic Warrior at level 3, which requires 5 ranks of autohypnosis, a skill my base class did not have access too and thus could not take ranks in.