New take on skill checks 3.5 houserule

[SSGoW]

I may be DMing soon and I want to try something that I'm not sure has been attempted yet and would love the playground's advice.

I want to scrap the current 3.5 / Pathfinder skill system and replace it with a system more akin to the saving throw system.

Good BAB Classes (fighter/barb..etc): Choose 4 physical and 3 Mental skills. These are your class skills and progress as a "good save". The other skills are cross class skills and have the "bad save progression".

Average BAB Classes (Skill Monkey): Choose any 10 skills, these progress as a "good save" all others are "bad save" skills.

Poor BAB Classes (Mages): Choose 5 mental skills and 2 physical skills to progress as "good saves" . All others progress as bad saves.

This makes the skill system simple but doesn't make it where if you are good at balancing you are good at acrobats, tumbling, and other dex related skills (that is what bugs me about pathfinder/4e skills... they are to condensed).

Would this work out? And would the feats that give skill bonuses be ok or should they be boosted?

Thanks in advance!

[gallagher]

the only way to find out if this works is by playtesting. i strongly advise that you do a quick "get to know your character" session before the real game so you can figure out how smooth it runs.

all in all, this eliminates a few advantages that some players would like ot have when they base their build around having a high INT

[Ashtagon]

Bards will be screwed by this, because their class features rely on having skills keep up with level. A lot of other classes will be too.

[Vladislav]

Dividing by BAB seems simplistic. Doesn't seem right that a Ranger, having good BAB, should still get less skills than a Cleric.

[SSGoW]

For this purpose cleric would fall under "mage".

And there are other types but this would be more of a general guidline for now.

[Namfuak]

Are the progressions actually the same number as a good and bad save? Because if so, then there is no longer a good reason to play a rogue over a sorcerer who focuses on skill-enhancing spells, because rogues will have way less skill ranks than normal, while magic-enhancement will remain a flat bonus. Unless you plan on changing all those spells too.

If the progression is instead that the "good" skills are always 3+level ranks, and "bad" are always (3+level)/2 ranks, this could work, however you would need a better way of discerning between classes than BAB, for example druids and clerics both have Medium BAB, but neither is usually considered a skill-monkey (despite what they can do with optimization, but in that case all T1s are skill-monkeys too).

Maybe a better distinction would be deciding on which category to put the class in based on fluff? For example, rangers, bards, monks and rogues could get the 10 "good" skills (and you could even mandate that at least one of the skills is survival for the ranger, one is perform for the bard, and one is either open lock/disable device/search for the rogue, as long as we are considering fluff), wizards, clerics, druids, and sorcerers are magic progression, and fighters, barbarians and paladins are martial progression.

One other question, how would multiclassing work?

[Curmudgeon]

You haven't thought this through very well, I think.

Why did you decide that BAB had a necessary connection to skills? While some of the classes fit this, it isn't consistent. What are you improving by making Fighters and Rangers have the same access to skills?
What about multiclassing?
If a player wants to start improving a new skill after a few levels, do they need to suicide their current character and start over?
Quite a few skills have particular skill levels (DCs) where you can accomplish what you want, and then you generally don't need any more improvement. Once you can get Open Lock to work on an "amazing" lock, why would you keep improving your skill there rather than work on something else?

[SSGoW]

Are the progressions actually the same number as a good and bad save? Because if so, then there is no longer a good reason to play a rogue over a sorcerer who focuses on skill-enhancing spells, because rogues will have way less skill ranks than normal, while magic-enhancement will remain a flat bonus. Unless you plan on changing all those spells too.

If the progression is instead that the "good" skills are always 3+level ranks, and "bad" are always (3+level)/2 ranks, this could work, however you would need a better way of discerning between classes than BAB, for example druids and clerics both have Medium BAB, but neither is usually considered a skill-monkey (despite what they can do with optimization, but in that case all T1s are skill-monkeys too).

Maybe a better distinction would be deciding on which category to put the class in based on fluff? For example, rangers, bards, monks and rogues could get the 10 "good" skills (and you could even mandate that at least one of the skills is survival for the ranger, one is perform for the bard, and one is either open lock/disable device/search for the rogue, as long as we are considering fluff), wizards, clerics, druids, and sorcerers are magic progression, and fighters, barbarians and paladins are martial progression.

One other question, how would multiclassing work?

The thought of multiclassing would be the same as when you multiclass with saves.

Some skills will be blocked from some classes or at least some applications. Like trapfinding in core allows the use of search to find traps.

Ill reply more when I get home (I'm hating my phone right now -_-) but I think I know where I want to go with this...

[Khedrac]

For this purpose cleric would fall under "mage".

And there are other types but this would be more of a general guidline for now.Unfortunately this post is what breaks your proposal. I'm not saying it is worse (or better) than the current system, but to evaluate it properly one needs to know these details - and the more details you have to put in (which will be a lot - special class rules, changing skills etc.) the less like the saving throw system it will be.

Where you might get something like this to work would be if you were playing with a really cut-down list of both classes and skills, then each "skill" would represent a field of knowledge/ability that a character was good at. (You would then also give each class fewer skills.)
E.g.: Athletics, Crypography, Diplomacy, Taxonomy, Arcana, Conjuration, Infiltration; where athletics covers jumping, running, climbing etc.
Yes this removes the ability to specialise, but it fits better with the Saving Throw mechanic.

Further inestigation probably belongs in the HomeBrew forum...

[SSGoW]

Really what I guess I want (or want to know) if there is a system already created or if anyone themselves have looked into replacing the skill system with the saving throw system. Not to balance or make a certain type of class better or worse but to make the skill system more easy going.

I had a player take 2 seconds on his saves but 10 mins on his skills when he leveled up (aparently he had to many cross class skills and some other problems). What I don't want is a condensed list of skills...Like acrobatics since just because you are good at tumbling past enemies doesn't mean you will be good at balancing on a rope. Sure there is some overlap (dex mod) but you shouldn't always have the same bonus.

My Idea (thanks to a couple above) will be to use 3 roles

Caster: Any class with full spell progression (1-9) : (cleric druid wizards sorcerer etc) X Mental Skills , Y Physical skills.

Skill Monkey: Any class whose primary function is to a support character/skill player (Bard, Rogue, Ranger). Any Z skills

Mundane fighter types: Any class with usually no pell casting and usually a good BAB (fighter, barbarian, paladin). Primary melee/range classes. X physical skills, Y mental skills.


Multiclassing works the same as if you was multiclassing and adding saves (there are different rules for this). If you go to a second class and you don't pick the same skills as your class skills that you had with class 1 then those progress as a "Bad save" till you somehow make them a class skill again.

There may be a clause that allows you to make one skill a "bad save progression" to give another skill a "good progression". There will be some skills per class that can never be class skills.

DC are set by the DM, even if they have set DC's in the DMG/SRD the DM has final say so this won't be a problem. Besides situational bonuses/penalties tend to be good in all the games I play and DM in (group seems to like it that way for the most part).

3 + Level = Good Save
3 + Level / 2 = Bad Save

This is a good idea, though a mage can usually be a better skill monkey than a skill monkey if they put their mind to it. Tier 1 and 2 after all...

For classes out of core I would look at them individually.

Anyways I searched Google last night and couldn't come up with anything like this on the web. I guess its off to homebrew, though how does one move a thread?

[navar100]

Admitted Pathfinder bias, but I think you are making this more complicated than necessary. What is it, really, about the Pathfinder skill system that bothers you? (Sincere inquiry.) When you can define that then you can fix it in a simpler way. Maybe all you need is for every class to have a minimum 4 + Int skill points per level. Perhaps give particular classes more class skills or let players choose a particular number for their character.

It's a hard lesson to learn, one I had to learn in my 2E days, but K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Silly). Official, published rules are complex enough. House rules are fine, but if they're also complex, you get a mess. In my opinion, all House Rules that take more than one sentence to explain should be suspect.

[Voidling]

It might be worth looking at rules in the Unearthed Arcana on page 79