How would you fix/improve non-class specific abilities like skills and feats?

[aleucard]

I think we can all pretty much agree that skills in general are almost completely borked, and feats are not much far behind.

Skills were supposed to show a character's capability in non-combat fields, and Feats were supposed to show specialized training, abilities, and traits beyond what is standard for a class, yes? Since the former is scattershot between being near-mandatory for certain classes, completely broken in their general and specific uses, and largely useless without DM fiat getting involved one way or another, and the latter is completely unbalanced as a whole to the point where certain feats can actually lower a character's ability to function even more than not having a feat at all and others are powerful to the point of having staple optimization builds around using them.

This state of affairs is unacceptable. If we want to have true options, which anybody who plays for the sake of having fun and making THEIR character rather than a copypaste of a copypaste would appreciate, the options need to be relatively equal overall, which simply does not happen here. The problem, however, is in figuring out what to do about it. Sure, either going down the list and tweaking as needed or making an entirely new set of feats (for example, I like DnD Next's versions; each have significant use, and none fall uncomfortably behind) would work, but those can't be the only options, can they? I'd like to see how this board would solve the problem. Have fun!

[Alabenson]

Honestly, I'm not really sure what you mean when you say skills in 3.5 are horribly borked. The only two skills I can think of that really have serious issues are Bluff, largely due to the existence of Glibness, and Diplomacy (while Use Magic Device is also exceedingly powerful, that's more a result of the potential power of spells rather than issues with the skill itself). Other then those two, I'd say most skills work more or less as intended, and even Bluff and Diplomacy are only truly problematic when a player intentionally abuses them.

As for feats, again I'm not sure I've ever actually seen a feat that effectively weakens a character who takes it outside of possibly some of the Sacred Vows from BoED. Yes, there are feats which are mechanically underwhelming, and there are other feats which are powerful enough to be staples for certain builds, but in almost any situation where you have choices there are going to be some options which are better than others.

[JusticeZero]

I think we can all pretty much agree that skills in general are almost completely borked, and feats are not much far behind.I do not agree. While the system is imperfect because of unavoidable variation between different options, the concepts and structures as a whole hold up as being among the better conceived.
Skills were supposed to show a character's capability in non-combat fields, and Feats were supposed to show specialized training, abilities, and traits beyond what is standard for a class, yes?Evidence? Skills are widely possessed and quantifiable abilities, while feats are binary 'tricks'. Many systems outside of D&D use a similar skill system, many (often somewhat clunkily) using skills for things like BAB. Levels and stats mediate progression rates to link the party together. "Must have" skills such as "fighting" are simply built into the advancement chart, while other skills are less universal. Some classes may find some skills mandatory, other classes do not find that same skill so important, but may wish to learn them anyways; the skill system mediates that tension in a decently clean manner. There are no 3/4 skills, or this link might be more apparent.

... largely useless without DM fiat getting involved one way or another...This is actually one of the major reasons given as to why people have refused to migrate to 4.0. 4th edition gives the impression of being easily inserted into a video game engine without need for contemplation. Combat itself being hazy and involving GM fiat allows for much more interesting and tactical encounters, rather than an indefinite series of "I use my Attack power" devoid of situational manipulations. As such, I find the 3.5/PF application of skills and feats to be quite adequate. The quantity given out is a bit low, and as such, I prefer E6; the system itself seems quite reasonable.

[Keneth]

Skills are fine as they are, although they should be consolidated as much as possible (even further than they are in Pathfinder). As for their function, they work okay, aside from the occasional shenanigans with social skills which could use some change from their vanilla versions.

As far as feats go, there are simply far too many to balance. And I don't agree that all feats should be equal in power, although many deserve to be improved so as to not be completely useless (like 3.5 Dodge, Toughness, Endurance, etc.). But again, there just too many feats to worry about all of them. A lot of them even have replacements rather than updates.

[Frozen_Feet]

Skills are actually one of the least broken parts of D&D. The only thing really wrong with the skill system is the fact that many classes get too little access to it, notably fighters.

Feats, in general, are much worse off. The reason for this is that the core game pretty clearly had a vision for what they should be, but never follows it through - and instead of fixing this, splat book feats continue in the vein of the dysfunctional feats, meaning large majority of them are just useles.

You can see my specific answers to these problems by clicking the links in my signature. More generally:

Skills:

Social skills need tweaking to prevent diplomancy.
Epic skill uses must explicitly be brought to non-epic play
Some skillcheck DCs are arbitrarily high and must be brought back in line with the DCs elaborated in the basics.


Feats:

Feats were originally meant to be on par with class features; this is evident from Fighter's and Rogue's original designs. To comply, all feats, especially fighter feats, must be brought on par with real class features.
Stacking instead of scaling means characters waste feats on just "more of the same". More pressingly, a high-level character wishing to expand versatility through feats is forced to pick from options that are no longer relevant. To fix this, feats must scale with level, or synergize like metamagic and incarnum feats do.
As feats-as-class-features makes many (weak) base and prestige classes redundant, those classes must be removed from play, with their abilities condensed to feats.

[Ailowynn]

Eh? What's wrong with skills? The idea and execution is clearly pretty solid, seeing as something similar is present in almost every major RPG. I think there should be fewer skills for simplicity's sake, but that would hurt skill monkeys; really, there's not much to be fixed as far as I can see.

And feats? Some suck. But the feats system isn't broken. It's a set of class-neutral abilities that allow for some customization.

[Frozen_Feet]

And feats? Some suck. But the feats system isn't broken. It's a set of class-neutral abilities that allow for some customization.

The underlined part is precisely what is broken with the system.

Go and read d20 SRD, especially Fighter, Rogue, Monk and Wizard class descriptions. Notice how certain types of feats are obviously intended to be real class features for these classes. Notice, indeed, how some of those feats replicate abilities that were iconic to past iterations of those classes.

Now realize 90% of feats don't own up to this promise.

The thought that feats are not "real" class features, and are just "class-neutral abilities that allow for some customization", is what poisoned the whole system, and lead to both ineffectual feats and loads of redundant classes that could've just as easily been implemented as feats.

[aleucard]

Skills, I can hang with. As has been mentioned, the broken bits of skills are generally isolated, and the only part systemically wrong there is it being sloppily set up.

Feats, however, are another matter. Frozen pretty much nails the head of this one perfectly, though with one little caveat. I'm of the opinion that individual feats should be about 2-3 notches under actual class skills in power and utility. The reason for this is that if they're worth more than that, the potential for having a full party of different classes playing in essentially the same way (or at least close enough to be uncomfortable) increases drastically. Every class should have things THEY do; feats should give things that either help them do those better, improve their ability in general, or give new functionality outside of the class system. Most importantly of all, though, is that feats NEED to be balanced at least between themselves, if not in consideration of the characters and classes taking them also. Obviously some feats are going to be more desirable for a certain playstyle or class than others, and some are going to have prerequisites that only specific classes can even get close to satisfying; however, it all means nothing if there's only a small number of truly effective feats per class or build.