Making skill point gain from INT retroactive

[Lord Herman]

Hi there,

I hope this hasn't been discussed a gazillion times before. If so, my apologies.

I've always found it strange that, if you put extra points in intelligence, you don't gain skill points retroactively. Increasing you constitution score improves your hit points retroactively, so why not INT? I find myself not putting extra points in intelligence, because the reward is minimal (except for wizards).

Do you think making skill point gain from intelligence retroactive is unbalancing/overpowered? Has anyone tried this before?

[Pegasos989]

Hi there,

I hope this hasn't been discussed a gazillion times before. If so, my apologies.

I've always found it strange that, if you put extra points in intelligence, you don't gain skill points retroactively. Increasing you constitution score improves your hit points retroactively, so why not INT? I find myself not putting extra points in intelligence, because the reward is minimal (except for wizards).

Do you think making skill point gain from intelligence retroactive is unbalancing/overpowered? Has anyone tried this before?


Yeah, noticed the problem, as I have played skillmonkeys a lot. Also, it would make it a lot faster to stat high level rogues.

So you are suggesting that if I am human rogue with int 17 (12 skills maxed) and rise int to 18, I can max 13th skill, as if I had had int 18 all this time? Wizard gets a knowledge or two more during his career but otherwise, I don't think there is any balance problems with houseruling it like that.

[Amiria]

We do it in my RL game group. We have no problems with it. Imho it is not overpowered.

[Lord Iames Osari]

I house-rule it that way myself, and I've never found it to be unbalancing.

[paigeoliver]

There is really no negative balance issues from it. The rule only exists because otherwise you would get skill points when people cast Fox's Cunning on you. And as a secondary issue it makes it possible for a headband of intellect to let you qualify for a prestige class that you otherwise wouldn't have qualified for. If anything that is the larger issue. As a character can quite possibily enter a prestige class wearing a headband, go many levels, then remove the headband and no longer have enough skill points to qualify for the class.

My campaign uses retroactive skill points from INT increases, but you don't get them from spells. You do get them from permanent magic items though, and the quick rule for taking off the item is that you are -1, -2, or -3 to all skills you have ranks in until you refigure your skill points. And you can't use magic item skill points to qualify for a prestige class.

You might also want to rule that you just can't slap on a headband and instantly apply the skill points. Otherwise you have the wizard's headband getting swapped around every time the party needs a skill no one has. "What do you mean you didn't put any ranks in survival? Here, put this on, now you have maximum ranks, now track those orcs."

[Pegasos989]

There is really no negative balance issues from it. The rule only exists because otherwise you would get skill points when people cast Fox's Cunning on you. And as a secondary issue it makes it possible for a headband of intellect to let you qualify for a prestige class that you otherwise wouldn't have qualified for. If anything that is the larger issue. As a character can quite possibily enter a prestige class wearing a headband, go many levels, then remove the headband and no longer have enough skill points to qualify for the class.

My campaign uses retroactive skill points from INT increases, but you don't get them from spells. You do get them from permanent magic items though, and the quick rule for taking off the item is that you are -1, -2, or -3 to all skills you have ranks in until you refigure your skill points. And you can't use magic item skill points to qualify for a prestige class.

You might also want to rule that you just can't slap on a headband and instantly apply the skill points. Otherwise you have the wizard's headband getting swapped around every time the party needs a skill no one has. "What do you mean you didn't put any ranks in survival? Here, put this on, now you have maximum ranks, now track those orcs."


By RAW, neither magic items or spells grant you skillpoints, so it doesn't affect this rule (though you have personally houseruled that magic items affect that, I see)

[paigeoliver]

Well that is because a headband of intellect and gloves of strength cost the exact same amount of money (and STR is supposed to be the more powerful stat!!), and you get ALL the advantages of the higher str, but lose the largest advantage of the higher INT.

[Matthew]

Yeah, except for the potential problems Paigeoliver has pointed out, retroactive Skill Point acquisition is a relatively common (and perhaps sensible) House Rule.

If you do allow Magic Items and Spells to also grant 'temporary' Skill Points, I don't really see much of a problem with that either, as long as you record which will be lost by the removal of those enhancements.

[Pegasos989]

Well that is because a headband of intellect and gloves of strength cost the exact same amount of money (and STR is supposed to be the more powerful stat!!), and you get ALL the advantages of the higher str, but lose the largest advantage of the higher INT.

Int advanages:
Wizard bonus spells
Wizard save DCs
Assasin's Death attack DC
Knowledge/craft/various other skill modifiers
Feat prerequisites
Skill points

I do not know if the last is the largest advantage

[Amon Star]

Yeah, skill point gain should definately be retroactive. I've done it since day 1 of 3rd Edition and it never caused a problem. For simplicities sake, I would recommend that only permanent increases to Intelligence work for this, eg, level based stat increases.

[paigeoliver]

For characters who don't have spells or DC's tied to int then the largest benefit would be skill points. As it works by the rules there is essentially NO BENEFIT to the item for a large number of characters, other than bonuses on a couple skills that they certainly don't have any ranks in.

[pestilenceawaits]

For characters who don't have spells or DC's tied to int then the largest benefit would be skill points. As it works by the rules there is essentially NO BENEFIT to the item for a large number of characters, other than bonuses on a couple skills that they certainly don't have any ranks in.

QFT

I like the house rule that it is retroactive for permanent increases and items just give temp ranks. I see intelligence as total capacity for knowledge if your capacity increases so do your skill points.

[Saph]

The way I've always seen it is that Int gives you skill points because it determines how fast you learn. So Int increases don't give you retroactive skill points because your skill learning speed depends on how smart you were when you were learning the skill, not after you've finished learning it.

- Saph

[danielf]

if constitution give you hp bonus from retroactive levels, i think inteligence should give too

[My name is Wanda]

I'd like for the skill point gain to be retroactive for one reason:

Character creation above first level.

Surely the people here must know how annoying it is when you're making a 12th level character who's had a few increases to int here and there... so you have to figure out what bonus to int they had at each level, when really, it would be much easier (and not that game unbalancing) to simply let them have (x+int)*(level+3) skills.

[Matthew]

Yes, that is a loical way of looking at it. However, you could also see Intelligence Skill Points as representing intuitive Bonuses (Just a minute, I so get it now!) or being gained at that new Level. It depends what you think Intelligence represents. If it only applies to Skills explicitly linked to Intelligence then all well and good, but if it contributes generally to all Skills then a raised Intelligence could retroactively grant additional Skill Points.

[illirica]

I think I have to be a voice of dissent. I'd say no way.

You have 17 dex. You fight a monster, and it kills you, barely. You are revived by a friendly cleric. You fight some more monsters; you gain a level and get an extra point. You decide to add this to your dex score, and now have 18 dex, which gives you another +1 to AC.

So... that monster wouldn't have killed you the last time. Do you retroactively assume that it didn't?

I think that anyone can see the above scenario is rather silly, but keep in mind that this can be equally silly when applied to skill checks. I tend to play high charisma characters, and max Diplomacy is a must, cross-class or not. I've talked the party's way out of some sticky situations - and also failed a few. If I boost int, can I retroactively assume that extra rank to the skill and say that the guy we're currently running from actually failed his Sense Motive?

Or do you just assume that your character has been "saving" the skill points all along - in which case, why can't other characters save points? Uncertain if you're going to need "climb" or "swim?" Just hold the points, and if you come to water, invest in swim. A lot of skill point distribution is trying to figure out, based on what campaign information you have, what the skills are that will help the party the most. Retroactivity destroys that, since you could gain ten or so points extra at once and decide to max that skill you wish you had taken, rather than building it up slowly as the campaign unfolds.

Extra points are awarded with levels because your character has suddenly become brighter, stronger, faster, what-have-you, through training and experience. The character didn't have that experience before, so there's no more reason to give him or her more skills than there is to go back and fight all battles with an extra AC point.

But, of course, that's just my opinion.

[Matthew]

There are certainly reasons not to, but it would not be unbalanced to allow it, which is the crux of the matter. The rationale is not really very important, as one can be constructed both for and against.

[pestilenceawaits]

I think I have to be a voice of dissent. I'd say no way.

You have 17 dex. You fight a monster, and it kills you, barely. You are revived by a friendly cleric. You fight some more monsters; you gain a level and get an extra point. You decide to add this to your dex score, and now have 18 dex, which gives you another +1 to AC.

So... that monster wouldn't have killed you the last time. Do you retroactively assume that it didn't?

I think that anyone can see the above scenario is rather silly, but keep in mind that this can be equally silly when applied to skill checks. I tend to play high charisma characters, and max Diplomacy is a must, cross-class or not. I've talked the party's way out of some sticky situations - and also failed a few. If I boost int, can I retroactively assume that extra rank to the skill and say that the guy we're currently running from actually failed his Sense Motive?

Or do you just assume that your character has been "saving" the skill points all along - in which case, why can't other characters save points? Uncertain if you're going to need "climb" or "swim?" Just hold the points, and if you come to water, invest in swim. A lot of skill point distribution is trying to figure out, based on what campaign information you have, what the skills are that will help the party the most. Retroactivity destroys that, since you could gain ten or so points extra at once and decide to max that skill you wish you had taken, rather than building it up slowly as the campaign unfolds.

Extra points are awarded with levels because your character has suddenly become brighter, stronger, faster, what-have-you, through training and experience. The character didn't have that experience before, so there's no more reason to give him or her more skills than there is to go back and fight all battles with an extra AC point.

But, of course, that's just my opinion.

Your comparisons are flawed because you wouldn't wouldn't be retroactively making skill checks you failed in the past just like you don't retroactively survive fights because you had 1 extra hit point from a constitution increase. When your intelligence raises it is an increase in your overall ability to think and reason.

If a level 12 rogue with a 15 intelligence gets 10 skill points when he jumps and spends them all on a skill he hasn't taken any ranks in he didn't do anything wrong he just focused all of his efforts into a new skill he wanted. the same goes if that same rogue has his intelligence raise to 16 he gets 12 more skill points and can spend them how he sees fit. His capacity for learning has increased and so he can then use that increased capacity to broaden his knowledge base by taking new skills or improve the skills he already has. :smallsmile:

[Thrawn183]

Yeah, I'm currently looking at playing a character that will end up with a base intelligence of about 32 at level 12. After trying to go through and figure out how many skill points he would have at each level, and making mistake after mistake, I have to say this idea has merit.

[pestilenceawaits]

Yeah, I'm currently looking at playing a character that will end up with a base intelligence of about 32 at level 12. After trying to go through and figure out how many skill points he would have at each level, and making mistake after mistake, I have to say this idea has merit.

32 Wow!?!?

[Tokiko Mima]

The only issue I see with houseruling this is with Wish spells giving inherent bonuses. You could set your int to an odd number, then when you really needed ~20 points worth of any skill, you wish yourself 1 point more intelligence and get the skill points. If you don't have a problem with that scenario, then there's really no downside.

[Brickwall]

It's a wish spell. Why should I be bothered by such a non-unbalancing scenario with it? High level characters should be getting around supposedly invincible obstacles. It's in the DMG that they'll have ways around almost everything you throw at them. Or maybe it was in the 3.0 ELH. Either way, it's canon.

[Puck]

We houserule that permanent bumps to Intelligence, whether from inherent bonuses from Wishes or tomes, or level bumps, or bonuses acquired from permanent templates or other similar effects, grant retroactive skill points. It is not unbalancing, makes creating high- and epic-level monsters and characters MUCH easier, skills-wise, and gives rogues an actual reason to dump level bumps into Int.

This is one houserule I really recommend, actually, and nobody I've known who tried it ever went back to the old way.

[Lord Herman]

Thanks for the comments, people. From what I gather, this houserule makes a lot of sense rules-wise, but might be a bit odd from a roleplay point of view, and might be exploitable.

I think I'll use this houserule from now on, then. Retroactive skillpoints make putting points in INT worthwhile for skill monkeys. I'm not too worried about the rule being exploited; that's what the falling rocks are for.

[RoboticSheeple]

The largest problem (IMHO) with retroactive skill points is what do you do with Ability Drain (or anything like it). It's permanent reducing of a stat.
Balanced, if you can gain skill points for permanent INT boosts you should loose them from a permanent reduction in INT. How do you choose which are lost? Do you keep track of all of your buys of a skill? How do you decide which scores you can keep high because they are points you bought with your class skill points and not with INT bonus points?

If you regain your INT score do you need to place the skills back where they were? What if you gain a wish spell to boost your int score, thus giving you more points, and then you can't buy back your ranks because it would put you over the lvl+3 limit?

There's too many questions and it's too complex.
One could of course simply say, oh Ability Drain does nothing to skill points. in which case one has to ask then why does reading a Tome give you up to 3*((lvl-1)+4) skillpoints?

As for things like Fox's Cunning. I don't think anyone has argued that you should gain skill points from that. Which is good because this has all the questions above because you know you will lose the skill points.

I think retroactive skillpoints is nonsensical and far too easily abused. There are too many questions that simply have no answer and it requires judicious and heavy-handed DMing to sort through it all.

[Matthew]

It's a good point, but I think it's pretty easily solved. Every two points of Intelligence Damage reduces Skill Points by 1 x (Level +3). If it's permanent damage, those Skill Points are permanently lost and should be skimmed off the top of your Skills. If it's temporary, the same applies, but should be recorded. Same sort of problem existed with Level Drain in (A)D&D 2.x, looks like it still does for 3.x. Lose a Level, lose some Skill Points.

[erewhon]

We houserule that permanent bumps to Intelligence, whether from inherent bonuses from Wishes or tomes, or level bumps, or bonuses acquired from permanent templates or other similar effects, grant retroactive skill points. It is not unbalancing, makes creating high- and epic-level monsters and characters MUCH easier, skills-wise, and gives rogues an actual reason to dump level bumps into Int.

This is one houserule I really recommend, actually, and nobody I've known who tried it ever went back to the old way.

That's very sensible, actually. Hrrrm. lotsa good idears flying about in here lately. :)

Personally, the only time I allow Int mods to be retroactive is during total character rebuilds. I may change that....

[Captain van der Decken]

Looks like everyone thinks it's a good idea.

Personally, I've always done this.

[Necomancer]

My question is how does this make sense? You gain a couple of int and suddenly you learn a entirely new skill with it? You had to work all your other skill points from the ground up, how did you learn this new one suddenly and know how to do it to its maximum potential?

Mechanicly I see no problem, but my above arguement is my problem with it.

[RoboticSheeple]

Looks like everyone thinks it's a good idea.


Everyone not including all the people that have posted "Ummm NO" or other such sentiments. :smallamused:

[Draco Ignifer]

Personally, I think the rules are somewhat contradictory. Temporary boosts to intelligence do not apply to skill points gained, even if you've been that intelligent the entire time you've been learning those skills (I.E., you never take off your Headband of Intellect the entire time you're gaining a level). However, when you become permanantly smarter, the change in intelligence only starts affecting your skills from then on. So making you smarter gives you the ability to pick up new things better from then on out... but only if it's innate smarts.

If an increase to intelligence only affects skills from that point onwards, then why not permit a player who wears a headband of intellect for an entire (and I mean entire) level to get +1 skill point for each +2 that level?

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

I kind of see it as when you gain a boost to int you can look back at all the situations you've been through and maybe with a little training and such you can learn new things you hadn't exactly thought about before. The mind of mortal men are only the most lightly tapped. Higher int is a deeper tap.

[Necomancer]

I kind of see it as when you gain a boost to int you can look back at all the situations you've been through and maybe with a little training and such you can learn new things you hadn't exactly thought about before. The mind of mortal men are only the most lightly tapped. Higher int is a deeper tap.

That just sounds like reaching to me. I can see it allowed if there is a good excuse RPly (Like your char takes a knowledge skill from extensive studying, or apprentices under another character or NPC to learn a certain skill well), but generaly I don't think theres a good RP excuse to justify gaining the ability to suddenly do something to the max ability.

And I'm not just saying uuuuhhhhmmm no. I just prefer to have more then just mechanics to back up some things.

[danielf]

The only issue I see with houseruling this is with Wish spells giving inherent bonuses. You could set your int to an odd number, then when you really needed ~20 points worth of any skill, you wish yourself 1 point more intelligence and get the skill points. If you don't have a problem with that scenario, then there's really no downside.

you can use a tome of inteligence, you don't need a wish spell :)

[[email protected]]

My problem with making extra skill points as your INT permanently rises retroactive is the logical counterpoint: Does suffering INT drain eliminate skill ranks, as CON drain permanently lowers your HP? In my mind it would have to, or else it would by definition be unbalanced (as you gain a benefit without a commensurate drawback).

I tend to favor leaving the rule as it is, because adjudicating which skill ranks would get removed in that situation is rife with opportunities for abuse and is generally a huge mess.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

What the heck?!
I think that retroactive skill point increases due to increased INT are a silly idea.
You got those skill points for going up a level, bought with XP. While you were earning that XP, your INT was X, so your skill points gained were A+.
If you gain a level which allows you to increase your abilities, and increase your INT, then you can apply a new bonus ([bonus from X+1]) to the skill point you gain FROM THAT LEVEL.

How on earth can you justify retroactively applying the bonus to earlier levels? If you bump your INT from 11 to 12 at 12th level, why the heck should that give you [b]15 extra skill points?

So it makes it easier to make higher level characters - so what!? Do the math.

[Matthew]

People are starting to miss the point of the original post. He wasn't interested in whether it would cause problems for suspension of disbelief, just whether it would cause problems mechanically.

It's fairly obvious that some people feel it can be justified in terms of RP and others not. Since the whole Levelling and Skill system is unrealistic, I would say it hardly matters.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

It's not a question of realism, it's a question of cheating.

Granting one's character extra skill points that the core rules don't say you get is cheating. If you think you can justify it by some chop-logic fluff, go for it.
While we're at it, let's apply XP penalties retroactively when you multiclass against your charcter's favoured class.

[Matthew]

There's a quite obvious difference between cheating and House Rules.

[Neek]

My question is how does this make sense? You gain a couple of int and suddenly you learn a entirely new skill with it? You had to work all your other skill points from the ground up, how did you learn this new one suddenly and know how to do it to its maximum potential?

I'd be tempted to believe your statement, but at times I find learning to be at odds with that. As people become more intelligent, they become phenomenally more so. When I first started learning HTML, it was a slow start. As my knowledge of mathematics improved and so did my understanding of logical structures, I stepped into PHP. After two years of self-teaching, I wasn't getting anywhere. Then one week I put together an entire database structure and created my own webforum and blog. A few weeks later I was able to adapt This structure into two webcomic sites.

Considering that I lept from groping my way through the code to actually writing without consulting php.com every five minutes, I'd feel such a mechanical leap of skill points is RP-plausible.

[[email protected]]

Considering that I lept from groping my way through the code to actually writing without consulting php.com every five minutes, I'd feel such a mechanical leap of skill points is RP-plausible.

It's still a mechanical mess unless you deliberately unbalance it, though.

[Logic]

I believe that retroactive skill points makes more sense.
When you gain intellegence, I think that this little monolouge is befitting my argument for retroactive skill points:

"Why didn't I think of that before? I could have been doing {INSERT SKILL BASED TASK HERE} so much better!"

[Fhaolan]

Personally, I like retroactive skill points simply because I dislike non-symetric systems. If an increase in CON can add 12 hit points to my total, I simply can't understand (mechanically) why increasing in INT doesn't add 12 skill points to my total.

I tend to rule that only permanent changes in INT are required to change skill points, as the bookkeeping gets too difficult with temporary ones. Also, as DM, when I introduce a magic item into the game that does increase INT, I tend to specify what skills it imparts. It's part of the flavor of the item.

Why does increasing INT increase skills? Because that new point of INT represents a logical breakthrough. The 'Oh! *That's* what that is for!' revelation. It doesn't make sense for those points to be dumped into a skill that the character has never worked with or seen before, but then that's true for all skill points really. Someone going up levels, having never seen a body of water in their life, gaining fishing skills? Errrr.. No.

Now, I also think that means decreases in INT mean skills go down. Why? Because decreases in INT mean brain-damage to me. Parts of their memory go missing. Things that used to be easy suddenly get hard. I've always played it that if a character looses a level, and all those skill points, they've lost some memory of past events.

If I'm not keeping track of what points went where, I do random memory loss. I make up a table of all my skill points and roll dice until I've lost the requisite number of points. If I regain those INT points, I regain those memories. If not... ah well.

Of course, I'm from the time long ago when you *had* to keep track of where each point came from because you could lose any of it at any time and had to track all that bookkeeping stuff. 3.x got rid of a lot of that, but I'm still in the habit. I've got three different character sheets for each character. The one I had to the DM that's a 'in brief' version. One I have for regular play which lists all modifiers for everything in case the modifiers go away, and the 'construction sheet', which lists *everything* and where every single point of anything came from.

[Draco Ignifer]

What the heck?!
I think that retroactive skill point increases due to increased INT are a silly idea.
You got those skill points for going up a level, bought with XP. While you were earning that XP, your INT was X, so your skill points gained were A+.
If you gain a level which allows you to increase your abilities, and increase your INT, then you can apply a new bonus ([bonus from X+1]) to the skill point you gain FROM THAT LEVEL.

How on earth can you justify retroactively applying the bonus to earlier levels? If you bump your INT from 11 to 12 at 12th level, why the heck should that give you [b]15 extra skill points?

Would you support, then, house-ruling it so that temporary plusses to your intelligence, such as headbands of intellect, give you bonus skill points to that level?

[Valairn]

Well I think a real world example would go a long way here. Have you ever just been sitting around and suddenly gained an insight into something you've been doing, its like all of a sudden, you are like HOLY OMG THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN DOING WRONG. Suddenly its a whole new ball game, its like what you were doing is in a completely different light than before. Now imagine in dnd terms you get a headband of intellect, suddenly you are significantly smarter than you were before. EVERYTHING is different, its extremely easy for me to believe that you would gain insight into things you've been doing immeadietly, not after some time, but just go holy mother, I have a great idea with this and that and blah blah.....