Character gaining skills and ranks via useage.

[AzureKnight]

I was talkinh to the players last night about trying a house rule concerning skills. Starting at level 1 you get the skill points as normal for the basises of future skills. From that point on, skills are raised via in game useage.

I never agreed with the game mechanics that said you get x skill points per level just because you gain a level. For example. if you have a rouge in the party and he does a lot of picking locks, I believe he should be awarded for honing his skills by doing this task over and over again. Every time a character performs a skill check successfully 3 times, he gains a rank in that skill.

If he took starting ranks in slight of hand, and here he is now level 2 or 3 and has never made an attempt to use that skill, why should that skill improve? I also think in my opinion that skills labled as cross class should be learnable by anyone. If a rouge takes the time to research the way a wizard casts spells, why now allow him to take ranks in spellcraft?

Just and idea, would love some feedback. Thanks all.

[GameSpawn]

Well, first off cross-class skills CAN be learned by anyone. They just have a lower maximum rank, and cost more skill points to buy.

As for the mechanic itself; it makes sense from a realism standpoint, but could be pretty frustrating from a gameplay one. Some skills get used much more often than others for one thing (in most games, spot and listen would grow much faster than UMD or crafting, for instance; a bigger concern is that spot would grow much faster than disguise).

You'd also risk frustrating players by having skills not grow at the same rate for everyone, since any failed check would make it harder for you to succeed at future checks. This rule would also risk trapping players in the state of not being able to learn a skill they want to learn because they aren't already good at it. In the same vein, players would never be able to pick-up new trained-only skills.

[Carth]

In theory this makes sense, but in practice it's a huge waste of time at the table. Suddenly a lot of stuff that was going on behind the curtain is now stuff that takes up time at the table, and other people have to sit through it, to the point that the roleplaying for skills will get watered down to nothing, so people can get through this particular chore and get back to the real game.

[Oncoming Storm]

Also, be prepared for sessions where you do NOTHING but watch your players 'train' their skills.

Rogue: I want my disable device as high as possible! let's buy some locks and pick them!

Or (more realistically)

Rogue: I want to improve my stealth skills, so I'm going to sneak around town until my skills are maxed (AKA the morrowind way)

Also, be prepared for a LOT of whining. Especially if you forbid the above methods of training skills, which, while hax and unenjoyable, DO fit in with what you're trying to achieve.

[The Insanity]

Terrible idea.

[Rhatahema]

The DMG actually talks about the option of limited learning skills and feats if the character hasn't had the opportunity to practice them. The example they give is that a character in the desert can't learn swimming unless he finds an oasis. You could make a similar argument about opening locks. My advice would be don't.

If your players are really looking for realistic skill growth, you should just encourage them to only advance skills they've actually put some time into using. A more common example of this is discouraging dips into classes that make no sense.

[lsfreak]

The problem is that it makes skills dependent on the DM providing encounters where they can be trained. Simply based on their playstyle, the DM will naturally make more encounters that involve certain skills and less that involve others, denying the PCs the ability to raise their skills based on the DM's (generally unintentional) biases. Then when the PCs want to do something using one of those skills, they can't because the DM never provided situations where they were useful in the first place.

The alternative is letting the PCs just say they're training their skills up abstractly, which is... exactly what the normal system does.