PF skills points house rule idea: discuss please!

[DarkOne-Rob]

While musing over the issues of inter-class balance, skills, and classes that suffer from MAD a thought occurred to me.

What if characters received bonus skill points from every ability modifier and were forced to spend these skill points on skills related to that ability score? Their class (and human) skills could be spent anywhere they like, but a character with a +2 strength bonus would be required to spend his two bonus points from strength in strength based skills.

I realize there are no Constitution based skills in PF, and there are certainly less options to choose from when spending physical ability score skill points, but it occurs to me that this would help the MAD classes while being mostly irrelevant to the most notorious casters (wizards).

Giving sorcerers, oracles and clerics more skill points to use won't make them noticably more broken IMO, since spells do that in the first place, and for every other class it would be an increase in skill points available for the "bread-and-butter" skills they need to function, allowing them greater diversity and options.

What do you all think? Would this help improve the experience of playing a martial character while not ramping up the power on the casters too much?

[Seharvepernfan]

So, like, a 1st level dwarf fighter with:
Str 15, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 13, Wis 10, Cha 8,
who would normally have 12 skill points, now has 16, but has to spend two of those extra points on climb and swim, one in a dex skill, and one in an Int skill?

Too much.

Skills in PF are already over-abundant, IMO. It won't breach the gap between warriors and casters, it'll just wreak further havoc with the skill system.

[Gemini476]

It could work - it reminds me of some other systems, in fact - but you'd need to have a larger list of skills linked to each attribute. If there are zero skills linked to Constitution and two linked to Strength, you're going to run out of relevant skills very fast. You'd need maybe six skills linked to each attribute or something like that, although you should be careful not to bloat the list too much.

It makes some intuitive sense, however. Why does a Wizard's intelligence make him better at swimming than someone strong?

[Hytheter]

So, like, a 1st level dwarf fighter with:
Str 15, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 13, Wis 10, Cha 8,
who would normally have 12 skill points, now has 16, but has to spend two of those extra points on climb and swim, one in a dex skill, and one in an Int skill?


How the hell would a Dwarven Fighter have 12 Skill Points? With 13 Int it should be 3 as far as I can tell. Are you possibly getting confused with 3.5?

[Seharvepernfan]

How the hell would a Dwarven Fighter have 12 Skill Points? With 13 Int it should be 3 as far as I can tell. Are you possibly getting confused with 3.5?

Well, yeah. I was thinking 3.5, but if you add in class-skill bonuses, it's still 12.

[DarkOne-Rob]

I am specifically asking for PathFinder. I feel many things were improved in that edition, skills included. However, there is still room for improvement, so I would like people's opinions on this in regards to PF. Thanks!

[AttilaTheGeek]

I agree that it's too much, especially for Pathfinder's compressed skill list, but I think the idea is good. What if, instead, a player could choose to do that for two attributes of their choice but not the others. I do think that Intelligence should have some sort of bonus because it is related to how quickly the character learns, so maybe you say that skill points from INT can count towards any skill.

Under that system, let's go back to our dwarven fighter with the stat array 15, 12, 16, 13, 10, 8. Maybe one level they choose CON and DEX as their skill attributes, so they get to spend one point on a DEX skill, three points on CON skills, and two points anywhere they like. Maybe next level (for example) they get a headband of +2 INT, which raises their intelligence to 12. Let's say for that level they choose DEX and INT for their skill attributes, so they can spend one point in a DEX skill, one point anywhere they like from INT, and two points anywhere from their class.

This system lets mundanes have more skills, especially in the STR and DEX skills that they should logically be good at, but it still allows INT to be the stat that boosts your skills.

[DarkOne-Rob]

My only reason for doing this is to buff martials, who are generally agreed to be weaker. In particular, those classes like the Fighter that have no reason to buff Int at all and then have no real options outside of "Full Attack" need something...

Do you think giving them more skills points would be overpowered? Or just unrealistic?

[Barstro]

My only reason for doing this is to buff martials,

Do you think giving them more skills points would be overpowered? Or just unrealistic?

Then I'd houserule that they simply get more skill points each level and leave it at that.

My understanding is that having skill points based off of INT is because it takes some intelligence to learn things. Strength certainly helps you climb a wall (Thus a +3 for being trained and +N for STR bonus), but it takes intelligence to learn the best way to shift your body or find handholds. The stereotypical fighter will think his strength is good enough, and not need to learn the finer points.

In the end, I don't think this "fix" helps melee. They still suffer from a linear vs. quadratic shortcoming. I don't think that allowing a straight Fighter to level up every damn skill each level would help much.

[Coidzor]

Well, it'd mean that every moderately strong or stronger character will know how to climb and swim well. And anyone with a strength of 16 or higher has hanging skillpoints.

Honestly, that does seem to be the most awkward thing about it, those times when someone's bonus exceeds the number of skills keyed to that ability score.

2 key off Strength
7 key off Dexterity
0 key off Constitution
14 key off Intelligence (mostly because of Knowledge: X)
5 key off Wisdom
7 key off Charisma

So the characters who are typically most hurt by lack of skillpoints (those who primarily dump their good rolls/points tin Strength and Constitution) are basically about where they started, just with the potential to nab a couple of skills based upon their tertiary stat and they automatically *have* swim and climb trained to max. They're about the same as if you increased them from 2+int to 4+int or 4+int to 6+int, except locked into Swim and Climb for those two extra points. Probably would just prefer an extra 2 skillpoints.

Characters who most benefit are Charisma, Intelligence, and Dex-focused characters. So skillmonkey types. Which makes sense. Bards are definitely happy. Anyone with an 18 in Dex, Int, Wis, or Cha gets 4 extra skillpoints, though limited in application, but at least some of their options are better than the strength-based characters' options, and many of them are much better.

Helps wizards keep up a bit better with bards when it comes to random knowledge skills, I suppose, because at least there's the chance they'll throw some points into the oddball knowledges instead of not investing in them.

I'd probably just say to hell with it and make 6+int the new skill point minimum and give skillful types 10+int and 8+int to whatever made the most sense to be midway between.


So, like, a 1st level dwarf fighter with:
Str 15, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 13, Wis 10, Cha 8,
who would normally have 12 skill points, now has 16, but has to spend two of those extra points on climb and swim, one in a dex skill, and one in an Int skill?

Too much.

Nope, he'd have 2 bonus skillpoints for strength-based skills(Climb and Swim), 1 bonus skill point for dexterity-based skills, 3 bonus skill points for constitution-based skills(of which there are 0 so this is functionally 0 bonus skill points), 1 bonus skill point for intelligence-based skills, and 0 for wis and cha(assuming that charisma doesn't rob him of a bonus skillpoint somewhere else, in which case he'd just sacrifice one of his useless constitution-based bonus skill points).

So 2 + 1 + 1 = 4 bonus skill points. Along with the 2 that he just gets from Fighter. That only adds up to 6 points total though.

Hardly too much, even if it worked as you think.


Skills in PF are already over-abundant, IMO. It won't breach the gap between warriors and casters, it'll just wreak further havoc with the skill system.

Eh, not really. Fighters are still basically useless when it comes to skills, but they can at least choose to put points into more interesting skills.

[The Grue]

2 key off Strength
7 key off Dexterity
0 key off Constitution
14 key off Intelligence (mostly because of Knowledge: X)
5 key off Wisdom
7 key off Charisma

This is a nitpick, but why do you count individual Knowledge X but not individual Profession X or Craft X?

[Squark]

This is a nitpick, but why do you count individual Knowledge X but not individual Profession X or Craft X?

Mainly because Profession and Craft are only rarely if ever taken more than once, but taking 3-4 different knowledge skills is fairly common

[Coidzor]

This is a nitpick, but why do you count individual Knowledge X but not individual Profession X or Craft X?

Because the PF SRD does. And because aside from oddball cases like Profession (Sailor), 1 profession is all you need/as good as any other.

I suppose you could increase the number of Int-based by more by covering the Craft skills used for magic item creation.

Also because I wouldn't be able to assign an actual number since, IIRC, there's basically an infinite number of profession and craft subskills. While this might be the case with Knowledge skills as well, the ones I listed are fairly concrete and definite.

[Perseus]

My favorite skew on the skill system is the following.

Skill Points for physical skills are ...

[Base] + (average of Str, Dex, and Con mod).

Skill Points for mental skills are...

[Base] + (Average of Int, Wis, Cha mod)


So the dwarf above would have (as a fighter)

2 + 2 (average of 2, 1, 3) = 4 skill points to place into physical skills

2 + 0 (average of 1, 0, -1) = 2 mental skill points

You always gain at least 1 physical and 1 mental skill point per level.

Being good at jumping is more than strength just as being good at knowing something is more than just intelligence.

[Coidzor]

My favorite skew on the skill system is the following.

Skill Points for physical skills are ...

[Base] + (average of Str, Dex, and Con mod).

Skill Points for mental skills are...

[Base] + (Average of Int, Wis, Cha mod)


So the dwarf above would have (as a fighter)

2 + 2 (average of 2, 1, 3) = 4 skill points to place into physical skills

2 + 0 (average of 1, 0, -1) = 2 mental skill points

You always gain at least 1 physical and 1 mental skill point per level.

Being good at jumping is more than strength just as being good at knowing something is more than just intelligence.

And, hey, it means that animals can have their primary skill schtick and also afford the ranks in survival to actually keep themselves fed. XD

[Perseus]

And, hey, it means that animals can have their primary skill schtick and also afford the ranks in survival to actually keep themselves fed. XD

Yup, it also means that the Wizard that has a high Int, Dex, and Con (the wizard stats) will actually have a more balanced skill points to put into physical skills than mental skills. Having two medium physical stats versus one high mental stats.

Here is my friend's wizard's stats.

Human Wizard
Str: 8 (-1)
Dex: 14 (+2)
Con: 14 (+2)
Int: 18 (16 +2) (+4)
Wis: 9 (-1)
Cha: 8 (-1)

Because he doesn't need strength or charisma they are obvious dump stats. Wisdom tends to be dropped because of their good will saves.

2 + [1 (3/3 = 1)] = 3 physical skill points (cross class skills)

2 + [0 (4/3 = .66 round down to 0)] = 2 (class skills)

In this case, because this wizard is focused on their physical self... They are actually better at physical skills.

Basically... You aren't good at skills because you focused on your ability scores but you have high ability scores because you focused on your skills/different aspects of life.