Skill Tricks, Yay or Nay?

[torrasque666]

I'm curious as to the Playground's take on skill tricks from Complete Scoundrel. I know that they take away valuable skill points, and for some classes that can be a disastrous outcome, but for any class that can afford them, they seem to be at the very least interesting.

[Gildedragon]

That's generally my take. It's a pity there's not more of them, they're cute little pseudofeats that boost skill usage. In fact there are a number of weak feats that could benefit of being turned into skilltricks

[BowStreetRunner]

I have found that for certain specific builds they can be a valuable additional resource. For instance, a focused sneak-attack build needs lots of ways to trigger the conditions for a sneak attack. There are a couple of skill tricks that will do this, so adding them to a build that attempts to optimize sneak attack is generally going to be a solid option. And if your DM allows Collector of Stories to work with Knowledge Devotion, it is practically a must-have trick for KD builds.

On the other hand, it is easy to go overboard and load up on a bunch of skill tricks that don't really do much to strengthen your build. I've seen Uncanny Trickster builds that were poorly focused and just had a large number of skill tricks that mostly went unused and weren't even all that impressive when they did get used. Just having a bunch of unfocused tricks that all do different things isn't generally a great way to spend your skill points.

[VoxRationis]

I'm not a fan of the "once per encounter" limitation. I can see how some of them (particularly Mosquito's Bite) could be abused with unlimited use, but your character arbitrarily being no longer able to do that particular thing (but still able to do things of equal skill and endurance requirements) until the "encounter" ends is off and a little too 4e for my tastes. (The similar limitations of the supposedly martial ToB classes is one of the main causes of my dislike for those as well.)

[Grayson01]

I really enjoy Skill tricks and always find a away to add one or two on a character.


I'm not a fan of the "once per encounter" limitation. I can see how some of them (particularly Mosquito's Bite) could be abused with unlimited use, but your character arbitrarily being no longer able to do that particular thing (but still able to do things of equal skill and endurance requirements) until the "encounter" ends is off and a little too 4e for my tastes. (The similar limitations of the supposedly martial ToB classes is one of the main causes of my dislike for those as well.)

I have to agree with Vox on the Once Per Encounter limitation, we normally house rule that out.

Especially for ones that you don't even have to use in an Encounter, like corner perch. It's a great flavor I hide in the Darkness of the wall as the enemy walks buy and avoide said encounter with said guard.

[Phelix-Mu]

If you play in a campaign where social skills are relevant or are using a character based on Intimidate or Bluff, a couple of the social tricks can be pretty useful. Also, since those types of characters usually have the skill points to burn.

I expanded the idea for some homebrew involving Greater Skill Tricks, which became a class feature of mundane classes that allow them advanced uses of their skills (and on a more frequent basis if invested properly). This kind of thinking goes well with a campaign that embraces a minimum 4+Int.Mod. skill points, or that has expanded skill lists, or bonus skill points by level or some such. That kind of homebrew is actually pretty common, primarily because skills are already lackluster compared to magic, and because there is extremely poor correlation between skill point allowance and which classes actually need the help (like monk gets the same number of skill points as a druid...that's pretty stupid).

In general, I say skill tricks are a great idea. People should be able to be awesome just through careful practice and expertise (so realistic!), instead of only through magic.:smallsmile:

[Jeff the Green]

Ra ra, sis boom ba!

I really like skill tricks, and it always makes me sad when I can't find more than one my character can make use of. I just wish they'd been expanded on in other books. Ones that interact with other subsystems would have been cool too.

Oh, and yeah the once per encounter rule should die in a fire too. A possible compromise, in case someone wants to use uncanny trickster to extend hellfire warlock or something, is to give points equal to 1+1/4 HD that can be used to activate them, and they refresh each encounter/every minute or whatever outside of combat.

[Eldariel]

I really like them and I feel they allow modelling in-combat improvisation much better than anything else in the system. I usually allow players to do some hard acrobatics spontaneously with a skill trick (still a check but doable, like with the most of them) and then take the said skill trick with the next level-up. I do a similar thing with maneuvers, incidentally, and some crazy combination attempts with spells (but usually of course, coming up with spells on the fly isn't possible pre-epic unless you use some fairly high OP combinations).

[DigoDragon]

Nothing much to add, but I agree that in the right builds the skill tricks are good. We house rule most of the tricks to be usable a few times per encounter (like once per skill rank of the related skill or something).

[weckar]

I'm sure there's a reason for the 'once per encounter rule', mostly not outfield feats, I think. Especially tactical feats.

[Seppo87]

In general, I say skill tricks are a great idea. People should be able to be awesome just through careful practice and expertise (so realistic!), instead of only through magic.:smallsmile:It's not, inhrently, a realism issue. In the real world people became awesome through science. Careful practice can't beat a car in a speed contest.
It is realistic to have human limits surpassed with techniques (magic is a technique, and involves practice careful study btw)

[Zombulian]

I can't help but love Skill Tricks, whenever I have skill points to spare I get some.
Generally they're just kinda fun gimmicks but some can be incredibly useful for certain builds, as pointed out earlier. Sneak Attack builds work well with them, as well as Intimidate builds.

[Cicciograna]

I'd like to hear about the various house rules used to counterbalance the ugly 1/encounter or 1/minute limitation. I am fond of Skill Tricks, even if I've never used them yet as a DM, so I'd like to present my players with a mended version of the rules from the start.

[NichG]

Great idea, meh execution. With a couple exceptions that can be very good, most of them don't seem like they're worth bothering with. It'd be a really good place for some homebrew though.