Skills Skills All Kinds of Skills

[atadsp]

I've been working for a while on making a really good d&D skill list. I'm using skill condensation from pathfinder, as well as some of my own. I am also implementing skills from D20 modern. (Well 1 skill from modern). I want input from other people on if I should add any more skills, or condense some further. I might have missed some weird skills from D&D 3.P, if so I want to know about them.

Here's the list: ▲ = Usable untrained | * = Armor Check Penalty
Acrobatics*▲ (Balance, Tumble, Jump)
Appraise▲
Athletics*▲ (Climb, Swim, Jump)
Autohypnosis
Bluff▲
Concentration▲
Control Shape
Craft(X)▲
Diplomacy▲ (Diplomacy, Gather Information)
Disable Device* (Open Lock, disable device)
Disguise▲
Escape Artist*▲
Handle Animal
Heal▲
Iaijutsu Focus
Intimidate▲
Knowledge(X)
Linguistics (Decipher Script,Forgery, speek language)
Lucid Dreaming
Martial Lore
Perception▲ (Spot, Listen, Search)
Perform(X)
Pilot* (Relevant to our setting)
Psicraft
Profession(X)
Ride*▲
Sense Motive▲
Sleight of Hand*▲
Spellcraft
Stealth*▲(move silently, hide, slight of hand)
Survival▲(Survival and Use Rope)
Truespeak
Use Magic Device
Use Psionic Device
Use Rope▲

[inuyasha]

Isn't this already done in the players handbook? The only difference being a few skills that are added to this list?

[atadsp]

I might have been unclear, I understand these skills exist in the pathfinder and d&d 3.5 phb. What I am looking for is input on how to make the skill list better. Cool skills to add or removing redundant skills and such. I just posted my list so people would know what I already had.

[dragonjek]

I suggest splitting Sleight of Hand out of Stealth. Most of the other merged skills can reasonably be put together--but what does a huntsman know of picking pockets? The two are vastly different applications, and should be treated as such.

[Mendicant]

Get rid of use rope. At its best it's ignored, and at its worst it eats up resources that could be spent on interesting, thematic choices that players actually want to set their characters apart with--stuff like stealth, acrobatics and arcane knowledge. If knot-tying skill becomes important in game, make it a function of profession: sailor, or survival, or sleight of hand.

I also agree that sleight of hand should get spun back out.

Basically, ask yourself "how often can I imagine a player would take one of these skills and not feel like they should be good at the other?" If the answer is " very rarely" or "never", you should probably consolidate them: for instance hide and move silently, or balance and tumble.

[atadsp]

I've spun out sleight of hand as suggested, and I can see the logic behind spinning Use Rope into Survival and I like it.

I've been toying around with a few skills from d20 modern and Fly from pathfinder. I'm not sure if I actually want any of those skills those that I haven't already added. (In our setting the Dwarven Empire has Air-Ships and a construct army armed with pre-rifling firearms so some skills not mentioned might be useful). The only skills not on my list I can think of are computer use, demolitions, fly, and gambling. I'm not sure I should add any.

[Mendicant]

I'm not a big fan of fly. The way it works in Pathfinder is that it's basically a way to mess with noncasters, since they never get it as a class skill, but eventually need it just as badly. I think athletics or acrobatics could cover the conceptual space just as well, and would create an interesting dynamic where casters are where flight comes from, but the more physical, agile martials are naturally better at it.

[atadsp]

Yeah, that's a valid reasoning line. I also feel that the spell flight gives the user the ability to fly based upon their imagination. So its kinda like you fly how you think you would fly if you could fly.

I went through some sites and found Martial Lore from Tome of Battle and Lucid Dreaming from Manual of the Planes. Probably going to include those in the list