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ideasmith
2017-01-19, 06:31 PM
SKILL MOMENTUM

BASIC PURPOSE:
To make skill ranks more important.

Balance Note: This variant makes skill points more useful, and therefore makes characters with more skill points more powerful compared to characters with fewer.

BASIC RULE
If you roll a natural 20 on a skill check in a skill in which you have at least 2 ranks, then you gain momentum with that skill. While you have momentum with a skill, every time you roll a skill check with that skill, any roll that is not a natural 20 becomes a 20 (but not a natural one) before applying skill ranks and other modifiers. If you roll another 20 on that skill, redetermine when the momentum ends from when the new 20 was rolled.

EXAMPLE
Dandelion Brookside has 4 ranks in Tumble and a Dexterity score of 15, for a total Tumble bonus of +6. She decides to Tumble past a group of orcs. Her first roll is 9+6=15, which is just enough to bypass the first orc. Her second roll is a natural 20, for 20+6=26, which exceeds the DC of 17 by 9 points so she bypasses the second orc; she also now has skill momentum with Tumble. Her third roll is 1+6=7, which becomes 20+6=26 due to skill momentum, which exceeds the DC of 19 by 7 points. . At this point, Dandelion stops moving for this round. Her skill momentum will last for 5 minutes, more if she rolls another natural 20 on a Tumble check before it ends.


Ranks in Skill Momentum lasts for:
2 1 minutes
3 2 minutes
4 5 minutes
5 10 minutes
6 22 minutes
7 45 minutes
8 90 minutes
9 3 hours
10 6 hours
11 12 hours
12 1 day
13 2 days
14 4 days
15 1 week
16 2 weeks
17 1 month
18 3 months
19 6 months
20 1 year
21 2 years
22 4 years
23 8 years

Grod_The_Giant
2017-01-19, 07:44 PM
So... I always get natural 20s provided I stop every few hours/days to make a few random skill checks until I roll a 20?

JoshuaZ
2017-01-19, 08:45 PM
I agree with Grod's essential complaint. If you want to do something like this, which seems to be trying to actively make a version of feeling "in the zone" under the rules, it might be easier to do something just like the following: whenever you roll a natural 20 on a skill check, you get a +2 bonus on all skill checks made with skills with the same associated ability score where you have at least 2 ranks in that skill. This bonus lasts 1 hour or until you roll a natural 1 for such a skill. If you have at least 10 ranks then this bonus becomes +3 bonus and if you have 15 ranks then this becomes +4 (assuming 3.5 here; adjust rank totals for Pathfinder accordingly).

ideasmith
2017-01-20, 11:32 AM
So... I always get natural 20s provided I stop every few hours/days to make a few random skill checks until I roll a 20?
Whether that works depends on how many ranks you have. Looking at the table, I’d say you need 10 ranks for once every few hours to be sufficient, 14 ranks for once every few days to be sufficient, 18 ranks for once every few months to be sufficient, and 22 ranks for once every few years to be sufficient. (To complete the set: once every few minutes at rank 4 and once every few rounds at rank 2).


I agree with Grod's essential complaint. If you want to do something like this, which seems to be trying to actively make a version of feeling "in the zone" under the rules, it might be easier to do something just like the following: whenever you roll a natural 20 on a skill check, you get a +2 bonus on all skill checks made with skills with the same associated ability score where you have at least 2 ranks in that skill. This bonus lasts 1 hour or until you roll a natural 1 for such a skill. If you have at least 10 ranks then this bonus becomes +3 bonus and if you have 15 ranks then this becomes +4 (assuming 3.5 here; adjust rank totals for Pathfinder accordingly).
If all I wanted was to represent “the zone”, I would stick with something like this (see link) (http://www.ruleofcool.com/smf/index.php?topic=175.0).

Here, I am trying to do what the OP says I am trying to do; I have quoted that below for convenience. Your suggestion is arguably a bit simpler, but it is clearly far less effective at making skill ranks more important, and not effective enough to be worth the complexity it has.

BASIC PURPOSE:
To make skill ranks more important.

Grod_The_Giant
2017-01-20, 12:05 PM
Right. So around level 6 or 7, skill ranks suddenly start to matter a lot less-- you can guarantee high results even with a low total modifier.

ideasmith
2017-01-21, 12:10 PM
Right. So around level 6 or 7, skill ranks suddenly start to matter a lot less-- you can guarantee high results even with a low total modifier.

While I don't see how "guarantee high results even with a low total modifier" would equate to "skill ranks suddenly start to matter a lot less", it is now clear that momentum stops making skill ranks more important at about rank 9.

While that is fine for a lot of groups - I understand that ending a campaign around level six is not unusual - I am trying for the whole set here.

The obvious solution is to change how long momentum lasts. How does one minute per rank above first sound?