Skills: How many is too many?

[tedcahill2]

I started a another thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?523653-Skill-Shrinkage&p=21971910#post21971910) for a more in depth discussion on skill combinations.
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I've seen the debates before, but I wanted to get a fresh take on it.

There are so, so many skills in D&D 3.5. Pathfinder reduced the number by grouping some skills together. Which one offers the better skill system?

On the one hand, it's a hell of a lot easier to just roll a stealth v perception check, to replace hide/move silently v spot/listen. On the other hand it's perfectly logical that being good at hiding doesn't also make you good at moving silently, or having keen eyes doesn't mean you have excellent hearing.

One of the things that I've noticed in my own groups is that the players feel a desire to have max ranks in as many skills as they can, even where it's not very useful. 5 ranks in many skills is sufficient to pass a lot of DC's (especially when you can take 10). Skills that requires an opposed check are the only ones that are truly worth getting to max ranks in my opinion. For everything else look at the DC's and determine what you might really need to pass most checks.

Do you think their truly are two many skill and/or too few skill points in 3.5? Or is it more that players aren't using their skill points efficiently.

$10 says someone says "It's a bit of both."

[Deophaun]

There are too many. Open Locks, Decipher Script, and Use Rope are simply not worth the investment and better rolled into another skill. Appraise is pretty much useless in every campaign I've been in; DMs often doesn't waste time obfuscating the value of that art object you found. Martial Lore is why? Then you get to Forgotten Realms where Knowledge (local) is a joke because it's been divided up some hundred ways.

Meanwhile, if I desired a distinction between being able to Hide well versus being able to Move Silently, or Balance versus Tumble, I'd revamp the trait system.

That there are skills where you only really need five ranks in, ever, is a flaw of system design. If someone wanted to max out their ranks in Balance until level 20, there should actually be something for them. But, because all the skills are split up, it's more difficult to keep all of them constantly relevant while varying up the environments.

[Long_shanks]

The one thing I really like from the Pathfinder skill system is it's simplicity. No more x4 (or x6) at first level, no more level+3 cap, no more arbitrary skill synergy bonuses and especially no more penalties for cross class skills. The process is more streamlined and allows for more customization of a character's skill (at the cost of the +3 class skill bonus if the skill is not on your skill list).

Now, for the question in the title, it depends of the player I think. I personally love skill points and love to place them in obscure skills for RP/fluff reasons, with the rare in game use. My current character has ranks in perform dance and sing, in craft (drawing) and knowledge engeneering. This character has more skill points than are necessary, so I could afford it; having more skill points would only mean that I would use more obsure skill like those on more characters, not only on skill monkeys.

On the other hand, a guy in my group is playing a druid, and I don't think in 8 sessions he made skill checks other than perception (and maybe a knowledge nature when we got lost in the woods). Him having more skill point wouldn't change much.

So yeah, it's a bit of both ;) but I think it comes down to player preference and style of play.

[martixy]

Too few skill points in 3.5.

Though for sheer ease of use, PF skills are better.

As you said, while being able to move silently doesn't automatically make you good at hiding, it doesn't really matter all that much if it did.

The crux of where PF's skill system is lightyears ahead of 3.5 isn't the combination of skills(which, apart from the greater simplicity, can be solved in 3.5 with more points), it's the notion of abandoning cross-class skills.
In 3.5 it matters which is your first class, because it gets 4x skill points. In PF it does not.
In 3.5 it matters which class you are currently taking for which skills you can level effectively. In PF it does not.
In 3.5 skill points are not retroactive. In PF they are.

These make the entire system "stateless" in a manner of speaking.

As in, you do not need the entire class and build history to reconstruct the skill profile of a character.
You need only look at a list of all class levels and the int score and you know how many skill points that character must have. This is a massive quality of life improvement for both player and DM.

[daremetoidareyo]

The rules compendium suggests marrying open lock into disable device. It also suggests not having use rope.

[Gildedragon]

There are WAY too many skills
Collapsing things into fewer categories is extremely handy. It lets people build more to their liking.
I, personally, pare the system down a lot and remove synergy bonuses. Now I also like the feel of having say someone who is loud but can hide well... Etc, so that's what traits are for. Penalize a specific activity while boosting others.


Acrobatics (Dex): includes Balance, Feint, Escape Artist, Tumble
Athletics (Dex): includes Climb, Jump, Swim
Autohypnosis (Wis): also includes Control Shape
Bluff (Cha): includes Disguise
Concentration: not a skill anymore*
Craft (Int): Is also used to Appraise, and for Forgeries with relevant skill (coins with metallurgy, paintings with painting, writs with writing)
Diplomacy (Cha): also includes Gather Information, and Intimidate**
Handle Animal (Cha): also includes Ride
Heal (Wis)
Knowledge (Arcana) (Int): also includes Spellcraft/Psicraft and Psionics, used to identify things from the Inner and Transitive Planes
Knowledge (Dungeoneering) (Int): also includes Architecture
Knowledge (Local) (Int): also includes Geography, History, Nobility
Knowledge (Nature) (Int/Wis): also includes Survival (can be keyed off wisdom)
Knowledge (Religion) (Int): also used to identify things from the Outer Planes
Linguistics (Int): includes Decipher Script, Speak Language
Perception (Wis): includes Appraise, Listen, Search, Spot, is also used to identify a Forgery
Perform (Cha)
Profession (Wis)
Sense Motive (Wis)
Sleight of Hand (Dex): also includes Disable Device, Open Lock, and Use Rope
Stealth (Dex): includes Hide, Move Silently
Use Device (Cha): includes Magic and Psionic

*Concentration is done as a Level Check as in Pathfinder
**Intimidate: a non-penalized rushed diplomacy, one can add one's Str to the check. Traits give bonuses and maluses to using this function and the opposite to using standard Diplomacy

Part of the idea is to let players grab more "fluff" skills like Profession, Craft, Perform; let them learn a few more skills, etc

[Ellrin]

While I like the IDEA of the nitty gritty separation of skills in vanilla 3E and 3.5, as well as the little details like synergies, it really isn't handled very well mechanically, and there really aren't enough points given considering the number of skills that common adventuring/social activities tend to be broken up into.

Pathfinder's system is much more streamlined, and works much better in practice at the table; I'm playing an investigator in my first PF game right now, and it's the first time I've ever felt like I really had more than enough skill points (though we're also using the background skills system, so I have points coming out of my ears).

I will say I miss Use Rope, though, but that's only because of how it got sort of folded into CMB, and how much irrational hatred I have for CMB.

[martixy]

how much irrational hatred I have for CMB.

Please explain.

[Ellrin]

Please explain.

Well I don't want to derail the thread, but it probably mostly stems from a lack of understanding. I haven't used it in practice, and I haven't really crunched the numbers in theoretical exercises; it's just that looking at the numbers in a more casual capacity, the system seems like it really kind of hamstrings humanoids with less than full BAB, especially those without spellcasting. It gives me a bad feeling about the chances of, say, a rogue vs. a CR-appropriate Huge creature.

But again, I acknowledge this is probably just a lack of understanding on my part, which is where the "irrational" part of my hatred comes in.

[OldTrees1]

How many skills is too many depends on:
how many skill points the character gets
how many skill points the most and least skill focuses classes get
how many skills your players can remember
how much granularity your players want
and many more


Honestly I think 3.5 had closer to the right number of skills, but had the wrong skills / weird skill imbalance. Choose a few skills as your baseline. Then merge/split/enhance other skills until they are closer in design expectations to your baseline.

Personally I would have kept Listen/Spot/Hide/Move Silently, seriously buffed Climb/Jump/Swim/Tumble, and rebalanced Bluff/Diplomacy/Intimidate/Sense Motive to be another 2v2 (merged Diplomacy & Intimidate while adding a skill to resist them). With that skill baseline I would keep the x4 at 1st level (allows granularity at 1st level) but give more skill points per level and make all skills bought 1:1.

[martixy]

Well I don't want to derail the thread, but it probably mostly stems from a lack of understanding. I haven't used it in practice, and I haven't really crunched the numbers in theoretical exercises; it's just that looking at the numbers in a more casual capacity, the system seems like it really kind of hamstrings humanoids with less than full BAB, especially those without spellcasting. It gives me a bad feeling about the chances of, say, a rogue vs. a CR-appropriate Huge creature.

But again, I acknowledge this is probably just a lack of understanding on my part, which is where the "irrational" part of my hatred comes in.

You mean something Trip or Disarm vs a huge creatures? Or grapple?
PF did reduce the significance of size in combat maneuvers. So that's a step in the right direction.
In 3.5 you just don't get into a grapple contest with larger creatures, especially those 2 or more size categories bigger.

You're right about the rogue's chances even in PF though. I am not entirely certain it's a problem though.
However I could conceivably see a situation where you have 2 classes of maneuvers - Deft and Powerful and one set use Dex in the CMB/CMD calculation, while the other uses Str.

[Godskook]

It gives me a bad feeling about the chances of, say, a rogue vs. a CR-appropriate Huge creature.

Generally speaking a 3.5 Rogue has:
-Low Strength
-Medium BAB
-No replacement mechanic
-Size Medium or smaller
-Light weapons weilded in 1 hand.
-Spent most of his feats on other things

To be good at aggressing at X, you need Y:
Bull Rush - Str+Size+Feat
Disarm - Attack_Roll(BAB+Str)+Size+Feat+2H_weapons
Grapple - Str+BAB+Size+Feat
Sunder - Attack_Roll(BAB+Str)+Size+Feat+2H_weapons
Trip - Str+Size+Feat

To my knowledge, outside Setting Sun, you can't initiate one of these with Dex, and if you're using a light weapon, you're taking a -8 compared to you wielding a 2H_weapon. Your size means that its basically impossible for the average Rogue wielding a light weapon to to do any of these things to a Huge opponent.

The variance between a normal Rogue and a Fighter would be:

+(4...8, weapon)+(0...8, size)+4(feat)+(4+, Str focus vs. not Str. focus)=+12...20, without even counting BAB.

In Pathfinder:
-Size is a less dramatic modifier, being only a +1/size at most relevant sizes.
-Swapping Dex for Str on CMB is a singular feat.
-Most of the feats give a +2 instead of a +4
-I see no evidence that weapon-type matters anymroe.

All of these things favor a Rogue. Yeah, full BAB's a loss, but that's a net +5 across 20 levels.

[Ellrin]

Generally speaking a 3.5 Rogue has:
-Low Strength
-Medium BAB
-No replacement mechanic
-Size Medium or smaller
-Light weapons weilded in 1 hand.
-Spent most of his feats on other things

To be good at aggressing at X, you need Y:
Bull Rush - Str+Size+Feat
Disarm - Attack_Roll(BAB+Str)+Size+Feat+2H_weapons
Grapple - Str+BAB+Size+Feat
Sunder - Attack_Roll(BAB+Str)+Size+Feat+2H_weapons
Trip - Str+Size+Feat

To my knowledge, outside Setting Sun, you can't initiate one of these with Dex, and if you're using a light weapon, you're taking a -8 compared to you wielding a 2H_weapon. Your size means that its basically impossible for the average Rogue wielding a light weapon to to do any of these things to a Huge opponent.

The variance between a normal Rogue and a Fighter would be:

+(4...8, weapon)+(0...8, size)+4(feat)+(4+, Str focus vs. not Str. focus)=+12...20, without even counting BAB.

In Pathfinder:
-Size is a less dramatic modifier, being only a +1/size at most relevant sizes.
-Swapping Dex for Str on CMB is a singular feat.
-Most of the feats give a +2 instead of a +4
-I see no evidence that weapon-type matters anymroe.

All of these things favor a Rogue. Yeah, full BAB's a loss, but that's a net +5 across 20 levels.

I kinda meant if the Huge creature was the aggressor, not the other way around, but point taken?

[DarkSoul]

Then you get to Forgotten Realms where Knowledge (local) is a joke because it's been divided up some hundred ways.I disagree that it's a joke. It actually makes a bit more sense than just having a single skill. Just because you know where the best hole-in-the-wall restaurants are in Boston, that doesn't mean you know just as much about Los Angeles.

[daremetoidareyo]

I disagree that it's a joke. It actually makes a bit more sense than just having a single skill. Just because you know where the best hole-in-the-wall restaurants are in Boston, that doesn't mean you know just as much about Los Angeles.

Excuse me sir, You could just invest points in Knowledge (local bars and alehouses) from The fright at Tristor p.31: (statblock).

[Honest Tiefling]

There are too many. Open Locks, Decipher Script, and Use Rope are simply not worth the investment and better rolled into another skill. Appraise is pretty much useless in every campaign I've been in; DMs often doesn't waste time obfuscating the value of that art object you found. Martial Lore is why? Then you get to Forgotten Realms where Knowledge (local) is a joke because it's been divided up some hundred ways.

I pretty much agree with this. Some of those skills, such as use rope, are so situational that it is often easier to go the evil path and start breaking limbs or chopping bits off or leaving it to the party wizard to handle.

Knowledge (local) being divided up many ways makes sense...But in most campaigns, is utterly useless since the party doesn't spend enough time in one place, nor is it fleshed out enough to feel like the skill has been fun to use. I am not saying past DMs were bad, just that most groups I have been with tended to have goals (such as defeating someone) that meant they couldn't stay in one place or had to run away very quickly due to some botched skills.

Separating Disable Device from Open Lock is one that has bugged me because a lock literally is a device.


On the one hand, it's a hell of a lot easier to just roll a stealth v perception check, to replace hide/move silently v spot/listen. On the other hand it's perfectly logical that being good at hiding doesn't also make you good at moving silently, or having keen eyes doesn't mean you have excellent hearing.

This is most definitely true. But I think that most games would benefit either from making skills more general so a rogue...Well, feels like a rogue not a squishy fighter, or by giving out more skill points if skills are going to be so specialized. Since rolling more is often bad, I tend to the idea that skills can and should represent more general areas of expertise so you don't have the situation of the skill monkey only able to deal with traps but not locks.

However, I think moving forgery to the linguistics skill was a bad choice since that is only tangentially related. I guess both use words? I found it silly when my scholarly elven noble wizard became an accidental master of forgery based on him learning languages as a hobby.

[Deophaun]

I disagree that it's a joke. It actually makes a bit more sense than just having a single skill.
It makes sense from a real-world perspective. Because obviously having knowledge of Tibet gives you no knowledge of Saskatchewan.
It makes no sense from a game design perspective. Because you're asking a player to put limited resources into something that might be useful one or two times a campaign.

So, the question as to whether this makes sense or not hinges on whether D&D is the real world or a game. Imma gonna go with the latter.

Honestly, it makes as much sense as having Knowledge (religion) replaced by dozens of Knowledge (specific religion)s--not to mention hundreds of various cults--or Knowledge (the planes) replaced by an infinite number of Knowledge (specific plane)s (Why yes, I do have five ranks in Knowledge (Abyssal Layer #347)). There's no reason knowing about plants in the Amazon would help you understand spiders in Australia, so Knowledge (nature) should be divided by Family and/or region, at least. Knowledge (nobility)? Just because you can cite the lineage of the English kings and landed nobility back to Alfred the Great doesn't mean you know jack about the court of Genghis Khan, so break that up, too.

Really, why is knowledge (local) the only one called out for the something every other knowledge skill does?

But now look at what treating knowledge skills consistently in the manner FR treats local would do: no one would take knowledge skills. You want to know something? Ask the cleric; he has spells to let him fake expertise in any one of the thousands of unique skills we just created. But never put ranks in them.

[daremetoidareyo]

It makes sense from a real-world perspective. Because obviously having knowledge of Tibet gives you no knowledge of Saskatchewan.
It makes no sense from a game design perspective. Because you're asking a player to put limited resources into something that might be useful one or two times a campaign.

So, the question as to whether this makes sense or not hinges on whether D&D is the real world or a game. Imma gonna go with the latter.

Honestly, it makes as much sense as having Knowledge (religion) replaced by dozens of Knowledge (specific religion)s--not to mention hundreds of various cults--or Knowledge (the planes) replaced by an infinite number of Knowledge (specific plane)s (Why yes, I do have five ranks in Knowledge (Abyssal Layer #347)). There's no reason knowing about plants in the Amazon would help you understand spiders in Australia, so Knowledge (nature) should be divided by Family and/or region, at least. Knowledge (nobility)? Just because you can cite the lineage of the English kings and landed nobility back to Alfred the Great doesn't mean you know jack about the court of Genghis Khan, so break that up, too.

Really, why is knowledge (local) the only one called out for the something every other knowledge skill does?

But now look at what treating knowledge skills consistently in the manner FR treats local would do: no one would take knowledge skills. You want to know something? Ask the cleric; he has spells to let him fake expertise in any one of the thousands of unique skills we just created. But never put ranks in them.

Forgotten realms rewards investiture of 5 points of knowledge local with synergy boni to all other knowledges that take place in the region. Which has lots of verisimilitude.

Eberron web content offers a split the difference approach: with each rank in a knowledge local to apply to different regions.

[Deophaun]

Forgotten realms rewards investiture of 5 points of knowledge local with synergy boni to all other knowledges that take place in the region.
So, for the low low price of 110 skill points, you get the benefit of 18 skill points. Sign me up!

Which has lots of verisimilitude.
I had no idea that was a synonym for inefficiency. Thought it had to do with immersion and stuff.

[Ellrin]

I had no idea that was a synonym for inefficiency. Thought it had to do with immersion and stuff.

Let's be fair here, life is stupidly inefficient. The game designers clearly had no idea what they were doing.

I'm beginning to suspect we're still in alpha stage testing, actually.

[TheCorsairMalac]

"Why would I put ranks in skill X?" is probably the most common complaint. I feel that skills should be combined/divided/changed until no single skill is considered more valuable than any other. This way players wouldn't suffer "buyers' remorse" about their skill choices.

[awa]

you could have a system where low value skills like forgery cost less pts so you could hypothetically take 1 rank in tumble or 5 ranks in forgery.

[Elderand]

I have been thinking about completely changing the skill system to something like this.


Automatically get max rank (hd +3) in all your class skills for your starting class. (With changing what skill each classes gets, wizard shouldn't get all
knowledge skills for exemple)
Multiclassing grants you 1 extra class skill chosen from the new class list
A number of cross class skills equal to your int modifier become class skills
All cross class skill get half maximum

The idea being that you're actually good at anything you're supposed to be good at and you get some customization to avoid all character being identical in term of skills.

[Waker]

you could have a system where low value skills like forgery cost less pts so you could hypothetically take 1 rank in tumble or 5 ranks in forgery.

Alternatively you could have a General vs Specific arrangement for skills. Have a general category that applies a small bonus to multiple skills or a specific skill that only affects that one action. As an example Athletics could cover many of the Str-based skills, but if you really want to excel at Swimming you could put ranks in that.

[Seerow]

In games with my regular group, we use the 3.5 skill list except with Perception and Stealth as individual skills. We also have some general house rules to make some of the less used skills more generally useful. Like a whole subset of Monster Wrangling rules (which I should get around to posting one day) that makes use of Climb/Use Rope/Balance/Ride. Ideally I'd love for us to expand this to eventually add more uses to some of the more underutilized skills (like Appraise and Forgery), but for now the group as a whole is comfortable with these as a standard.


When I'm the one running the game, I tend to push more experimentally and have a few extra twists I add in:
-Open Lock/Disable Device is a single skill.
-Concentration follows PF rules and is no longer a skill.
-Swim and Jump are combined into Athletics, which may also be used to increase run speed.
-Skills are divided into Background Skills and Active Skills. Perform, Craft, Profession, and Knowledges are all background. Knowledge Skills are now all used just for random knowledge checks. Monster identification and Knowledge Devotion now fall under "Monster Lore" a new active skill (Int based, gains synergies from appropriate knowledge skill).
-Characters gain 1.5x their base knowledge skills in active skills, but do not gain any bonus active skills from int mod. A character without 9th level spells who only gets 2+int mod skills gets to double this. (So a Fighter ends up with effectively 6 skills per level while a Wizard or Cleric only gets 3. Bards and Rangers are at 9. Rogues are at 12).
-All characters gain 2+int mod background skills per level.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Well I don't want to derail the thread, but it probably mostly stems from a lack of understanding. I haven't used it in practice, and I haven't really crunched the numbers in theoretical exercises; it's just that looking at the numbers in a more casual capacity, the system seems like it really kind of hamstrings humanoids with less than full BAB, especially those without spellcasting. It gives me a bad feeling about the chances of, say, a rogue vs. a CR-appropriate Huge creature.

But again, I acknowledge this is probably just a lack of understanding on my part, which is where the "irrational" part of my hatred comes in.


I kinda meant if the Huge creature was the aggressor, not the other way around, but point taken?

I think you fail to realize that a Rogue in 3.5 will fail any combat maneuver check (defending or aggressing) vs. a Huge opponent. As Godskook pointed out, a PF Rogue actually has higher chance of success, since all the relevant bonuses/penalties are smaller overall. CMB/D is another aspect of the game PF streamlined (much like skills). They still aren't terribly worthwhile though.

[oxybe]

Last I checked, they've already pushed the reset button a few times and we're still finding bits and pieces of the old code left over.
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My stance on skills are : "what is your game about and what are the characters' role within that game?"

in D&D, that generally means "adventurers doing adventures" and "specialists within a group"

As such i prefer smaller, more condensed skill lists like the ones of 4th and 5th that wind up with characters skilled at the stuff you would expect an adventurer to do, but with enough variance within a party to allow people to shine in some areas while doubling up at others, just in case.

Now some skills i do dislike how D&D has treated them of late, like perception. That should just be a general purpose derived stat since it's one of those things every adventurer would probably want to make use of, similar like you would derive your attack bonus, initiative or saves.

Asking players to chose between a specialist skill like Knowledge Religion or "am I going to get jumped in this dungeon/forest/area" is kinda mean.

Non-adventurer skills, like 3rd's CraPPer ones, should be treated like any other task.

"does it make sense for your character, knowing their background, be capable of this task when not under pressure?"

If yes, problem solved. If no, then again, problem solved.

If there something applying pressure, you roll your adventurer skill VS that pressure:

Need to work overnight to make it? Endurance rolls
Need to get higher quality metal? Diplomacy the supplier
Need to create ornate work? Disable Device/Thievery/precision finger works
Need to create a particular magic/religious/heraldric motif? Knowledge check

But that's just my 2CP.

[weckar]

I'll be in the minority here and say I've had at least 1 character max out each of the 3.5 skills. Including the weird ones like autohypnosis. And they always got use out of them. I like the variety and specificity of skills.

[BWR]

The best way to handle Knowledge (local) that I have found is to allow it to substitute for certain other skills, primarily Knowledges, in the area in question.
You need to know about the local wildlife (K. nature), you know what sort of plants and animals are around there.
You need to know the lay of the land (K. geography), you know what it looks like.
You need to know about the local high-ups (K. nobs and roys) and how to approach them, you know about the local high-ups.
You need to know about an ancient battle in the area, it's local history.

I usually assign certain modifiers to the role depending on how closely related something is, but this works out pretty well in my game.

On topic, it really depends on what sort of DCs you are expected to encounter. If you always need to have a number of skills maxed out in order for them to be any use whatsoever, you will obviously need fewer skills/more skill points. If the DCs you encounter will be low enough that a couple of points here and there will generally see you through, you will probably be fine as is.
I will note that I hate that certain classes only get 2+Int per level, and have upped that in my games.

[Gandariel]

The answer is 8.
8 is too many. Anything under it is OK.

[Dagroth]

I play GURPS when I want skills-based gaming...

So... there are never too many skills.

[Afgncaap5]

As with many things, I feel that Pathfinder saw a valid problem in 3.5 and then over-corrected to the point that it created new issues for me.

I wish there was a way to have the best of both worlds sometimes. Case in point, merging Disable Device and Open Lock into the same skill makes a lot of sense to me for most purposes... on the other hand, we lose a tiny bit for the players who want to be better at Disabling Devices by virtue of their Dexterity. Perhaps an alternate rule that allows players to alternate what skill they're using would work out. (Disabling Device to open a lock requires a very different skill set than Disabling Device to prevent a lever from changing a train's track, after all.)

[Telonius]

Not a satisfying answer, but "it depends" is mine. How special do you want skillmonkeys to feel, how many skill points do they get (both compared to non-skillmonkeys and relative to the total number of skills a monkey would want), and how hard do you want it to be for them to max their skills? I think 3.5 erred a bit on the side of too many skills available, and too few skill points for skillmonkeys. Cutting down the number of skills (by doing things like consolidating Open Lock and Disable Device, Hide and Move Silently, Spot and Listen) is a good idea. Even with that, a Rogue's still not going to be able to max every skill they want. Whether that's a bug or a feature depends on your point of view.

[Dagroth]

As with many things, I feel that Pathfinder saw a valid problem in 3.5 and then over-corrected to the point that it created new issues for me.

I wish there was a way to have the best of both worlds sometimes. Case in point, merging Disable Device and Open Lock into the same skill makes a lot of sense to me for most purposes... on the other hand, we lose a tiny bit for the players who want to be better at Disabling Devices by virtue of their Dexterity. Perhaps an alternate rule that allows players to alternate what skill they're using would work out. (Disabling Device to open a lock requires a very different skill set than Disabling Device to prevent a lever from changing a train's track, after all.)

I think the reason Disable Device is Int-based is because Search is Int-based and that means that trapfinding Rogues can focus on Int instead of Dex.

Which is a silly reason, IMHO. The 1 or 2 point difference in skill isn't going to matter, and there are plenty of items that give bonuses to either skill.

[Draz74]

The answer is 8.
8 is too many. Anything under it is OK.

Nah, 8 isn't quite enough.

My system (currently abandoned, also gets rid of ability scores) has 10 skills, and I'm pretty proud of the list:

Athletics
Brawn
Charisma
Dexterity
Gadgetry
Glibness
Knowledge
Nature
Perception
Stealth

That's enough to cover pretty much all the bases, with lots of skill tricks to specialize a skill in a particular area.

[Dagroth]

Nah, 8 isn't quite enough.

My system (currently abandoned, also gets rid of ability scores) has 10 skills, and I'm pretty proud of the list:

Athletics
Brawn
Charisma
Dexterity
Gadgetry
Glibness
Knowledge
Nature
Perception
Stealth

That's enough to cover pretty much all the bases, with lots of skill tricks to specialize a skill in a particular area.

Naw... **** Van Patten says Eight Is Enough (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075500/).

[tedcahill2]

As with many things, I feel that Pathfinder saw a valid problem in 3.5 and then over-corrected to the point that it created new issues for me.

I wish there was a way to have the best of both worlds sometimes. Case in point, merging Disable Device and Open Lock into the same skill makes a lot of sense to me for most purposes... on the other hand, we lose a tiny bit for the players who want to be better at Disabling Devices by virtue of their Dexterity. Perhaps an alternate rule that allows players to alternate what skill they're using would work out. (Disabling Device to open a lock requires a very different skill set than Disabling Device to prevent a lever from changing a train's track, after all.)

It makes sense to me the open lock be keyed to INT. I've spent some time practicing lock picking, and it's far more important to understand how a lock works (INT) than to be good at finessing the pins (DEX).

As a side note, I'm working on revamping skills and one idea I had was to allow sleight of hand (at a -5 penalty) to be used to open a lock.

[Gildedragon]

It makes sense to me the open lock be keyed to INT. I've spent some time practicing lock picking, and it's far more important to understand how a lock works (INT) than to be good at finessing the pins (DEX).

As a side note, I'm working on revamping skills and one idea I had was to allow sleight of hand (at a -5 penalty) to be used to open a lock.

Hmm folding disable device into sleight of hand isn't a bad idea

[daremetoidareyo]

Hmm folding disable device into sleight of hand isn't a bad idea

Its a disable pockets check

[Flickerdart]

I've combined the 3.5 skills in this way:


Athletics (Str) - Jump, Climb, Swim
Acrobatics (Dex) - Balance, Tumble, Escape Artist, Ride
Stealth (Dex) - Hide, Move Silently
Survival (Wis) - Survival, Use Rope, Heal, Handle Animal
Legerdemain (Dex) - Sleight of Hand, Open Lock, Disable Device
Awareness (Wis) - Spot, Listen, Search
Concentration (Con) - Concentration, Autohypnosis
Linguistics (Int) - Speak Language, Forgery, Decipher Script
Use Magic Device (Cha) - Use Magic Device, Use Psionic Device
Knowledge (Magic) (Int) - Spellcraft, Knowledge (Arcana)
Knowledge (Crystals) (Int) - Psicraft, Knowledge (Psionics)
Knowledge (Cosmology) (Int) - Knowledge (Religion), Knowledge (Planes)
Knowledge (Society) (Int) - Knowledge (Nobility and Royalty), Knowledge (History), Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering), Knowledge (Local), Craft, Profession
Knowledge (Wilderness) (Int) - Knowledge (Geography), Knowledge (Nature), Knowledge (Dungeoneering)
Investigation (Wis) - Gather Information, Sense Motive, Appraise
Public Relations (Cha) - Diplomacy, Intimidate, Perform
Deception (Cha) - Bluff, Disguise


There are 3 Dex skills, 3 Wis skills, 3 Cha skills, one each for Str and Con, and 6 Int skills because people with lots of Int also have the points to invest in a few.

[VisitingDaGulag]

I have been thinking about completely changing the skill system to something like this.


Automatically get max rank (hd +3) in all your class skills for your starting class. (With changing what skill each classes gets, wizard shouldn't get all
knowledge skills for exemple)
Multiclassing grants you 1 extra class skill chosen from the new class list
A number of cross class skills equal to your int modifier become class skills
All cross class skill get half maximum

The idea being that you're actually good at anything you're supposed to be good at and you get some customization to avoid all character being identical in term of skills.That sounds familiar (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/alternativeSkillSystems.htm#maximumRanksLimitedCho ices)...

I love reading people who don't understand all of 3.5 talk about how to fix it. No wonder why path failure is all over this thread. They did the same thing. No talk about perform/profession/knowledge subskills or flying balance/jump :smallmad:

[Mendicant]

Too few skill points in 3.5.

Though for sheer ease of use, PF skills are better.

As you said, while being able to move silently doesn't automatically make you good at hiding, it doesn't really matter all that much if it did.

The crux of where PF's skill system is lightyears ahead of 3.5 isn't the combination of skills(which, apart from the greater simplicity, can be solved in 3.5 with more points), it's the notion of abandoning cross-class skills.
In 3.5 it matters which is your first class, because it gets 4x skill points. In PF it does not.
In 3.5 it matters which class you are currently taking for which skills you can level effectively. In PF it does not.
In 3.5 skill points are not retroactive. In PF they are.

These make the entire system "stateless" in a manner of speaking.

As in, you do not need the entire class and build history to reconstruct the skill profile of a character.
You need only look at a list of all class levels and the int score and you know how many skill points that character must have. This is a massive quality of life improvement for both player and DM.

Exactly. PF's skill consolidation isn't perfect (Search should not have been subsumed in my opinion, and Jump was mangled, for starters) but I'm never going back.


Also, the problem with Kn: Local is its name. What it actually does and what it should do intuitively do not match up at all. The Eberron and FR way of using the skill would be better handled as a background, trait, or skill trick, and the skill's actual functions should be farmed out to other knowledges and a streetwise skill a-la 4th edition.