What do you dislike about the D&D 3.5 skill system?

[BassoonHero]

I'm working on a revamp of the 3.5 skill system as part of what I hope will be a comprehensive system of house rules. I'm not proposing any solution now, but rather looking for feedback on my own gripes with the system as well as everyone else's gripes.

My chief complaint is that the existing system is fiddly Every single skill point you earn represents a decision, but the consequences of each decision are very small. And the aggregate of these decisions is usually a mere numeric bonus, which is unsatisfying.

I've helped many new players pick skills. A first-level character has to choose one class, one race, and one feat (plus as many as two bonus feats). Then, depending on their class and Int, they have to allocate as few as four or as many as dozens of skill points.

Anyway, here are some of the specific problems I have with the skill system.

There are too many different skills.

Every skill that exists is one more thing to keep track of. The benefit is detail -- you can create a character with poor eyesight but great hearing. In many cases, I think that the trade-off is not worth the cost.

One of the most common fixes is to consolidate groups of similar skills. This automatically reduces "fiddliness". One possible disadvantage is that situational modifiers are more likely to apply only to some uses of a skill.

Gaining skill points is boring.

Gaining +1 to a skill isn't very exciting. The same could be said about other quantities such as base attack bonus and caster level, but those quantities tend to advance automatically. Allocating a skill point is a decision the player actively makes, and the payoff is tiny.

One exception is synergy bonuses. When you put five ranks in a skill, something happens. Granted, it's just another small numeric bonus, but it lets the player feel like they're building toward a goal.

Another arguable exception is prerequisites, but I've never seen a player get excited about ticking up a skill they didn't want in the first place so they could spend other resources on an unrelated benefit.

Magic makes some skills obsolete.

This is a disappointing part of D&D 3.5 -- why put ranks in Climb when everyone's getting flight later on?

One solution is to change magic. Personally, I think that magical flight needs an across-the-board nerf. This sort of change is mostly outside the scope of this discussion, but it is worth mentioning.

Another solution is to improve skills by broadening their utility. Combining skills can be part of this, softening the blow if one common skill usage loses its importance. Adding more relevant high-level options could help as well.

Mandatory magic bonuses warp the system.

Magic skill bonuses are cheaply easily attained, and therefore mandatory. If you want to sneak around at high levels, you need a Hide-booster to counter your opponent's Spot-booster. If DCs are designed with magic bonuses in mind, they become impossible without items; if they are attainable without those bonuses then the bonuses make them too easy.

The skill system is sufficiently separated from 3.5's other systems that it may be possible to largely excise these bonuses without breaking everything else.

Some specific skills are broken

Diplomacy is basically unusable. Profession does nothing. Perform does nothing except serve as a prerequisite. Concentration (like the old Wild Empathy) is a class feature disguised as a skill. Forgery is opposed by Forgery. Disable Device doesn't work unless you're a rogue.



Players of D&D 3.5 (and Pathfinder): What do you dislike about the skill system, and why?

[Geddy2112]

I like having a skill system, but I will agree 3.X has a pretty bad one. Of all the 3.X, I think pathifnder does it best.
Things I like about pathfinder skills vs 3.5
-Removing the penalty for non class skills, and just giving a flat +3 bonus to class skills. Even if something is not a class skill, you can have ranks=level, and it is a 1 rank to +1 modifier. For class skills, a +3 helps a lot early on, but at higher levels characters who are maxing out the same skill(even if non class) are just as good or possibly better based on ability mod
-Consolidating some skills. Spot and listen being perception, linguistics being decipher script and forgery, hide and move silently being stealth, etc. I think they could have gone further by either deleting some skills outright or merging them into other skills.
-Concentration no longer needing skill ranks. It prevents casters from having to waste skill ranks, but arguably concentration checks are much harder in pathfinder.

I agree that magic supplants some skills outright, but I think that is okay. Even at very high levels, many skills remain useful, even with magic.
I also agree and dislike the arms race skills can get into, namely opposed skill checks. After more than a few levels, a skill is either borderline worthless or needs to be maxed. Stealth, perception, bluff, and sense motive are the big offenders here. A similar note is how high some skills can get; it is very possible to get triple digits on a skill check for certain builds.
I agree that some skills as written are worthless and broken, but not as much in reality. Diplomacy is generally unplayable, but it is not mind control-you can't make people do things they simply will not do, no matter how high you roll.

I think 5th edition has a really good skill system, in both number of skills, what they cover, and the whole bound accuracy.

[Eladrinblade]

Disable device has other uses besides disabling traps. Diplomacy is bad, yes, partly because of how long it takes (the -10 penalty is a killer) and how it can just obviate encounters if you have a high enough bonus. Rich's Persuasion skill is a much better alternative. Perform is basically only for bards, and of course they're going to take at least the minimum to use their class abilities; outside of countersong, it's basically just profession. Profession *could* be useful, like sailor or miner or siege engineer, but that's hardly worth the points outside of very particular builds. You need a good DM to make most of the knowledge skills useful. Use Rope isn't useless, but it's pretty close. Decipher Script is like knowledge, you need a good DM. I've never seen anyone use Forgery; it seems like a very niche skill (only good in certain settings anyway). It's fairly hard to argue for open lock against a wand of knock.

Another problem is how many skills don't have much use past a certain skill bonus. I can justify climb up to about +35, and that's only in the rarest of circumstances. Balance and swim are much the same. What am I going to track with +40 survival that isn't flying or teleporting or can't be found with a divination spell? I feel like it's better to start diversifying your skills by the time you get to high levels. At 1st level, you want to max em out, at 20th, that's probably overkill for the non-competitive ones.

I also agree that the bonuses get out of hand at high levels in that items and spells give such huge bonuses. I generally don't like items give bonuses to skills, unless it makes a lot of sense (like jumping boots or search-boosting monocles); I'd rather these magic items give you new options rather than just a bonus. For instance, a ring of chameleon power could maybe let you make hide checks with no cover or concealment as long as you don't move, instead of just a +10.

There's a person on the forums named Ernir who did overhaul of the magic system, and his system got rid of a lot of the skill obviating that magic does. "Spiderclimb" just gives you a climb speed (and an implied +8 bonus, I believe). Fly is only a class spell for transmuters and people with the travel domain (paladins and rangers gain access to a winged flight spell at around 10th level or so, IIRC). It also fixes magic in general, if you ask me, but that's secondary to this thread.

I like most of the actual skills present in 3.5, and I don't mind the "fiddliness" or the amount of skill points. What gets me is how so much is left up for the DM to figure out; DM's already have gigantic workloads, why did we buy the books for if not to give us the damn info? The skill section should be twice as big, with a bunch of examples and more complicated DC setting rules. Either do that or simplify them, because as it stands it's not so great. I also don't like how swingy it is; the 1d20 roll has a huge variance in how a character performs on a round-to-round basis.

Fantasycraft has a good take on skills, and fixes some of that stuff (while creating other problems, IMO). If I were to make my own system, I'd do a blend of both of them, with a few of PF's ideas thrown in. One of things it does is give certain classes an ability that lets them not fail on certain skills as long as the DC is less than 20+class level.

[Khedrac]

I dislike the way the system better defines what a character cannot do rather than what they can.

The ability to use most skills untrained lessens this (it could be worse), but the skill system lends itself to character that maximise some skills nad take no ranks in others.
You do get characters (usually those with lots of skill points) who feel they can afford to stop taking skills after 10 or 15 ranks (e.g. diplomacy when one doesn;t want to be able to do the impossible, but wants to never fluff basic checks) and other skills taken for 5 ranks and then not again (balance on fighter-types); but in the main most characters max some skills and ignore the rest.

The result of this is that most skill difficulties tend to either be trivial for some party members or impossible for everyone else.
Even those targetting the under-taken skills (e.g. climb, jump and swim) cause problems because a D20 is too large a range or results with only stat bonuses to apply for sensible results on DCs of 10 to 15 - you get the situation where the 18 strength character cannot open the door but the 8 strength wizard can (DC15 with good and bad rolls).

Net result:
For most skills characters are either always going to succeed or always going to fail (high DC traps and searches can be the rare exceptions to this)
For other skills it's a comedy where the dice cause random silly results.

[Arael666]

DDisable Device doesn't work unless you have trapfinding.


fixed that for you

[theCerealKillr]

I think that the large number of classes having only 2+Int skill points per level means a lot of classes are more MAD than they should be. 4+Int should be the minimum.

Having 4x(skill points per level) at level 1 makes character creation much more complicated. Pathfinder's system (+3 to all class skills) is a much better solution.

I understand the logic behind not granting retroactive skill points, but it's frustrating, and shouldn't be that way.

It's way too punishing to put any ranks into a cross-class skill without Able Learner. The benefits of Able Learner should be the default, and Able Learner should increase the cross-class point cap to equal your character level.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I mean, you could cut down to a 4e style system, with automatic scaling:

Reduce the total number of skills, obvious.
At first level, you pick X* skills off your class list to be Trained, and add level+3 to them. You also pick Y* skills off the list as a whole to be a Dabbler in, and add 1/2 level (round down)+2 to them. Remaining skills get no bonus.
If you multiclass into a class with a higher value of X, gain the difference in new Trained skills. If you were already a Dabbler in one of your new skills, you get to pick a replacement Dabbler skill.


I also quite like the idea of using Skill Tricks in a more systematic way-- give every skill a few skill tricks that become available at, oh, every 5 levels, and let them pick one as soon as they qualify. That both makes skills more important, and helps differentiate different characters with similar skillsets.



*Where "X" is a number based on your class and maybe Int, and "Y" is a static number that covers a substantial amount of the total list. You should be good at a few things, able to remain in spitting distance of most things, and have a few trademark weaknesses. (You could also reframe it as "pick Y skills to not scale at all.")

[Cosi]

The biggest problem is the scaling. Your chance of success tracks too weakly to level and too strongly to optimization. If you know all the tricks you can use to boost skill checks, your bonus may be twenty (or thirty, or more) points higher than another character of the same level. On the other hand, if both characters are at the same level of optimization, level provides only a +1 bonus, which is largely meaningless.

The solution to this, I think, is to be stricter about skill bonuses and to attach level-restricted things to a number of ranks rather than a stupidly high DC. That way if you want 13th level characters to be able to Balance on clouds you can just say "16 ranks in Balance gives flight" instead of worrying about where to set the DC so that non-optimized characters get it on schedule without optimized ones getting it ahead of time.

Another problem is that the system collapses (at least) two things that should be separate into a single system. Skill are used both for things you either can or can't do (like "speak Orcish") and for things you can do with a variable level of competence (like "climb things").

Those systems should be separated. The first (call them Proficiencies) should get things like what languages you can speak, what weapons you can wield, and what careers you can do, while the second (which can keep the name Skills) should get things like how well you can climb or how persuasive you are.


Diplomacy is bad, yes, partly because of how long it takes (the -10 penalty is a killer) and how it can just obviate encounters if you have a high enough bonus.

I disagree that this is (inherently) a problem. The problem isn't that Diplomacy lets you bypass encounters. The problem is that it does that, and other skills don't. Diplomacy simply has a vastly larger narrative weight than Appraise or Craft, and that's bad.

[NomGarret]

I'll add that the binary effect of most skills makes them a less dynamic tool. It's a single roll, pass or fail. Sure, you can string a series of them together. You need 3 swim checks to cross the river, for example. But that still feels more like SoD/SoS than dealing damage. What if at least some skills, like Diplomacy, had a "damage roll?"

[XionUnborn01]

I think skills would be cool if they were like a rangers favored enemy. Like you pick 2 at first level to get a bonus to, at 2nd level you pick 2 different skills and your first bonus increases. I've never put toomich thought into it but I like that it shows you're constantly expanding your abilities. Maybe some classes get the ability to trade a new skill for something else like a new use of a skill they already have? That would be pretty fun i think

[SwordChucks]

I agree with Cosi. Having binary on/off abilities and abilities with varying degrees of success covered by the same system isn't ideal. 2E had weapon proficiencies that had characters getting access to new weapon types as they leveled. Something like that might be a good place to start.

If you end up using condensed skills I'd suggest having climb, jump, and swim as athletics and balance, tumble, and fly as acrobatics. Use rope might fit with survival.

Appraise is an issue for me as a DM. I never know if I should make the players roll for determining the value of items they're buying/selling, because the possibility of them losing a lot of money due to having better things to do with their skill points. If a decent amount of money isn't at stake, then what's the point of having ranks in appraise?

[BWR]

I agree with Cosi. Having binary on/off abilities and abilities with varying degrees of success covered by the same system isn't ideal. 2E had weapon proficiencies that had characters getting access to new weapon types as they leveled. Something like that might be a good place to start.


Never played 2e have you? Weapon proficiencies and NWPs sucked. A Weapon Proficiency was a single weapon. WP dagger, WP longsword, WP longbow, etc. Say you too WP morningstar because you like it. Then you have to hope that the GM is nice and intentionally sends magical morningstars instead of maces or warhammers your way. Waiting for randomly rolled weapons, especially those weapons slightly more exotic than a dagger or longsword, was terrible.
And don't get me started on Non-weapon Proficiencies or Secondary Skills.
As imperfect as they are, 3.5 weapon proficiencies and skills are immensely preferable to how 2e handled them.

[tedcahill2]

There's a part of me that loves how in depth the skills get, like having a keen sighted person (high spot) but is audibly unaware (low listen). Someone who can hide super good, but can't move silently for crap.

Despite that fact that I love that you can do that, it often feels like you're being penalized cause you effectively need to spend double the skills points to be stealthy or perceptive (putting ranks into both hide/move silently or spot/listen).

Same thing with climb/jump/swim. It makes so much sense that those go into a group called Athletics, because who in the world would have the ability to jump a 10 ft chasm, but still fail to climb a tree?

I would have liked to see something like 5Es proficiency system (I haven't played 5E, so it's very roughly based on what I know about proficiency in 5E). Each class has a proficiency bonus that scales with level somehow. Classes like a rogue would have a higher prof bonus than classes like fighter. All class skills gain a bonus equal to 1/2 prof bonus, and each class can choose a number of skills equal to INT modifier that will get their full prof bonus.

[Cosi]

Never played 2e have you? Weapon proficiencies and NWPs sucked. A Weapon Proficiency was a single weapon. WP dagger, WP longsword, WP longbow, etc. Say you too WP morningstar because you like it. Then you have to hope that the GM is nice and intentionally sends magical morningstars instead of maces or warhammers your way. Waiting for randomly rolled weapons, especially those weapons slightly more exotic than a dagger or longsword, was terrible.
And don't get me started on Non-weapon Proficiencies or Secondary Skills.
As imperfect as they are, 3.5 weapon proficiencies and skills are immensely preferable to how 2e handled them.

Proficiencies should be minor enough that it doesn't matter how many of them you have -- no one really cares that you can speak Troll and Orc, or that you are proficient with all twelve kinds of hammers, or that you are trained as both a Butler and a Groom -- so there should just be some mechanism for picking them up in play in an uncapped way. Spend a while training with a Longsword and you get Martial Weapon Proficiency (Longsword) for free. Maybe change class weapon proficiencies to be the highest tier you can gain proficiency with in this way.

[Telonius]

It's kind of a niche case, but my Cleric/Warlock/Eldritch Disciple of Olidammara is putting ranks in Perform to build up to getting Pipes of Frenzied Revelry (which requires a Perform check to activate). But yeah, outside of Bard levels or something weird like that, Perform ranks are about as useful as Craft (underwater basketweaving).

[Cosi]

It's kind of a niche case, but my Cleric/Warlock/Eldritch Disciple of Olidammara is putting ranks in Perform to build up to getting Pipes of Frenzied Revelry (which requires a Perform check to activate). But yeah, outside of Bard levels or something weird like that, Perform ranks are about as useful as Craft (underwater basketweaving).

For Perform or Craft I could see a split, where there's a skill for how good you are at it, then proficiencies for what kinds you can do. In the same way that BAB determines how good you are at attacking with whatever weapon you happen to use, or Diplomacy determines how convincing you are in whatever language you happen to speak.

[Crake]

I mean, you could cut down to a 4e style system, with automatic scaling:

Reduce the total number of skills, obvious.
At first level, you pick X* skills off your class list to be Trained, and add level+3 to them. You also pick Y* skills off the list as a whole to be a Dabbler in, and add 1/2 level (round down)+2 to them. Remaining skills get no bonus.
If you multiclass into a class with a higher value of X, gain the difference in new Trained skills. If you were already a Dabbler in one of your new skills, you get to pick a replacement Dabbler skill.


I also quite like the idea of using Skill Tricks in a more systematic way-- give every skill a few skill tricks that become available at, oh, every 5 levels, and let them pick one as soon as they qualify. That both makes skills more important, and helps differentiate different characters with similar skillsets.



*Where "X" is a number based on your class and maybe Int, and "Y" is a static number that covers a substantial amount of the total list. You should be good at a few things, able to remain in spitting distance of most things, and have a few trademark weaknesses. (You could also reframe it as "pick Y skills to not scale at all.")

This was basically a skill variant in unearthed arcana.

The only thing I dislike about the 3.5 skill system is how hard it is to audit. I'm actually quite fond of the complexity of it, though I know many others arent, but I like the idea of having to invest more for something you're not particularly focusing on (as determined by your class selection), but the issue of auditing becomes apparent when you realise that, because of the way the skill system works, you might have enough skill points to max X number of skills, but when calculated level by level, you wouldn't actually have been able to max that many skills. An example of this would be say, someone who took rogue at 1st level, was a human with 12 int, and got 40 skill points. Then their next 6 levels were fighter, each level granting 4 more skill points, for a grand total of 64 skill points. Despite the fact that, at level 7, it would take 10 points to max out a skill, and the character has 64 skill points, that character would not be capable of maxing out 6 skills. While this is obviously a very simple example, when characters multiclass a lot, which tends to happen in a system like 3.5, the issue exacerbates itself and can become quite difficult to keep track of.

The obvious solution to this problem is to take able learner and factotum at 1st level, and always have access to every skill as a class skill :smalltongue:

[NomGarret]

There's a part of me that loves how in depth the skills get, like having a keen sighted person (high spot) but is audibly unaware (low listen). Someone who can hide super good, but can't move silently for crap.

Despite that fact that I love that you can do that, it often feels like you're being penalized cause you effectively need to spend double the skills points to be stealthy or perceptive (putting ranks into both hide/move silently or spot/listen).

Same thing with climb/jump/swim. It makes so much sense that those go into a group called Athletics, because who in the world would have the ability to jump a 10 ft chasm, but still fail to climb a tree?

I would have liked to see something like 5Es proficiency system (I haven't played 5E, so it's very roughly based on what I know about proficiency in 5E). Each class has a proficiency bonus that scales with level somehow. Classes like a rogue would have a higher prof bonus than classes like fighter. All class skills gain a bonus equal to 1/2 prof bonus, and each class can choose a number of skills equal to INT modifier that will get their full prof bonus.

I'd rather have that effect through situational traits. +2 to Perception checks involving sight.

[Buufreak]

So we are going to talk about how borked the entire skill system is as a whole, and have some emphasis how some skills are simply allegedly broken (in the bad way), but no one brought up truenaming yet? Yea, okay, I'll bite the bullet.

We have a class that revolves entirely around being behind the casters curve, with a progressively larger 8-ball to be hitting around, that you only have a chance to defeat with magic item cheese galore. So the options are three fold: suck, fix the class, or ignore the class.

Meanwhile, I think the fiendbinder is the absolute BEST use of the idiotic skill, and it isn't even a truenamer class; it's best on a cleric or wizard.

[Elkad]

I dislike the whole social skill thing. Diplo/bluff/intimidate/motive.

But I realize that "RP it out" doesn't work for some people, so I see why it's there.

Same with automatic checks to notice traps/tracks/etc. Again the party should be RPing the Rogue with the 10' pole, and the rope around his waist with the Fighter on-belay.

[Ashtagon]

Ashtagon's Skills Manifesto

Contrary to most, I actually tibnk there are both too many and too few skills. That is, some tasks have been split up into too many skills. Hide/Move Silently should be one skill; the split is a legacy of OD&D); ditto for Spot/Listen. On the othr hand, The Knowledge skills don't really cover the full gamut of human knowledge. I think it's fine to have more skills, provided they come with an advisory note that they probably shouldn't see much use except for NPCs or in campaigns with specialised focuses. This re-enables "find teh wise sage who knows this stuff" quests possible once more, instead of the party turning to their resident bard/wizard with enough Knowledge skills maxed out and the present wide scope those skills are given ensuring they are never in the dark.

Most classes should get a few skill groups that are automatically maxmised for them. Fighters, for example, should automatically get max ranks in Climb/Jump/Swim (in addition to their discretionary skill points). Bards should get max ranks in one or two instruments of their choice. Clerics should get max ranks in K/religion. Wizards get max ranks in K/arcana. And so on. Basically, if the skill is a key function of your class, or if the character class would look weird and a bit dysfunctional without the skill, it should get max ranks. Note that characters shouldn't be allowed to spent discretionary skill points to increase the skill beyond max ranks. In effect, these are skill points that are pre-allocated.

I'd also remove the synergy bonus. It's one of many aspects that go towards skill DC inflation. On a similar mien, magic items that grant skill bonuses should be limited to +5, and priced similarly to magic weapons and armour. Possibly the most radical change (I'm still undecided on this one) is rescaling the skill points and max ranks so that it caps out at +12 and progresses in a similar manner to saving throw bonuses. Doing so wuld mean that a skill check would in principle be interchangeable with a saving throw, making it easier to copare numbers across the game system.

The skill tricks presented in Complete Scoundrel was cool, and really should be integrated into the core game much more. Rather than spend skill points on them, they should be far more accessible. A balance needs to be struck between giving too many options and causing decision paralysis, and giving too few and leaving the system underused of course. But PCs should expect to e able to do cool stuff with skills.

Magic makes skills obsolete. It's true. Short of a full re-write of the magic system, this isn't really fixable. The skill tricks expansion will help of course, but really, nerfing magic is the main thing here.

And yes, Diplomacy is broken. We all know it needs fixing. I'd like to see some kind of total revamp, either on the lines of how GURPS handles social skills, or perhaps using some kind of "social combat" minigame.

[BassoonHero]

Things I like about pathfinder skills vs 3.5
-Removing the penalty for non class skills, and just giving a flat +3 bonus to class skills.

Indeed! I nearly put cross-class skills on my list of complaints, because half-ranks are *incredibly* fiddly, but Pathfinder proves that this is an easy fix.


-Consolidating some skills. Spot and listen being perception, linguistics being decipher script and forgery, hide and move silently being stealth, etc. I think they could have gone further by either deleting some skills outright or merging them into other skills.

Also agree. Pathfinder *did*, however, introduce a new Fly skill that I'm not a fan of, and they removed parts of Spellcraft into Knowledge. I'd call it five steps forward and two steps back.

I've thought about an informal target of one dozen skills, excluding Craft, Profession, Knowledge, and Perform. This may or may not be doable.


-Concentration no longer needing skill ranks. It prevents casters from having to waste skill ranks, but arguably concentration checks are much harder in pathfinder.

Yeah, tying concentration to a skill makes it much, much easier. In 3.5, mid-level spellcasters should virtually never fail a concentration check.


I agree that magic supplants some skills outright, but I think that is okay. Even at very high levels, many skills remain useful, even with magic.

Many do, but the ones that don't become wasted ranks, which feels bad. Avoiding the feelbads if possible is one of my goals.


I also agree and dislike the arms race skills can get into, namely opposed skill checks. After more than a few levels, a skill is either borderline worthless or needs to be maxed. Stealth, perception, bluff, and sense motive are the big offenders here. A similar note is how high some skills can get; it is very possible to get triple digits on a skill check for certain builds. ...

... bound accuracy.

I agree and disagree; 3.5 skill bonuses are out of control, but I don't like bounded accuracy.

I would like to explore the middle ground of non-maxed skills. A lot of games encourage this through nonlinear rank costs, but I don't think that's a good solution for 3.5. More study may be needed.




Disable device has other uses besides disabling traps.

I think it's fair to say that disabling traps is the *primary* function of the skill. In most games, it will be the most frequently used and the most important to party success. If there was as skill that did everything that Disable Device did except disarming traps, I'd say it was far too narrow.

I also think that there is no reason to restrict disabling traps in 3.5. It seems like a relic of previous editions that lacked a real skill system, where disabling traps was just a rogue class feature. The same could be said of the Track feat and the ranger. I feel that skills should come "batteries-included".


Diplomacy is bad, yes, partly because of how long it takes (the -10 penalty is a killer) and how it can just obviate encounters if you have a high enough bonus. Rich's Persuasion skill is a much better alternative.

Indeed. A similar approach is found [here](http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/advanced-rules/diplomacy.html). (They have opposite problems with scaling -- the Giant's rule means that advanced characters won't accept highly favorable deals from non-specialized diplomats, whereas the Alexandrian rule means that high-level diplomats can talk each other into anything at all. Maybe there's a compromise.)


Perform is basically only for bards, and of course they're going to take at least the minimum to use their class abilities; outside of countersong, it's basically just profession. Profession *could* be useful, like sailor or miner or siege engineer, but that's hardly worth the points outside of very particular builds. You need a good DM to make most of the knowledge skills useful.

I wonder if there's some way to handle these things outside the regular skill system. They're clearly things that require training and experience, but they simply aren't useful to a typical adventurer.

Knowledge is weird. If a player needs to know something to advance the plot, there's no point making them roll for it. They don't, then, well, you don't. There's identifying monsters, which is fundamentally a useful and reasonable thing, but the actual rules are weird. Very high checks rarely matter.


Use Rope isn't useless, but it's pretty close.

Using a rope to climb should be Climb (or whatever Climb may be folded into). Tying someone up should be... something. A specific professional use, like tying knots on a ship, should fall under a profession skill (or whatever replaces those). Everything else a player would want should probably fall under Disable Device.


I've never seen anyone use Forgery; it seems like a very niche skill

It's niche, but it's oddly powerful. When you bluff, you're opposed by Sense Motive. Instead, you can forge a document in one minute (!) and it's opposed by the target's Forgery skill.


It's fairly hard to argue for open lock against a wand of knock.

Knock definitely needs a fix. Maybe have it make a caster level check against the lock DC?


Another problem is how many skills don't have much use past a certain skill bonus. I can justify climb up to about +35, and that's only in the rarest of circumstances. Balance and swim are much the same. What am I going to track with +40 survival that isn't flying or teleporting or can't be found with a divination spell? I feel like it's better to start diversifying your skills by the time you get to high levels. At 1st level, you want to max em out, at 20th, that's probably overkill for the non-competitive ones.

I think that these kinds of skills need real high-level applications.

One thing I've been playing around with is combining Climb, Jump, and Swim into "Athletics", and offering an Athletics check instead of a Str check in some cases. For instance, let the high-level fighter force his way through a web spell, or even solid fog. Let the barbarian roll Athletics to burst through a door (or the stone wall next to it).


I also agree that the bonuses get out of hand at high levels in that items and spells give such huge bonuses. I generally don't like items give bonuses to skills, unless it makes a lot of sense (like jumping boots or search-boosting monocles); I'd rather these magic items give you new options rather than just a bonus. For instance, a ring of chameleon power could maybe let you make hide checks with no cover or concealment as long as you don't move, instead of just a +10.

These sorts of things I'd rather give out without items, if possible. Of course, you can always do both.

I'll definitely look up Fantasy Craft and Ernir's work. They sound extremely relevant.




The ability to use most skills untrained lessens this (it could be worse), but the skill system lends itself to character that maximise some skills nad take no ranks in others.
You do get characters (usually those with lots of skill points) who feel they can afford to stop taking skills after 10 or 15 ranks (e.g. diplomacy when one doesn;t want to be able to do the impossible, but wants to never fluff basic checks) and other skills taken for 5 ranks and then not again (balance on fighter-types); but in the main most characters max some skills and ignore the rest.

The result of this is that most skill difficulties tend to either be trivial for some party members or impossible for everyone else.
Even those targetting the under-taken skills (e.g. climb, jump and swim) cause problems because a D20 is too large a range or results with only stat bonuses to apply for sensible results on DCs of 10 to 15 - you get the situation where the 18 strength character cannot open the door but the 8 strength wizard can (DC15 with good and bad rolls).

Net result:
For most skills characters are either always going to succeed or always going to fail (high DC traps and searches can be the rare exceptions to this)
For other skills it's a comedy where the dice cause random silly results.

I think that it's useful to draw a distinction, in-combat versus out-of-combat. Out of combat, you can effectively take 20 to break down a door. In combat, time and chance happeneth to them all. I think that Skill Mastery should be accessible to characters who frequently use a certain skill in combat; it prevents undignified pratfalls while saving dice rolls.

I don't necessarily mind dipping skills or maximizing them; Mostly, I'd like there to be a benefit to having ranks in a skill even if you're not maxing it out. Balance is an example here, although it's debatable whether it's a good one. Synergy bonuses are another incentive, although a +2 is hardly exciting.




I think that the large number of classes having only 2+Int skill points per level means a lot of classes are more MAD than they should be. 4+Int should be the minimum.

I agree in principle, though the specifics could change as the number of skills decreases.


Having 4x(skill points per level) at level 1 makes character creation much more complicated. Pathfinder's system (+3 to all class skills) is a much better solution.

I understand the logic behind not granting retroactive skill points, but it's frustrating, and shouldn't be that way.

It's way too punishing to put any ranks into a cross-class skill without Able Learner. The benefits of Able Learner should be the default, and Able Learner should increase the cross-class point cap to equal your character level.

This is definitely an improvement. I always house-rule retroactive skill points from permanent Int increases myself.




I mean, you could cut down to a 4e style system, with automatic scaling:

I wasn't aware of the 4e system, and I actually quite like the "dabbler" aspect.


I also quite like the idea of using Skill Tricks in a more systematic way-- give every skill a few skill tricks that become available at, oh, every 5 levels, and let them pick one as soon as they qualify. That both makes skills more important, and helps differentiate different characters with similar skillsets.

I think that skill tricks could be a cornerstone of an improved skill system. In 3.5, they're arguably the best part, except for the horribly fiddly 2-point cost. I know that in your house rules you give them out for free, but I do also like the idea of using them to differentiate characters.

Giving them out at skill point milestones would result in a flood of tricks at regular intervals. Giving them out at (say) every even level would be smoother. It's important, I think, that the shouldn't generally compete for resources with feats and such.




The biggest problem is the scaling. Your chance of success tracks too weakly to level and too strongly to optimization. If you know all the tricks you can use to boost skill checks, your bonus may be twenty (or thirty, or more) points higher than another character of the same level. On the other hand, if both characters are at the same level of optimization, level provides only a +1 bonus, which is largely meaningless.

Yep; both ends of the problem bother me.


The solution to this, I think, is to be stricter about skill bonuses and to attach level-restricted things to a number of ranks rather than a stupidly high DC. That way if you want 13th level characters to be able to Balance on clouds you can just say "16 ranks in Balance gives flight" instead of worrying about where to set the DC so that non-optimized characters get it on schedule without optimized ones getting it ahead of time.

Something like this would be great, although there should be some opportunity for differentiation.




I'll add that the binary effect of most skills makes them a less dynamic tool. It's a single roll, pass or fail. Sure, you can string a series of them together. You need 3 swim checks to cross the river, for example. But that still feels more like SoD/SoS than dealing damage. What if at least some skills, like Diplomacy, had a "damage roll?"

I've seen several systems of this sort. Sometimes, they come off as adding rolls for the sake of adding rolls, but sometimes they work well. For something simple like a protracted, challenging swim, a simple system like "three successes before three failures" would work.

Negotiation could work as a sort of "diplomatic combat". I vaguely remember that Burning Wheel has reasonable rules for this. At the very least, all parties involved should get a Diplomacy check.




I think skills would be cool if they were like a rangers favored enemy. Like you pick 2 at first level to get a bonus to, at 2nd level you pick 2 different skills and your first bonus increases. I've never put toomich thought into it but I like that it shows you're constantly expanding your abilities. Maybe some classes get the ability to trade a new skill for something else like a new use of a skill they already have? That would be pretty fun i think

The concern I have there is a lack of skills at low levels. I like flexibility, but some sort of "autopilot" could be a suggested fallback (like a standard stat array).


Appraise is an issue for me as a DM. I never know if I should make the players roll for determining the value of items they're buying/selling, because the possibility of them losing a lot of money due to having better things to do with their skill points. If a decent amount of money isn't at stake, then what's the point of having ranks in appraise?

Yeah, I rarely find the process of selling loot to be particularly interesting in itself. And hanging party wealth on a skill check is a recipe for disaster!




There's a part of me that loves how in depth the skills get, like having a keen sighted person (high spot) but is audibly unaware (low listen). Someone who can hide super good, but can't move silently for crap.

Despite that fact that I love that you can do that, it often feels like you're being penalized cause you effectively need to spend double the skills points to be stealthy or perceptive (putting ranks into both hide/move silently or spot/listen).

Same thing with climb/jump/swim. It makes so much sense that those go into a group called Athletics, because who in the world would have the ability to jump a 10 ft chasm, but still fail to climb a tree?

Agreed. The granularity of spot/listen is neat, but not worth the hassle. Also, by splitting perception by sense, extraordinary senses get weird.


I would have liked to see something like 5Es proficiency system (I haven't played 5E, so it's very roughly based on what I know about proficiency in 5E). Each class has a proficiency bonus that scales with level somehow. Classes like a rogue would have a higher prof bonus than classes like fighter. All class skills gain a bonus equal to 1/2 prof bonus, and each class can choose a number of skills equal to INT modifier that will get their full prof bonus.

5e's system is elegant, but also inflexible. I'm also no fan of 5e's bounded accuracy, although you could fix that by setting the bonus equal to your level.




The only thing I dislike about the 3.5 skill system is how hard it is to audit. I'm actually quite fond of the complexity of it, though I know many others arent, but I like the idea of having to invest more for something you're not particularly focusing on (as determined by your class selection), but the issue of auditing becomes apparent when you realise that, because of the way the skill system works, you might have enough skill points to max X number of skills, but when calculated level by level, you wouldn't actually have been able to max that many skills. An example of this would be say, someone who took rogue at 1st level, was a human with 12 int, and got 40 skill points. Then their next 6 levels were fighter, each level granting 4 more skill points, for a grand total of 64 skill points. Despite the fact that, at level 7, it would take 10 points to max out a skill, and the character has 64 skill points, that character would not be capable of maxing out 6 skills. While this is obviously a very simple example, when characters multiclass a lot, which tends to happen in a system like 3.5, the issue exacerbates itself and can become quite difficult to keep track of.

The obvious solution to this problem is to take able learner and factotum at 1st level, and always have access to every skill as a class skill

I couldn't agree more. I'm currently playing a complicated multiclass character, and I literally need a spreadsheet to keep track of skills. Even so, I gave in and switched races for Able Learner to maintain my sanity. I consider myself to have a pretty high tolerance for this kind of nonsense, so this was a wake-up call for me.

Part of the problem is useless prerequisite skills, which are a subset of useless prerequisites. I would do away with all of them if I could; "tax" prereqs should not be used to balance powerful abilities.




So we are going to talk about how borked the entire skill system is as a whole, and have some emphasis how some skills are simply allegedly broken (in the bad way), but no one brought up truenaming yet?

Truenaming shouldn't be a skill at all. The ability should be based on (the moral equivalent of) caster level. Also, almost every other part of that whole subsystem should be rewritten entirely.




The Knowledge skills don't really cover the full gamut of human knowledge.

This is true; however, I question whether knowledge skills really make sense in the first place. Is the right way to handle knowledge making a skill check?


Most classes should get a few skill groups that are automatically maxmised for them. Fighters, for example, should automatically get max ranks in Climb/Jump/Swim (in addition to their discretionary skill points). Bards should get max ranks in one or two instruments of their choice. Clerics should get max ranks in K/religion. Wizards get max ranks in K/arcana. And so on. Basically, if the skill is a key function of your class, or if the character class would look weird and a bit dysfunctional without the skill, it should get max ranks. Note that characters shouldn't be allowed to spent discretionary skill points to increase the skill beyond max ranks. In effect, these are skill points that are pre-allocated.

I'm not sure I agree for Fighters. On the other hand, I do agree for the other classes except for my inherent concerns about the knowledge skill.

Maybe what we need is a sort of "background" mechanic to cover skills like knowledge, perform, and profession -- something low-powered, low-pressure, and open to interpretation. Perhaps pseudo-proficiencies like languages could be part of such a system.


I'd also remove the synergy bonus. It's one of many aspects that go towards skill DC inflation.

I think that this would naturally happen when consolidating skills.


On a similar mien, magic items that grant skill bonuses should be limited to +5, and priced similarly to magic weapons and armour.

Agreed.


Possibly the most radical change (I'm still undecided on this one) is rescaling the skill points and max ranks so that it caps out at +12 and progresses in a similar manner to saving throw bonuses.

This sounds like it could be pretty complicated in practice.


The skill tricks presented in Complete Scoundrel was cool, and really should be integrated into the core game much more. Rather than spend skill points on them, they should be far more accessible. A balance needs to be struck between giving too many options and causing decision paralysis, and giving too few and leaving the system underused of course. But PCs should expect to be able to do cool stuff with skills.

Emphasis added because this is great way to close this post.

[Jormengand]

I have the same major problem with skills that I do with attack rolls, spell resistance, and [FOR/REF/WIL] Negates - specifically, you have a non-negligible chance to spend your round, or even longer, doing absolutely nothing. Partial/Half saves are the best thing to happen to 3.5 because the roll is a roll not to see whether the heroes are effective but how effective the heroes are.

Truenamer, and by extension truespeak, is ridiculous not because it's hard to keep up with the truespeak checks - it's trivial - but because it should never have had to roll to see if it does anything at all. Roll-to-do-nothing is one of the most annoying things about 3.5. (And D&D in general. 5e's bounded accuracy, of course, only served to take the problem and rigourously enforce it as though it were a feature.)

[Erit]

Personal biggest bugbear is how increasing skills interacts with multiclassing, not entirely because it makes things harder to track, but because the rules governing it are themselves a gnarled mess that didn't even need to exist but to punish players.

[Eladrinblade]

I also think that there is no reason to restrict disabling traps in 3.5. It seems like a relic of previous editions that lacked a real skill system, where disabling traps was just a rogue class feature. The same could be said of the Track feat and the ranger.

Well, I'm fine with disable device including trapfinding, as long as most casters don't have disable device. Thing is, the only classes that have disable device also have trapfinding. Survival has several uses already besides track, so I'm not as sure about that one.


I wonder if there's some way to handle these things outside the regular skill system. They're clearly things that require training and experience, but they simply aren't useful to a typical adventurer.

One thing I've considered is just letting your players pick a craft or profession that fits their background, and let their character have max ranks in that for free. Not really for the wealth generating role, but more for flavor and backstory purposes.


Knowledge is weird. If a player needs to know something to advance the plot, there's no point making them roll for it. They don't, then, well, you don't. There's identifying monsters, which is fundamentally a useful and reasonable thing, but the actual rules are weird. Very high checks rarely matter.

If the knowledge roll is the only way for them to know, then I guess, but they can always go find an expert to ask or use a divination. Normally in that situation it's just a clue or else a way to avoid an obstacle. I know about identifying monsters; if it weren't for that these skills would be practically useless. I can recall a couple knowledge natures and locals I've seen happen in games, but that's it. Thus they need more example uses besides monster identification. PF gives three per skill, but that's not sufficient.

I really don't know what to do with use rope. It might be fine to leave it as is, because outside of rogues with escape artist and a few other edge cases, you don't need a particularly high bonus. Maybe 5 ranks, a good dex, a silk rope, and you're basically set, since the DC's are low for the grappling hook, and tying someone up comes with a +10 bonus. By high levels, most enemies will break free with strength, have freedom of movement, teleport away, or something like that. That said, your suggestion does make a lot of sense.


Knock definitely needs a fix. Maybe have it make a caster level check against the lock DC?

Spellcraft. I've thought of that before, but I was never really sure to do it or not, because while knock does obviate a lock or two per casting, that can still be a ton of castings in a day of dungeon delving. Still, it's better than just auto "cast and win".


One thing I've been playing around with is combining Climb, Jump, and Swim into "Athletics", and offering an Athletics check instead of a Str check in some cases. For instance, let the high-level fighter force his way through a web spell, or even solid fog. Let the barbarian roll Athletics to burst through a door (or the stone wall next to it).

Fantasycraft does that, IIRC. I almost made a similar rule in my own games, where you use your athletics check for or against combat maneuvers. Not sure about fighting spell effects with it, but I guess it makes sense; as long as it still takes them an action to do it, the caster hasn't wasted a round. Thing is, I don't like combining skills.

[SwordChucks]

Never played 2e have you? Weapon proficiencies and NWPs sucked. A Weapon Proficiency was a single weapon. WP dagger, WP longsword, WP longbow, etc. Say you too WP morningstar because you like it. Then you have to hope that the GM is nice and intentionally sends magical morningstars instead of maces or warhammers your way. Waiting for randomly rolled weapons, especially those weapons slightly more exotic than a dagger or longsword, was terrible.
And don't get me started on Non-weapon Proficiencies or Secondary Skills.
As imperfect as they are, 3.5 weapon proficiencies and skills are immensely preferable to how 2e handled them.

I have played 2E and I started a playthrough of Baldur's Gate not too long ago, that's what reminded me of them.

I completely agree that Weapon proficiency was handled badly in 2E, but I think the idea has merit. If characters could pick from Pathfinder weapon groups instead of having a set list of proficiencies, it would allow more customization and reduce one level dips in fighter.

The same setup could be applied to binary abilities like languages known, while skill points could be spent on abilities that can improve.

[Zaq]

I haven't really read the other posts. I'm mostly responding to the OP.

First, as stated, there are too many damn skills. It's legitimately hard to invest in a truly broad base of skills, especially skills that always or almost always need to be grouped up (e.g., Hide/MS, Spot/Listen, Search/Disable Device, Bluff/Disguise, etc.). There are far too many skills that do (or should do) basically the same thing—I know what the game rules spell out the distinction between K: Arcana and Spellcraft as being, but seriously, why is the game better/more fun because those are two distinct things you need to keep track of? Also, there are too many skills that are too narrow in usefulness (Use Rope, Heal, Decipher Script, Appraise, most "off-book" skills like Psicraft, etc.). You'd think that this would be a nice pair with the "too many damn skills" complaint in that you can safely ignore a lot of them, but even doing so, there are still too many damn skills and never enough points to spend on them.

Second, allocating skill points sucks. Speaking as someone who has built and judged dozens of Iron Chef characters (which rarely involve taking just two classes, shall we say), it's kind of a nightmare to keep track of how many skill points you can spend on which skills at any given level (especially if you care about more than maybe two or three skills), and writing them down in a legible manner that clearly indicates how many ranks you had when is challenging, to say the least. Half-ranks have a reason to exist, but you can also get caught in a half-rank hell when a skill you were trying to boost suddenly becomes a class skill, leaving a skill point wasted until you somehow end up not having that skill as a class skill. But mostly it's just an accounting headache from start to finish (and heaven help you if you need to end up rearranging the order in which you take your levels). Also, I'm totally accustomed now to the paradigm of "max ranks is HD + 3 unless it's cross-class for every single one of your classes in which case it's (HD + 3) / 2," but you cannot tell me that there is a universe in which that is the most elegant way to design a system. That takes forever to get used to, as it should, because it's almost comedically finicky.

Third, no class in the whole game ever has enough skill points. Full stop. It's fine to have to occasionally make hard choices and not just be given everything you want, but come on now—have you ever really played a character that doesn't feel like they're at least a little hampered by how stingy the game's skill points are? Especially if you're trying to qualify for anything that has a skill rank prereq? Trying to make a (non-Cloistered) Cleric have unique skills feels like pulling teeth by the time you've paid your skill tax of Concentration and probably invested in K: Religion to meet some kind of BS prereq that you'll care about in six levels.

I have mixed feelings about the fact that the skill point structure allows you to just dump all of the points you get at a level (midway through the game) into a totally new skill, allowing you to become instantly competent at something (at the cost of nothing else getting better that level). It's weird and feels like an unintended consequence, but it also allows a weirdly satisfying level of flexibility. Long, long ago, I was part of a campaign that ended up being (unintentionally, at least at first) centered around an artifact-level magic wagon that the party inadvertently acquired (which we affectionately ended up dubbing "The Bowsermobile"). I was playing a Scout at the time, and no one in the party had ranks in Ride, which we determined was the skill of choice for driving the damn thing. One level-up later, I had dumped nine or ten skill points into Ride (and nothing else), making me uniquely able to drive The Bowsermobile. That's weird as hell, but there's something you have to admire about it. It's not elegant, and someone who gets more hung up on fluff than I do might get up in arms about suddenly mastering something that usually takes a very long time to learn just because you were willing to give up incremental +1s on your other tricks, but it's also something that's rather uniquely 3.5ish.

I will break here and mention a few things that I like. First, while cross-class ranks are finicky as hell and obnoxious, I genuinely appreciate that you can just straight up brute-force your way into having a skill trained (without spending any additional character resources). Sure, it's always better to spend points as class skills, but if you want your [Class X] to be trained in [Skill Y], god dammit, you can just do that, and you don't have to spend a feat or anything on the privilege, even if you never get the same bang for your buck as a character who isn't paying the cross-class tax. That's a level of flexibility that's hard to match without skill points. Second, I like the fact that INT is tied to skill points. It gives INT a use for characters who don't necessarily care about Knowledge skills, and it means that there's a true benefit to being at least a little smarter than average. That feels nice to me. Third, I appreciate that on a system level, there are enough nickel-and-dime bonuses that you can spend resources to become good at something that you "shouldn't" be good at, basically no matter what you're starting from. Those bonuses tend to have real costs, but that's not a bad thing, especially since you do have build resources available to devote to those costs. Fourth, I like the concept of skill tricks, even if there aren't nearly enough useful ones printed; the idea of spending points in something other than just straight ranks makes a certain amount of sense.

I'll stop there for now. I'm probably rehashing material that other people have gone over already. So it goes.

[ericgrau]

Numbered by bold titles in post 1.

(1) Consolidated skill system in my sig. Or make your own. Whatever.
(2) The fixed DCs of some skills add more decisions. Reliably taking 10s and 20s help you minimize your ranks too. Both rely on a DM that knows the skill rules though, and doesn't arbitrarily make things harder.
(3) Yeup, I think allowing retraining is good for this one.
(4) Counters aren't a valid argument. You can't counter everything at once.

As for DCs, the core items are better at this as they tend to be limited to physical skills. Auto passing a skill check isn't really an issue either, because their scope is so limited. Do you complain about auto success on casting as spell when it does much more than any skill can do? The fallacy is assuming that an arbitrarily high check has some arbitrarily powerful effect, when RAI it doesn't. E.g., no matter how good your lie is, bluff simply doesn't do some things period. Your lie seems like honesty. That's it. AKA bluff is only for bluffing. It's a bad reading of the rules to treat it like mindrape... Just because you read a particular sentence in an over literal way and ignored the rest of the skill including its name. Heck even an infinite jump check is worse than fly because it doesn't change your speed.

Also why DMs need to lay off on trying to make skill checks difficult. Being able to reliably do something small all day long is the only thing that makes skills not totally worthless. Risk is only for things beyond your level. Otherwise players won't and shouldn't even bother using skills at all. And if you fail half the skills, you get hurt bad, in exchange for some minor benefit if you pass (vs not attempting it at all). Forcing risk of failure isn't cool.

(5) See (4) for diplomacy and most others. The minor ones are actually addressed in my sig consolidated skill system (yes, do nix them pretty much). As for disable device, you're thinking search, and even then it isn't a big deal. 1/3 have a DC of 20 regardless of CR (the non-rogue limit) and others can be found in clever ways. Non-rogue disable device only fails on magic traps. Which have dispel and other clever mundane answers often detailed in the spell description.

[Endarire]

Since others already said what I initially intended to say, I'll add a reminder about retraining (Player's Handbook II) which is an official way to redo your character. Certain other games (especially modern video game RPGs) have some version of this.

[Knaight]

What don't I dislike about the D&D 3.5 skill system? It's a gigantic mess, and any patch I could get behind would be a complete replacement. With that said, some holes are more glaring than others, including:

Class/Crossclass Skills: Even putting aside the terribleness of specific class skill lists, the entire concept of it is a niche protection mechanic for narrow classes that represent specific things. It gets in the way of broad character design, and is generally a decision that makes no sense given open multiclassing.
2+Int: Even 4+Int is pushing it given the breadth of the skill list, but 2+int leads to ridiculously incompetent characters at everything that isn't combat or magic.
Skill Breadth: There's a few different complaints here. One is that the breadth of skills is wildly inconsistent, with the entirety of wilderness survival comparable to what is effectively a 5e style tool proficiency in rope. Still, they skew towards too narrow, and while I'm sympathetic to the argument that it's nice to be able to specialize in something narrow I'm also sympathetic to the argument that it's annoying to have to pick up a bunch of subtly different skills to get one area of competence apart. If only various skill specialization techniques had been figured out by 2003. You know, like the d6 Starwars (1987) specialization mechanics - among others.
Weird Bonuses/Penalties: Spot is my go to example here, because Spot is hilarious. Actually spotting something is largely a function of angle subtended in the retina, which decays in a multiplicative fashion - going from 1000' to 2000' makes something about four times as hard to spot, being reduced to 1/2 in two dimensions. The same applies from 10' to 20'. Meanwhile, in D&D land that's a -100 penalty or a -1 penalty, because for some inexplicable reason there was a decision to make Spot linear.

[Florian]

Why I dislike about the skill system? The basic design is too close to a simulation to work with what is basically an adventure game.
It´s way too fine granular by modeling everything as a skill, while at the same time never reaching the complexity and depth of the combat system by being only ever able to produce binary results.
It´s not like a character has to spent "BAB points" on different fighting styles or efficiency against certain kinds of enemies, which would result in a similar cluster-eff.
That´s followed by the really unnecessary way that skill points are handed themselves. Class skills indicate at what you should be good at. The way the skill system works, you´re not "not as good" with non-class skills, you often stay fully incompetent at them, even up to high levels. Again, verisimilitude: yes, but not in line with how all other class features scale automatically.

So in 3.5, I gave every class a meta skill (i.e. Profession: Paladin) that covers all class skills and automatically levels up (effectively replacing those skills on the character sheet entirely) at class skill max rank, then grouping the rest of the skills in thematic groups (i.e. dungeon, city, outdoors), having each character pick two that automatically level up at cross-class skill max rank.

In PF, I´ve given up on the skill system altogether an use something akin to the roll-under attribute and proficiency system of D&D 5th.

[Alent]

I have my own rant on this that I'll largely sit on- I've tried a few times and keep retyping half of the skill revamp homebrew I've been working on. Knaight hits on two of my biggest issues:


What don't I dislike about the D&D 3.5 skill system? It's a gigantic mess, and any patch I could get behind would be a complete replacement. With that said, some holes are more glaring than others, including:

Class/Crossclass Skills: Even putting aside the terribleness of specific class skill lists, the entire concept of it is a niche protection mechanic for narrow classes that represent specific things. It gets in the way of broad character design, and is generally a decision that makes no sense given open multiclassing.
2+Int: Even 4+Int is pushing it given the breadth of the skill list, but 2+int leads to ridiculously incompetent characters at everything that isn't combat or magic.


At this point, especially after spending a heavy amount of time trying to modify and rewrite the skill system and classes... The niche protection that resulted in 2+int classes is a blight on Tabletop gaming. I don't think it's even possible for a character to function as a believable person with less than 6+int skills. (And that's after simplifying them down to 18 skills!)

[Ashtagon]

I have my own rant on this that I'll largely sit on- I've tried a few times and keep retyping half of the skill revamp homebrew I've been working on. Knaight hits on two of my biggest issues:



At this point, especially after spending a heavy amount of time trying to modify and rewrite the skill system and classes... The niche protection that resulted in 2+int classes is a blight on Tabletop gaming. I don't think it's even possible for a character to function as a believable person with less than 6+int skills. (And that's after simplifying them down to 18 skills!)

You might want to re-calibrate your expectations. The average car driver, for example, doesn't have 4 ranks invested in Drive. Instead, they've have the equivalent of "you now have permission to take 10 on Drive checks". Ditto for most other skills for normal people.

But otoh I personally think the whole "spend 2 skill points for 1 rank in a cross-class skill" thing needs to diaf. At a bare minimum, the following changes must be made:

* Cross-class skills cost one skill point to gain one rank.

The following are also possible, highly recommended, but not necessarily absolute requirements for change.

* Cross-class skills have a max rank equal to half that of a class skill.
* Once a class skill, always a class skill, and retroactively so.

[Knaight]

You might want to re-calibrate your expectations. The average car driver, for example, doesn't have 4 ranks invested in Drive. Instead, they've have the equivalent of "you now have permission to take 10 on Drive checks". Ditto for most other skills for normal people.

Just about everyone has a set of skills that they have which most people don't - it's what comes with societal specialization, and there's been a great deal of that for a very long time.

[Ashtagon]

Just about everyone has a set of skills that they have which most people don't - it's what comes with societal specialization, and there's been a great deal of that for a very long time.

And in D&D terms, for 99% of the population, that comes down to 2-4 ranks in Profession (whatever) for their BEST skill. Top runners in their field might have as many as 8 ranks, but here we are talking about world-famous research scientists, Olympic athletes, CEOs, and the like. More importantly, people on the cutting edge of their fields will likely have Skill Focus, the relevant +2/+2 skill feat, maybe a synergy +2 bonus, an aid another bonus (possible multiple aid another bonuses, depending on the task), masterwork tools, +2 circumstance bonus for having reference materials or a decent workspace (yep, stacks with masterwork tools), and circumstances in which the character can take 10 or even take 20. Basically, the top people in their field have tools, allies, time, and being in the right place at the right, time, which they use the stack the deck shamelessly (or righteously, depending on your pov) in their favour.

[Florian]

And in D&D terms, for 99% of the population, that comes down to 2-4 ranks in Profession (whatever) for their BEST skill. Top runners in their field might have as many as 8 ranks, but here we are talking about world-famous research scientists, Olympic athletes, CEOs, and the like. More importantly, people on the cutting edge of their fields will likely have Skill Focus, the relevant +2/+2 skill feat, maybe a synergy +2 bonus, an aid another bonus (possible multiple aid another bonuses, depending on the task), masterwork tools, +2 circumstance bonus for having reference materials or a decent workspace (yep, stacks with masterwork tools), and circumstances in which the character can take 10 or even take 20. Basically, the top people in their field have tools, allies, time, and being in the right place at the right, time, which they use the stack the deck shamelessly (or righteously, depending on your pov) in their favour.

The problem is when you want to model what people can do, and what they can do under intense stress/time pressure while using the same underlying system to model that.

[Ashtagon]

The problem is when you want to model what people can do, and what they can do under intense stress/time pressure while using the same underlying system to model that.

That's basically why the take 10 rule exists. Not saying it's that great a solution, but that was the intent behind that rule.

[Alent]

You might want to re-calibrate your expectations. The average car driver, for example, doesn't have 4 ranks invested in Drive. Instead, they've have the equivalent of "you now have permission to take 10 on Drive checks". Ditto for most other skills for normal people.

Why is it weird to calibrate my expectations of the average early 20's adult being able to pass a reasonable number of basic (DC15) knowledge checks about his country (Kn Geography, Kn Local, Kn Nobility) 75%+ of the time, to be able to appraise something accurately (DC12) 75%+ of the time so he can successfully haggle with merchants, being able to sense motive (DC20!) and negotiate with people on even ground (50/50) 75% of the time, to gather information about where the best deals are in his town are, etc. Most importantly, he should have maxed ranks for his normal profession checks, because income.

Assume that our hypothetical average person cannot take 10 because any time it matters, you can't take 10. (Just like your imaginary driver can't actually take 10 on drive checks because he's distracted and threatened by every other car on the road.) This average person is forced to have +9 bonuses to hit that 75% mark for DC15 checks. Let's just assume this imaginary average person has masterwork tools for all of their skills, needing no more than 7 ranks and thus is a 4th level character, and has only obtained Skill Focus(profession). That still comes up to roughly 7 and a half skill ranks per level to meet that bar, before factoring in stats. (It'd properly hit 8 per level if we actually maxed Appraise, but we cheaped out because we only had to meet DC12.) Let's say that's a 6+2 int character, the +2 int mod eliminating the need for most of the +2 masterwork tools. This imaginary average person still has no ranks in spot and listen.

I dunno about you, I find this to be a more realistic expectation than the strange idea that the best researchers are looking at maybe a +8. I also think it's a clear demonstration of why the knowledge skills are badly written and require consolidating. Also, most of the DCs are set badly. (You'll notice we couldn't actually hit our sense motive goal) It doesn't help that there's no clear definition on what constitutes "really easy" (DC10) and what constitutes "basic" (DC15).

[ericgrau]

Driving is DC 5, trained only. Taking 10 is ok except when sliding out towards an accident. You need 1 rank tops.

I think the issue there is calibrating the DCs. DC 15 isn't basic. Skill ranks are only for extraordinary, not ordinary, use of skills. Requiring skills for basic competency is also a flawed assumption that directly contradicts the skill rules.

Here's the skill rules where it says DC 15 is tough at the very beginning:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/usingSkills.htm

For your sense motive example you actually want to roll opposed to bluff. The DC 20 hunch is to get special information about a plot-worthy situation, such as talking to a typical imposter (the SRD example). If you're using special skill rules for ordinary things, you're already doing something wrong. Usually you shouldn't even be rolling dice as it's DC 0/5, and it's not that the rules didn't account for it by accident, it's that they didn't even bother on little things on purpose.

[RoboEmperor]

They should've given 2 different skill points, one is for combat, and one is for fluff.

Absolutely no one puts points into profession because it does absolutely ****ing nothing, even though it would be awesome in a roleplay perspective.

Giving more than 2 + Int skill points for combat skills would literally make rogues completely obsolete, because with 4+int skills all spellcasters should have enough skill points to remove the Rogue from the party.

So the solution is 2+int skill points for combat, 2+int skills for noncombat.

Crafting and Profession would definitely be non-combat skills, knowledge is questionable, perform, search, and disable device would definitely be combat skills.

[Florian]

Absolutely no one puts points into profession because it does absolutely ****ing nothing, even though it would be awesome in a roleplay perspective.

Not true for PF. Certain profession skills are tied in to very, very powerful abilities to utilize some sub-systems, like soldier, sailor or politician.

[Jormengand]

Not true for PF. Certain profession skills are tied in to very, very powerful abilities to utilize some sub-systems, like soldier, sailor or politician.

Not true for 3.5 either - not only can you use profession the same vague way as knowledge, but some professions such as miner, executioner and siege engineer have specified uses.

[Elkad]

How many hours of training equal a skillpoint?
How many hours of doing a task where you can only fail on a 1 equal a skillpoint?

I haven't taken a cooking class since 1982, but I've gotten a lot better at cooking since then just by feeding myself over the years. I leveled up Craft(Buttermilk Biscuits) just this year, by actually spending a few minutes asking my mother-in-law questions about how she does her magic instead of just trying to eat 30 at a sitting like I've done for the last 28 years. I've been rolling (with a slightly increased bonus over 30 years of practice), but failure was still an option. 5 minutes of instruction means I get to take 10 now. She of course rolls 1d20+18, and any result over 20 requires a Will Save equal to her result-20 or eat so many you go into a food coma (treat as Exhaustion) for 1d4 hours.

Being shown something ONCE by someone who is already trained is often enough to move a skill (or at least a specific task) from untrained to trained. My biscuits never fail any more.
If I hand an untrained person a 120' rope, a 6' rope, and a carabiner, and tell them to rappel down a 100' cliff, they'll probably fail and either get stuck 5' from the top or injure/kill themselves.
But with 10 minutes of instruction they suddenly have a 90% chance of succeeding and a 10% chance of 1d4 damage. Aid Another covers that the first time, but they could do it again tomorrow without me, and teach someone else to do it as well.


Hmm. Proposed addendum.


If a trained person successfully uses Aid Another to assist an untrained person, they have the option to give the untrained person either +2 on their check, or allow the untrained person to take10 (with no additional bonus from the aid) in a case where they would not normally be allowed to because of an unopposed risk of failure.

Doesn't quite work, but it's what I'm aiming at. I can't help you take10 on a diplo check because it's opposed. I can help you take 10 to climb that rope, despite the risk of falling, because it's a static DC.

[Eladrinblade]

Why is it weird to calibrate my expectations of the average early 20's adult being able to pass a reasonable number of basic (DC15) knowledge checks about his country (Kn Geography, Kn Local, Kn Nobility) 75%+ of the time, to be able to appraise something accurately (DC12) 75%+ of the time so he can successfully haggle with merchants, being able to sense motive (DC20!) and negotiate with people on even ground (50/50) 75% of the time, to gather information about where the best deals are in his town are, etc.

Because most normal people can't do that. Even when I was in highschool, most of the other kids couldn't answer basic questions about the constitution. In germany, their school system is divided into three tiers; kids who had good grades go into the good school, same for the kids with average and bad grades, respectively. My wife is from germany; she went to the good school and got good grades in it. She knows exactly nothing about geography; she can't even read maps. She doesn't know her way around her home town. All of that stuff is what "smart" and successful people can be expected to do, but not regular people. Regular people are inept as a rule; they can be expected to hit the DC 10 "things everybody knows". In D&D, none of those skills are class skills for commoners, but they can be for experts, which matches my experience perfectly.

[RedWarlock]

(As an aside, does anybody look at these “complain about 3e/PF and/or D&D as a whole” threads and mentally go, “My homebrew addresses that problem!” or is that just me? Most of the time I keep out, but this one is too on-the-nose.)

I prefer to split in-combat and out-of-combat skills into separate usage. My own homebrew system divides combat actions off and merged them with the base saves (making one for each stat, akin to 5e). This makes Notice into a base save, for instance, so that everyone gets *some* competence, while still allowing a few to shine.

Int-based skill points are used to buy spells and maneuvers. Meanwhile, the non-combat skills become Knowledge, which has a separate XP system, and an absolute scaling independent of character level. Checks use 1-6 d6s. Knowledge with a crossover usage (like Stealth) instead grant special skill tricks that get bonuses based on knowledge rank, but otherwise use the base saves and standard check system for their numbers, keeping actions tied to combat level.

[Eladrinblade]

(As an aside, does anybody look at these “complain about 3e/PF and/or D&D as a whole” threads and mentally go, “My homebrew addresses that problem!” or is that just me? Most of the time I keep out.

Definitely. I don't have anything to add beyond that, though.

[Cosi]

Crafting and Profession would definitely be non-combat skills, knowledge is questionable, perform, search, and disable device would definitely be combat skills.

I broadly sympathize with the idea that different skills have very different values and should be treated differently, but the terminology you've picked is ... not good. If "combat skills" includes Search and Perform, then you need to change its name.

[Avigor]

If I have a gripe with D&D's skills beyond RAW Diplomancy needing a revamp, the ludicrousness of some potential bonus sizes, and the fact that size modifies Hide but not Spot (cause big things are bigger to smaller critters) or Move Silently (less weight should logically mean less potential noise), it is actually my gripe with the d20 system as a whole: the rolls are just too random. I kinda want to try a 4d4 instead to see how that plays out...

[Pex]

Cross-class costs hurt the system. I'm glad Pathfinder got rid of that.

Social skills would have been better as opposed rolls instead of flat DCs. Apparently it is not so obvious that a King will not give you his throne no matter what your total Diplomacy roll is, though I'm not sure if even using opposed rolls would have fixed that in some players' minds. The rules need to be more explicit about extremes like this even keeping the flat DCs.

I suppose it wouldn't hurt if the minimum skill points given to a class was 4 + Intelligence modifier.

[Eladrinblade]

I suppose it wouldn't hurt if the minimum skill points given to a class was 4 + Intelligence modifier.

I agree, except I'd leave wizards there.

[tedcahill2]

I agree, except I'd leave wizards there.

Why? Wizards, the book worm, scholar, philosopher, teacher, sage, etc... should get enough skill points to actually have some knowledge skills.

[Eladrinblade]

Why? Wizards, the book worm, scholar, philosopher, teacher, sage, etc... should get enough skill points to actually have some knowledge skills.

With his massive Int score, he does.

[PanosIs]

Possibly the most radical change (I'm still undecided on this one) is rescaling the skill points and max ranks so that it caps out at +12 and progresses in a similar manner to saving throw bonuses. Doing so wuld mean that a skill check would in principle be interchangeable with a saving throw, making it easier to copare numbers across the game system.

With the basis of this I came up with an alternate system that I like quite a lot. Would like some thoughts on it. It's really one night's worth of brainstorming and not actually a consolidated homebrew to put up for peach but here it is:


All skills have a soft cap that is equal to 2 + 1/2 Class Level for class skills and 1/3 Class Level for cross class skills.
Soft cap means that up to the cap, a character may purchase ranks in an 1 to 1 equivalence with skill points, after exceeding the cap, each skill rank costs double, if you exceed two times the cap ranks cost quadruple the points etc.
Classes gain skill points as follows: Fighter, 2/Level, Barbarian 3/Level, Bard, 4/Level, Rogue, 5/Level along with Intelligence modifier.

These changes have a couple of implications, some positive, some negative.


Skill checks become comparable to saving throws, meaning that they are, to a point, interchangeable, this allows, among other things, changing some skills, mainly concentration, to a saving throw instead.
Although they are comparable, they are not analog, as a character may overtrain a skill to obtain a higher check result, this is extremely costly though.
Diversifying skills is encouraged, as you get a similar amount of skill points, and are discouraged from investing all of them in a couple of skills.
It's easy to get a few ranks in a cross class skill, especially for a higher level character, however it becomes much harder to get really good at it.
It's even harder to audit this system than the regular skill system, as in some levels, you wont be able to advance some skills without not paying double.

I am just now starting a new 3.5 campaign and am wondering if I want to use this instead of the regular system. Of course, DCs would have to be redone, but it's a rather minor issue. What do you think guys?

[huginn]

Never played 2e have you? Weapon proficiencies and NWPs sucked. A Weapon Proficiency was a single weapon. WP dagger, WP longsword, WP longbow, etc. Say you too WP morningstar because you like it. Then you have to hope that the GM is nice and intentionally sends magical morningstars instead of maces or warhammers your way. Waiting for randomly rolled weapons, especially those weapons slightly more exotic than a dagger or longsword, was terrible.
And don't get me started on Non-weapon Proficiencies or Secondary Skills.
As imperfect as they are, 3.5 weapon proficiencies and skills are immensely preferable to how 2e handled them.

I played 2e and i am currently in a group that went from 3.5 to 1e. I take weapon proficiencies from 1e over 3.5 in a heartbeat, it can force you to think what weapons you learn. As you level you do get new weapon proficiencies and you have to use them on something. I had a 1e ranger that used a +3 halberd and heavy crossbow of accuracy that i wasn't proficient in when the party found them

Based on personal experience a game run by a DM that randomly rolls for weapons is the type of game that ends up being a monty haul game. They roll for everything and blindly accept the rolls. When a DM intentionally gives you a magical weapon you are proficient is he being a nice DM or a good DM

The one skill system I felt was the best was the one from rolemaster. You rolled d100 instead of a d20 and you could only buy at most 3 ranks per level, some skills you could only buy 1 or 2 ranks per level. There was also diminishing returns. You get +5 per rank but then it goes down to +2 per rank then +1 then +.5
At low levels you tend to miss a lot of skill rolls unless you get a bonus for it being something easy

[tedcahill2]

With the basis of this I came up with an alternate system that I like quite a lot. Would like some thoughts on it. It's really one night's worth of brainstorming and not actually a consolidated homebrew to put up for peach but here it is:


All skills have a soft cap that is equal to 2 + 1/2 Class Level for class skills and 1/3 Class Level for cross class skills.
Soft cap means that up to the cap, a character may purchase ranks in an 1 to 1 equivalence with skill points, after exceeding the cap, each skill rank costs double, if you exceed two times the cap ranks cost quadruple the points etc.
Classes gain skill points as follows: Fighter, 2/Level, Barbarian 3/Level, Bard, 4/Level, Rogue, 5/Level along with Intelligence modifier.

These changes have a couple of implications, some positive, some negative.


Skill checks become comparable to saving throws, meaning that they are, to a point, interchangeable, this allows, among other things, changing some skills, mainly concentration, to a saving throw instead.
Although they are comparable, they are not analog, as a character may overtrain a skill to obtain a higher check result, this is extremely costly though.
Diversifying skills is encouraged, as you get a similar amount of skill points, and are discouraged from investing all of them in a couple of skills.
It's easy to get a few ranks in a cross class skill, especially for a higher level character, however it becomes much harder to get really good at it.
It's even harder to audit this system than the regular skill system, as in some levels, you wont be able to advance some skills without not paying double.

I am just now starting a new 3.5 campaign and am wondering if I want to use this instead of the regular system. Of course, DCs would have to be redone, but it's a rather minor issue. What do you think guys?

I don't think this thread is the place to discuss you're changes. Make a new post for feedback.

[martixy]

Literally the exact subset of things PF changes.

I know it's not terribly exciting when you put it like this, but they eliminate certain very specific peculiarities of the 3.5 system which I'm not sad to see gone.
For example, in 3.5 it matters which class you take first for how many skill points the build will accumulate. Esoteric crap like that.
Also of course, "too many skills".

[Luccan]

Disable Device and Open Lock don't really need to be separate skills. That is probably the most egregious, to me. Most characters that have one have the other and Open Lock does nothing but, well, open locks. Which is useful, but all things considered, isn't uniquely useful enough to warrant it's own skill. Why can't opening locks be handled by the other disbable/dismantling skill that few people get anyway?

Speak Language is probably unnecessary. I believe there are rules for learning languages ingame anyway, so there is almost no reason to spend a skill point (unless you need it for a prestige class that requires you to speak a specific language).

Gaining 1 skill point per level sucks. Just flat out, having fewer skill points only tends to be a problem for classes that don't have some kind of magic (because they need to rely on those skills much more), so a higher minimum would be nice.

Edit: I'd like to point out, I mostly like how 3.5 skills actually work. I think the separation of the perception skills and stealth skills, for instance, makes for an interesting system.

[PanosIs]

Disable Device and Open Lock don't really need to be separate skills. That is probably the most egregious, to me. Most characters that have one have the other and Open Lock does nothing but, well, open locks. Which is useful, but all things considered, isn't uniquely useful enough to warrant it's own skill. Why can't opening locks be handled by the other disbable/dismantling skill that few people get anyway?

Speak Language is probably unnecessary. I believe there are rules for learning languages ingame anyway, so there is almost no reason to spend a skill point (unless you need it for a prestige class that requires you to speak a specific language).

Gaining 1 skill point per level sucks. Just flat out, having fewer skill points only tends to be a problem for classes that don't have some kind of magic (because they need to rely on those skills much more), so a higher minimum would be nice.

Edit: I'd like to point out, I mostly like how 3.5 skills actually work. I think the separation of the perception skills and stealth skills, for instance, makes for an interesting system.

I think that the design philosophy behind the 3.5 skill list was: "If it requires different training, it is a different skill", hence stuff like Disable Device and Open Lock, Use Rope being a skill and all that. It is my opinion, however, that the number of skills that exist is not an advantage or disadvantage of the system. Some of my favorite systems have open-ended skill systems that allow you to rank up whatever you can think of.

My main issue with the 3.5 system is that although on the surface you have a lot of options, the amount of skills that are *required* along with the linearity of the system results in a lot of characters having the same skillset. Most characters need at least 2 extra skill points to be able to at least have some customization be possible and/or taking cross-class skills without feeling bad about yourself.

Other than that, as others have stated, I dislike how the system states what you can't do, rather than what you can do. A level 20 rogue has 10 skills maxed but is mostly inept in everything else.

[Luccan]

I think that the design philosophy behind the 3.5 skill list was: "If it requires different training, it is a different skill", hence stuff like Disable Device and Open Lock, Use Rope being a skill and all that. It is my opinion, however, that the number of skills that exist is not an advantage or disadvantage of the system. Some of my favorite systems have open-ended skill systems that allow you to rank up whatever you can think of.

My main issue with the 3.5 system is that although on the surface you have a lot of options, the amount of skills that are *required* along with the linearity of the system results in a lot of characters having the same skillset. Most characters need at least 2 extra skill points to be able to at least have some customization be possible and/or taking cross-class skills without feeling bad about yourself.

Other than that, as others have stated, I dislike how the system states what you can't do, rather than what you can do. A level 20 rogue has 10 skills maxed but is mostly inept in everything else.

Understandable. I think my favorite skill system ever was one I read (don't own the book, so I can't remember where it's from) where you could essentially choose one of three categories to specialize in: skills, attributes, or magic. If you wanted to be really good at one, you were a little below average at the others. Or you could be more well rounded at the expense of being really good at one thing. Unfortunately, 3.5 isn't really balanced around that.

[Westhart]

It's kind of a niche case, but my Cleric/Warlock/Eldritch Disciple of Olidammara is putting ranks in Perform to build up to getting Pipes of Frenzied Revelry (which requires a Perform check to activate). But yeah, outside of Bard levels or something weird like that, Perform ranks are about as useful as Craft (underwater basketweaving).

FEAR THE MIGHTY BASKET
(http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?444060-The-Basket-Weaver-s-Handbook)
alright, I had too XD