Some skills are not as useless as we think

[ThatBoostedNoob]

So I've been kicking around this idea for a bit and wanted to see what people think. In pathfinder, we have access to a wide selection of skills. However, we do not use several skills on a regular basis. Craft for example, is rarely used. Alchemy traps poison, the works. My personal theory is that some skills become much more important in evil campaigns than in good campaigns. Craft traps is kind of a running joke in most forums. This I feel is due to the abundance of good campaigns and the rarity of evil ones. Fortifying a home base is much more important if people as re actively trying to kill you. Another example is the heal skill. If you don't have clerics that can channel positive energy. Potion crafters and surgeons seems much more valuable. This is something I think might be worth exploring. Feel free to weigh in.

[Khedrac]

The usefulness of skills depends on the DM and they adventure they are running (if a published adventure).

Some DMs can make generally useful skills a waste of time, others can make usually useless skills valuable.

[BowStreetRunner]

The usefulness of skills depends on the DM and they adventure they are running (if a published adventure).

Some DMs can make generally useful skills a waste of time, others can make usually useless skills valuable.I will wholeheartedly second this. It really all depends upon the DM. Although I will concede that if the DM picks a printed module then the responsibility is partially redirected to the creator of the module.

When I run games I use lots of checklists - including one with a list of the skills. When I go through that checklist I am looking at whether there are places in the adventure that should include uses of each skill. I don't want to be the DM who never realizes there is a character with a skill that has never been used.

[zlefin]

So I've been kicking around this idea for a bit and wanted to see what people think. In pathfinder, we have access to a wide selection of skills. However, we do not use several skills on a regular basis. Craft for example, is rarely used. Alchemy traps poison, the works. My personal theory is that some skills become much more important in evil campaigns than in good campaigns. Craft traps is kind of a running joke in most forums. This I feel is due to the abundance of good campaigns and the rarity of evil ones. Fortifying a home base is much more important if people as re actively trying to kill you. Another example is the heal skill. If you don't have clerics that can channel positive energy. Potion crafters and surgeons seems much more valuable. This is something I think might be worth exploring. Feel free to weigh in.

I see craft used some; it's fairly campaign variable though.
craft is ofc mostly relevant at low levels; as most things you can craft cease to be relevant at high levels.
the other thing ofc is that craft is often more about saving money; as if you have access to enough npcs, anything you can craft (with craft skills) can be purchased just as well.
and mundane crafting is SLOW. It takes a certain campaign setup to allow you to really take advantage of it. many campaigns simply don't allow the amount of downtime it takes for mundane crafting to turn a profit/be useful.
most traps are pricey, and hence would take months to build using craft checks, unless I'm missing some detail about how they work. (really some mundane traps seem quite overpriced).

the heal example you provide is another standard case of campaign dependence; sure IF you don't have those things then the heal skill would be valuable. but most campaign use the default settings; which includes the standard classes, which means clerics are around for the party, and there's quite a few other classes which also get lvl 1 access to healing spells as well.

poison is rarely used cuz it's quite expensive as well, and not that effective. again the craft times are long, and poisons to have very high prices per dose. they're comparable price-wise to things like scrolls, but often less effective than a good spell. plus the feat taxes needed to use them without hurting yourself; and many people simply dislike burning consumables rapidly.

mostly when I see stuff like this used it's in low-level sandbox campaigns.

[liquidformat]

I will wholeheartedly second this. It really all depends upon the DM. Although I will concede that if the DM picks a printed module then the responsibility is partially redirected to the creator of the module.

When I run games I use lots of checklists - including one with a list of the skills. When I go through that checklist I am looking at whether there are places in the adventure that should include uses of each skill. I don't want to be the DM who never realizes there is a character with a skill that has never been used.

I will third this. It really depends on the campaign and the DM. I played in a war campaign that saw quite a bit of useless skills being used. Craft: (trap) setting up traps to prepare a battle field; (arms&armor) prepping weapons and performing repairs and what not, dm even played with bonus and negative modifiers for maintaining weapons and armor; (alchemy) often in conjunction with traps or what not; heal was used quite a bit too due to lack of healbots.

I have also played in city based games of espionage where besides the standard bluff/dip/intimidate/sense motives routine, gather info, forgery, decipher script, and slight of hand were heavily used.

So ya it is all about concept and what you want to be a focus inside the game, also low levels and or low magic do make skills more relevant. Maybe have a look at iron heroes, they focus around low to no magic most of which is coming from the bad guys.

[Deophaun]

Naturally, if you change what a skill is allowed to do, the useful of the skill will also change.

From a purely economic standpoint, there are efficient craft skills, like gem cutting, composition, and sculpture, which produce art objects that can be sold for full value (sculpture being likely the best without magic, as you can easily hire twenty assistants to make your masterpiece, granting you +40 to your check), and then that money can be used to directly purchase anything else you want. Then there are inefficient craft skills, like trapmaking, where you only get full value out of it if you need the trap.

Heal isn't worthless. It's putting skill ranks into Heal that's worthless. Pathfinder tried to make it useful enough to justify the investment, but they're still too timid.

When it comes to creating things in the field like snares or punji sticks, I always thought Survival was a much more appropriate skill, but nothing covers those kinds of quickly cobbled together pitfalls by RAW.

[SLOTHRPG95]

The only campaign I ran or played in where a character made use of crafting poisons was when our party Rogue/Scout liked to keep some handy, to take down enemy spellcasters. Not by lowering their STR until they couldn't move, although that'd be hilarious. Nope, by hitting their primary spellcasting stats, so that even if ability damage was minimal it'd still have some impact (and maybe even block them from using their high-level spells). Naturally, as the paranoid party wizard, I ended up investing heavily in poison defense (which paid off when he turned on us).

[liquidformat]

It's rogues like that, that I aspire to be but feel to bad to betray the party too actually be... Anyway I recently played in a stoneage no magic game. The wall we hit was just the realization of how important skills became and how ill prepared we were in skill setup.

When you get down to that level you end up with weird questions like what is craft (trap) does it allow me to make spears, poisons, ropes, and so forth but only if I am using them to make said traps. Do I have to instead have all the above mentioned skills plus trap to make traps. Or is it a subset of other craft skills that I should automatically aquire once I have the higher level skill.

Another example is weaving, basket weaving, rope making. Should these all be the same skill craft (weaving) and just with varying dcs or should they each be their own.

Or weaponsmithing, in stoneage terms most weapons fall into attaching something to something else to make them deadlier than the original. So weaponsmithing can be represented as a combination of flinting, woodworking, making of cord, and maybe some minor alchemy to fire harden and make binders.

Skills are rather wacky and can be as complicated it straightforward as you would like the key is to think through how deeply you want to dinner into them during the game and go from there.

[Seharvepernfan]

The usefulness of skills depends on the DM and they adventure they are running (if a published adventure).

Some DMs can make generally useful skills a waste of time, others can make usually useless skills valuable.

Yup. I've barely ever even rolled skill checks with other DM's. I'm the only DM I've seen (in person) that makes decent use of them.

[Rynjin]

While I'll partially agree, I'd still say standardizing Background Skills into most games (where skills like Appraise, Craft, Profession, perform, etc. are extra skills you get on top of others) is the best call.

Those skills aren't bad because they're NEVER useful, and in some cases can be quite clutch...but they're extraordinarily niche.

The only real exception is Craft: Traps, because Traps are INSANELY overpriced for what they do, and that cost translates into increased time to craft.

It costs 250 GP and (for a 5th level character with 14 Int; +10 bonus) SIX ****ING WEEKS to create a CR 1 Pit Trap. That's INSANE. Craft: Traps deserves every pit of hate it gets. Craft: Alchemy is solid because an Alchemist or Investigator can create Alchemical Items over the course of a singe day.

[Fouredged Sword]

There is a game philosophy that suggests it is the DM's responsibility to engage the group.

I have seen it suggested that, by the end of a campaign, every part of every character should be interacted with at least once.

Someone picked up an odd language? Add an NPC who speaks it. Someone have an odd craft? Give him a chance to use it to learn something or make something.

That barbarian carries a dagger just in case of grapples? Grapple him. He will feel smart for beeing prepared and thus have fun.

When every part of every characrer is useful much of the issue of balance and player design skill falls to the wayside.

[Provengreil]

There is a game philosophy that suggests it is the DM's responsibility to engage the group.

I have seen it suggested that, by the end of a campaign, every part of every character should be interacted with at least once.

Someone picked up an odd language? Add an NPC who speaks it. Someone have an odd craft? Give him a chance to use it to learn something or make something.

That barbarian carries a dagger just in case of grapples? Grapple him. He will feel smart for beeing prepared and thus have fun.

When every part of every characrer is useful much of the issue of balance and player design skill falls to the wayside.

This. My last party had a character who took professions: architect and innkeeper. I gave their home base a failing wall to fix and gave him a list of 2-5 rumors per week of downtime. The wall gave bonuses to defending a planned attack later in the campaign, and the rumors would contain useful notes if properly parsed(the higher his roll, the clearer I'd write them, and the less noise there'd be).

[tiercel]

There is a game philosophy that suggests it is the DM's responsibility to engage the group.

I have seen it suggested that, by the end of a campaign, every part of every character should be interacted with at least once.

Someone picked up an odd language? Add an NPC who speaks it. Someone have an odd craft? Give him a chance to use it to learn something or make something.

That barbarian carries a dagger just in case of grapples? Grapple him. He will feel smart for beeing prepared and thus have fun.

When every part of every characrer is useful much of the issue of balance and player design skill falls to the wayside.
Also very definitely agreed -- while the entire world shouldn't be completely designed around PC skills, PCs will be looking for a chance to use them, so they should get that chance. (It's a bit like some class abilities, notably, Ranger's favored enemies: it's more than a little rough if they seldom/never come up in the campaign.)

At the same time, I also like to make sure that ALL skills also come up at least occasionally, so that the "useless" skills that PC's DON'T take matter perhaps occasionally. With the use of magic, lateral thinking, or just hiring an outside expert, this doesn't have to be a big deal -- it's no fun to make an obscure skill no one took a campaign-stopper -- but making players work around it, every once in a while, is an interesting challenge as well.

[icefractal]

Craft can be pretty useful ... when you're ignoring the costs. Minor/Major Creation, Fabricate - with those it's quite handy to be able to make masterwork gear, poison, etc. Alchemy can even be useful without that, as there are a lot of useful, not too expensive alchemical items that may be difficult to find in shops.

Heal is just too tied to a realism that very little of D&D supports. If you have no source of magic healing you're sure as hell not doing 4/5 encounters per day, more like per month, and most dungeon crawls will be unfeasibly hazardous.

Having the GM tailor opposition to the skills the PCs have, I have mixed feeling about. If you see behind the curtain and realize that the problem only existed because you had the skill, and not having it would have had the same outcome, it's hard to unsee that.