A twist on when you hit every 4 levels and increasing a skill...

[Tawmis]

So a friend of mine who enjoys my DM styles, but has had his fill of D&D (he's DMed Out of the Abyss twice now) and been a player in my game for like 5 years - kind of wants to do something else (he loves World of Darkness, Vampire the Masquerade and stuff, which he's also been running and playing in). He recently left my game for "an unknown time" because he found a World of Darkness Mage game that happens to fall on the same day as mine. So he's been in that game. But we were talking and he found a very nice fan made Star Wars 5e based game/site. And so he and I were talking about - and I'd be happy to run it. But during our discussion - I was saying how I did enjoy how in World of Darkness you could dump points into specific skills and such.

I was thinking this would be great for D&D too. So, for example - every 4 levels, you get 2 points to point into a stat (STR, DEX, etc.) or take a Feat. What if - you could instead also use those 2 points instead of a stat - but a skill? This would allow "specializing" in specific skills. For example, you made a fighter and have a low Charisma. But you want to be good at Intimidation (which, by RAW is a CHR skill). You hit level 4 and rather than raising any stats or taking a feat, you dump those 2 points into Intimidation (doesn't have to be both points, just saying both for ease of example). So your other CHR skills wouldn't raise, and you wouldn't have to waste CHR points if all you really want to do is raise one or two CHR specific skill traits.

Anyone see why this would be a bad idea?

May need to make my own "5e-like" system. lol

[RogueJK]

Honestly that sounds like a really bad option, if the choice is either an ASI/Feat or +2 to just one skill.

+2 to CHA would raise all CHA skills by 1, including Intimidation, Persuasion, Performance, and Deception. Plus would raise your CHA saves by +1 too. (And potentially affect spellcasting, if applicable.)

Or the Skill Expert feat would get you +1 CHA, Intimidation Expertise, and another skill proficiency, boosting Intimidation by anywhere from +2 to +7, depending on character level and whether you're evening out an odd CHA score.

Whereas +2 to Intimidation would only raise that lone skill by +2. That's it.



Sounds like you may want to look at adapting a D&D3E-style skill system, where you invest additional new points every level. But if so, then like 3E, you would probably still want it to be in addition to the ASI/Feat, not in exchange. And you'd need to raise all of the skill DCs by a bit, since you'd be exceeding the normally expected progression curve for 5E skill bonuses.

Or perhaps just make the choice of either an ASI/Feat or +2 to ~3-4 skills, rather than just one skill.

Or maybe just let each character take a free Expertise in one skill every 4 levels, and adjust the skill DCs a bit to match.

[Skrum]

I agree with Rogue, this option is not nearly strong enough to ever justify using. Ever. Ever ever.

Frankly though, the problem with skills and the so-called skill classes isn't that character's skill modifiers aren't high enough, it's that the benefit of skills are poorly defined and thus limited.

But if you want to keep it simple, I would recommend giving skill proficiency or expertise (player choice) when a character gains an ASI. Not instead of, but in addition to.

[Segev]

3e and Pathfinder 1e had skill points you put to specific skills as you leveled up.

If you wanted to adapt that to 5e, count how many skills a PC is proficient in, and multiply that by the PC's proficiency bonus. Instead of being proficient in that many skills, the PC gets that many skill points to spend on skills, with each skill point being a +1 to the skill. Maximum number of skill points to a skill equal to proficiency bonus. Expertise in a skill makes each skill point in that skill be a +2.

You can take it further and divide the difference in number of skill points at higher levels where proficiency changes by how many levels it takes to get from one threshold to the next and evenly s?read sill point gain across all levels. You need to allow 'banking' of skill points, though, in this case, to allow them to store them up for when they hit a new threshold if they want to focus as much as the existing skill system forces them to.