[4E] Houserules: Skills

[Daracaex]

There have been a few complaints about how skills were changed for 4th Edition, so obviously there are going to be some house rules to pop up and "fix" the problems. I myself don't think there's much of a problem, but I'm going to help out those who do anyway. The one complaint I've heard most prominently is the relatively small difference between having a trained skill and an untrained skill, so I came up with a very simple fix that will widen the difference between classes who should be experts at the skills and those who shouldn't.

House Rule: Untrained, Trained, and Class Skills
You get 1/4 your level to all skill checks you make.
All of the skills on your class skill list get 1/2 your level to checks made with those skills.
At first level, you choose your trained skills as dictated by your class. Those skills get a further +5 bonus.


Note that this does not improve skills for anybody, only decreases them for those classes who don't have anything to do with them. In any case, it should help with some people's complaints.

Go ahead and post any house rules to do with skills that you have made as well. The next one from me should be a way to use diplomacy to haggle instead of the absurd 5:1 buy-to-sell ratio.

[Tequila Sunrise]

My first house rule of 4e is simply "No Class Skills."

TS

[Yakk]

This makes sense, except that skills under a d20 system aren't linear, they are affine.

+10 over someone at level 1 is the same edge as +10 over someone at level 20.

x2 ... does utterly random crap.

[erikun]

The biggest problem you're going to have is with skill challanges, where some characters literally can't make the roles in the challanges anymore. Part of the point of skill challanges was to get everyone in the party involved; telling the low Cha wizard and low Int fighter to just hang out in the park while everyone else ran through the challange is just counterproductive.

Besides, the biggest complaint I've heard is the lack of a craft/perform/profession skill. That seems like a pretty simple thing to houserule in, though: give every character one free "Background" skill that they are proficient in, like Blacksmithing or Scribing. The background skills will end up being narrower than the regular skills - Background:Dancing has less uses than Acrobatics - but they can give a real mechanic to something "minor" the character is good at.

Sidenote - Background:Soldier means being good at training, not any bonuses at combat. Background:Thief would mean familiarity with thieves guilds, not a substitute to the Thievery skill.

Also, hiya Dara!

[Daracaex]

Eri! Welcome to GitP!

I know the rule excludes some members of the party. That's why I'm not going to use it. But I have seen the complaints that some characters should be significantly worse at certain skills, so I came up with a fix for it.


About backgrounds skills: I've already seen it suggested and I just don't like it. Craft should be added, but there is no need to have set mechanics for aspects of your character that will never see use. Give me a second and I'll dig up the post I made about this in another thread...

Ah, yes. Here's the thread. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=82930) To summarize what I said there, it is my belief that background skills shouldn't have mechanics dedicated to them. Instead, make your character's background and if you and the DM believe something from that background would be applicable to certain other situations, just award a circumstance bonus to whatever skill is being used. The dice shouldn't have to dance to tell you that you can dance.