3.0 Campaign House Rules - looking for critique

[howandwhy99]

It has been sometime since I looked for a CharOp board for 3.x. That may not be you, but I'm glad you are here.

I am starting a 3.0 campaign with my friends, all of whom are extensive well-accomplished 3.5 players, even now, since its inception. I came back to D&D when 3e promised a better AD&D and played all almost all the years it was published. Now I'd like to introduce it to them. They are, with cause, a bit skeptical. However, I believe I could run a semi-AD&D like game with 3.0 more than 3.5 because it so believed it was building the same game only better. (Yes, that's debatable).

Enough intro, here's the first House Rule
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Skills:
Characters gain all class skills as Ability Score Checks + class level. They do not gain the same for cross-class skills, which remain as ability checks without ranks.
- To take a cross-class skill the character qualifies for, they must drop another skill they already have (either a class skill or a cross-class skill previously taken). Cross-class skills add 1/2 class level rounded down (minimum 1).
- Multi-classing and Prestige Class characters add each class level separately. (i.e. they do the math)
- Craft & Profession skills are now cross-class skills for all classes and must be swapped for to gain the 1/2 cross-class bonus. Only one specialization of either type may be taken during the campaign. These are now NPC Classes requiring longer training than a skill rank
- When qualifying for Prestige Classes skills are treated as their "total rank +3". In effect, you add up all your class levels applied to the skill and add +3.
- Knowledge skills in 3.0 are largely limited to Arcana, Religion, and Nature. Besides recalling teachings these skills are also used for magical items and phenomena.
- Knowledge "all skills" becomes Knowledge "Sage" skill {exclusive}, a wizard ability few other classes have access to which grant them specialist knowledge, but not ability, across many academic fields. Bardic Knowledge calculates similarly, but references rumors, myths, and legends.

_________________________________

My thinking is,
Designer expectations were for PCs with average skill ranks, not maximized ones. This changed over time. With game balance for a 25-point buy PC, averaging INT modifiers to +1, every class's Base Skills began short-changed and only became moreso. 3.0 has 44 skills (with all the knowledge skills). Only Rogue has more than 4 ranks/level, many half that.

3.0's skill list is packed with flavor. But it's also not quite a skill list. I parse it with three categories sticking out, mostly:
A. Core game mechanics highly important for functional play which all characters used to be competent in regardless of minmaxing. Search, Listen, Jump, Climb, Swim, Ride, Use Rope, Intuit Direction, Diplomacy (reaction checks), Gather Information (rumors), etc.
B. Class Features, not skills. (3.5 actually reverted these back into the classes). Animal Empathy, Handle Animal, Read Lips, Scry, UMD, Wilderness Lore (tracking), etc.
C. Previous Class Skills. All the thief's skills really.

By giving everyone competency in their class skills I hope to make core mechanics and class feature reliable once more. And with a predictable flat progression I can prepare level appropriate challenges to put on the maps where no one feels left out regularly.

There are hidden traps I'm probably not accounting for, so I came for advice.

[Pugwampy]

As a well accomplished pathfinder DM and 3.5 Player i think your rules are too over inflated and needless technical nit picking.

Could you perhaps condense and prune your house rules down to 5 of no more than one sentence each ?

Keep it simple bro

[DeTess]

Couldn't this house rule be simplified as:
*Classes gain skill points equal to the amount of class skills they have.
*Craft and profession are never class skills.
*Wizards get knowledge (sage) instead of all knowledge skills which covers everything.

[Ozreth]

I like seeing 3.0 still being played. Your players being apprehensive as long time 3.5 players is odd though. The games are extremely similar. Flipping through the book it’s hard to even point out the differences. They arise in granular ways during play, but 90% of it is the exact same, and the philosophy behind them is similar.

Yeah 3e was designed by people playing it as AD&D was played, but the mechanics are all the same in 3.5, so you could say 3.5 works with the same assumptions as 3e. 3.5 is a little more adamant about miniatures, but even the 3e books have some photos with minis on grids.

In short, 3.5 core and 3e core are really, truly the same game outside of a collection of small changes to rules. There are a lot d them, but they don’t come up at once, and equate to small house rules on their own.

[Duke of Urrel]

I think your rules for skill checks simplify the game in a way that your players may like or dislike.

Your house rules make it easy to determine the skill set of an advanced character right away, because all that you have to do is add the character's character level to each class skill check or one-half the character's character level to each cross-class skill check. (Following the standard rules, calculating the skills for an advanced character can be a chore, especially if this character's Intelligence score has been raised a few times in the course of their advancement.) Players who build advanced characters may like your rules because they make this task much simpler.

Unfortunately, this simplicity comes at a price. Following the standard rules, the different character classes have more or fewer skill points per level, so that rogues and bards have a great advantage over clerics, fighters, sorcerers, and wizards. Following your system, everybody does more or less equally well in all their class skills, because the only variables are ability modifiers and other sources of skill bonuses, such as feats. Thus, the only advantage that rogues and bards have over clerics, fighters, sorcerers, and wizards is that they have more class skills, not that they are more advanced in these skills.

Also, following the usual rules, the maximum ranks for any class skill are equal to the sum of one's character level plus three. Following your house rule, the maximum ranks for any skill are equal to one's character level alone. Thus, "maxing out" a skill actually achieves a little less in your game.

Reducing the number of Knowledge skills, combined with allowing every player with Knowledge skill to add their character level in place of skill ranks, increases the knowledge that players have of the dungeon master's world. This makes it harder for the dungeon master to surprise players with things that they don't know about. Of course, on the one hand, to compensate for this, the dungeon master can always just raise Knowledge DCs. On the other hand, allowing every character with Knowledge skill to have effectively the same skill ranks as every other character of the same level makes Knowledge skill less special. In a given party of adventurers, nobody is likely to play the role of "know-it-all"; instead, anything that one player knows is likely to be known by some other player or players as well.

These are my criticisms. But I am not the dungeon master in your game. What is your game like? Specifically, what is the role of skill checks in your game? Is it important for your players to succeed at skill checks almost all the time, because failing them would be fatal for the whole party? Or are skills not so important, so that failing at a skill check usually has no worse consequence than minor damage and comic relief? Do your players find skill checks interesting, and do they want to create unique characters with unique skill sets? Or do they find skill checks boring, and would they prefer to keep things simple?

Your answers to these questions are more important than my speculations. Ask your players, too, and find out how they feel. Maybe they would be willing to experiment with your rules to find out how they work.

[King of Nowhere]

3.0's skill list is packed with flavor. But it's also not quite a skill list. I parse it with three categories sticking out, mostly:
A. Core game mechanics highly important for functional play which all characters used to be competent in regardless of minmaxing. Search, Listen, Jump, Climb, Swim, Ride, Use Rope, Intuit Direction, Diplomacy (reaction checks), Gather Information (rumors), etc.

spot, listen, search are highly important, because finding stuff is important. they save you from being surprised, most notably. diplomacy and gather information are important for social encounters.
but jump, climb, swim, ride, use rope? i don't even remember the last time i used one of those. why would you deem them important? i've never seen anyone trying to fight mounted, and for most of the others, well, the one time in the whole campaign it will come up, you can just use a fly spell (potion/scroll) instead of climbing.
and my current party made it to the end of the campaign without any search, diplomacy and gather information, and we were absolutely fine. the idea of "you MUST have those skills or you can't have a functional party" is overly inflated.

that aside, i see why you want that rule, but i do believe it to be an overreaction. you want people to have more skills, just houserule that classes that get 2 skill points per level instead get 3, classes that get 4 get 6 instead, and the rogue get 10 or 12.
with your rule, i see two main issues
1) every character of every class will have the same skill. perhaps the single greatest strenght of 3x is customization, and giving everyone the same skills detract from it. besides, being good at everything is boring. while it's fun to be able to cut through most challenges unopposed, the best moments are when you don't have the ability to just roll a dice and solve a situation, and you have to get creative with your resources.
2) there's no longer a use for intelligence, which becomes a dump stat worse than charisma for most class. i wouldn't like that, unless you specifically want your players to roleplay a mentally-disabled party.

[howandwhy99]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I appreciate it.

To clarify further, the group is accomplished Magic card and 3.5 optimizers. They need some convincing 3.0 isn't simply "3.5 without all the repairs". They wouldn't run 3.5 without house rules or limitations because of perceived imbalances they've used themselves. I don't believe they would play 3.0 without some attempt at house ruling for balance.

For me, AD&D campaigns are more open world games, self-directed, seeking point scoring and treasure. I have a lot of moving parts unrelated to character builds and powers. Being able to grab an NPC from a template without needing to assign skill points or feats helps me produce 100s quickly and track them more easily. Plus, having full class skill ability should empower characters in their class roles.

The skills I called core mechanics will be more involved during play. But I suspect 3.0 conceived increased or maximized skill ranks as a kind of superior ability. Perhaps high skill ranks are no longer about the default Search or Listen odds but class abilities, like Spot is for rogues and rangers? I had been thinking skills were static odds which advanced every level but kept default odds. (i.e. 50% chance for level-appropriate DCs, but improved from previous actions' DCs).

I do need parse down the house rule presentation. I do worry about the value of Intelligence, but also the declining value of all ability modifiers applied to skills. High levels could be too disparate for ability modifiers to be noticed. I worry about how players might nee to dip into a skill if non-core publication options assume they can, but I am not going back to skill point buy. Skill worth fluctuates too highly IMHO. Allowing skill points would make adventure design harder. The change enables me to predict expected spans of skill scores by class and level.

Here's another iteration,

Classes treat class skills as Ability Score checks + class level + modifiers, and untrained non-class skills as Ability Score checks + modifier.
Trade any class skill for a cross-class skill and gain 1/2 class level (round down, min. 1) to the check.
Craft and Profession are no longer class skills, but may be traded for to become cross-class skills.
Knowledge (Sage) replaces Knowledge "all skills" which covers everything. It is an exclusive skill to Wizards.
Skill rank Prestige Class qualifications are lowered by 3.

[DammitVictor]

Skills:
Characters gain all class skills as Ability Score Checks + class level. They do not gain the same for cross-class skills, which remain as ability checks without ranks.
- To take a cross-class skill the character qualifies for, they must drop another skill they already have (either a class skill or a cross-class skill previously taken). Cross-class skills add 1/2 class level rounded down (minimum 1).
- Multi-classing and Prestige Class characters add each class level separately. (i.e. they do the math)

I would suggest a compromise. You get 1/2 class level on all class skills, and 1/2 character level on all "trained" skills; these bonuses stack for trained class skills, and any skill that's either "class" or "trained" counts for trained-only checks.

Most classes get 4 (no INT) trained skills at 1st; Ranger and Bard get 6; Rogue gets 10. If you multiclass into a class with more skill points, you get one trained skill per class level until you catch up.

- Craft & Profession skills are now cross-class skills for all classes and must be swapped for to gain the 1/2 cross-class bonus. Only one specialization of either type may be taken during the campaign. These are now NPC Classes requiring longer training than a skill rank

What problem are you trying to solve with this? It seems needlessly fiddly and needlessly restrictive for skills that, in my experience, most characters don't bother taking in the first place.

- When qualifying for Prestige Classes skills are treated as their "total rank +3". In effect, you add up all your class levels applied to the skill and add +3.

Just make it "trained" and character level minimum. If someone's shooting for a Prestige Class, nothing wrong with asking them to actually buy the prerequisite skill.

- Knowledge skills in 3.0 are largely limited to Arcana, Religion, and Nature. Besides recalling teachings these skills are also used for magical items and phenomena.
- Knowledge "all skills" becomes Knowledge "Sage" skill {exclusive}, a wizard ability few other classes have access to which grant them specialist knowledge, but not ability, across many academic fields. Bardic Knowledge calculates similarly, but references rumors, myths, and legends.

This is fair enough. I assume you're removing dungeoneering on purpose, but you should probably include some provision for local, even if only as a class ability for Rogues and Bards.

[King of Nowhere]

For me, AD&D campaigns are more open world games, self-directed, seeking point scoring and treasure. I have a lot of moving parts unrelated to character builds and powers. Being able to grab an NPC from a template without needing to assign skill points or feats helps me produce 100s quickly and track them more easily.

you can still do that. 90% of times i don't bother picking skills for npcs, not unless they are relevant for their role. same for feats, i pick those that are necessary in a build, but no more.

[Maat Mons]

How about each class having a different progression for the bonus on skills? This would mirror how each class has a good, medium, or bad base attack bonus progression. Classes already come in a very limited number of categories when it comes to skills. There's 8+Int (full), 6+Int (3/4), 4+Int (half), and 2+Int (1/4).

If you're going with an all or nothing approach to skill modifiers, why not apply that same thinking to other things? When you attack with a weapon with which your class gives proficiency, you roll Level+Str or Level+Dex, depending on the weapon. When you attack with a weapon with which your class doesn't give proficiency, you just roll Str or Dex.

[howandwhy99]

I'm sticking with not allowing minmaximing of the skills, but keeping them all functional as one of my goals. Some are simply overly important. If a central mechanic is a class skill, I can balance it within the class design as an increased benefit. Beyond losing customization, I am trying to figure out what I will lose. What are the consequences of the game change? Maybe AS + Class Lvl is too high for expected skill averages?
- And if I don't go this way, how do I stop PCs from optimizing core mechanics when choosing skills?

Answering some questions,
Why did I drop Craft & Profession? I didn't include it yet, there are more house rules, but I am creating a slew of NPC Classes making these skills obsolete. [Besides, a rogue taking 10 professions and being the "best in the world" at each by 20th level hurts my simulationist mindset.]

Why lose Knowledges? Because my game is built like a dynamic situation puzzle. It's a player test of memory and pattern recognition, so anything they need (and are allowed) to know I begin with in the description. If they have a question, they can ask me. And I give them information about the starting campaign situation. Foreign PCs from "outside the campaign area" might be told less when asking what they locally know, but it's not a terrible imposition with other PCs around.

If you're going with an all or nothing approach to skill modifiers, why not apply that same thinking to other things? When you attack with a weapon with which your class gives proficiency, you roll Level+Str or Level+Dex, depending on the weapon. When you attack with a weapon with which your class doesn't give proficiency, you just roll Str or Dex.

I think I hear what you're saying. If a person doesn't have a skill as class skill, they are unlikely to try it. (Like taking +BAB away instead of applying a -4 non-proficiency penalty.) But that's been part of my experience in 3.5 already. Skill disparity at high levels would remain a problem for this house rule too.

[RNightstalker]

I like seeing 3.0 still being played. Your players being apprehensive as long time 3.5 players is odd though. The games are extremely similar. Flipping through the book it’s hard to even point out the differences. They arise in granular ways during play, but 90% of it is the exact same, and the philosophy behind them is similar.

Yeah 3e was designed by people playing it as AD&D was played, but the mechanics are all the same in 3.5, so you could say 3.5 works with the same assumptions as 3e. 3.5 is a little more adamant about miniatures, but even the 3e books have some photos with minis on grids.

In short, 3.5 core and 3e core are really, truly the same game outside of a collection of small changes to rules. There are a lot d them, but they don’t come up at once, and equate to small house rules on their own.

I'm with Ozreth. I don't see that much of a disctinction. A lot of 3.0 gets left behind as there seems to be an assumption that anything not updated isn't included in 3.5, but the reality is everything NOT updated is 3.5.

I guess my question is why is there a need or desire for these house rules? Are we trying to reduce some of the bookkeeping aspect of gameplay? In essence you seem to be trying to give players max ranks in all of their skills, and that's not practical or balanced.

[King of Nowhere]

Beyond losing customization, I am trying to figure out what I will lose. What are the consequences of the game change? Maybe AS + Class Lvl is too high for expected skill averages?
- And if I don't go this way, how do I stop PCs from optimizing core mechanics when choosing skills?

well, the idea of limited skill points is that the players should choose what they want to be good at. if you worry about the players optimizing core skills, giving them all those core skills for free does not seem like a fix.
another consequence is that the rogue will be just the best at every rogue skill. normally, there are so many of those that a rogue has to choose where to specialize. scouting, acrobatics, or talking. and the rest of the party can take over some areas where the rogue hasn't spent much skill points.
if you give all skills maxxed, the rogue will outstrip every other party member in everything skill related.

Answering some questions,
Why did I drop Craft & Profession? I didn't include it yet, there are more house rules, but I am creating a slew of NPC Classes making these skills obsolete. [Besides, a rogue taking 10 professions and being the "best in the world" at each by 20th level hurts my simulationist mindset.]

if you are looking for npc classes to avoid the party being more skilled at something than npc specialists, you may be interested in my little homebrew npc specialized expert

[howandwhy99]

I must admit I didn't realize the appeal still for so many to define their character with skill options. They certainly outpace something like 5e. Our group long ago stopped doing that and I admit it would be nice to go back to. But these guys will game the system for advantage, especially in a perceived unbalanced game.

For everyone else, thank you for the insights. It is clear to me this wouldn't necessarily go over with a new player or a skill game player who want to customize their character.

well, the idea of limited skill points is that the players should choose what they want to be good at. if you worry about the players optimizing core skills, giving them all those core skills for free does not seem like a fix.
another consequence is that the rogue will be just the best at every rogue skill. normally, there are so many of those that a rogue has to choose where to specialize. scouting, acrobatics, or talking. and the rest of the party can take over some areas where the rogue hasn't spent much skill points.
if you give all skills maxxed, the rogue will outstrip every other party member in everything skill related.

I'm not trying to keep skills low as such, but more to flatten them to an expected range per level for me to balance challenges around.

As to the rogue, I've been doing a little research. If I take out 8 high shared core skills (for me), the rogue ends up with 23 skills which are almost exclusive to itself and Bard. They exist solely as cross-class skills for most everyone else in 3.0. Which means few will take them. There is also the Monk (who gets a handful), and other exceptions. But they are just exceptions. I'll post some other (self-made) categories too:

23 Rogue and Bard skills. *Monks add, ^Rangers add
- "Rogue only" skills Bards don't receive. They aren't necessarily exclusive
Appraise
Balance*
Bluff
Decipher Script
Disable Device (rogue only)
Disguise
Escape Artist*
Forgery (rogue only)
Gather Information
Hide*^
Innuendo (rogue only)
Intimidate (rogue only) - Barbarian gains
Move Silently*^
Open Lock (rogue only)
Perform* --- this could be dropped to a Bard and Monk only skill
Pick Pocket
Read Lips (rogue only)
Search^ (rogue only)
Sense Motive
Spot^ (rogue only)
Tumble*
Use Magic Device
Use Rope^ (rogue only)

8 Shared skills by the rogue - in these the rogue would be equaled by many other classes
Climb, Craft, Diplomacy, Intuit Direction, Jump, Listen, Profession, Swim

Fighter Skills
Handle Animal (also a nature skill)
Ride

Spellcaster Skills
Alchemy (arcane only)
Concentration - Monks adds --> an unused skill for monk, but understandable
Heal (divine only)
Scry
Spellcraft

Nature Skills
Animal Empathy
Handle Animal (also a fighter skill)
Wilderness Lore

if you are looking for npc classes to avoid the party being more skilled at something than npc specialists, you may be interested in my little homebrew npc specialized expert[/URL]

Wow, that's a lot of work. I might try something similar as a single NPC class. My instinct is to create a series of NPC classes which function in the game more as components and I can plug and play with a variety. For example, if a town has thirteen different professionals, then I can quickly add up what the town services list looks like. Or available items at cost. Or town wealth based on expected economy from those. That kind of stuff.