Skill synergies were dropped?


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Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber
Spes Magna Mark wrote:
I've still permitted skill synergies in game, assuming the player can come up with a reasonable reason why Skill A would provide a bonus to Skill B in that particular situation. For example, I had a player ask to apply a synergy from Knowledge (architecture & engineering) to a Perception check to determine if there was anything unusual about a particular room's construction. It seemed reasonable, and so that player go a +2 bonus to the Perception check.

+1

I call it Aid Self, works just like Aide Other. Totally situational and player driven. Got the idea from LordZack years ago.


Pendagast wrote:
speaking of combining skills, what about rope use? that just disappeared and didnt get put into anything?

Skill synergies I can miss, for many of the reasons mentioned above. I allow players to argue for one on a situational basis though. I kept "Use Rope". What can I say, but my mid to low level players use a lot of rope. It's not just tying up people. Using a block and tackle, rope bridges, using ropes in (mountain style) climbing (something I consider seperate from the Climb skill), roping animals together (nothing more annoying than losing a string of pack or riding animals), working the rigging on a ship, etc. It's a catch all skill for using ropes, knots and tackle in various ways (which exactly might be determined by profession). Tying prisoners is something anyone can do -- Use Rope just makes it harder to escape. My 2 cp.


+1 to what basically everyone else is saying.

I kind of liked synergies, but at the same time, synergies and the system as a whole was needlessly complicated and munchkin-y. I much prefer the intuitiveness and simplicity of the Pathfinder skill system. Reduced headaches for all involved; whether its the player, GM, or designer.

Liberty's Edge

Quote:
I know in one Forgotten Realms game, we had a halfling with an Intimidate check of at least +20. .... That is just wrong. Especially since halflings are small and should get a penalty based on size.

It's not the size of the halfling that matters; it's how many extra d6s he rolls if he so much as nicks you with a multi-attack while you're denied your DEX bonus.

-- That's what the intimidate check is all about.


Mike Schneider wrote:
Quote:
I know in one Forgotten Realms game, we had a halfling with an Intimidate check of at least +20. .... That is just wrong. Especially since halflings are small and should get a penalty based on size.

It's not the size of the halfling that matters; it's how many extra d6s he rolls if he so much as nicks you with a multi-attack while you're denied your DEX bonus.

-- That's what the intimidate check is all about.

Still, intimidate penalises you if you're small.


I think the idea behind the synergy bonuses was sound, but certain aspects of its implementation of it were off. If they had kept it to a maximum of +2 to any one skill, it would not have been as big of a problem, though the example of diplomacy isn't the best to begin with, given how much variation in what people think it should allow you to do. Making them circumstantial bonuses determined by the DM is the easiest solution, but runs into other potential issues, so there is no really simple way to do it and avoid problems at the same time.


KaeYoss wrote:
Quiterjon wrote:

A system based and designed around stacking modifiers and people thought the skill synergies was too hard?

Sounds a bit too 'Paizo can do no wrong with pathfinder' to me.
It's not that they were complicated. It's that they were needlessly complicated. The gain doesn't really justify the effort. It just adds another, unnecessary step to character generation/advancement: Figure out synergy bonuses. Not to mention those cases where you didn't get a bonus to all skill checks, but just certain kinds of checks. Now you're going to add that information to the skill section of your sheet, which isn't really built for prose.

How is it any more complicated than any of the other situational DCs that this game is based upon?

Now we just figure out all the stacking modifiers like; trait, feat, stat, class, spell, item, etc. to come up with the final modifiers, because we all know that adding up all of these modifiers(some which are situational) is completely different from skill synergies. Cuz that was needlessly complicated? This new way is so clean and fresh? Who are you all trying to convince others or yourselves?

KaeYoss wrote:
Quiterjon wrote:


The chart is in the main book, there were numerous character sheets and builders that that gave you the info or even auto included them, yet people still had issues?

Not everyone uses character builders, and most sheets I've seen didn't include them (I can't think of a decent way to even do that).

And it's something that is not just easy to abuse, but easy to forget, too. It didn't come up at character generation (if you created a fresh 1st-level...

Perhaps you should go look on WoTC's website for class sheets, you may be surprised at what you see.

What about all of the other situational modifiers that don't come up at level one? What about these? Why are these still able to be in the game, but not synergies?

All I am seeing are some very lame excuses as to why it is gone.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I believe that James Jacobs was pretty clear as to why synergies are dead.

I never remembered them, most of my players never bothered about them. And seems like it was like that all over the place.


Even the 3.5 skill synergies.. well weren't really synergistic enough to me.

If I have Acting, Bluff, and Disguise, you would think these three would work together in someway. But they didn't.. not completely. Not unless you take some abscure feat or prc that gave you bonuses like bards get now with versitile performance. and thats just a start too.


Gorbacz wrote:

I believe that James Jacobs was pretty clear as to why synergies are dead.

I never remembered them, most of my players never bothered about them. And seems like it was like that all over the place.

You mean

James Jacobs wrote:


Because skill synergy bonuses were the Number One error we saw pop up over and over and over in stat blocks.

Not only that, but in cases like Diplomacy, they were a great way to have unnaturally huge skill bonuses. You could make a 2nd-level character with a Diplomacy +17 or so quite easily by abusing the synergy bonuses.

Those two reasons alone were great reasons to drop skill synergies—even BEFORE the fact that we wanted to simplify skills across the board as much as we could while retaining backwards compatibility. Skill synergies were just too complex and too easy to abuse to live.

Sure it's a great corp response, but lets be realistic here. They had to tweak all the creatures stat blocks yet somehow it became too much of a chore to add in the synergies as well?

Complaining about a +17 to Diplomacy at level 2 which can also be done in PF without synergies, so how can this be a problem?
How can a company point to synergy abuse when they still have all of the other stacking modifiers?

No I don't buy into the "I never remembered them" line either. This whole system is designed around stacking modifiers. Everyone seems quite proficient at remembering these stacking modifiers, but it becomes 'to difficult' when it comes to synergies?


Quiterjon wrote:
This whole system is designed around stacking modifiers. Everyone seems quite proficient at remembering these stacking modifiers, but it becomes 'to difficult' when it comes to synergies?

The fact the system is designed around stacking modifiers does not entail that there is not a better of more elegant way to use this system.

Sure, you have to use an egg to make an omelet. But it does not mean that using a dozen parts of a dozen eggs coming from a dozen boxes is as intuitive and easy as picking up one whole egg.


Quiterjon wrote:


No I don't buy into the "I never remembered them" line either. This whole system is designed around stacking modifiers. Everyone seems quite proficient at remembering these stacking modifiers, but it becomes 'to difficult' when it comes to synergies?

Attacks: You stack BAB, stat, weapon magical bonus, relevant feats, and relevant class abilities.

Saves: You stack base save, stat, magical save bonus, relevant feats, and relevant class abilities.
Skills: You stack skill ranks, stat, magical skill bonus, relevant feats, relevant class abilities, and depending on the skill, and which other skills you have, some number of bonus +2s.

Surely you can see the difference there.

That being said, I often have to remind players about conditional bonuses to saves (still mind, bravery, etc.) as well.


Bobson wrote:

Saves: You stack base save, stat, magical save bonus, relevant feats, and relevant class abilities.
Skills: You stack skill ranks, stat, magical skill bonus, relevant feats, relevant class abilities,

In all fairness Bobson, it could have been stated as such:

Attacks: You stack BAB, stat, weapon magical bonus, relevant feats, and relevant class abilities and depending on you race and that of your enemy, or lighting conditions, or position on the battle ground, or distance between you and your enemy, or if the enemy if flanked (etc), some other bonus(es) as well.

Its only a matter of interest; people are more interested in fighting than using skills and therefore, the complexity of the combat system is allowed to be superior to that of skills.

'findel


Laurefindel wrote:
Bobson wrote:

Saves: You stack base save, stat, magical save bonus, relevant feats, and relevant class abilities.
Skills: You stack skill ranks, stat, magical skill bonus, relevant feats, relevant class abilities,

In all fairness Bobson, it could have been stated as such:

Attacks: You stack BAB, stat, weapon magical bonus, relevant feats, and relevant class abilities and depending on you race and that of your enemy, or lighting conditions, or position on the battle ground, or distance between you and your enemy, or if the enemy if flanked (etc), some other bonus(es) as well.

Its only a matter of interest; people are more interested in fighting than using skills and therefore, the complexity of the combat system is allowed to be superior to that of skills.

'findel

I'll certainly give you race, and lump that in with synergy and still mind as things that tend to get forgotten and should probably be revised. For lighting conditions and battleground position/distance/flanking, though, they're "standard" in the sense that they all apply to each and every attack (even if the result of applying it is "No change").

Really, the difference is that only some skills could get synergy bonuses, and only from certain other skills, and often only under certain circumstances. If skills were paired up so that each pair of skills could give each other a synergy bonus, and nothing else did, then it would be easy to track. "You have 5 ranks of X? Add +2 to Y. You have 5 ranks of Y? Add +2 to X." A system like that would make it useable. A system where it's "You have 5 ranks of X? Add +2 to Y, Z, and Q. You have 5 ranks of Y? Add +2 to Z (but not X). You have 5 ranks of Q? Too bad, you get nothing." is much harder to keep track of.

Sovereign Court

I think a big part of the stacking issue is that a lot of these synergies were for very specific tasks. If they were blanket bonuses that applied to every use of the skill then I think they would have been paid more attention to.

I remember having to scrawl little tiny notes along the side where I got situational modifiers for this or that. Half the time I'd forget about them.

For myself that is the big problem, situational modifiers. Just let me pile all the bonuses on and use them for any situation and its fine. I like my turns to be lightning quick, and having "always on" modifiers makes that a lot easier than having to pour over the character sheet just in case I forgot a situational modifier.


Bobson wrote:
Laurefindel wrote:
Bobson wrote:

Saves: You stack base save, stat, magical save bonus, relevant feats, and relevant class abilities.
Skills: You stack skill ranks, stat, magical skill bonus, relevant feats, relevant class abilities,

In all fairness Bobson, it could have been stated as such:

Attacks: You stack BAB, stat, weapon magical bonus, relevant feats, and relevant class abilities and depending on you race and that of your enemy, or lighting conditions, or position on the battle ground, or distance between you and your enemy, or if the enemy if flanked (etc), some other bonus(es) as well.

Its only a matter of interest; people are more interested in fighting than using skills and therefore, the complexity of the combat system is allowed to be superior to that of skills.

'findel

I'll certainly give you race, and lump that in with synergy and still mind as things that tend to get forgotten and should probably be revised. For lighting conditions and battleground position/distance/flanking, though, they're "standard" in the sense that they all apply to each and every attack (even if the result of applying it is "No change").

Really, the difference is that only some skills could get synergy bonuses, and only from certain other skills, and often only under certain circumstances. If skills were paired up so that each pair of skills could give each other a synergy bonus, and nothing else did, then it would be easy to track. "You have 5 ranks of X? Add +2 to Y. You have 5 ranks of Y? Add +2 to X." A system like that would make it useable. A system where it's "You have 5 ranks of X? Add +2 to Y, Z, and Q. You have 5 ranks of Y? Add +2 to Z (but not X). You have 5 ranks of Q? Too bad, you get nothing." is much harder to keep track of.

Well +2 to UMD for scroll is applied to each and every use of UMD with scrolls.

I do not see how a dozen or so random variables in combat is so much easier to keep track of than +2 to this use of that skill.

In combat you also have to figure things such as if you or targets are flying, if you are underwater, etc. You'd be surprised how many times people lost out on AB or defenses simply because we didn't remember that there was a strobe light going off.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

As someone who munchkined skill synergies until the books screamed in agony in 3.x, I'm hardly surprised that they're gone. One thing to keep in mind is that in general we're a lot better in our cross-class skills than we were before and alot of skills that were separate Hide/Move Silently for instance have been combined, thus saving even more skill points.


Another thing to keep in mind, it is more likely to be able to choose from a number of skills to solve a given problem. Need to Bluff? I would let the bard use Perform (Act) in place of Bluff. I know there are mechanics in the Bard class for this, but it lets a given Perform skill replace sometimes 3 other skills. I am a little more focused in my example.


LazarX wrote:
As someone who munchkined skill synergies until the books screamed in agony in 3.x, I'm hardly surprised that they're gone. One thing to keep in mind is that in general we're a lot better in our cross-class skills than we were before and alot of skills that were separate Hide/Move Silently for instance have been combined, thus saving even more skill points.

Mind explaining how you 'munchkined' the skills until they screamed? I'm looking at it right now and lets just see how much you can 'make it scream' compared to PF.

There's 23 skills that will give a synergy bonus to 29 other skills
Top dog of getting a bonus from another skill is Survival with 5


The thing with Survival and why people don't complain about it as much as they do with the ones for Diplomacy is that the ones for Survival don't stack with each other, they just increase the amount of places that the synergy bonus is effective. Diplomacy is generally the whipping boy for the argument against synergy bonuses because it's a contentious skill to begin with, and adding 3 +2's that stack with each other did nothing to help that. Personally I loved the synergies and simply did the math or notations for them between sessions; the situational modifiers did not bother me as combat has at least twice as many as noncombat does.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Quiterjon wrote:
LazarX wrote:
As someone who munchkined skill synergies until the books screamed in agony in 3.x, I'm hardly surprised that they're gone. One thing to keep in mind is that in general we're a lot better in our cross-class skills than we were before and alot of skills that were separate Hide/Move Silently for instance have been combined, thus saving even more skill points.

Mind explaining how you 'munchkined' the skills until they screamed? I'm looking at it right now and lets just see how much you can 'make it scream' compared to PF.

There's 23 skills that will give a synergy bonus to 29 other skills
Top dog of getting a bonus from another skill is Survival with 5

I forget exactly what combination did it... but I got a 2nd level character with a +17 Diplomacy thanks to synergy skills.

Sovereign Court

James Jacobs wrote:
Quiterjon wrote:
LazarX wrote:
As someone who munchkined skill synergies until the books screamed in agony in 3.x, I'm hardly surprised that they're gone. One thing to keep in mind is that in general we're a lot better in our cross-class skills than we were before and alot of skills that were separate Hide/Move Silently for instance have been combined, thus saving even more skill points.

Mind explaining how you 'munchkined' the skills until they screamed? I'm looking at it right now and lets just see how much you can 'make it scream' compared to PF.

There's 23 skills that will give a synergy bonus to 29 other skills
Top dog of getting a bonus from another skill is Survival with 5

I forget exactly what combination did it... but I got a 2nd level character with a +17 Diplomacy thanks to synergy skills.

That is focused but not hard...

+4 Cha
+6 synergy
+5 skill points
+3 skill focus
+2 feat that adds to diplo and other skill

...that is +20 @ 2nd for a human bard...and no magic yet...

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

The increasing synergy bonus from 3.5 extends out of Epic Rules. At 15 ranks, it increased your Defensive Fighting AC bonus by +2, and synergy bonus for the class skill by +2 (so, net +4). From there, it was standard to just cycle it back and give a +1 bonus for every 5 ranks above 5.

==Aelryinth


I believe the verisimilitude of the game is lost with the Skill Synergies gone.

It made perfect sense to be good at a related skill and having that skill supplement the other.

Personally, I wish they allowed Knowledge, Profession, and Craft skills to be the only skills to grants synergies. Such as Profession (herbalism) granting synergy to Craft (alchemy) and Heal, and Profession (guide) a synergy to the Survival skill and Profession (soldier) a synergy to Perception and Climb or something. Be a good reason to both implement RP skills and get a useful benefit beyond the RP from it, also.


I think they were extra hard to remember because once you've learnt how a certain skill is used, you rarely go to the skill section again. Since the synergy bonuses are only listed there and are often obscure and extremely circumstantial, people forget about them unless they create their character around a certain skill.


Razz wrote:

I believe the verisimilitude of the game is lost with the Skill Synergies gone.

It made perfect sense to be good at a related skill and having that skill supplement the other.

That's where circumstance bonuses come in though. If one skill always grant +2 to another skill in all situations, then you really want to look at whether those skills really make sense as separate skills, or maybe are aspects of the same broader skill.

Skill synergies should still exist, but on a case by case basis depending on context and situation. IMHO.


OilHorse wrote:


+4 Cha
+6 synergy
+5 skill points
+3 skill focus
+2 feat that adds to diplo and other skill

...that is +20 @ 2nd for a human bard...and no magic yet...

With only one sinergy on diplomacy (let's say that the bonuses don't stack), the same character would have +16. I think it's still too much but that's not really the problem.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

Slaunyeh wrote:
Razz wrote:

I believe the verisimilitude of the game is lost with the Skill Synergies gone.

It made perfect sense to be good at a related skill and having that skill supplement the other.

That's where circumstance bonuses come in though. If one skill always grant +2 to another skill in all situations, then you really want to look at whether those skills really make sense as separate skills, or maybe are aspects of the same broader skill.

Skill synergies should still exist, but on a case by case basis depending on context and situation. IMHO.

Bingo.

I can see a lot of circumstance bonuses vs. synergies.

Knowlege (religion) to assist perception "These old Aroden churches often had a secret cache right *click* here."

craft (jeweler) to help appraise "Yes it does look real, but if you actually mounted gems this way, they'd have faint scratches here. Instead we see signs of adhesive..."

Heck, even intimidate could help diplomacy "Don't show fear. Hobgoblins only respect those who bargin from a position of power..."

Those make more sense than "I can scam really good." (bluff) "So I always get bonuses to diplomacy even when I'm not scamming."


James Jacobs wrote:
Quiterjon wrote:
LazarX wrote:
As someone who munchkined skill synergies until the books screamed in agony in 3.x, I'm hardly surprised that they're gone. One thing to keep in mind is that in general we're a lot better in our cross-class skills than we were before and alot of skills that were separate Hide/Move Silently for instance have been combined, thus saving even more skill points.

Mind explaining how you 'munchkined' the skills until they screamed? I'm looking at it right now and lets just see how much you can 'make it scream' compared to PF.

There's 23 skills that will give a synergy bonus to 29 other skills
Top dog of getting a bonus from another skill is Survival with 5

I forget exactly what combination did it... but I got a 2nd level character with a +17 Diplomacy thanks to synergy skills.

Someone already posted a PF character that can do the same thing, without the synergy bonus. So what's the problem? Unless keeping the synergies would have made the blanket upgrades to skills in PF even worse. I could understand that, but that isn't what you said.

Further, it's not like Paizo took out the situational bonuses to skills like most skill synergies do.
"Add +1/2 on Bluff checks to pass secret messages, +1/2 on Diplomacy checks to gather information, and +1/2 on Disguise checks to appear as an elven, half-elven, or human child."
Using this line of argument doesn't hold much water really.

Owner - House of Books and Games LLC

Matthew Morris wrote:

I can see a lot of circumstance bonuses vs. synergies.

Knowlege (religion) to assist perception "These old Aroden churches often had a secret cache right *click* here."

craft (jeweler) to help appraise "Yes it does look real, but if you actually mounted gems this way, they'd have faint scratches here. Instead we see signs of adhesive..."

Heck, even intimidate could help diplomacy "Don't show fear. Hobgoblins only respect those who bargin from a position of power..."

Those make more sense than "I can scam really good." (bluff) "So I always get bonuses to diplomacy even when I'm not scamming."

Exactly. This is what I've done for a long time - after all, nothing is a perfect match.

"So you want to know about the old temple ruins, eh? What's your ranks in Knowledge (history)? How about Knowledge (religion)? Okay, make a Knowledge (history) history check at +2."

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selios wrote:
OilHorse wrote:


+4 Cha
+6 synergy
+5 skill points
+3 skill focus
+2 feat that adds to diplo and other skill

...that is +20 @ 2nd for a human bard...and no magic yet...

With only one sinergy on diplomacy (let's say that the bonuses don't stack), the same character would have +16. I think it's still too much but that's not really the problem.

I was only showing that it was not hard in 3.5 to get exceptionally high scores for Diplo.

If the PC was more well rounded he will have used his feats for other things dropping 5 off the score. +15 is still a damn high score for level 2, but I see no issue in either case. Teh PC is focused in being a "Face".

The issue with Diplo was not the synergy you can get, it was the skill itself. It had set DCs and as soon as you could beat them you were able to handle any encounter with it.

It was possible to build a PC that could rush a Diplo (DC 60) check against Hostile enemies and not only end an encounter, but turn them to your side. Such is not the case in PF.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
Quiterjon wrote:
LazarX wrote:
As someone who munchkined skill synergies until the books screamed in agony in 3.x, I'm hardly surprised that they're gone. One thing to keep in mind is that in general we're a lot better in our cross-class skills than we were before and alot of skills that were separate Hide/Move Silently for instance have been combined, thus saving even more skill points.

Mind explaining how you 'munchkined' the skills until they screamed? I'm looking at it right now and lets just see how much you can 'make it scream' compared to PF.

There's 23 skills that will give a synergy bonus to 29 other skills
Top dog of getting a bonus from another skill is Survival with 5

I forget exactly what combination did it... but I got a 2nd level character with a +17 Diplomacy thanks to synergy skills.

You got synergies from Knowledge Nobility, and Bluff, which stacked. There's also at least a feat or two which really helped in making Charisma monsters.

Sovereign Court

A simple fix would be to make one synergy bonus not stack with another synergy bonus. Like armor bonuses. Problem solved.


Hama wrote:
A simple fix would be to make one synergy bonus not stack with another synergy bonus. Like armor bonuses. Problem solved.

This is what 3.0 did. In 3.5 synergy bonuses became untyped which means they stack. In 3.0 you would get a "+2 synergy bonus" in 3.5 you get a "+2 bonus". I suspect this was a typo, NOT a deliberate change. I've always ruled they don't stack.

I think PF could have just fixed the 3.5 typo and brought back the "+2 synergy bonus" nomenclature and solved the problem without dropping them completely.


In here,

Human Alchemist 20th level

20 ranks
20 bonus
10 from heart of fields
6 from int
2 from gear
2 from master alchemist
5 from crafters fortune
3 from class skill

I might be missing something else here..

So thats about 68..

At level 2

2 ranks
2 class bonus
1 heart of fields
4 int
2 gear
3 class skill
5 crafters fortune

19 right there.

And I still might be missing stuff to put in to it.


Exactly.

Which means the "made skill checks to high" line a wee bit invalid.

Which means the "the situational bonuses were too complicated" line is a wee bit invalid as well.

Which means the "the creature statblocks were incorrect and going through and correcting them would have been too difficult even though we had to go and change all of the statblocks" line a wee bit invalid.


Quiterjon wrote:

Exactly.

Which means the "made skill checks to high" line a wee bit invalid.

Sort of, although the argument "Pathfinder should keep lousy idea X because Y is also a lousy idea" is a non-starter.

Quiterjon wrote:
Which means the "the situational bonuses were too complicated" line is a wee bit invalid as well.

Huh? How did you get to this conclusion from the previous line which didn't have any situational bonuses at all in it, as far as I can tell? (And personally, I wouldn't say "complicated" rather than "hardly ever used and easily forgotten".)


Quiterjon wrote:

...a wee bit invalid.

...a wee bit invalid as well.

...a wee bit invalid.

Congrats! You won the Internet!


hogarth wrote:
Quiterjon wrote:

Exactly.

Which means the "made skill checks to high" line a wee bit invalid.

Sort of, although the argument "Pathfinder should keep lousy idea X because Y is also a lousy idea" is a non-starter.

They did keep the "lousy idea X because Y is also a lousy idea".

If giving situational modifiers to part of certain checks was a lousy idea why did they keep the situational modifiers to part of certain skill checks for?

If making skill checks to high is a lousy idea, why did they give a blanket increase to all skill checks?

hogarth wrote:
Quiterjon wrote:
Which means the "the situational bonuses were too complicated" line is a wee bit invalid as well.
Huh? How did you get to this conclusion from the previous line which didn't have any situational bonuses at all in it, as far as I can tell? (And personally, I wouldn't say "complicated" rather than "hardly ever used and easily forgotten".)

It's the 3 main reasons given.

Spes Magna Mark wrote:
Quiterjon wrote:

...a wee bit invalid.

...a wee bit invalid as well.

...a wee bit invalid.

Congrats! You won the Internet!

I see. You fall back to the smarmy response when a bit of logic comes into play.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Honestly... it all boils down to this, from an editorial point of view:

"Skill synergies were the single rule that caused the most errors in stat blocks in author turnovers."

Now, sure, we can catch those errors during editing, but it's still a blatant symptom—a LOT of people forgot about them or didn't understand how they worked. When we were looking at ways to streamline game play, getting rid of synergy bonuses was a no-brainer.

Sure, it got rid of a little bit of verisimilitude, but the fact that there weren't MORE skill synergies listed for more skills did more damage to verisimilitude, in my opinion.

They're really easy to add back into the game if you like them though; reason #493 why we wanted to keep Pathfinder compatible with 3.5.


For those that want something similar to skill synergy without having to track all of the skills that give bonuses, try this.

Allow a character to "aid self" when making a skill check if he has an appropriate skill that could assist. For example, a Rogue with ranks in Craft (locks) could make a skill check to get a +2 bonus (as per aid another) to his Disable Device check when picking a lock.

Some skills may aid a number of different skill checks. For example, Knowledge (enginnering) might help when looking for secret doors or disarming mechanical traps. This system also allows Craft and Profession skills to have some additional use.

I advise limiting bonuses from "aid self" checks to a single source, though you could increase the bonus by +1 for every 10 points the checks over the base DC 10.


Quiterjon wrote:

Exactly.

Which means the "made skill checks to high" line a wee bit invalid.

Which means the "the situational bonuses were too complicated" line is a wee bit invalid as well.

Which means the "the creature statblocks were incorrect and going through and correcting them would have been too difficult even though we had to go and change all of the statblocks" line a wee bit invalid.

I guess the awnser you are looking for is - it's a more streamlined, easy and elegant system to teach and use when building a character. It saves a lot of time, more so if it's a multiclassed, medium to high level character.

Try to build a 3.5 level 6 mage/rogue/unseen seer that will be able to take it's 7th level in a second prestige class and must also get a couple of skill tricks to compensate for the feat taxes to get into prestige classes.

Now, do the same using Pathfinder.

Took me twice as long in 3.5, because of synergies... (oh, no, I can't really substract a point here, because then I'll lose a bonus to that other skill, and I need it to be effective at X... argh!)

The Exchange

Thraxus wrote:


Allow a character to "aid self" when making a skill check if he has an appropriate skill that could assist.

We do this (although we have to take a feat to do it) AND have kept skill synergies. :)

Liberty's Edge

In 3.5 there was that ridiculously broken cleric spell in one of the splatbooks which let him add his cleric level to a skill-check.

Ooooo, yeah; there was just a wee bit of cheesing the crap out of that once the spell was safely stuffed into a prayer bead and then handed to the rogue.


Quiterjon wrote:
I see. You fall back to the smarmy response when a bit of logic comes into play.

Not at all smarmy. Indeed, you have won the Internet. You have thoroughly refuted the opinions of others with your bits of logic. The way you kept trotting out the word "invalid" was especially devastating. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before a plethora of skill synergy bonuses are added to Pathfinder. I, for one, applaud your tireless ability to belabor the point.


Spes Magna Mark wrote:
Quiterjon wrote:
I see. You fall back to the smarmy response when a bit of logic comes into play.
Not at all smarmy. Indeed, you have won the Internet. You have thoroughly refuted the opinions of others with your bits of logic. The way you kept trotting out the word "invalid" was especially devastating. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before a plethora of skill synergy bonuses are added to Pathfinder. I, for one, applaud your tireless ability to belabor the point.

Why do they need to put skill synergies in the game when they gave a blanket increase to every class's skill numbers?

Yes it makes no sense and is an invalid point to complain about high skill numbers when the game produced has now made it even easier for all classes to have high skill numbers.

Yes it makes no sense and is an invalid point to complain about situational modifiers as being too difficult when they didn't exclude the situational modifier. Half-Orc and Human are the only core races that don't have a situational modifier and they even have them if you use the alternative racial traits.

The third reason is tied directly to the first reason.


hogarth wrote:
Chris Mortika wrote:
Hogarth, do you envision a character with both Craft (jewelry) and Appraise ought to be able to analyze and evaluate obscure jewelry caches better than someone with only the same degree of skill with Appraise?

I don't know why a piece of jewelry would be "obscure" to an expert appraiser, but not to an expert appraiser who also makes his own jewelry on the side.

Now if you wanted to argue that Appraise is a weird kind of catch-all skill that doesn't make much sense, I wouldn't argue with that. :-)

Well if you ever watch something like Pawn Stars, they have different experts for different kinds of items.

Not sure if this is related to your second point thing or not though.

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