Skill System Revamp Idea


Homebrew and House Rules


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I was wondering if anyone was interested in a possible revamp of the skill system? The idea came about when going through the d20 game Legend. One thing I liked about the game was that their skill checks were laid out so that higher DCs got you more impressive effects. You could balance on tree leaves or treat your movement as flight for 1 to 3 rounds when jumping at higher DCs. While maybe a bit more fantastic than I want to aim, I think buffing the skill system would be good for classes that are deemed to be underpowered, like Monk and Rogue. Assuming that the system I have in mind is viable, it would require revamping classes, feats, some spells, etc.

Here is the basic idea: Skills Ranks are equal to your Character Level + Stat + Racial Modifiers + Feats. Each skill has a series of eight tiers that you gain access to the next level once you have a total bonus of 6, 11,16,21, etc. Every one gets the first skill tier for free. Having a Class Skill automatically bumps you up one tier from where your current modifiers place you. Skill Focus would bump you up another tier. Skill Mastery would bump you yet another tier, though this might be Rogue only.

What do the Tiers get you? They would allow you to just perform certain abilities at a DC equal to your Tier x 5 without rolling. You can just do those. In opposed checks you can either give your opponent a static DC, if your opposed skill is of a higher Tier or roll using your normal bonuses, which ever you prefer. This way a Rogue might be able to sneak past some guards with a higher Stealth Tier than their Perception Tier without a roll, while the GM might give the guard’s leader a roll against the Rogue’s static DC because the leader is the big opponent of this encounter. If the Leader and the Rogue have the same Tier in their opposed skill then it is a roll off. If the Leader has a higher Tier than she would have to roll versus the Leader’s static DC or, if the GM really wants to press the issue, keep it as a roll off. Note that you can always roll against the DC of a Tier that is higher than your current Tier.

Now, aside from covering basic difficulty level, this would allow for a DM to increase the difficulty or a PC to do a simpler task with a greater degree of success for more risk. Now a basic DC 5 task is something anyone can do. You’re heroes, you can climb a knotted rope without rolling for it. However there might be conditions that make the task more difficult, meaning the DM has the ability to increase the DC by a number of Tiers which would increase the DC. A more hazardous climb up that rope might be while taking fire from below, increasing the character’s stress and desperation to get up and the Tier by 1 along with it. Climbing the rope up a cliff side in a storm might raise it two Tiers. At the extreme end, climbing a rope during a storm on a pitching ship might increase it by three Tiers.

The PCs would also have the option of increasing the DC/Tier to try and achieve more. Some example would be:
• Performing a Skill as a 1) Move Action, 2) Swift Action, 3)Interrupt, rather than as a Standard action.
• Affecting a group of 1) Small Party (around 10 or less), 2) A crowded Tavern room, 3) Marc Anthony’s speech in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
• Performing a skill to move 1) Base Movement, 2) Double Move, 3) Running, instead of as a half move.
In both cases I probably wouldn’t do more than 3 increases due to difficulty and due to the PCs risk. So if a PC has decided that any one can pee on the floor but a hero s@#$% on the ceiling, the highest they can get is +6 Tiers/+30 DC. GMs can also use circumstantial bonuses to lower the DC such as PC buying the bar a round to ease some diplomacy checks, might drop the DC down by a Tier too.

What would Tiers get you beyond basic rolling? Here is the part that I’m having trouble figuring out all the details. Certain abilities I think should be part of skill checks. For instance Slow Fall would be good for any acrobatic character. Each Tier of Acrobatics might provide a certain level past Tier 2 or so, with the chance to roll for more. Higher Tiers of skill might allow you to heal HP for characters by 1d6 per Tier with one treatment of the Heal skill. Gaining access to abilities like Tracking or searching for magic traps are some other option. Increased affects such as being able to apply the Charmed condition to people with Diplomacy or increase the level of fear you install for Intimidate. Basically I’d like each Tier to mean more than your just an additional amount better at a skill, but you can still attempt to do higher Tiered abilities.

That’s my sales pitch. Any takers?


Also this might be a way to incorperate Feat and Skill based abilities, such as Psionics or Ritual Magic.


I'm interested! I'd have to see it laid out in print, with the details, but that sounds like the sort of system I might incorporate.


Ok, here is the skill list so far:

Acrobatics
Athletics
Bluff
Diplomacy
Disguise
Escape Artist
Empathy
Engineering
Heal
Intimidate
Larceny
Linguistics
Lore
Perception
Pilot
Spellcraft
Stealth
Survival
Swim

The following skills would be examples of specialty skills accessible by feats:
Craft: Used to build items.
Endurance: Use instead of Fort for dealing with non-lethal damage situations.
Might: Used to make strength checks for lifting or breaking things
Trade: Used to gain money and Appraise stuff.
Use Magic Device: what it says on the tin.
*Ritual Magic: Requires UMD, cast some spells with casting time of 10 Minutes x Spell Level at a cost of 100 GP x Spell Level.


Skills Tiers Example

It took me a while to hammer this out, but I'm hoping it will convey what I'm looking to do with the skills and providing a scale that will hopefully work for portraying progression from low level exceptional humans to demigod like abilitie of higher levels. As you can see, I've already combined Acrobatics and Escape Artist (as I said, it's a work in progress) and with just one skill, shows how it might change a class like Monk (guess we'll just have to give them something else instead of Slow Fall :D).

Acrobatics (Dex): this skill deals with balance, moving through difficult or threatened squares, taking a fall, standing from prone, and escaping bonds.
(All examples below assume that the character moves half their movement speed as a standard action unless stated otherwise)

Tier 1: Simple rolls, cart wheels, or moving across a 5ft wide stable ledge.
Bonus- Slow Fall 10ft.

Tier 2: Convert 1d6 of falling damage to non-lethal damage, tumbling through threatened squares, or walking across a stable ledge that is less than 5ft wide but 1ft wide or greater.
Bonus- Slow Fall 20ft.

Tier 3: Reducing lethal damage from falling by 1d6, standing without drawing an attack of opportunity, escaping improvised quality bonds, or walking across a 5’ wide but unsecured ledge.
Bonus- Slow Fall 30ft.

Tier 4: Reducing lethal damage from falling by 1d6 and converting 1d6 of remaining falling damage to non-lethal damage, escaping poor quality bonds, or walking across an unstable ledge that is less than 5ft wide but 1ft wide or greater.
Bonus: Slow Fall 40ft

Tier 5: Reducing lethal damage from falling by 2d6, escaping standard quality bonds, or tightrope walking.
Bonus: Slow Fall 50ft, Only suffer -2 penalties to attack and to AC versus Melee attacks while Prone.

Tier 6: Reducing lethal damage from falling by 2d6 and converting 1d6 of remaining falling damage to non-lethal damage, escaping good quality bonds, moving across terrain that can’t support a lot of weight without breaking through (glass, thin ice, etc).
Bonus: Slow Fall 60ft, Wall Running- use movement to move up a vertical surface, if you don’t end your turn on a horizontal surface then you fall and don’t gain the benefits of slow fall.

Tier 7: Reducing lethal damage from falling by 3d6, escaping masterworked quality bonds, moving across a surface that could not normally support your weight (paper, water, etc) but if you end your movement on such a surface you will fall through. You will also take any damage from crossing such terrain, if any, as normal.
Bonuses: Slow Fall 70ft, Don’t suffer penalties to attack and to AC versus Melee attacks while Prone.

Tier 8: Reducing lethal damage from falling by 2d6 and convert the remaining falling damage to non-lethal damage, escape a death trap, stand on a surface that shouldn’t support your weight or move across a surface that wouldn’t and causes damage without being harmed (lava, acid, Gelatinous Cubes, etc). You may stand upon such a surface but would take damage as normal.
Bonus: Slow Fall 80ft, Improved Slow Fall- you don’t need to be within range of a vertical surface to gain the benefits of ½ your Slow Fall.


Canning Linguistics and putting it into Lore. Languages will have to change a bit. My first instinct would be to go 2 base starting + Int Mod + 1/per Tier.

Some thoughts on classes and feats:

1) Multi-classing would need a look. I want to avoid people doing the 3.0 trick of taking on level of Ranger to get TWF and Ambidexterity, only this time doing it with Rogue to get a pile of class skills. Since I'm figuring each class will start with a few set skills and a few the player choses I'm thinking about limiting additional class skills gained through multi-classing to 1 to 4 based on the classes base skill points befor Int was brough into the equation. So going into Wizard after 1st level would get you one new class skill while a bard woulg get three from their list.

2) Feats: All the feats that grant +2 to two related skills will remain the same (trying to get rid of a lot of modifiers).

Versatile: Select two non-class skills. These skills become class skills.

Skill Focus: Any class skill. Choose one class skill. This skill now functions at 2 Tiers higher, rather than just one.

Secret Training: Any class skill and GM approval. Select one skill that is a class skill and use a different modifier for calculating the character's skill bonus. For instance using Con instead of Strength for Athletics, Int for Bluff, Str for Intimadte, or Wis or Cha for Spellcraft if the character uses a different stat for spellcasting than Int. The GM must decide if the choice is appropriate. For instance a DM is well with in her rights to say "No" using Charisma for Swim.

Skill Mastery: Requires Skill Focus. Choose one skill that the Skill Focus Feat was applied to. This skill now functions at 3 Tiers higher, rather than just one.

3) I'm thinking of breaking skills up for specialties so you might be able to boost a specific area of a skill as a class ability; like a Ranger's Tracking or a Rogue's Trap Finding. Though it might just be a flat +2 bonus rather than bumping up the tier for that one area. Not sure yet and I think it might be getting a little far ahead of myself.

That's all for now.


I'd avoid altering the actual skill list since that makes using existing classes more work. Also, locking UMD behind a feat will hurt rogues, who *really* don't need the nerf. It's also an iconic skill of the bard, who isn't exactly made of feats either.


Atarlost wrote:
I'd avoid altering the actual skill list since that makes using existing classes more work. Also, locking UMD behind a feat will hurt rogues, who *really* don't need the nerf. It's also an iconic skill of the bard, who isn't exactly made of feats either.

Well what I'm doing would require changing classes, mostly the Skill based classes. I don't think Fighters, Clerics, and Wizards are going to change very much at all. What I'm hoping for is a skill system that doesn't nerf skill heavy classes but boosts skills up to the level of Feats and Magic.

I've already shown that I'd be removing Slow Fall from Monk abilities to make room for something else and placing it into Acrobatics. Bards will change at the very least by removing performance as a skill. Why bother having a skill that almost never gets taken by other classes? Rogues I intend to be to skills what fighters are to feats. A lot of Rogue abilities work along the lines of altering a skill. Fast Stealth and Ledge Walker will be automatically be part of the skill system. What will fill the slots of those missing abilities? Skill Feats.

I've always been bugged by special abilities and feats that modify specific parts of a skill. Why does a Ranger get Camoflage and not a Rogue? Why do you need to be a Rogue to search for and disarm magical traps? I believe these should be aspects of the skills themselves.


Ok, I have a bit of an update to show some of my progress:

Basics: Skill checks equal your level + stat mod + other modifiers (hopefully cut back). DC Equal the Tier that best aproximates what you want to do x5. You can raise the DC by increments of 5 to increase your effectiveness. If the Tier of the DC is less than or equal to your skill Tier, then you don't have to roll unless on a contested roll. On contested rolls, if a character has more Tiers than their opponent than that character gains +2 to their result for each Tier above.

Skill Rank, Tiers, and Class Skills: Your skill rank is the sum of your level + stat mod + other modifiers which you roll for skill checks and use to determine your skill's Tier. You start at Tier 1 and gain a new Tier when your Skill Rank equals 6,11,16, etc. Class Skills automatically bump up your skill Tier by 1 and other Feats may provide increase over that.

Class will get a number of class skill equal to their base skill points (before Int mod is applied) x2. Half of these skills will be fixed and the other half will be up to the player's choice, except for any 8 Skill Point class which get all basic skills as Class Skills. Humans will get an extra class skill or a free specialty if they have all skills as class skills.

My skill list is as follows, with some ideas for specializations. If you are interested I'd love help fleshing things out. Specializations will just be expantions on what you can do with that skill. Specializations can be taken with Feats:
Acrobatics
Athletics
Bluff (Disguise)
Diplomacy
Empathy (Profession)
Engineering (Craft)
Healing (Medicine)
Intimidate (Presence)
Larceny
Lore (Strategy)
Perception (Danger Sense)
Ride (Pilot)
Spellcraft (Use Magic Device)
Stealth
Survival (Wild Empathy)
Swim

Special Skills: These will be skills that can be taken with a feat. This can be used to cover a variety of effects from psychic powers, Bending Styles from Avatar the Last Airbender, Alchemy of Full Metal Alchemist, or whatever you want to come up with. For simplicity's sake I'm working on a special skill based off of each stat. What I've got so far is:
Might (Feats of Strength)
Endurance (Resisting the frailties of the body)
Speed, Grace (?)
Deduction (asking questions from the GM)
Purpose (Will to live) Saving vs Death, temporarily ignoring status effects, etc.
Destiny (Adding to rolls when you use a Hero Point)


Well this has been going slower than I'd like do to life, but I've at least got a teaser for specializations. I present the Acrobatic's specialization:

Parkour- Some call this Freerunning but, in reality, Freerunning is a more expressive and artistic form of Parkour. Parkour is a training method to bypass obsticals as quickly and efficiently as possible in natural and urban environments. Using this training, a Traceur (a practitioner of Parkour) may move quickly through areas with a surety and agility that few can match.

Tier 2: Agile Climber: you can use Acrobatics to make Climb checks, rather than Athletics, gaining all the benefits of your Acrobatics Tiers towards Climbing.

Tier 3: Nimble Moves 10ft: you ignore the listed amount of difficult terrain.

Tier 4: Roof Runners: you can use Acrobatics to make Jump checks, rather than Athletics, gaining all the benefits of your Acrobatics Tiers towards Jumping.

Tier 5: Nimble Moves 20ft.

Tier 6: Acrobatic Charge: you can make a number of turns during a charge equal to half your Acrobatic Skill Tiers.

Tier 7: Nimble Moves 30ft.

Tier 8: “There Are No Limits”*: You do not suffer Difficult Terrain penalties when taking a Double Move, Running, or Charging.

*Bruce Lee, a motto adopted by the founder of Pakour.


Another rough draft accomplished.

Athletics (Str): this skill deals with climbing, jumping, running, and other physical labors.
(All examples below assume that the character moves half their movement speed as a standard action unless stated otherwise)

Tier 1: Climbing a knotted rope, standing jumping 5ft across or 1ft high, or double that for a running jump (1 Move Action worth of forward movement).
Bonus: Fast Movement 5ft: your base movement is increased by the listed amount when wearing Light or no armor and carrying a light load.

Tier 2: Easy rock climbing, standing jumping 10ft across or 2ft high, or double that for a running jump.
Bonus: Fast Movement 10ft

Tier 3: Moderate rock climbing, standing jumping 15ft across or 3ft high, or double that for a running jump.

Bonus: Fast Movement 15ft

Tier 4: Advanced rock climbing or a castle wall, standing jumping 20ft across or 4ft high, or double that for a running jump.

Bonus: Fast Movement 20ft

Tier 5: Climbing a greased pole, standing jumping 25ft across or 5ft high, or double that for a running jump.

Bonus: Fast Movement 25ft, Run: as the Feat.

Tier 6: Climbing a wall of large riveted metal plates, standing jumping 30ft across or 6ft high, or double that for a running jump.
Bonus: Fast Movement 30ft, Practiced Climber: You don’t loose your Dex bonus when climbing.

Tier 7: Climbing up a smooth surface, standing jumping 35ft across or 8ft high, or double that for a running jump.
Bonus: Fast Movement 35ft, Leap of the Clouds: you may jump as if you had a running start if you didn’t and may jump up to your run speed if you did.

Tier 8: Climbing up sand falling through a hole in the roof, standing jumping 40ft across or 10ft high, or double that for a running jump.
Bonus: Fast Movement 40ft, Paragon: You can gain half your Fast Movement bonus when wearing Medium Armor or carrying a medium load.

Specialization: Soldiering- There is no physical exercises that will prepare a person for the exertion of a pitched battle than combat itself. Those who tread the path of war constantly train to so that their weapons will seem light in their hand and that their armor feels like a second skin. They do this with the hopes that they will outlast their enemies when faced with the rigors of war.

Tier 2: Armor Tolerance 2: Reduces Armor Check penalties by the character’s Athletics Tier. Also the Arcane Spell Failure is reduced by ½ the Athletic Tier x5% and the Max Dex is increased by ½ the Athletic Tier. Armor Check penalties and Arcane Spell Failure cannot be reduced below 0.

Tier 3: Armor Tolerance 3, Sentinel: you may sleep in Light or Medium Armor without penalty.

Tier 4: Armor Tolerance 4

Tier 5: Armor Tolerance 5, Armored Mobility: Your Base Speed is not reduced by Medium or Heavy Armor.

Tier 6: Armor Tolerance 6

Tier 7: Armor Tolerance 7, Guardian: you may sleep in Heavy Armor without penalty.

Tier 8: Armor Tolerance 8, Juggernaught: your Running speed is not reduced by Heavy Armor.


I really like both drafts you have out, particularly the parkour - based one. I think this might be the direction that Kosta and I need to be looking for Eetreia's world. I fear that grafting it into an already very crunchy system like Pathfinder might overload the system, but, on the other hand, there's Spycraft and Fantasycraft that make Pathfinder look rules-light, or that thing Monte Cook did with tokens, so it's probably just me being lazy.

That said, I would kind of like to see a system built around this at its core - I'm pretty sure this is *exactly* what Kosta had in mind.


watermelontail wrote:

I really like both drafts you have out, particularly the parkour - based one. I think this might be the direction that Kosta and I need to be looking for Eetreia's world. I fear that grafting it into an already very crunchy system like Pathfinder might overload the system, but, on the other hand, there's Spycraft and Fantasycraft that make Pathfinder look rules-light, or that thing Monte Cook did with tokens, so it's probably just me being lazy.

That said, I would kind of like to see a system built around this at its core - I'm pretty sure this is *exactly* what Kosta had in mind.

Well, in a way I want to cut down on some of the crunch by cutting back on some of the feat and class feature bloat. While I haven't had much time to work on this, I realize that it would be a pretty big rewrite since every class would be affected in some way. Still, the more I think about it the more things have been falling into place. I would welcome any suggestions.


Social Skills: This is kind of a hard one to puzzle out due to the fluid nature of social interactions. I have been working with the idea of going off of two tracks to determine the difficulty. The first would be based on an NPC's reaction and preparedness towards the PC and the level of affect you're going for. In general it is easier to affect those who are friendly to you rather than unfriendly. That being said, it might be easier to lie to an unfriendly person than it would be a close friend. It depends on the situation and the GM will need to make the call. As for effect, generally the better the PC wants to do will determine how difficult the task is. So talking a discount out of a merchant will be easier than causing a Troll to cower in terror.

Any thoughts?


Another quick update for skill specialties:

Pakour (Acrobatics): Moving through difficult terrain.
Soldiering (Athletics): Dealing with armor restrictions.
Disguise (Bluff): Impersonating a person or creating a different persona.
Inspiration (Diplomacy): I'll give you a hint, Bard's would get this.
Profession (Empathy): Making money the old fashioned way.
Craft (Engineering): Building better mousetraps.
Medicine (Healing): Directly treating ability damage, poisons, and diseases.
Incite (Intimidate): Subtly changing NPCs reactions towards others.
???? (Larceny): Still drawing a blank here.
Strategy (Lore): Spotting and exploiting weaknesses in monsters.
Danger Sense (Perception): Spotting magical traps, noticing traps and secret doors when not actively looking, etc.
Pilot (Ride): What it says on the tin.
Use Magic Device (Spellcraft): As the skill as it exists in 3.X and PF.
???? (Stealth): Again, drawing a blank. I've been thinking camoflage to hide items and other people, but I'm not sure.
Wild Empathy (Survival): Again, pretty self-explanitory.
???? (Swim): Don't know, Pearl diving comes to mind but I'm worried about overlap with Endurance.

Special skills still have Might, Endurance, Deduction, and Determination (rename of Purpose). Charisma will be replaced with Influence to represent a character's standing in their society, whether as a home town hero or as a noble. Dexterity I'm still lacking. One suggestion was a form of defense and there is also intitiative too.


Skaorn wrote:

Another quick update for skill specialties:

...

Special skills still have Might, Endurance, Deduction, and Determination (rename of Purpose). Charisma will be replaced with Influence to represent a character's standing in their society, whether as a home town hero or as a noble. Dexterity I'm still lacking. One suggestion was a form of defense and there is also intitiative too.

It's good to get a look at it all together. I'm thinking this might be a good thing to bring to Wednesday night, too, at least to see how the boys react.

You've got me thinking, though.


So how about something for distraction or misdirection involving either Stealth or Larceny; I hate to acculturate it, but something like how ninjutsu is supposed to work? I'm not coming up with anything more concrete yet, but there has got to be some angle we can work into this.


watermelontail wrote:
So how about something for distraction or misdirection involving either Stealth or Larceny; I hate to acculturate it, but something like how ninjutsu is supposed to work? I'm not coming up with anything more concrete yet, but there has got to be some angle we can work into this.

I think I'm going to go with hiding people and things as a specialty. Essentially giving bonus abilities that help you set up ambushes, smuggle, and make sure that you will always have a knife on you.


Being lazy and leaving out flavor text, but this is the start of Bluff.

Bluff (Cha):
Tier 1:
Bonus: May attempt to Feint in Combat.

Tier 2:
Bonus: you can attempt to bluff a small group (a party of adventurers).

Tier 3:
Bonus: Feinting doesn’t draw an attack of opportunity.

Tier 4:
Bonus: You can attempt to bluff a moderate group (a tavern room).

Tier 5:
Bonus: Opponents you Feint loose their Dexterity modifier for the round.

Tier 6:
Bonus: You can attempt to bluff a large group (a crowded market place).

Tier 7:
Bonus: Instead of loosing their Dexterity Modifier for the round, you may choose to apply the following conditions to an opponent on a successful feint for one round: Confused, Dazed, Sickened, or Staggered

Tier 8:
Bonus: You can attempt to bluff a huge group (an army).


If you can't come up with a specialty for Swim, I would suggest just making it part of Athletics or Endurance.


Irontruth wrote:
If you can't come up with a specialty for Swim, I would suggest just making it part of Athletics or Endurance.

I might have done that if I couldn't figure something out, though then I'd need to find something to take #16 for skills to make everything rounded. I'm going with Free Diving for a specialization. Also I was planning on throwing Fly in as a specialization for Ride, if a character has a fly speed so doing something for those with a swim speed might be good too. Thanks for the suggestion though, if I hadn't found out that the Free Diving record (no equipment at all) was something like 280ft a couple of days ago, I'd probably be taking your suggestion.

Back to Bluff: one thing I should mention, while social skills like bluff will allow you to effect multiple people, the DC will increase by 5 per increase above one target.


I highly suggest you check out the old TSR game Alternity, which 3rd edition looted for mechanics (particularly the skill system). The entire rules set is based around skill ranks, which have tiered effects like you're proposing. You might come across some good ideas. Also, it's the best RPG ever made.


Azazyll wrote:
I highly suggest you check out the old TSR game Alternity, which 3rd edition looted for mechanics (particularly the skill system). The entire rules set is based around skill ranks, which have tiered effects like you're proposing. You might come across some good ideas. Also, it's the best RPG ever made.

Awesome, I'll have to find the PDFs!

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