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I've seen quite a few people in the forums calling skills and characters focused on them as useless? I personally have not played a PFS organized game but i know that when my group gets together skills are far from useless. While skills may not be effective in combat, there is so much more to the game than that. I play rogues a lot, and i mean a lot. And i don't know how many times I've save our group from being destroyed either through diplomacy, stealthy intervention, or by destroying a problem enemy with a devastating sneak attack while other characters drew his attention away. Needless to say without my help we would be creating new characters much more often. Anyone who underestimates my characters in Society play will regret this mistake. That i promise.
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The statement is more along the lines of "after fifth level, the value of skills has diminishing return compared to the value of spells".
Example: Swim, climb: essential pre fifth level for most characters. However, after that, a LOT of alternatives (mainly flying) open up reducing their value.
Counter-example: stealth & perception: these are always useful, since you never want to be surprised, and high-level monster laugh at invisibility.
It's basically a "diminishing returns" thing, since many DCs dont scale past 25.
Profession skills for example. They become 'skill tax' for PrCs later on and PCs rarely have the time to spend a week crafting baskets for petty cash.
Just wait! after a couple years, I'll have woven enough baskets for a Raise Dead!
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Profession skills for example. They become 'skill tax' for PrCs later on and PCs rarely have the time to spend a week crafting baskets for petty cash.
Just wait! after a couple years, I'll have woven enough baskets for a Raise Dead!
I have never used the profession skills in honesty, if i want money, i steal shiny things from stupid people.
Well, I'm quite fond of having powerful magic. But there are a number of systems that limit it more. As an example, in warhammer FR, you can cast as much as you want, but at the chance of going insane. Ze chaos, she is not kind.
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Well, I'm quite fond of having powerful magic. But there are a number of systems that limit it more. As an example, in warhammer FR, you can cast as much as you want, but at the chance of going insane. Ze chaos, she is not kind.
Dont get me wrong i like having a good wizard to have my back, but i feel the designers and GM's should take it upon them selves to make skills more useful, I occasionally GM with my friends and i always make rolls harder than suggests and the repercussions for failing much higher, i also strengthen many traps because i feel many of them are weaker than they should be.
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Dont get me wrong i like having a good wizard to have my back, but i feel the designers and GM's should take it upon them selves to make skills more useful,Well, I'm quite fond of having powerful magic. But there are a number of systems that limit it more. As an example, in warhammer FR, you can cast as much as you want, but at the chance of going insane. Ze chaos, she is not kind.
Well, that's one of the points under seemingly endless discussion. What's the use of the Climb skill when you can fly or levitate? What's the good of healing when you have cure spells galore?
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Dont get me wrong i like having a good wizard to have my back, but i feel the designers and GM's should take it upon them selves to make skills more useful, I occasionally GM with my friends and i always make rolls harder than suggests and the repercussions for failing much higher, i also strengthen many traps because i feel many of them are weaker than they should be.Well, I'm quite fond of having powerful magic. But there are a number of systems that limit it more. As an example, in warhammer FR, you can cast as much as you want, but at the chance of going insane. Ze chaos, she is not kind.
I tend to go the other way, IE trying to give skills greater utility. I started a thread about it a few days back. I would much rather give spells more things to do, rather than just make skill checks harder (which doesnt deal with the issue, IE magic dont gotta worry about it). Like healing actually being able to heal, high enough stealth ranks immunising you against scent/tremorsense/etc., swim ranks giving you a swim speed, fly ranks allowing you to be affected as a permanent featherfall, etc. It's a work in progress let's say.
Still, if you have a magic-bias, tell your players. There is nothing more unpleasant than wanting to play high-power magic and being told you cant.
Well, I'm quite fond of having powerful magic. But there are a number of systems that limit it more. As an example, in warhammer FR, you can cast as much as you want, but at the chance of going insane. Ze chaos, she is not kind.
And yet it is so so much fun when the enemy explodes in a gory fashion and your character suddenly screams incoherently and explodes into a Daemon.
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And yet it is so so much fun when the enemy explodes in a gory fashion and your character suddenly screams incoherently and explodes into a Daemon.Well, I'm quite fond of having powerful magic. But there are a number of systems that limit it more. As an example, in warhammer FR, you can cast as much as you want, but at the chance of going insane. Ze chaos, she is not kind.
For those of us who play TRPGs to have a measure more control over ourselves than we do in RL... no, not so much...
Dont get me wrong i like having a good wizard to have my back, but i feel the designers and GM's should take it upon them selves to make skills more useful, I occasionally GM with my friends and i always make rolls harder than suggests and the repercussions for failing much higher, i also strengthen many traps because i feel many of them are weaker than they should be.Well, I'm quite fond of having powerful magic. But there are a number of systems that limit it more. As an example, in warhammer FR, you can cast as much as you want, but at the chance of going insane. Ze chaos, she is not kind.
I tend to go the other way, IE trying to give skills greater utility. I started a thread about it a few days back. I would much rather give spells more things to do, rather than just make skill checks harder (which doesnt deal with the issue, IE magic dont gotta worry about it). Like healing actually being able to heal, high enough stealth ranks immunising you against scent/tremorsense/etc., swim ranks giving you a swim speed, fly ranks allowing you to be affected as a permanent featherfall, etc. It's a work in progress let's say.
Still, if you have a magic-bias, tell your players. There is nothing more unpleasant than wanting to play high-power magic and being told you cant.
Have you posted those? I would be interested in taking a look at them.
I was thinking about extending Craft skills to allow the creation of basic magic items. So someone with Craft:Armor could craft up to +3 armor without needing a wizard (maybe just some special materials).
For those of us who play TRPGs to have a measure more control over ourselves than we do in RL... no, not so much...And yet it is so so much fun when the enemy explodes in a gory fashion and your character suddenly screams incoherently and explodes into a Daemon.Well, I'm quite fond of having powerful magic. But there are a number of systems that limit it more. As an example, in warhammer FR, you can cast as much as you want, but at the chance of going insane. Ze chaos, she is not kind.
*Grins* The upside is serving the glorious God-Emperor in his quest to rid the universe of filthy xenos.
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You all make valid points, I am not saying that rogues are perfect or better than other classes, but i cant also go along with you guys who are saying that they are useless. I feel many people focus far to much on making a "perfect build" or being ready for every tiny little problem all on their own. Creating a character that is enjoyable to "be". After all this is a role playing game, not to mention you have other compatriots with you to make up for your short comings. To me it sounds that you guys almost make fake characters, while on paper it looks good the character is almost beyond belief (even in a fantasy setting). And remember the GM is the all powerful force at the table and could by some way render your spells useless, or "fudge" a roll and say that the target of your spell withstood its effects. With your characters that are "perfect" if the GM didn't intervene and make you fail every once in awhile it seems your games would be boring as hell (excuse my language). And sorry for being so long winded.
Ya litta git! Ya neva be orky enuff!
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Dont get me wrong i like having a good wizard to have my back, but i feel the designers and GM's should take it upon them selves to make skills more useful, I occasionally GM with my friends and i always make rolls harder than suggests and the repercussions for failing much higher, i also strengthen many traps because i feel many of them are weaker than they should be.Well, I'm quite fond of having powerful magic. But there are a number of systems that limit it more. As an example, in warhammer FR, you can cast as much as you want, but at the chance of going insane. Ze chaos, she is not kind.
I tend to go the other way, IE trying to give skills greater utility. I started a thread about it a few days back. I would much rather give spells more things to do, rather than just make skill checks harder (which doesnt deal with the issue, IE magic dont gotta worry about it). Like healing actually being able to heal, high enough stealth ranks immunising you against scent/tremorsense/etc., swim ranks giving you a swim speed, fly ranks allowing you to be affected as a permanent featherfall, etc. It's a work in progress let's say.
Still, if you have a magic-bias, tell your players. There is nothing more unpleasant than wanting to play high-power magic and being told you cant.
Have you posted those? I would be interested in taking a look at them.
I was thinking about extending Craft skills to allow the creation of basic magic items. So someone with Craft:Armor could craft up to +3 armor without needing a wizard (maybe just some special materials).
Magic in this game is already so powerful that it is overshadowing other characters. Why make it even more powerful, if we keep making more spells and better spells then everyone will just be playing magic users and it greatly takes away from the game.
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Pretty much yeah. It is quite strange that higher skill ranks don't offer a wider array of options. 15 skill ranks represents someone with virtual demigod levels of ability which the skill system fails utterly to represent.
I have a new theory about why this is.
Basically, too many realism snobs around. I came to this theory a couple of weeks ago when there was Yet Another Thread about how Pathfinder guns are overpowered and unrealistic and how it's stoopid that sumwun kan fire a muzzle-loading pistol four times in six seconds.
Kind of the opposite of the katana fetishists, really. No one really knows what katanas can do, so everyone imagines all sorts of miraculous cuts-through-concrete abilities, but every gun bunny has apparently been firing muzzle loaders since 1630 and knows exactly how they work, and don't work.
So in a world of elves, dragons, and gates to the Elemental Plane of Cheeze, rapid-firing muzzle-loaders are unrealistic.
But I think skills suffer the same fate. A lot of people, for example, don't like the idea that Knowledge (local) will let you know a good spot to buy a beer in a small town four thousand miles away. A lot of people don't like the idea that a really good thief really could, literally, hide behind a stop sign. A lot of people don't like the idea that a good battlefield surgeon could reattach limbs and have them still work. Because, again, that's unrealistic.
No one is going to say "no, you can't use onyx to make zombies; I've been making zombies for twenty years and you need rum, not onyx.." So the effect is that skills are constrained by realism.
My input on this: It's because with the large amount of spells available that take the place of or grant ludicrous bonuses to so many skills that actually having the skill makes little to no difference. Having those skills when you need them though is all well and good because as we all know games don't happen in a vacuum where every spellcaster has every spell prepared or known all the time.