Suggest hp to skill feat.


Homebrew and House Rules


I was surprised to find that there isn't a version of toughness for skills, since according to FCBs 1 skill point equals 1 hit point. I assume the lack of this feat is because it would overshadow skill focus.

I'm not aware of anything that already does something like this. So, I thought how could you achieve something similar but different and I came up with this:

You have sacrificed your health in the pursuit of knowledge.
--Studious Focus--
Prerequisite: Con 11.
Benefit:
For every hit die, you possess or gain, you lose 1 hit point from your total. For every hit point lost in this way, you gain 2 additional skill ranks.
Special: As usual, these bonus skill ranks are gained regardless of penalties to intelligence.


If the lack of this feat bugs you that much, why not just make a mirror of the toughness feat, but with skill ranks? I am assuming most classes that take this would be the ones with low ranks/level. A wizard/sorcerer already has such little hp, the last thing they'd want is to lose more of that, and a Fighter or Barbarian thrives on their HP being the damage soakers of the party and protecting the weaker individuals.
Also the prerequisite doesn't make sense to me, are you trying to say their CON can't be any HIGHER than 11? or must be at least 11, cuz if it's the latter, than what's stopping power gamer humans adding their 2 to con to offset the -1 pen for a free +2 sr every level (or any other race granting +2 to con)


The Con prereq works like all prereqs, so at least 11 Con. The only reason I put it there was to prevent sketchy results of something with 3 Con from taking this feat and doing weird things to its hit points. The prereq could probably be something lower like 7 or 9 though.

And this thread is a Suggestion, as noted in the title. The devs have made it clear that they don't want an exact skill duplicate of toughness, so I'm trying to give other ideas.


If you're going to bother with an ability score prerequisite, then make it 13 or don't bother. But I must agree with what bigpanda said. I am strongly opposed to this -1 hp, +2 skill point idea. I would never take this feat - ever.

If you are comparing this feat to Toughness, I can't for the life of me imagine why you haven't used copy & paste and substitute skill point for HP. This is a bad step beyond it.

Finally, I don't know where the quote exists, I remember reading that Paizo has intentionally not made a skill point version of Toughness.


The fact that paizo hasn't made skill point toughness is the reason for not just doing the copy paste thing. I believe Paizo hasn't done it because it would almost invalidate the skill focus type feats. Since this feat requires sacrifice it doesn't compete with skill focus.

And I could see quite a few chars wanting this feat. Basically any high hit die ranged character should find this attractive.


It does exist in 3PP materials by Dreamscarred Press, the guys who did a flawless job with the 3.5 Psionic system and more recently a revamp of the Book of Nine Swords.


I seem to recall a quote somewhere that stated they haven't added it because the development team felt +1 skill point/level wasn't worth a feat slot. I'll see if I can dig it up.


Quote:
I believe Paizo hasn't done it because it would almost invalidate the skill focus type feats

The purpose of skill focus is to improve a specific skill beyond what would be possible with maximum ranks, while the purpose of "Open Mind" is invest in a wider range of skills. Their purposes are actually very different.

There are plenty of bad feats; compared to a lot of the junk out there, +1 skill point/level is pretty solid. Not something I'd take at 1st level, but by the 8th or 9th it's looking pretty tempting if I've got feats to spare.

Verdant Wheel

I use:

Skilled
You gain 3 additional skill points. For every HD you have greater than 3, you gain an additional skill point.


If u are worried about imbalance with the toughness feat give it an int req of 13 or something. Try making skill focus on something a prereq.
The main benefit of skill focus is for classes that have low sr/lvl and typically dont focus on int (fighter or barbarian) to be able to keep their necessary skills boosted (like perc, intim, or diplomacy) so with the int req it keeps fighters and the like from abusing the feat and ignoring skill focus


There's no point in imposing an Int req on it, as characters with decent Int generally don't need this feat. It's the clerics, paladins, sorcerers and fighters who dump Int and get 2 points per level who really need it, but have feats to spare.

In addition to which, Toughness has no Con requirement.

All the sorcerers I've seen had only 1 or 2 skill points per level and were essentially excluded from anything but basic skill use (a spot of KA, a bit of spellcraft, a point of Intimidate or Bluff and maybe a knowledge).

Rainzax's Skilled is absolutely fine.

Liberty's Edge

rainzax wrote:

I use:

Skilled
You gain 3 additional skill points. For every HD you have greater than 3, you gain an additional skill point.

+1, though I'd also allow it to be taken as many times as desired. Skill points, unlike hit points, don't stack into the same statistic, so there's no harm in letting it stack.

My table also has a house-rule that increases every class's granted skill points by +2 and increases the minimum to 2. (Oddly, this didn't result in much increase in practical skill, but did add to the number of odd choices like a witch with Perform (Singing) maxed out.)


Like Dodge and Toughness, this is a feat that essentially gives you the benefit of increasing an ability score, without actually increasing that ability score.
As such, to make it not seem like such a waste of a feat, add in a language also.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Homebrew and House Rules / Suggest hp to skill feat. All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Homebrew and House Rules