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Whole bunch of snarky posts.
Wow, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Taking perfectly reasonable discussion points and turning them into personal character attacks on you. Its pretty telling when the replies to you dont become snarky until you yourself start spewing hate. Calm down bro, no one was being hateful towards you until you started spewing venom, I saw SKR throwing discussion points your way and you flip out and play the personal attack/sarcasm/attitude card. Just saying.
Also, no one is dismissing you because of your house rule suggestions, your being dismissed because your a top-notch raging jerk in your attitude and replies.
I haven't removed any posts, but this thread needs a chill pill.
Don't be a jerk, be civil.
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I had a cleric of Pharasma with Profession: Gravedigger. The PC's were in a suspiciously nice place and saw a man digging in the garden. We asked him why he was there and he said he was the groundskeeper.
Our GM let me add my skill bonus for Profession: Gravedigger to my perception check to notice that he was not used to handling a shovel (as a groundskeeper should be).
I like to add one or two points to a craft skill or profession as bits of flavor, and it can come in handy if you pay attention to the story and details.
One of the best skills I've used was profession sailor. It helped with anything a sailor could possibly have done, from balancing to tying knots via use rope. As a GM to make this skill and others like it more accessable to other players, I offer a check using profession before some other checks.
For example: If the rogue is going to disable a device and has various different skills that apply to the situation (like Craft: Trap, Profession: Clockmaker, Knowledge: Engineering, etc) they will get to make a check for synergy with each one before making the actual making the disable device check. For each check they pass by at least X they get a bonus to beating the final DC.
For anyone that has taken college classes, there are classes that aren't directly related, but still help you in indirect ways. This also encourages players to build backgrounds while still stimulating their want to not waste skill points. This isn't the end-all-beat-all mechanic, but it is a start. Any thoughts on this or other productive ways to move forward here?
A DM can always come up with useful, on-the-fly reasons to have ranks in a profession or craft skill. Just a few examples:
Craft: Jewelry could replace Appraise in relation to gems and jewelled items. A jeweler should be able to look at a diamond-studded headband and tell you its worth.
Profession: Herbalist could be used to determine if the packet of twigs and leaves the goblin shaman just handed you is headache medicine or deadly poison.
Profession: Miner could be used instead of Knowledge: Dungeoneering in relation to checks dealing with subterranean environments. It might not allow you to make checks to identify monsters, but you should be able to judge whether a tunnel is in danger of collapsing.
Related to this - I use the different Craft and Knowledge skills as 'aids' to other skills. Want to Appraise a particular piece of jewelry... Craft:Jewelry gives you a bonus. If a Rogue wants to pass himself off (Bluff not Disguise) as a traveling Apothecary, Profession: Herbalist gives a bonus to the Bluff roll if someone comes snooping around.
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Related to this - I use the different Craft and Knowledge skills as 'aids' to other skills. Want to Appraise a particular piece of jewelry... Craft:Jewelry gives you a bonus. If a Rogue wants to pass himself off (Bluff not Disguise) as a traveling Apothecary, Profession: Herbalist gives a bonus to the Bluff roll if someone comes snooping around.
If he has ranks in Profession: Herbalist... is it really a lie then? ;P
Nice avatar by the way, shows incredible good taste.
I had a cleric of Pharasma with Profession: Gravedigger. The PC's were in a suspiciously nice place and saw a man digging in the garden. We asked him why he was there and he said he was the groundskeeper.
Our GM let me add my skill bonus for Profession: Gravedigger to my perception check to notice that he was not used to handling a shovel (as a groundskeeper should be).
I like to add one or two points to a craft skill or profession as bits of flavor, and it can come in handy if you pay attention to the story and details.
LOL... I didn't see your post until I finished mine, but it seems we were writing about the same thing. I like your example. :D
EDIT: Same to you stormraven. I don't know if this would be off topic or homebrew, but:
Is there a repeatable mechanic that could be built in here beyond the DM fiat? Maybe the final DC should determine the DC for adding bonusses, and failing by a low amount could represent confusion between the synergy skill and the final skill used. Also, should each additional skill beyond the first used to lower the final DC be at a diminished rate (similar to avoiding breaking the DC altogether)?
I think this would be a viable solution to the arguements made.
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thingsWhen scanning the boards quickly, your posts always make me go, "Wait, I don't remember writ....Oh!" :)
Heh, I do the same thing when I see your posts, then I see the (Contributor) tag and think to myself "Ah yes, this is someone with actual writing talent" and it makes a whole lot more sense to me :) Near as I can tell, you are the only other active user with this sweet mantis avatar.
Most skills are useful enough in their own right that the DM doesn't have to go to extraordinary lengths to make them seem useful. I enjoy taking craft, knowledge and profession skills for roleplaying reasons, it's just painful to spend precious skill points on being a Scribe or Cook when I could have got something extremely useful like Stealth or Perception instead.Appraise, Bluff, Diplomacy, Handle Animal, Sense Motive, and Sleight of Hand can all be useless point-sinks if the GM doesn't incorporate those things into a campaign. So can Whirlwind Attack and Great Cleave. And darkvision. And smite evil.
Just because Craft and Profession don't have combat applications doesn't make them useless. It's the GM's job to let the characters use their abilities, whether that's the ability to see in the dark, cleave foes, sense lies, or pick herbs. If Bob spends skill ranks on Profession (herbalist) for his character, that choice is important to Bob and the GM should incorporate it.
I'm not the type of person who only cares about combat. Roleplaying is just as important to me, if not more so. As anyone in my group will tell you, I'm usually the "knowledge guy." That isn't the issue here. The issue is that most of the skills have very broad applications, while the crafts, knowledges and professions are *extremely* specific. It's alot harder to find a use for an ulta-specific skill than it is for one that covers a broader area of activities. Why should I pay just as much to be a cook, something I'll rarely be able to use even with a generous DM, as I pay to get Perception, which is, in my experience, the most frequently rolled and valuable skill in the game? It's not about roleplaying vs. combat, it's about some skills having many more uses than others.
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The issue is that most of the skills have very broad applications, while the crafts, knowledges and professions are *extremely* specific. It's alot harder to find a use for an ulta-specific skill than it is for one that covers a broader area of activities.<snip>
It's not about roleplaying vs. combat, it's about some skills having many more uses than others.
I don't think this is so much a Pathfinder issue as it is the focus and scope of the adventure/module/campaign/story you are playing. Sure it might be a bit harder to work in the use of some of those lesser-used skills, but it certainly can be done.
Profession Skills, to me, show your character's interests. For instance, I have a Paladin character who has points in Profession: Architect and Profession: Engineer. Now, those are useful in his line of work in that he knows how to construct competent defensive positions and how to compromise those of others; it also means he can appreciate the appearance of buildings and help build bridges, irrigate fields, repair houses, help with improvements to his home temple, etc.
Practical uses for herbalism: While on the road, when looking for campgrounds, a herbalist can identify that patch of devil's snare dangerously close to where you wanted to set up tents. Or that giant patch of poison ivy. Or carnivorous kudzu. And while the rest of the party is starting the fire and cleaning the rabbit you shot for dinner, who can go out and dig up some tubers to add to the stew? Or find some tarragon to add flavor. Or gather that rare goldleaf to sell back at town, or trade to a witch when the fighter gets cursed. And so on.
If you can't figure out what to do with Profession skills, you're not very imaginative.
If you can't figure out what to do with Profession skills, you're not very imaginative.
There are tons of things to imagine with the Profession skill! I like to think of myself as a good roleplayer and I'm definitively not a good optimizer (not that one excludes the other btw). I know I'm gonna get linched for what I'm gonna say, but there is was I think:
The system behind any RPG (in this case, the d20 system and its siblings) is a mechanical simulation of which things can be achieved and how. Skill points represent part of the character's development resources. They are part of that mechanical system that aims to bring cohesion and rationalization in what a character can do and to what degree of success etc.
Each skill has a relatively precise mechanics behind its use and a definite (if sometimes rare) in-game use; with the exception of the Profession skill. In the defense of the designers, the Profession skill DOES have a mechanic use of its own, it can bring you some money in proportion to the number of ranks that you have invested in the skill. However, that doesn't bring much to what the game is focused on: adventurers.
IMO, things that are part of the 'fluff' of a character, the finishing touches or the attention to details as Sara Marie puts it, shouldn't have its toll in character development resources UNLESS it also brings a mechanical advantage to the character. What is bought with 'mechanical' resources should bring a 'mechanical' turnout. If I was Sara Marie's DM, I wouldn't care about how many ranks her character has in Profession (grave-digging); she has clearly stated that she was a grave-digger (among other things that are not represented in ranks of Profession Skill I'm sure). Fleshing out a character IS important and skill can help you making a cohesive character, but it shouldn't be the skills' role to do so.
In a purely design perspective, I'd like to see the Profession skill put to a more concrete use, or have a more helpful guide for the DM to include in his /her games. I disagree with this skill, or any skills for that matter, to simply fill the role of fleshing out a character, which IMO, shouldn't cost any 'development points' unless it has a definite in-game use.
'findel
*fastening my fire-proof cloak*
If he has ranks in Profession: Herbalist... is it really a lie then? ;P
:) I guess the 'bluff' would be that he is an Apothecary with benign not EEEEEEVIL designs.
Nice avatar by the way, shows incredible good taste.
Birds of Feather... :)
EDIT: Same to you stormraven. I don't know if this would be off topic or homebrew, but:
Is there a repeatable mechanic that could be built in here beyond the DM fiat? Maybe the final DC should determine the DC for adding bonusses, and failing by a low amount could represent confusion between the synergy skill and the final skill used. Also, should each additional skill beyond the first used to lower the final DC be at a diminished rate (similar to avoiding breaking the DC altogether)?
I use a modification of the 'Aid' mechanic and the skill mechanic for success or blowing your roll - like the one for Jumping. But I never penalize for a bad roll because this is a skill that may augment their ability to pull off a related skill - meaning, to me, that it should only help, not hurt. So it works like this. Let's say the Rogue has:
Prof:Herbalist +3
Bluff: +7
He is attempting to pass himself off as an Apothecary to scout a place he intends to rob. A curious guard decides to investigate him. To get a bump to Bluff, the player rolls their Herb skill. If they hit DC:9 or less - they fail to contribute to their bluff - so they roll a standard Bluff (+7) roll to fool the snooping guard.
If they hit DC:10 they get the +2 Aid bonus -- so Bluff goes to +9. For every 5 points over DC:10 - they get an additional +1 - so if they get a 15 - +3 (+2 for Aid and +1 getting '5 over'), they score a 20 - +4, etc. I'm sure some folks will say that is too generous or too little... I find it is enough that my players put some thought into what kinds of Crafts and Professions they want to have. And in a Rogue-based campaign - they really go to town on all sorts of skills both combat and non-combat.
I am VERY surprised this thread isn't getting absolutely firebombed by the "usual suspects". I'd imagine it's the banal thread title. Instead I'm just gonna sit back and bask in the joy of it all.
And to actually add to the discussion: I have a Paladin in my party of gamers who's crafting his own mithril plate. He's maxing the skill and crafting it without the aid of magic... every day. I've given him the option of picking up materials as he goes and crafting a bit at a time. He's working on the leather bits and chain links at the moment. He'll do the plates and engraving last.
Needless to say, this player's armor is never going to suffer from a natural 1 roll on a saving throw due to this diligence in the name of roleplaying.
Each skill has a relatively precise mechanics behind its use and a definite (if sometimes rare) in-game use; with the exception of the Profession skill. In the defense of the designers, the Profession skill DOES have a mechanic use of its own, it can bring you some money in proportion to the number of ranks that you have invested in the skill. However, that doesn't bring much to what the game is focused on: adventurers.
True, any more than we spend pages on rules describing how to harvest crops or help a cow give birth.
Also, most people (adventurers or otherwise) aren't going to need more than a few ranks in a Craft or Profession skill because (1) the difference between an untrained check and a check with 1 rank and the +3 class skill bonus is pretty significant, whereas the difference between 1 rank and 2 ranks is much less significant, (2) most NPCs are low-level and thus their max ranks is low, and (3) the DC for most common items in the game--the sort of items most people would make with the Craft skill--are pretty low. If all you're making are horseshoes, plows, and nails, 1 rank in Craft (blacksmith) and the +3 class skill bonus are sufficient to let you Take 10 and meet your check every time. You're set. A full-time crafter may have Skill Focus as well for another +3. If you manage to live long enough to get to level 4, if you've put 1 rank in per level you're at +10, which means you can do stuff at double speed and still succeed when you Take 10; you're set and speedy.
The game could have Profession (rogue), Profession (mage), and even Profession (priest), which would fold in multiple skills, but that would be lame because characters of a particular class would be very cookie-cutter (you couldn't have a locksmith-but-not-pickpocket rogue, frex). So the adventurer-friendly skills are broken out to allow better specialization. We could do the same for skills like herbalism (which is about recognizing, cataloguing, picking, and the uses of herbs), but 99% of adventurers out there wouldn't care about most aspects of it. And we'd have to devote more space to it. Instead, we can save space by hand-waving a lot of the details and let it be (for the most part) a background skill that someone only drops a rank or two in--because realistically most people wouldn't need more than 1 or 2 ranks in it.
IMO, things that are part of the 'fluff' of a character, the finishing touches or the attention to details as Sara Marie puts it, shouldn't have its toll in character development resources UNLESS it also brings a mechanical advantage to the character. What is bought with 'mechanical' resources should bring a 'mechanical' turnout.
Nobody is good at everything, you have to spend time or money or whatever to learn or train how to be competent at something. The guy that evenly spent his resources between Perception and Bluff isn't going to be as good as the guy who spent them all on Perception. Likewise, the guy who's good at smithing isn't going to be optimized for Diplomacy, or Cooking, or Stealth, or whatever.
See, if you take away the mechanical cost of craft and profession skills, there's no reason for people to not minmax their characters. There's also no reason why EVERY character isn't good at EVERYTHING, because there's no cost to the non-combat things.
That's actually one of the issues I have with 4e--if it doesn't affect combat, it doesn't matter. If you want your character be a blacksmith, he's a blacksmith. If you want him to be the best blacksmith in the world, he is. If you want him to be a master chef, he is. If you want him to be a master chef AND a master blacksmith, he is. If you want your character to be a master blacksmith, painter, and chef, he is. And he's just as good at combat as the character with the same class/race/stats who isn't a master blacksmith/painter/chef. In other words, the master x3 character got something for free compared to the non-master character--and if a blacksmithing, painting, or cooking-related thing comes up in the game, he's at an advantage compared to the other character simply because he's declared his character to be good at those things. And the GM has no way to evaluate how good that "mastery" is, or what sort of effect this should have on a game situation (such as, "would he really know that this elf's plate armor is actually made by drow and crafted to look like surface-elf armor?"). And there's nothing to stop the second character from saying, "hey, I'm a master blacksmith cook painter, too!"
I'm good at video games, and painting minis, and dealing with animals, and singing--because I've spent a lot of time on those things. I'm not good at martial arts, or playing an instrument, or tracking, or telling if someone is lying-- because I haven't really devoted any time to doing those things. It's realistic that a person--or an RPG character--is good at only some things and not all things. And as a GM, I'm going to reward the guy who comes to the table with game elements--whether skills, feats, or ability scores--that help build a story in the campaign.
TLDR: A profession DOES mean something and IMO should require some investment in character resources, otherwise you're saying it's as meaningless to the character and story as his eye color or hair color (which have no mechanical elements at all).
(snip) See, if you take away the mechanical cost of craft and profession skills, there's no reason for people to not minmax their characters. There's also no reason why EVERY character isn't good at EVERYTHING, because there's no cost to the non-combat things. (snip)
In all due respect, I think you are generalizing things a bit too much by saying that. Those who, like me, argue that the goal of skills shouldn't be to flesh-out a character don't necessarily care about combat. If that's your opinion of me, you've got it wrong.
Having an in-game effect does not mean a battle-field effect. That may be what Pathfinder specialize or focus on, but as you said numerous times yourself, combat is only one part of what the game is.
Again, the focus of the game is on adventurers. Crop harvesting and midwifery may not be the most priority in terms of professions to describe, but an in-game effect about profession sailor, herbalism, gambler, merchant, soldier might be nice. Similarly, not every craft is listed, but the few that are relevant to the game are listed and have their use. Some, like Alchemy, have a niche of their own. I could see Herbalist working in similar ways.
At any case, the game is already published. We are playing it as it is and it is great. But we all have our nick-picking and pet-peeves, and the profession skill is one of mine.
Aren't you saying that you don't trust players not to max out their advantages when they don't have to pay for them but are trusting them if they do have to pay? What sort of person who only cares about being the best is going to care about roleplaying-only skills if they're going to detract from the super-character's ability to dominate in the central arena of combat?
It's not whether or not *I* trust someone to do something. I have the luxury of gaming with some very good people who aren't just concerned about damage.
Let me put it this way: if minmaxers aren't likely to put points into Profession (herbalism) because it's not a combat-enhancing skill, what are the odds they'll think about herbalism at all if the game doesn't even list it as an option?
If that's your opinion of me, you've got it wrong.
Let me be clear: that's *not* my opinion of you, because I don't know you. However, you are looking at this from the perspective of a gamer who wants to change how skills are implemented in the game. I'm looking at it from the perspective of a designer who has to cram more information into an already-dense set of rules (we're really at the limit of how much text we can put in the Core Rulebook).
Again, the focus of the game is on adventurers. Crop harvesting and midwifery may not be the most priority in terms of professions to describe, but an in-game effect about profession sailor, herbalism, gambler, merchant, soldier might be nice.
Well, one, those skills do have an in-game effect. Three, in fact:
1.2.
3.
While there's a lot of hand-waving involved in the 2nd and 3rd game effect, it does open the door for the GM to do a lot with it.
And, as I said before, we don't exactly have any more room to cram in even 2 lines about example in-game uses for an adventurer with Profession (sailor).
I blame Jason, he types big. :)
IMO, you don't really need to purchase skill ranks to be a cook or a soldier for example. Just say you are and roleplay that. In the 3.5 PHB, they have a sidebar mentioning such (a sidebar that many appear to miss if you ever seen the edition war threads). I've tried finding some mention of this in Pathfinder, but it appears to be omitted. Anywho, here's the sidebar in the 3.5 PHB.
When you create your character, you will probably only be able to purchase ranks in a handful of skills. It may not seem as though you have as many skills as real people do but the skills on your character sheet don’t actually define everything your character can do.
Your character may have solid familiarity with many skills, without having the actual training that grants skill ranks. Knowing how to strum a few chords on a lute or clamber over a low fence doesn’t really mean you have ranks in Perform or Climb. Ranks in those skills represent training beyond everyday use—the ability to impress an audience with a wide repertoire of songs on the lute, or to successfully scale a 100-foot-high cliff face.
So how do normal people get through life without ranks in a lot of skills? For starters, remember that not every use a skill requires a skill check. Performing routine tasks in normal situations is generally so easy that no check is required. And when a check might be called for, the DC of most mundane tasks rarely exceeds 10, let alone 15. In day-to-day life, when you don’t have enemies breathing down your neck and your life depending on success, you can take your time and do things right making it easy, even without any ranks in the requisite skill, to succeed (see Checks without Rolls, page 65).
You’re always welcome to assume that your character is familiar with even good at, as far as everyday tasks go many skills beyond those for which you actually gain ranks. The skills you buy ranks in, however, are those with which you have truly heroic potential.
-emphasis added
my two copper
I find the labeling DMs (and designers) as "Mistrustful of the Players" in this and other already infamous threads going on right now to be extremely distasteful. A huge part of being a DM (and a designer) is about setting limits. Without limits, we're just eight-year-olds playing cops and robbers. Not to denigrate totally free-form roleplaying, but that's not what this game is. I feel rather safe in going out on a limb and saying that's not what most people want it to be either. Anyone who wants limitless RP should probably be a writer, not a role-player.
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It's up to the players to come up with imaginative ways of using their skills, and up to the GM to give the players meaningful opportunities to use said skills. Don't allow yourself to fall further into a simulationist trap - not everything needs a mechanical subsystem. Or, talk to a Storyteller system player. Or even better, play WoD/Exalted once. See how skills work there.
In my own homebrew campaigns, I give every character 2 extra skill points that can only be assigned to "background" skills (knowledges, crafts, professions, performances). I also have house rule/homebrew systems to take advantage of them, like this one.That's exactly what I do as well. Works perfectly.
I also like to have relatively long amounts of time pass between adventures, and have such skills be important then. So characters without "flavor" skills tend to be poor.
Might even be a good idea to tie starting wealth to such skills, although I don't do that as I instead have White Wolf style background pools for things like wealth, contacts, etc.
And depending on the game, Scribe or Cook could be rolled more frequently than perception or stealth. I've knowledge(Batorian Pastry) and Knowledge(chocolate) rolls made to game changing effect. And the DCs are so low for most of the tasks, that 1-2 points is all you really need.Oh come on, how often do you see players put more than a point into such Flavor Skills, when they could instead put them into skills like Perception? This holds especially true for Fighters, who have so few skills.
I'll waste several points of Flavor skills, e.g. for Rise of the Runelords I took Profession (soldier) and Profession (farmer), even though I expect zero use out of them. My experience as a GM is that players /rarely/ even take that much.
As a result characters almost never have the sort of skills that ordinarily would be quite practical to them in their ordinary life between adventures -- skills that they really should have. White Wolf style separate pools of points for background things averts such gaminess nicely.
Yes, but Fighters can take the Alternate Class Ability from the Campaign Guide to get 4 skills/ level, which is pretty nice, expecially in a more RP heavy campaign. (In one of the campaigns I GM, the party fighter took this and its been great fun. He'll make up the one measly feat later).
As for Herbalism, as a GM, I have certain herbs and such in the game that are non-magical (or at least grow naturally) that can be identified and prepared to make minor, potion like salves and such with a Herbalism or Alchemy check. (The DC for Herbalism is normally lower). I also modify the effect of the herbal mixture by the success of the roll.
So, there are salves for curing wounds ( 1-3 points normally), speeding up ability damage recovery (from 1/ day to 2/ day), increased saves for a short time (FORT or WILL +1, but normally limited), Poison and Disease resistance/cures, etc. Especially nice if the party is clericless.
Also, a person with Herbalism can make a test vs DC 10 to add +2 to any cooking roll or Survival roll to find edible food.
But mostly, when a player wants to use a skill like this, we just wing it.
But all of the non-comat skills can be fun, especially out of combat. One of the reasons that Burnt Offerings is taking my players a long time (we're on the 11th week and they just got to Thistletop) is that they spend a lot of time roleplaying. One character used his Dance skill while romancing (not seducing) a girl he was attracted to. They used survival to dress out the boar from the Foxglove Hunt. (They encountered a Dire Boar, because it was a larger party, but you get the idea.) And the Hedge Witch uses her Herbal mixtures as packup healing potions. (They smell like garlic, butter, and other spices, which has led to the party referring to them as her Scampi Salves..."Great, she's healed him, now we have PAladin Scampi...")
And so on.
I think that it is the responsibility of both the player and GM to make use of skills. If a player has Herbalism and never tries to use it, then that's his fault. If the GM never puts obvious opportunities to use it, that's the GMs fault.
(snip)However, you are looking at this from the perspective of a gamer who wants to change how skills are implemented in the game. I'm looking at it from the perspective of a designer who has to cram more information into an already-dense set of rules (we're really at the limit of how much text we can put in the Core Rulebook).(snip)
Of course, our perspectives are bound to be different, and I fully realize the load of the tasks that sits on the shoulders of designers, developers and editors (and of all their conflicts of interests).
However, I do not *want* to change the rules, but I do think it is noteworthy to point that I feel, as a customer of your products, that this aspect of the game is not satisfactory. Most feedback from this tread seem to indicate that the Profession skill as written is not an issue for most people, so I'm not gonna press the matter, but I hope you don't see my insistence as an insult to your work (meaning the work of the whole team). On the contrary, I wouldn't spend my time here if I didn't think high of you and of the game.
Point 2. (as indicated above) states that "You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the profession's daily tasks, how to supervise helpers, and how to handle common problems.
(emphasis mine)
This sometimes gets confusing in relation to other skills. For example, performing a sailor's daily tasks may involve climbing in ropes and masts, balancing on narrow posts and staying steady on a rocking deck. Is a good sailor one who has a lot of ranks in the 'acrobatics' and 'climb' skills or is the sailor able to perform all of these with its profession ranks while on a boat? Or perhaps the profession skill would let him know that he needs to climb and balance? As with many other things, DM fiat thumps it all and ultimately, I'm left to do whatever I want with the game as a DM. Only, I wish the core rules (or whatever rule extension or addendum) came with more guidelines as to how use this skill as intended.
'findel
My position is that one suffers mechanically from make a role-playing-based purchase, whereas I'd like to reward that flavorful choice with something equally useful. I don't consider a handwaved application of a skill that might see occasional use to be "equally useful".
But they don't suffer mechanically for the purchase of "role-playing" improvements. In fact, they open the door to more mechanized, if somewhat vaguely defined, options. What they "suffer" are opportunity costs associated with making choices in character development. It is then up to themselves and the DM to make those choices pay off.
I really don't like the idea of separating role-playing build options and combat build options. You're building a whole character. Think of them as a whole character not as a collection of ill-divided "silos".
*Taking it back to the original poster's question*
I think profession(herbalism) takes a few elements from craft(alchemy) and the heal skill. The goal is to both know the medicinal properties of herbs and how to find them (or even grow them). Thus, going hand in hand with the above mentioned skills, it seems that a proficiency with herbalism would assume a proficiency with healing and alchemy.
Since PF has done away with the blanket synergy system in skills, assigning a mechanical effect to profession(herbalism) would require a bit of manipulation of the game rules. I think one solution would be to allow profession(herbalism) to substitute for craft(alchemy) and heal checks at a certain penalty (say, -2 to -5). The penalty must be substantial so that taking herbalism wouldn't automatically be better than taking the craft or heal skill. So it would be like getting two skills for one at a lower overall score.
As for craft(jewelry), that's easy. The crafting DCs for jewelry-like wondrous items, rings, rods, staves, and wands can be made using craft (jewelry). If you don't have access to spellcraft as a class skill and you're using the Master Craftsman feat, this skill can be a very sensible choice.
While Pathfinder did remove synergies from the game they didn't remove circumstance bonuses.
If you absolutely need to have a mechanical effect to the profession skill I would suggest significant use of circumstance bonuses in conjunction with other skill checks.
A cleric with profession:herbalist might receive a +2 circumstance bonus to their heal check because they've collected herbs that can be used in the poultice bandages.
A dwarf fighter with craft:weaponsmithing might get a +2 circumstance bonus on appraise checks when buying weapons, or a circumstance bonus on diplomacy to haggle the price of goods down, i.e. "You expect me to pay 20 GP for this sword, when it clearly of inferior construction? I will pay no more than 10 GP for it."
A wizard with profession: scribe might be able to write down a message that the Bard dictates so that the Bard can practice diplomacy via messenger, i.e. "Your Grace, I write to you today to urge you to send troops to defend the village of Oakhurst, without your assistance the good people of this village will surely die under the blades of the Orc Warlord Karzug, etc." The check would be the Bard's diplomacy check but it could recieve a +2 circumstance bonus because it's written on high quality vellum with expensive inks in exquisite calligraphy.
I'm not saying that bonus background skill points are bad, in fact I use them regularly (although recently I've switched to a phantom level of expert at level 0 to represent apprenticeships, etc) because more skill use = good IMHO but profession and craft can be useful in various ways with an imaginative DM.
I hate to turn this around but maybe the profession should be the "main" skills and the others more specific.
For example in the hiearchy of skills
The most useful are the broad skills professions
Then secondary is the specific skills
Then the "untrained" use which is basically an ability score check....So a profession "sage" might have a better chance of answering questions than other individual knowledges....
Or get a +2 circumstance bonus to knowledge checks for accumulated knowledge.
Instead of debating what a Profession skill can do, let's just see what the rules say it can do.
You can earn half your Profession check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work. You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the profession's daily tasks, how to supervise helpers, and how to handle common problems. You can also answer questions about your Profession. Basic questions are DC 10, while more complex questions are DC 15 or higher.
As we can see here, you can answer questions about your profession. Right off the bat, that makes it about as useful as Knowledge (except that it won't apply to monsters). To prove my point, here's what the PSRD says about the Knowledge skill:
You are educated in one field of study and are capable of answering both simple and complex questions.
Yep, wording is the same! So by RAW, as we can see, a Profession (miner) check can answer questions like "is this shaft in danger of collapse?", or "could there be dangerous gasses in an underground structure of this depth?".
Similarly, a Profession (innkeper) check can answer a question like "what days do the local distributors deliver alcohols to the inns and bars around here?", or "where would the service exit be in an inn of this size?". Or even "what kind of reputation does this particular chain of taverns have?".
Even Profession (soldier) can know (again, by RAW, I'd like to point out) whatever a professional soldier would know. Convenient, if the party ever encounters, ah, professional soldiers in their adventures. You can imagine how being able to answer questions like "what strategy would a professional mercenary company employ in this situation?" might be useful in such a case.
Now then... humor me a moment, and let's hop over to the Craft entry.
To make an item using Craft (alchemy), you must have alchemical equipment. If you are working in a city, you can buy what you need as part of the raw materials cost to make the item, but alchemical equipment is difficult or impossible to come by in some places.
Difficult or impossible to come by in some places!? Oh noes! How will I ever know where or how to look for components if I'm not in the city? If only someone had ranks in Profession (herbalist), they could answer this question!
tl;dr - The answers are in the books. The profession skills are about as useful as the Knowledge skills are, in addition to helping a character make a little cash during downtime. There's about as much reason to take them as there is to take most other skills.
Why does everyone keep assuming that players and DMs are capable of this?
Frankly, we don't know whether or not the DM and players are capable of pulling this off. Nor do we know whether or not they can handle combat mechanics successfully, role play, keep a game running smoothly, fill out a character sheet, read a d4, or even fart and chew gum at the same time. That won't stop us from giving you the solutions we've successfully used when confronted with a PC with ranks invested in non-adventuring skills with the hopes that someone reading the thread will find them useful.
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3rd Edition D&D (and for the purposes of this post, I'll include Pathfinder in that design chain) has complex combat mechanics as one of its strengths. (I've watched D&D fans struggle with this when they move to other systems, like, say, West End Games' d6. They're used to setting up sneak attacks and flanking, and clearing paths for bull-rushing opponents, and suddenly they're playing a game system where combat consists of little more than abstract dice-rolling.)So, if you construct a character who's supposed to be good at, say, detective work, and I create that character's lunk-headed bruiser of an assistant, how much better in combat should my character be, than yours?
The 4th Edition D&D designers decided that the answer should be "not much at all," because every character ought to be able to contribute to combat at all levels, even those who are also detectives. (That's also the answer for AD&D games, since the only way to make "non-optima;" choices in AD&D is to keep magic items that provide more flavor than combat effectiveness.)
The folks who wrote, say, 7th Sea over at AEG decided that the answer ought to be "somewhat". All your character's attributes are useful in combat, but a skilled combattant will be able to roll more unkept dice, and so will be more consistent in his fighting abilities than a colleague with similar attributes but heavy investments in non-combat skill suites.
That's also the answer for 3rd Edition D&D.
And there are some games, like HERO or Shadowrun where the answer is "substantial." Characters need to either focus on optimizing combat statistics, or on avoiding combat entirely.
I found this post to be a really insightful look at how non-combat attributes function in game design. Whether designers deliberately think of the game in this way or not, it's a useful way of looking at how game balance is achieved in various systems.
It sounds like some of the issues some people are having with the PF skills system has to do with a difference of opinion of where they want to be on the above spectrum.
Your post also gave me a new appreciation for 2e's non-weapon proficiency system.
Anyway, cool though-provoking post.
or even fart and chew gum at the same time.I know a guy who can fart and text at the same time... does that count? Both at the game table at the same time!
Still, he often has to ask what is happening in the game when he's done.
And they say the Renaissance Man is dead... :)
While Pathfinder did remove synergies from the game they didn't remove circumstance bonuses.
If you absolutely need to have a mechanical effect to the profession skill I would suggest significant use of circumstance bonuses in conjunction with other skill checks.
A cleric with profession:herbalist might receive a +2 circumstance bonus to their heal check because they've collected herbs that can be used in the poultice bandages.
A dwarf fighter with craft:weaponsmithing might get a +2 circumstance bonus on appraise checks when buying weapons, or a circumstance bonus on diplomacy to haggle the price of goods down, i.e. "You expect me to pay 20 GP for this sword, when it clearly of inferior construction? I will pay no more than 10 GP for it."
A wizard with profession: scribe might be able to write down a message that the Bard dictates so that the Bard can practice diplomacy via messenger, i.e. "Your Grace, I write to you today to urge you to send troops to defend the village of Oakhurst, without your assistance the good people of this village will surely die under the blades of the Orc Warlord Karzug, etc." The check would be the Bard's diplomacy check but it could recieve a +2 circumstance bonus because it's written on high quality vellum with expensive inks in exquisite calligraphy.
I'm not saying that bonus background skill points are bad, in fact I use them regularly (although recently I've switched to a phantom level of expert at level 0 to represent apprenticeships, etc) because more skill use = good IMHO but profession and craft can be useful in various ways with an imaginative DM.
I like this explanation.
+1
We've been looking at this skill and don't really see any in-game use for it.It lets you get high on your own supply.
You win 1 internet.
If you want an alternative to the Profession Skill, how about something like D20 Modern's Occupations?
You would gain 1-3 bonus class skills, maybe a half of a feat or a Trait, circumstance bonus to certain skills and a wealth bonus (an alternate amount gained for D&D).
The list of skills shows what is required to excel in this profession, and we could bring back the Synergy bonus as a form of a skill challenge, with each successful use of a related skill, the circumstance bonus increases.
I entirely disagree with this sentament. I find that craft, profession, and knowledge skills are some of the most useful skills in the game. They allow players to try new things and come up with wierd ideas. The problem people seem to have with them is that they are vague about what they do. The answer is, whatever you want them to do.
Craft (engineer) can solve almost any problem in a creative way. ^^
Profession skills are a combination of minor knowledge skills and practical skills.
A “Sailor” knows all the proper knots for each part of the ship; what to do when something breaks (or is threatening to give way); the common sailor ‘jargon’; what to do to keep the rats from eating all the food; preventing scurvy…and so on. Likewise a ‘Solider’ knows everything that goes with it; like marching in formation (tripping while marching in front of the Emperor may cost you more than a simple demotion).
The skills are there to show why you might know something that isn’t really common knowledge to those outside its occupation. Why a character knows what kind of ship is sail-worthy or what plant makes the best damn tea this side of Casmaron (which may net you an audience with the Emperor, no strings attached).
Whether you use them or not is up to the DM and the players. I for one don’t like the 4E, I’m a superman in everything in the universe (that isn’t combat related).