Maradin's page

I also side with Jason on this. In Chainmail, 1st/2nd ed. AD&D, there were no XP costs, either for creating magic items OR for the casting of spells. My primary character (who, thanks to the way of figuring multiclass characters from 1st/2ndE to 3xE, went from freaking high level to ungodly high level) is an item creator. I would NEVER have gone that route with him if it would have cost me XPs to make even the simplest item, let alone designing a NEW one. XPs are the core of developing one's abilities in the whole AD&D/D&D game system, and removal of them should be a mechanic for punishing a character. Is casting certain spells worthy of punishment? Is creating a standard magical item something that must be punished? In both cases, I think not.

Just as, when I was teaching school, my attitude towards parents was sometimes "why don't you try doing your job as a parent", my attitude here is much the same. To those who are afraid of player abuse, the solution is absurdly simple: if you're the Gamemaster, you have the FINAL word. If an item idea from a player would be too unbalancing for your game world, FORBID IT! In my experience, I had to monitor new spells being submitted to me far, FAR more often than I did a new item. You are the final authority--don't be afraid to use it! If the players persist, have some fun scenes as their mad experiments fail and explode on them (not dealing any real damage, of course, except for maybe some windows and/or doors). After a few such failures, the player will get the message and abandon the project, realizing that your "no" means precisely that--no.

I can see and understand some of the points being made here, but I cannot agree with any of them, especially as how Pathfinder's redefined the way the game works. I can certainly understand the points raised in regards to 3.0/3.5 D&D; after all, cross-class skills meant, for many people, a waste of skill points. Even a Rogue with a base of 8 skill points/level effectively only was spending 4 points if he focussed on the (admittedly few) cross-class skills (not to mention the additional handicap of capping out at half the number of ranks one can have in a class skill!)

However, we're now here to talk about Pathfinder. D&D is history; 4th edition is clearly set up to be a video game, not a tabletop RPG. This is Pathfinder. There is ZERO penalty for popping skill points into cross-class skills--all that happens is you don't get the bonus +3 that a class skill takes. Especially in the case of the Fighter, who gets feats EVERY level, it's a wonderful thing called Skill Focus. There's your +3 (and, best of all, +6 once you're 10th level). Want a fighter who's a noted diplomat? Pop your ranks into Diplomacy, with some in Sense Motive. Simple. Even though NEITHER skill is a class skill for a fighter, you can still have as many ranks in them as you have character levels. 10th level fighter, 10 ranks in Diplomacy, 10 ranks in Sense Motive--and that's simply using the class's per level skill point allocation. Throw in a couple of feats used for Skill Focus, and you've got a 10th level fighter with a +16 in each of those skills, not even taking into account the modifier from Charisma.

In effect, I see no reason to adopt such suggestions as more skill points/level for the Fighter, nor expanding the class skill selection. First of all, think about the other "scholarly" professions: the Cleric and the Wizard. Both of them also have 2 skill points/level, and of the two only the Wizard can make an inherent claim to offsetting that by popping the highest stat in Intelligence, and both of them have MORE class skills among which to spread them around (in the Cleric vs. Fighter instance, 13 class skills versus 10).

I don't mean to be offensive, but this seems to me to be so elementary that I'm frankly surprised at the amount of space devoted to this subject. Character design, people, character design. If you want a skill monkey, be sure to pop at least a 12 into Intelligence, create him as a Human with the +2 going into either Strength (for sword-slingers), Dex (for bow monkeys), or Int for more skill points, pop your ranks into whatever skills you want without regard to class/non-class skills, and then don't be afraid to use those non-Fighter bonus feat slots to pick up Skill Focii. I don't care WHAT class you're talking about running, if you want a character with a wide selection of skills with lots of skill points, a high Intelligence is mandatory. Be creative, folks, if you want to follow game mechanics.

I'll add my voice to a couple of other posts, as well--remember, this is ROLEplaying, not ROLLplaying. Any GM worth his or her salt will ignore what's on the character sheet in pure interaction scenes and allow NPCs to react accordingly instead of requiring a die roll. When I GM, I prefer to run such scenes in this fashion, calling only for a die roll if the players are going off in a harmful tangent and I need a way to pull their fat out of the fire (such as insulting the NPC who has the information they need to succeed on their quest). I've frequently seen the character with the worst Charisma (and therefore the least skill in Diplomacy) play the character with greater tact than the party's so-called diplomat. And this doesn't just apply to Diplomacy checks; on more than one occasion as a player, my GMs have awarded me an automatic success on an Intimidation check--simply because I was playing my character in such an intimidating fashion that they, as people, were getting a little scared.

I won't pretend to be one of the oldest players subscribed to this list. That would be presumptive, arrogant, and (I'm 100% positive) inaccurate. Let's just say that I started by playing a game called Chainmail back when the world was young. However, as such, I've learned that the wonderous joy of a good RPG isn't the limitations the rules place on one, but the freedom within those rules to go beyond the stereotypes and play a truly memorable character which goes beyond all expectations. I've played paladins who flirted outrageously with women and had to sing to use his powers (champion of a goddess of love and music), barbarians who were scholarly historians of military history, and monks who were thought to be bards (until a series of unarmed attacks and tumbling/leaping maneuvers displayed my true training). The rules are guidelines, not limitations; view them as such, and use your imagination while designing the character, and you might be surprised with the effect! My joy with Pathfinder is that there's even greater freedom. I'm playtesting a campaign setting in which Sorcerers are outlaws; now I'm going to create one who's going to pump skill ranks into Linguistics so that he can have those nice (forged) documents indicating that he's a member of the College of Wizards--even though Linguistics is a cross-class skill for Sorcerers.....