RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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I saw a post on here a little bit ago that was talking about the relative 'weakness' of the Gather Information skill. Sure, it seems to me that this particular skill is not used vary often and, when it is used, it is simply used to 'gloss over' a few hours of bar-hopping and peasant-questioning. Gather Information is one of the skills that very seldom sees use in my games and I was just thinking about the other skills as well. The skills that almost never see use in my games are:
Gather Information
Forgery
Perform (unless someone is a bard)
Profession
Disguise
Gather Info has been discussed already. Forgery is one of those skills where, if you need it, you can probably hire some NPC to do it for you or you can emulate it with magic. Perform is largely useless for people who aren't bards except for the possibility of earning a few extra silver pieces at a tavern when you're staying in town for an extended period of time. Profession has the same problem as Perform (though it did come in handy when I had someone roll Profession (sailor) to know which ropes to cut in order to collapse a heavy canvas sail down on someone without bringing the whole rigging down on the party). Disguise is one of those skills where simple level 1 and 2 spells are much more effective and efficient than actually using the skill and very seldom does the rogue need to operate so independently of the party that he can't bother the wizard for a simple enchantment of this nature.
My question is this: What skills seem to get ignored in other people's games? Do you have any alternate uses for otherwise 'weak' skills that makes them a bit more appealing to the average player? Do you go out of your way to make these skills more prevalent in your campaigns or do they largely fall by the wayside like they do in my games? I'm curious to know what other people have done with this issue.
The way I figure, if a player comes up with a creative use for a 'useless' skill that's great! But on the whole, some skills are just not meant for the adventuring life.
I had a fighter character once that I put max possible ranks in Perform (singing) just because his background didn't fit the typical fighter skills. There was a bard in the party that rolled better perform checks, but I got rp xp for going to the trouble of actually writing a song for my character to sing!
Other 'useless' skills in games that I've played in:
Appraise
Decipher Script
Knowledge (local, nobility, a&a, geography, history)
Use Rope
Appraise. It's a pain in the butt to use, and is a complete waste of time unless you undervalue the item on a failed check (since when they try to sell the 100 gp gem you've told them is worth 110 gp for the price you've told them to expect, they find out no one is willing to pay more than 100 gp for it--a sure sign that they've overestimated its value).
Decipher Script. A scroll of comprehend languages makes it virtually pointless.
Forgery. Never seen anyone bother learning it. Never seen anyone bother using it.
Intimidate. The characters most likely to want to use it have lousy Charisma. The characters with Charisma who would want to use it are usually better off using Diplomacy and avoiding the negative backlash. To make Intimidate viable, you have to tie it to Strength. That sucks, because it really should be Charisma, but that's how it is.
Knowledge (geography). If there's a Knowledge skill that's a waste, it's this one.
Sleight of Hand. Surprisingly underutilized in my experience. I'm not sure why.
Swim and Use Rope. These should both get more play than they do. They aren't quite useless, but rarely does anyone think they're worth spending any skill points to improve.
Director of Narrative
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Forgery
Perform (unless someone is a bard)
Profession
Disguise
It saddens me that your players are not terribly roguish.
Forgery (importance will follow)
Perform (acting) Really helps with disguise and sometime bluff.
Profession (Scribe) or (printer) This is where forgery comes in.
Disguise Usefull with vocalations and posture more so than visual appearance.
-my two
(Oh yeah, someone else mentioned Decipher Script - think codes. Comp Lang doesn't deal with codes and puzzles that decipher script can help at.)
I'm a skill junkie - what can I say. Probably the only player ever to play the Exemplar PrC.
Profession: Cook with Craft: Alchemy; It was a great way to combine these two and poison food without it being poisoned traditionally. If you poison food normally a detect poison spell will reveal it, then Purify food and drink or neutralize posion and the situation is solved. However, add some chemicals that are fatal when ingested into the food you cooked, posions without poison.
I don't get this. Aren't "chemicals that are fatal when ingested"... well, poison? And thus detectable by detect poison?
Forgery - very cool idea poorly executed. And it's opposed by one of the most common skills in the game, spot.
Forgery is opposed by forgery.
Which means that if you do happen to take it, you could probably be fooling people left and right with DIY search warrants, land deeds, special dispensations from the king...
Sure, some people might not trust you or listen to you even if the believe you have proper documents, but if you do take fogery, it seems like an easy way to get yourself some little advantage in practically any civilized social interaction, if you can prepare ahead of time.
Appraise. It's a pain in the butt to use, and is a complete waste of time unless you undervalue the item on a failed check (since when they try to sell the 100 gp gem you've told them is worth 110 gp for the price you've told them to expect, they find out no one is willing to pay more than 100 gp for it--a sure sign that they've overestimated its value).
Decipher Script. A scroll of comprehend languages makes it virtually pointless.
Forgery. Never seen anyone bother learning it. Never seen anyone bother using it.
Intimidate. The characters most likely to want to use it have lousy Charisma. The characters with Charisma who would want to use it are usually better off using Diplomacy and avoiding the negative backlash. To make Intimidate viable, you have to tie it to Strength. That sucks, because it really should be Charisma, but that's how it is.
Knowledge (geography). If there's a Knowledge skill that's a waste, it's this one.
Sleight of Hand. Surprisingly underutilized in my experience. I'm not sure why.
Swim and Use Rope. These should both get more play than they do. They aren't quite useless, but rarely does anyone think they're worth spending any skill points to improve.
The cleric I'm playing with used his Knowledge (Accounting) and Forgery skills to cook some books for our "fake" wine merchant gig, it was a cover for us on a King's Errand, one we didn't use well enough I might add, but we did make some profit off of the endeavour.
Knowledge Nobility is one we use in our campaign, but we're nobles.
Knowledge Geography is useful for not getting lost.
Swim, I'll be damned if my ranks in that didn't pay off...I jumped in a river thinking our prisoner got kerplunked in there in his manacles AND unconscious (turns out he was polymorphed into a fish so no worries there except him getting away, luckily I managed to catch him nonetheless), naturally I didn't bother removing my chainmail, between luck, 17 strength, and about 5 ranks in swim...I didn't drown, but boy did I go down a few times. I earned a +1 circumstance (though I think it should be a competence bonus, but who's going to argue?) for swimming in armor. Now if I just had that elven chain I have my elven heart set on...then the checks wouldn't have been quite as bad, but still, not a fun thing to do. We were ALL using our swim checks, I was just the first one to snap out of Hold Person. (yes, our prisoner was polymorphed while we were under the influence of Hold person)
Use rope was also a commonly used skill since we had to bind a couple prisoners (the first one broke his bounds on a natural 20, but much to his own personal disaster since he ran afoul of a pc town guard who decided it was better to just kill him and take his brigantine armor and sell it rather than deal with a confused and frantic guy with no money or food on him.)
The cleric also uses his rather formidable intimidation score to torture people.
Did I mention he was True Neutral (forced into that alignment after he started torturing prisoners)?
I saw a post on here a little bit ago that was talking about the relative 'weakness' of the Gather Information skill. Sure, it seems to me that this particular skill is not used vary often and, when it is used, it is simply used to 'gloss over' a few hours of bar-hopping and peasant-questioning. Gather Information is one of the skills that very seldom sees use in my games and I was just thinking about the other skills as well. The skills that almost never see use in my games are:
Gather Information
Forgery
Perform (unless someone is a bard)
Profession
DisguiseGather Info has been discussed already. Forgery is one of those skills where, if you need it, you can probably hire some NPC to do it for you or you can emulate it with magic. Perform is largely useless for people who aren't bards except for the possibility of earning a few extra silver pieces at a tavern when you're staying in town for an extended period of time. Profession has the same problem as Perform (though it did come in handy when I had someone roll Profession (sailor) to know which ropes to cut in order to collapse a heavy canvas sail down on someone without bringing the whole rigging down on the party). Disguise is one of those skills where simple level 1 and 2 spells are much more effective and efficient than actually using the skill and very seldom does the rogue need to operate so independently of the party that he can't bother the wizard for a simple enchantment of this nature.
My question is this: What skills seem to get ignored in other people's games? Do you have any alternate uses for otherwise 'weak' skills that makes them a bit more appealing to the average player? Do you go out of your way to make these skills more prevalent in your campaigns or do they largely fall by the wayside like they do in my games? I'm curious to know what other people have done with this issue.
I'm sure this has already been mentioned, but here's a good use for Gather Information, take the feat Urban Tracking from Unearthed Arcana (or take the Urban Ranger variant from Unearthed Arcana), it's a useful feat that allows you to find people in a Metropolis, though at a significantly high DC, the checks are Gather Info based, naturally.
I picked this feat, or rather the ranger variant and then Track to better be able to find people, which will come in handy when I enter the Elven Kingdom and go searching for our bar hopping ex-prisoner who got away by headbutting the most powerful mage in the world with a teleportation spell. luckily I'm an Elf, so blending in is covered.
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currently playing a Sivis Gnome Beguiler with the Least Mark of Scribing (effect: can cast Arcane Mark 2/day as a SLA)
has plenty of ranks in forgery, as well as a high int, and a forgery kit (races of stone? Complete Adv?...gives +2 to forg. checks, 10 uses)
so far, i have forged documents for us to bring a wagonload of foodstuffs into a starving city, selling it for something like 1000gp,
also made a "pass" for a trapped cleric, attempting to get out of said city, who did not have written authorization to use the various lifts/exits...how many city guards are gonna have forgery skill? and if they do, will they be able to beat my 15-20 average check?
lots of fun can be had with a skillful character, especially if you are of the "scout ahead, without magical backup" variety. or routinely are the target of dispel magic spells.
my shifter ranger Gara (we play a lot of Eberron, can you tell), had TONS of ranks in the physical skills. with other bonuses (shifter racial, reachrunner class bonuses, gear and 1 magic item: a ring of climbing +5), her climb checks were in the +25-30 range at 10th lvl.
thats enough to take 10 and rapidly scale a sheer brick wall, in the rain, without gear.
sure, you can do the same thing with a "spiderclimb" spell or potion, but this was ALL THE TIME.
combine that with ranks in balance, climb, tumble, spot, and listen, and she was the party's batman. climb up the nearest tree/building, perch up there, and keep watch. something bad comes around (or a target is trying to flee), and she had the ability to either track them while on the rooftops, or scale down (rapelling with her mwk. climbing kit) and pursue on the ground.
of course, when she HAD to climb fast, she just shifted, and got Climb 30' for the duration of the shift.
Swim falls into a similiar vein, where ANY armored warrior type i make almost ALWAYS gets at least a few ranks in it...at least enough to counteract the ACP of their chosen armor. nothing sucks quite like being tripped or bullrushed into a shallow river and drowning because you couldn't make a DC 10 swim check.
-the hamster
All the knowledge skills get heavy use in my campaign. Their great for learning about monsters (check the hypertext d20 SRD for rules that enhance this) and almost any campaign with lots of history, old documents, ancient runes etc. are likely to find the players pumping up these skills.
I have lots of hand outs in my game and these very often interact with varous knowledge skills. Anytime your dealing with politics your going to want a good Knowledge(Nobility) skill.
I think it all really depends on what kind of campaign your in.
I think the purpose of a lot of the skills is to create a character as opposed to a just a bunch of combat stats. They may not be particularly useful but that is exactly the point.
For example (anthoer lame real world analogy follows) - I work in sales - so I have ranks in Profession - Sales, but I also have ranks in gaming, scuba diving, and perform - any of which may work their way into the story of my life, I even find moments to use those skill sets in my career, though I could certainly get by without them. But its those "useless" skills that make me a unique character as opposed to a maxed out corperate flunky.
The same sort of logic follows for characters (PCs and NPCs).
That is assuming of course that the game involves role playing as opposed to roll playing.
The players in my campaigns get plenty of downtime. In between adventures craft and profession skills put coin in their pockets. If they take a 10 on a craft or profession skill during 2 months of downtime, I just rule they made enough to "live it up", pay taxes, general upkeep and return to the next adventure with basic things like a new exploer's outfit and trail rations w/o spending that horde they got in the last adventure.
If they really need to know how much coin they have for the downtime phase, the mechanic exists within the skill check rules to figure it out.
Other recent uses of some skills in the last 2 games I played:
knowledge: architectre and engineering - Will the fireball collapse the chamber with wooden beams?
forgery - created a fake banner of a legendary mercenary unit which then had a magic aura spell cast on it to make it appear as said magical banner of mercenary unit. The Baddie really wants that banner. Fake documents showing that the mercenary unit had a contract that did not exist - avoiding an international incident.
knowledge: geography - coupled with survival, found out where party was at on a map. Also, figured out if 2 doors lead to the same place by looking at an incomplete map. Recognized a tribe of humans due to regional dress.
knowledge: local - "Are those the orcs we have a peace treaty with?" ... "Crap, no. TO ARMS!"
intimidate - Freaked out a tanglefoot bagged ogre making him "shaken". It then attacked the cleric, missing by 1.
profession: driver - Follower NPC (from leadership feat) has a wagon and delivers supplies on a weekly basis to PC base camp near dungeon. Uses profession skill to make some side money and hire guards to go with him.
handle animal - Found a nest of dire rats. After killing the adults, found some "pinkys" or baby dire rats. Will train them. Also, just bought some dogs and chickens.
use rope - 100ft. deep chasm. 2 50ft. ropes. DC 15 to splice them together. DC 15 to tie a special knot that will loosen after we get down the chasm so no one else can use the rope and we still have it.
appraise - DC 15 to appraise a bowl full of a powdery substance. "That's Helvatian sugar! Where did these gnolls get Helvatian sugar?!" We then gave it to a cook NPC who hooked us up well. DC 12 to find out the quality of a cobalt blue bottle of brandy. If less that 10 gp - PCs drank it. If more than 10gp, we sell or trade. It was worth 600gp.
bluff - the above mentioned bottle of cobalt brandy was sold for 1000gp.
Intimidate. The characters most likely to want to use it have lousy Charisma. The characters with Charisma who would want to use it are usually better off using Diplomacy and avoiding the negative backlash. To make Intimidate viable, you have to tie it to Strength. That sucks, because it really should be Charisma, but that's how it is.
Tell that to the cleric in the campaign I run. With max levels of intimidate plus the synergy bonus from bluff he has something like a +12 at 5th level. That's awfully helpful when dealing with people.
Swim and Use Rope. These should both get more play than they do. They aren't quite useless, but rarely does anyone think they're worth spending any skill points to improve.
At least until they find themselves having to tie up a prisoner or swim in a raging sea. I had a player acquire manacles to solve the first issue, though.
What this thread (and a few of the others) really show is how different - different games are and the amount of spin DMs can give to their resective campaigns.
That in itself is pretty neat - so many people playing D&D, but so differently.