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I apologize for the posting faux pas. I previously had seen the tag from Jason, but after the 500+ posts in that extensive thread, i failed to remember it. With hindsight - I agree that it makes sense to leave that only to designers - I merely copied the title and pasted it without thinking. That being said; hopefully this will now procur comments on the content rather than my mistaken title
I have read A LOT of posts and various opinions of what the SKILLS system should look like. The one thread of skills has over 500 posts alone! It may be a bit late to have anything considered for Alpha 2.0 release, but I wanted to share my experience with playtesting of the skills based off of my own design. First, I have been playing D&D since 82 through all editions and been a full-time DM since 86 with many various campaign settings including homebrew worlds - and have used a myriad of different house rules that I've concocted to fix or tweak things that I felt could be improved – so I am no novice or stranger to working out efficient mechanics-based rules to apply to the game. While I am not so arrogant to think that my ideas are the BEST or RIGHT ideas, I do think they are worth being read and considered – and I was afraid this would just be lost in the mix if I posted on that 500+ post thread - hence my preference to try to start a new one and hopefully get Jason's attention.
The following is what I have been playtesting with my group for a while and I think it works very well with what I believe Paizo is trying to accomplish: (its based on a Trained or Untrained system - and not on skill points).
The way I see it, the various debates and opinions on here break the skills system down into three distinct issues: The number of initial Skills (A), the frequency of adding new skills (B), and the maximum amount the skill provides to a die roll (i.e. max ranks or whatever verbage we utilize) (C) .
A): First off from a DMs perspective, I 100% agree with Jason B. that the current 3.5 skills system is a nightmare to adjudicate when preparing encounters - its especially frustrating after realizing that all this time is being spent on a "one-shot" creature that will just be killed in 5 rounds anyway. But long-lasting NPCs/creatures that you want to keep around for a while are very tedious to work out the skills - especially at higher levels - and/or with a lot of varying classes involved. Similarly, aside from a few splitting of hairs of what became what, I agree that the skills needed to be face-lifted and have some be included in others: Stealth and Perception are two that I've already been using for a long time in my own campaigns. Those specifically just make perfect sense. However, because of so many skills being subsumed into others and thus reducing the number of skills available to choose from, I think it’s time to reduce the number of skills that certain classes get. (For instance: Hide and Move Silent are now one skill; Spot and Listen are now one, and Theft now includes two skills as does Acrobatics and Deception contain multiple skills – so there’s no longer a need for so many skills – especially if you’re adding more skills as the character advances.)
Here is what I’ve been doing and playtesting:
INITIAL SKILLS BY CLASS:
ROGUE 6
RANGER / BARD / BARBARIAN / DRUID / MONK 4
PALADIN / FIGHTER / WIZARD / CLERIC 2
(Plus INT modifier still applies).
At 1st level, a character can opt to choose a CROSS-CLASS skill to be trained in. Doing so costs “two” skills. Thus a Fighter can opt to take Stealth at 1st level, and that would be the equivalent of 2 class skills. (this makes the cross class skill a class skill and thus has 'FULL proficiency' - see below in section C). This allows for the Diplomatic Barbarian, or the sneaky fighter, or the Acrobatic wizard; or a paladin that wishes to appraise magical items or be a distinguished gentleman and know how to Perform ballroom dance. There has been some concern on the boards of the difficulty in certain arch-types (or non-arch-types) not being possible with the skills as originally described using many of the variant methods that were suggested. I think this help alleviate that concern as well.
Additionally:
Each RACE gets a Skill that they are automatically “Trained” in regardless of class they have. (i.e. Dwarves Have a Craft Skill of their choice. Elves get Perception. Halflings get Stealth. Gnomes get Appraise, Half-Orcs get Athletics (which in my game is Climb, and Jump mixed together – I disagree with Jump being mixed into Dex based acrobatics of balance and tumble for the record), Half-Elves get Diplomacy and Humans choose Any 1. (these of course are subject to opinion and not meant to be concrete – they can be moved around a bit).
Addendum: Some campaign settings can have various subtypes of races that may alter these “chosen skills” In my homebrew world, for instance I have 5 different types of Humans; in such as case instead of giving “your choice” I would have each human sub-race have a defining skill. This allows DMs to add a little flavor and stereo-typed tendencies of the races and their subtypes in their world. My Viking-type human race called Tordish gets Athletics, while the horse lords of the southern deserts and plains called Shalosians get Ride as theirs, etc. Ultimately this aspect of the rule has the flexibility for Paizo, other designers, or other DMs to customize their races and have an appropriate "racial skill" - my suggestions are just that - suggestions.
Finally, PERFORM should not be a skill that bards have to choose! They should get that automatically. It is vital to their core function of their class features. No other character class has their class features held hostage by a skill’s presence or lack thereof. Rogues may come close to this with the traps – but they can still sneak attack and do uncanny dodge, evasion etc and everything else that they can do without having to take a specific skill; while Bards perform-based features are the vital aspect of their class feature. Designer’s Note: Allowing Bards to gain Perform automatically is why I felt comfortable limiting them to 4 skills at 1st level; as this actually gives them 5 – Plus with their racial skill added, its back to 6.
B): The frequency of new skills added to a character currently being described in Alpha 1 provides too many learned skills. I agree with many posters on this board that have illustrated as such – Etrigan has been very succinct in his/her posts pointing out that comparing OGL characters vs PF Alpha provided the latter with 5 times the amount of skill points. That being said, I don’t think the answer is giving a varying amount or frequency of skills based on character CLASS, either. The way that was suggested winds up with that variant only exacerbates the issue that rogues have more skills than other classes. Rogues starting off with more, and getting them more frequently than other classes creates even more of a disparity between characters in my opinion; not to mention I think it’s a bit more confusing. Furthermore, as someone pointed out – it just seems to make taking Rogue at first level would be very common by many characters.
What I have done instead and have playtested for a while is:
Characters gain a new skill upon attaining 3 CLASS levels. A 3rd level rogue can opt to choose a new skill from his class list, or from his cross class list. (see below in C for how each are adjudicated).
Characters upon taking a new class when multi-classing, gain a new skill from that class list of the new class (this is only done at 1st level).
DESIGNER NOTES: I made two characters and compared them side by side. 1st character, Bob, decides to multi-class taking three different classes and is now a Fighter1/Wizard1/Cleric1. Upon taking his first level of Wizard and upon taking his first level of cleric he added a new skill – off of the appropriate class skill list. The 2nd character, Dave, chose to be single class Fighter. Upon reaching Fighter3, he added a new skill to his trained list. At equal level (character level 3) Bob does wind up with one more skill than Dave. However, this evens out later, when Bob is now F2/W2/2, and Dave is now a F6. (Dave received another skill at F6, and Bob has not added any more skills yet).
Another concern that Etrigan succinctly expressed (which I also agree with) is the notion that in its current alpha stage, when a new skill is added, it is automatically put to the same level of maximum effectiveness as all of the other skills. Jason countered that it was not much different than a person spending all 10 of his rogue skill points at level 9 to put into one skill that he hadn’t already taken – the problem with that logic is that at the same time this rogue is doing this, he is doing so at the expense of increasing his other skills; whereas in the Alpha rules and proposed variants, adding a skill at the same maximum level is done at the same time all the other skills simultaneously advance their usefulness.
Thus to correct this, what I have been playtesting and doing is:
Upon learning a new skill (whether it be due to gaining 3rd level in a class, or taking 1st level in a new class) the level of proficiency is at half (see below in C for more details). If the skill taken is a CLASS skill, the character can opt to increase that at the next time he would gain a new skill. (3 more levels, or taking a new class that HAS that skill on its class list). Then the proficiency level is no longer HALF – it is FULL. IF on the other hand the skill chosen was a CROSS CLASS skill, then he can NOT advance it to full effectiveness until it somehow becomes a CLASS SKILL.
Thus, Dave, the Fighter, at 3rd level chooses RIDE as a new skill. It will be at HALF proficiency. At 6th level, Dave can make that skill FULL proficiency, OR add another skill at HALF proficiency. At 6th level he opts to add PERCEPTION to his skill instead – he now has HALF proficiency in RIDE and PERCEPTION. At 9th level, he can then decide to become full proficiency in RIDE, but NOT in PERCEPTION (unless he somehow made perception a class skill).
DESIGNERS NOTE: Remember that while this may seem like there’s not a lot of skills being added – remember that all skills that are already trained are being increased concurrently when adding these new skills.
C): Skills fall into three basic categories: Trained Class Skills, Trained Cross Class Skills, and Untrained Skills. (Some Untrained skills can still be attempted while being untrained – some cannot).
Trained Class Skills have FULL proficiency: have a modifier of ‘CHARACTER LEVEL + 3 + Ability Modifier.’ Trained Cross-Class Skills are HALF proficiency. (simply divide the above formula by two).
Example: Dave the 9th level Fighter with a 10 DEX and 10 WIS above has RIDE (as well as all skills he chose at 1st level including his Racial skill) at Full Proficiency (as (9+3+0 = 12) and has PERCEPTION at HALF Proficiency (9+3+0) / 2 = 6.
It goes without saying Untrained skills have no bonus other than ability score modifiers (plus any extraneous modifiers like racial, or competence from some magical source or other). So trying these skill untrained (those that are ALLOWED to be tried untrained are adjudicated no differently than the OGL of 3.5 is handled now.)
SUMMARY:
I feel after playtesting this system for several weeks now it provides the following:
1) An easier system than skill points to adjudicate, keep track of, and calculate
2) A slower rate of access to new skills – to counter what has been thought of as too lucrative
3) An easier system than worrying about how often each class type gains new skills
4) A simple division of FULL vs HALF proficiency.
5) Ability to allow a cross-class skill to become a class skill ( at 1st level only) for the purpose of diversification – but in a balanced method.
6) A closer comparison of apples to apples when comparing a typical OGL character vs PF counterpart – to alleviate concerns such as expressed by Etrigan
7) Creates more balance between the characters than the system proposed that grants additional skills based on type of class.
8) Succeeds in doing all of these things and still effectively moves away from the Skill Point buy system to a more simplified vision that Paizo originally had.
ADDENDUM: Skill Synergies no longer apply. There should be a feat or someway to add an additional skill as a FULL PROFICIENT skill to his trained list (much like the Star Wars Saga does in lieu of taking a feat at a given level).
Sorry for the length of the post - I hope someone gets something out of this.
Sincerely
Robert Brambley
or be a distinguished gentleman and know how to Perform ballroom dance
Hello Robert, do you remember something like a Demonskar Bal ? ;-))
Back on topic. I’m not a fan of the type of discussion I see on all that PRPG Alpha messageboard. But anyway, I’m here to try to get information and to feed back for some of the French guys I’m playing with. So I’m very pleased by your post on that topic (skills) I find very difficult to follow up through the many threads. I like a lot of your ideas. Just let me present one or two suggestions about the skills system.
1) I agree that any race got 1 racial skill (at Class Skill level – see below for “how to use it”)
2) Each starting adventurer got 2 skills slots (see below again for “how to use it”)
3) At 1st level: ROGUE get 6 skills slots; RANGER / BARD / BARBARIAN / DRUID / MONK get 4 skills slots, and all the other get 2 skills slots.
4) Every 3 level Rogue, Bard get 3 skills slots, the other get 2 skill slots
How to use it ?
Basic of the system is how to calculate our skill bonus. You will do it by:
(1) Calculating you entering level modifier for the skill - The calculation of the bonus is actual level minus entering level
(2) Calculating your class factor – if you enter the skill as a Class Skill you directly got freely that factor to 1, if you enter as a Cross Class then the factor is 2.
Your final bonus is: (actual level - entering level) / Class factor, rounded down
(a) as usual you can add the ability modifier and the feats modifiers
(b) racial skill and starting adventurer skill(s) are considered entering at level 0
After that and at each level you get skills slots:
(c) you can spend one skill slot to enter either a Class or a Cross Class Skill
(d) you can spend one skill slot to decrease a Class factor of an entering Cross Class Skill from 2 to 1
The system is quite simple and easy to go with. The weakness is you have to take care of the order you built your experience in skills because its not possible to come back in slow downing some skill in order to push forward another one.
It seems to me a quite good compromise.
Thank you for the neat ideas you shared and that I used to improved my thoughts.
By the way, I’ve started my Role Player life in 81 ! So, if you don’t mind, I will call you Junior ;-)
Be creative
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or be a distinguished gentleman and know how to Perform ballroom danceHello Robert, do you remember something like a Demonskar Bal ? ;-))
Back on topic. I’m not a fan of the type of discussion I see on all that PRPG Alpha messageboard. But anyway, I’m here to try to get information and to feed back for some of the French guys I’m playing with. So I’m very pleased by your post on that topic (skills) I find very difficult to follow up through the many threads. I like a lot of your ideas. Just let me present one or two suggestions about the skills system.
The system is quite simple and easy to go with. The weakness is you have to take care of the order you built your experience in skills because its not...
Ridolfin - good to see you on here; funny that I was just reading some of your posts - as i read your contributions to the Occiptus Encounters - as I'm about to start that chapter this Saturday.
That being said - thanks for the praise. Your system doesn't sound complicated to use - just a lot of "planning" to be done for building a character. Thanks for sharing.
Hopefully my words presentation is able to be understood well enough by you and your players.
Thanks for sharing, old man. :-)
Robert