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A number of people have posted that they would like to see the class-skills bonus scale up with levels, so it's not a flat +3 forever. There have been several clever solutions, particularly bumping it up at 'dead' levels - +4 @ 2nd, +5 @ 6th, +6 at 10th, +7 @ 14th, and +8 @ 18th. I personally like the idea of a scaling bonus, but even the best suggestions I've seen are either too complicated or take the bonuses too high; I want it to scale but not that much. So how 'bout this ...
Outstanding in Your Field
Instead of the bonus for your class skills being +3, it is +5.
Bam. Scaled class-skills bonuses but at a cost - a feat. You could take it if you wanted to. You could not take it and get a different feat. Or, if you really hated the idea, you could not use the feat at all in your game.
You might go a little further ...
Sublime
Prereq: Outstanding in Your Field
Instead of the bonus for your class skills being +5, it is +7.
Yes, it's a boost to a lot of skills, but the player doesn't get to pick and choose which ones. A feat like Skill Focus gives you +3 to a skill of your choice and Open Minded gives you 5 points to spend wherever you want. If you really think it's too much, you could make Outstanding in Your Field = +4, Master of Your Field +5, and Sublime +6 (double the normal +3).
Or you could make Outstanding in Your Field a Talent for rogues and Sublime an Advanced Talent. It is probably only rogues who have an extensive enough class-skills list to make it worth taking as a feat anyway. Maybe bards and rangers. It also might make a perfect class ability for Experts, to codify that an NPC expert blacksmith with 3 ranks of Profession (blacksmith) is better than a PC fighter blacksmith with 3 ranks of Profession (blacksmith).
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A number of people have posted that they would like to see the class-skills bonus scale up with levels, so it's not a flat +3 forever.
Odd.. because in Alpha 1, class skill bonuses did stack... in any case, what's the point of having Ranks AND progressive increases then? It seems totally contradictory to me and inflated. If you want to increase a skill there's skill focus and the +2/+2 skill feats.
A rogue at level 1 can have a +9 in Stealth, I don't think he needs progressive level increases beyond putting 1 rank in it.
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A number of people have posted that they would like to see the class-skills bonus scale up with levels, so it's not a flat +3 forever.
Hmm... not too keen on giving away *more* free stuff.
I like the idea of adapting this idea to feats and making people pay for it. But I do have to echo the concern that, since it's affecting so many skills, it's giving away far too much, even for a feat.
But since it's affecting so many skills, can we make it so that instead if instantly adding + to so many rolls, it increases the maximum number of ranks you can spend?
You could also make another feat that gives you extra ranks to spend... say 6 (double skill focus), or an extra level's worth (which would scale it based on class, making it more valuable to some and less valuable to others [this has both pros and cons])
A feat like that may be plausible if it requires a certain BAB before you can take it. On average (ie: excepting spellcasters), the classes with the higher BAB have lower class skill lists, and will therefore benefit less from the feat.
This makes the player wait until they're a higher level and the bonuses "matter less" before they can take it, pushing it even further back for the Bard and Rogue, who are likely to see the most benefit out of it.
I would also make the feat require Skill Focus in one, or two, class skills before it can be taken.
Indeed; The spellcasters are the only guys I can think of off the top of my head who have both tiny class skill lists and crap for a BAB.
Perhaps instead of BAB, in can require a minimum number of ranks in any skill. This is, essentially, the same as a requirement in level (though as I recall, no or very few feats have an explicit level requirement). The downside to this is that it favors Bards and Rogues taking it sooner than any other class, as they're the most capable of always having maximum ranks.
It is true that, even a bump up from +3 "only" to +4, would outshine Epic Skill Focus for a rogue, netting them a potential bonus of 21 (at maximum) to skills. If it were included, it would need to be considered carefully before doing so.
A feat like this doesn't make the 1 level in rogue any more appealing than +3 on all class skills already does, though.
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I hesitate to give away a Feat at any level that grants a straight +2 bonus to many skills
Agreed. It makes the feat much more powerful than standard skill-type feats. Why buy a feat that gives you +2 to two skills when you can buy a feat that gives +1 to eight of them.
This feat kills the skill bonus feats and the skill focus. If we play with the skill cap, we can have problems with backwards compatibility and balance.
But... this doesn't leave the original idea without merit (to surpass the level/rank limit), merely that it needs work. Which is why I support a feat that increases the limit on ranks, which the PC would still have to pay for. This works on giving the players what they want without running roughshot over the balance. The PC's have to pay for their extra ranks, and even have to use a feat to progress beyond that limit. This will limit it's usage to PC's that are fairly specialized and can really justify needing the boost, without telling the player "oh well, too bad"
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What about making a rogue Talent, on par with Fast Stealth, Ledge Walker and Minor Magic? This is actually where I started, since I think it would mostly appeal to skill monkeys, but then though I should offer it to all class. As a Talent it would still be a big boost, but also a pretty big trade off.
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I think Jason mentioned something about giving each class a bonus (which scales up with your level, IIRC) to *all* class skills. I would much prefer it this way, especially as we already have Skill Focus and X times +2/+2 Feats in the game.
I don't have an objection to this in and of itself, but I think we're so happy to be fixing the game that we're going overboard with giving more and more free stuff to the classes. I'm afraid that the characters are going to become so powerful that backwards compatibility is going to be hurt.
