So...assuming that your campaign isn't using the cliche of the war college, why do both fighters in you group have the exact same skillsets?
Never mind that they grew up on opposite sides of the continent from each other. Never mind that one of them was a village hunter, and the other a farmer. Aside from their respective "professions" they still, oddly have the same. exact. skills.
Why? If we are keeping the skill ranks system, why not go all out on the customization end? That being the strength of the 3.X system. Why should every single character be a clone of the next?
My proposal, remove static skill sets from chatacter creation. Chuck them out along with cross class skills. The only differentiation should be trained/untrained.
Instead, allow every character to actually flavor his character by choosing 1 class skill per base skill point @ lvl. 1 + int bonus. (humans, half-elves, and half-orcs get +1) Doing this gives a player incentive to create a "unique" character with built in RP fodder.
Now, a fighter working as muscle for a thieve's guild should be able to "pick up" a few things without making a character developement blunder (cross class skills, I'm looking at you!) one cross class point is fine and all at levels 1-5, but they quickly become wasted ink after that, especially when you have a class that has been shafted on skill points to begin with.
Better yet, a wizard whom traffics in demons and undead piddles himself because a fighter 5 levels lower rolls an intimidate check? This guy feeds babies to bebiliths, why is he scared?
It hurts nothing, removes the silly issue of having class skills that you simply do not use, adds immense amounts of flavor, and is still within the realm of simple conversion for backwards compatibility.
This system has been a house rule for three years now, and has worked rather spectacularly. The first time the party encountered a tumbling non multiclass wizard was priceless ;)
Think about it and heap your criticisms here, I have yet to find a break or exploit. Some feedback would be cool. Thanks!
I like it-
but keep in mind that in p3 the only "difference" between class and cross-class skills is the +3 bonus enjoyed by class skills.
All skills cost 1 point each and all skills have a maximum equal to your level.
The fighter hanging with rogues can learn to sneak, just not quite as good as the rogue. Definately without the heavy-handed 3.5 penalties.
-S
Thanks for the feedback, of course positive is much easier to digest than negative. lol.
Like I said above, it has been a great flavor enhancer for my own game, but there is only so many opinions one can get from a small group.
Thanks for the rules reminder, I haven't had nearly enough time to fine tooth it. AND I keep getting the version printouts mixed up.
I've just found it funny that with all the awesome customization 3.X has, that we are still stuck with "someone else's" idea of what each class "should" get. It also IMO has reduced the dependency in my group for needless multiclassing.
It's really cool that cross class has gone bye-bye, but there is just a little bit farther to go.
It's a balance issue. A better skill list is a feature of a class just as much as specific abilities.
It is easily fixed if you wish so in your game. Just house rule that there is no problem what so ever to take any skills if they wish, everyone can get a +3 to any skill they pick as their skills. Though sometimes you may end up with single party characters (the kind where anyone character could do everything without someones help).
I like Pangur's answer, but to me it's just a question of life choice. Your fictional PC isn't saying "y'know what, I wanna be a fighter." Instead he's saying "bashing things is for me". The skills and abilities he gets for being a fighter are really just the things he's shown an interest in learning.
If he suddenly decided that the rogues he was hanging out with could do some cool things and wanted to learn those, he'd have a shift in interests and would start picking up on those things (ie multi-classing).
Class based game systems are a little tricky to justify this way, but it makes me feel better to think of skill choices defining the class, not the other way around.
But while we're on the subject, how come bards, no matter what culture they're from or the style of music they perform, are proficient with whips?
|
What we've been doing in my group (pre Pathfinder, and it's carried over as well - though I think it gives too many skills now... we haven't tested it a lot) is something we sort of stole from Iron Heroes (I think... it's been a while). Skill Groups. Everyone gets their class skills, plus one skill group as class skills (1 point in the group raises all skills in that group). THEN, on top of that, you get your INT modifier in additional class skills.
We like skills. ;) Probably because we all also play GURPS on occasion (I used to play a LOT more GURPS than D&D, but now that's switched around).
We left the skill points alone, but gave the chance to have a lot more variety in what you could call a class skill.
With Pathfinder's skill consolidation and much more sensible cross-class v class skill levels, I am not sure they're both needed anymore. But anyway, just thought I'd share what we do.
As for why - as some people have already pointed out... balance.
Something else that I would add is the retroactive history that choosing a class writes for your character. It's unlikely that someone who swung around in trees, jumped over creeks, stole apples from the cart at the market... would become a wizard. When you pick "Fighter" for example, as a class, your history is somewhat assumed to have been something that would lead you to such a class. This is where the whole class system kind of falls apart, really... it's like when you turn 16 you have to choose a class, and everything is open to you. No... your childhood would tend to dictate what class you become... it's not a conscious choice. That's how I've sometimes justified class "choice" and reconciled it with a character history. Therefore the skill sets you would have coming INTO the Fighter class, for example, would all be similar to everyone else who is coming into the Fighter class.
That being said, I think the most odd combination of skills got assigned to the fighter in 3.5.
agreed, cruddy skill points to spend on cruddy skills. Never did like that one, hamstrings the fighter by making him either boost intelligence and lose whacking power/HP/speed, or being relegated to the party "big dumb guy with sword".
I look to the iconics for examples of how lame this is when compared to pop culture references. Conan? He could do more than swim, climb, ride, and intimidate - and it wasn't because he was "smart" in the bookish sense either.
I just hated seeing my players 1 level dipping twice toget the skills and skill points they wanted to make the character they envisioned. To many of my PC's would start as rogue for the sweet starting points, then after 2nd or 3rd level, move on to ranger or fighter.
IMO, skills are still criminally underused, even in PFRPG. I understand that a lot of it is up to the individual game/DM/Table, but really!
Maybe a combined splat book with all of the different skill uses would be useful.
Thanks for the feedback guys, It is appreciated!
Why should every single character be a clone of the next?
They shouldn't. And aren't. The class skills are fixed, but the skills you actually put ranks into aren't. Plus, the difference between class skill and cross-class skills aren't that big any more.
agreed, cruddy skill points to spend on cruddy skills. Never did like that one, hamstrings the fighter by making him either boost intelligence and lose whacking power/HP/speed, or being relegated to the party "big dumb guy with sword".
That's really more a problem with specific classes (Fighter being the prime example) than with static skill sets. Giving the Fighter (and by extension all 2 SP/level classes) 4 SP/level helps a lot, and if you add 2-3 skills to the list it's really good enough.
Director of Brand Strategy
|
agreed, cruddy skill points to spend on cruddy skills. Never did like that one, hamstrings the fighter by making him either boost intelligence and lose whacking power/HP/speed, or being relegated to the party "big dumb guy with sword".That's really more a problem with specific classes (Fighter being the prime example) than with static skill sets. Giving the Fighter (and by extension all 2 SP/level classes) 4 SP/level helps a lot, and if you add 2-3 skills to the list it's really good enough.
Instead of adding skills to the list, why not let them swap out a class skill for another one? Say they don't envision their character being a climber--They ditch climb as a class skill and add appraise, because they were raised by merchants. Whatever. They're still limited by the 2 pts/level, so I don't see it making a huge difference, even if they have a high int. There's always skill focus as well. I've played in games in which everyone got skill focus (character background relevant cross-class skill) as a bonus skill at 1st level, and then it was balanced, since everyone got it.
I think a few of the typical fighter choices have been rolled into one, I like the way the skills work now, my current group contains a fighter in medium armour who spends as much time tumbling as the thief, even with less ranks and an armour penalty he seems to pull it off more than the rogue.
The current system of class or none class skills, with the 3 point difference seems to work out very well for our group.
I am sure some where in one of the books (players or DM's) it allows a character to change skills and some class features with the DM's permission. So as long as you the DM think that a trade is fair, you can do so. Allowing characters to trade one class skill for another is not going to cause a problem in most campaigns. Choosing several skills to be good at as suggested by the OP seems to be a good idea. I can think of a few times where the group has been with out a rogue in a session and had to use brute force to by pass every lock or trap. The OP's suggestion would of helped with this.