In one of the other threads someone mentioned an idea that I really liked and thought warranted its own discussion. They brought up skill groups. You could spend a skill point and get a rank in each skill that is part of the group. I'm new to the boards, so if this has been debated in detail already I'd love to read up on it. This is the part of the post I saved:
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Example skill sets:
Acrobatics, 1 rank each in Balance, Jump, and Tumble.
Stealth: 1 rank each in Hide and Move Silently.
Perception: 1 rank each in Listen, Search, and Spot.
Linguistics: 1 rank each in Decipher Script, Forgery, and Speak Languages.
Disabling: 1 rank each in Disable Device and Open Lock.
Diplomatics: 1 rank each in Diplomacy and Gather Information.
Arcana: 1 rank each in Concentration, Knowledge(Arcana), and Spellcraft.
Divinity: 1 rank each in Concentration, Knowledge(Divine), and Heal.
Natural Lore: 1 rank each in Concentration, Knowledge(Nature), Survival, and Use Rope.
Animals: 1 rank each in Handle Animal and Ride.
There are a few things above I might change up, but it looks like a great place to start. I think this would allow for a number of positive features. The first is that you don’t have to get rid of any of the skills and they can be used as written in the SRD but purchasing them is still consolidated. It also lets separate skills remain tied to separate stats. Concentration can remain CON and Spellcraft can still be INT, but you can still get both for a single skill point. Another possibility is that you can say anyone can purchase a group, but a class can still only have one (or none) of those skills as a class skill. So you could get acrobatics as a fighter but get the +3 only on Jump checks (and the other two would be less useful in armor). You could even give certain skill groups to specific classes (i.e. only Ranger and Rogue can buy stealth, everyone else has to invest in each skill separately). I think skill groups would also be easier to house-rule than having to expand out a skill that got consolidated that you don’t agree with. Thoughts?
This is one of those small changes that is a huge improvement - I like it very much, and so should Paizo. As you say, it consolidates skills with changing things over-much, which gives it greater backwards-compatibility.
You'll have to sell me on consolidating skills first. ;-) What's the big win there, before we move on to how to implement this the best way?
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You'll have to sell me on consolidating skills first. ;-) What's the big win there, before we move on to how to implement this the best way?
Well, what's the point of sneaking being two parts: one hiding, one moving? In order to be effective, you need both maxed out so it's really just a cost of two skill points to do one thing.
The same applies to Perception vs Spot and Listen (less so with Search). They have two rolls here one would do which slows down game time.
Open Locks and Disable Device also overlap majorly.
The other reason is to reduce the pain of the two-skill-points a level classes without making everyone a rogue.
If you can't buy discount ranks in the sub-skills, then this system is exactly the same as the Pathfinder one, except that you have to stop and decide which sub-skill (and, hence, which ability modifier) you're applying every time you make a skill check. That's certainly more realistic, but it's a headache as well.
If the extra bookkeeping is worth it to you, to make sure that Mialee gets +9 to recognize spells, but only +7 to cast defensively, then go for it, I say.
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If you can't buy discount ranks in the sub-skills, then this system is exactly the same as the Pathfinder one, except that you have to stop and decide which sub-skill (and, hence, which ability modifier) you're applying every time you make a skill check. That's certainly more realistic, but it's a headache as well.
If the extra bookkeeping is worth it to you, to make sure that Mialee gets +9 to recognize spells, but only +7 to cast defensively, then go for it, I say.
Alternatively, it could be that certain classes get certain groups and others have to buy the skills individually, as mentioned above for rangers and stealth.
Alternatively, it could be that certain classes get certain groups and others have to buy the skills individually.
That might work as well, but it would sure suck to be someone without a lot of class skill groups then -- not only miss the +3 class bonus, but also have to spend 2x to 3x the points for the sub-skills.
You'll have to sell me on consolidating skills first. ;-) What's the big win there, before we move on to how to implement this the best way?Well, what's the point of sneaking being two parts: one hiding, one moving? In order to be effective, you need both maxed out so it's really just a cost of two skill points to do one thing.
The same applies to Perception vs Spot and Listen (less so with Search). They have two rolls here one would do which slows down game time.
Open Locks and Disable Device also overlap majorly.
The other reason is to reduce the pain of the two-skill-points a level classes without making everyone a rogue.
Hide and Move Silently being separate precisely serves Spot and Listen being separate, and you don't need both to serve as a guard - having both just gives you two chances of noticing someone instead of one (and each has its circumstances where it's more useful: Spot vs. ambushes, Listen when visibility is reduced).
Opening locks and disabling devices really don't overlap all that much, IMO: if you want to open a lock, the last thing you want to do is disable it (since that usually means blocking it permanently) and where opening locks is a matter of knowing how they operate as much as manual dexterity, disabling devices is a matter of figuring that out.
Reducing the pain of 2 skill points per level is better served by giving those classes a couple more skill points, I'd say. The real skill advantage classes like rogue and bard get is the impressive skill list, much more than their number of skill points. Giving the classes that get 2 skill points per level 4 instead doesn't upset balance at all IMO, so why not go that route? That has the added benefit of allowing more variation rather than seeing those classes picking the exact same skills over and over again due to the reduced list.
If you can't buy discount ranks in the sub-skills, then this system is exactly the same as the Pathfinder one, except that you have to stop and decide which sub-skill (and, hence, which ability modifier) you're applying every time you make a skill check. That's certainly more realistic, but it's a headache as well.
If the extra bookkeeping is worth it to you, to make sure that Mialee gets +9 to recognize spells, but only +7 to cast defensively, then go for it, I say.
In my experience, Mialee would already have both modifiers filled out on her sheet. Skills usually take me the longest to fill out when writing up a character sheet, but it only has to be done once (or more if you're like me and have to keep an obsessively neat sheet). In reality, most characters would only have to fill out two, maybe three fewer skills (the exception being the rogue) under current consolidation. There may be about ten fewer skills in the new list, but not every character has ranks in all of them.
Also, saying figureing out a sub skill is a headache, I just don't see that. It would be the same as it is now. Make a spot check to see something. Make a hide check not to be seen. I don't think that's more difficult than making perception or stealth checks.
(1) In my experience, Mialee would already have both modifiers filled out on her sheet. (2) Also, saying figuring out a sub skill is a headache, I just don't see that.
(1) That would be true in 3.5e, but in Pathfinder, the whole point of the combined skills is that you hopefully don't have to list, say, Spellcraft (concentration) +7, Spellcraft (spellcraft) +10, etc. That said, I think the modifiers to SOME Perception checks, but not others, that elves receive in the Alpha sort of defeats the whole purpose of combining skills -- if they're going to be treated as separate skills, leave everything separate and just give more skill points.
(2) Figuring out the sub-skill modifiers for a batch of NPCs seems like DM make-work to me; it might not be a big deal for you. That's OK.
Like I said, if a group likes individual skills, they'll probably stick with the 3.5e system. If not, they'll use Pathfinder. If certain groups want to use 3.5 but change around the pricing and the skills listing (basically, the proposal here), that's also good for them, but it's not something that I personally feel is a significant enough improvement over the existing Pathfinder rules that it should replace them in print.
(1) That would be true in 3.5e, but in Pathfinder, the whole point of the combined skills is that you hopefully don't have to list, say, Spellcraft (concentration) +7, Spellcraft (spellcraft) +10, etc. That said, I think the modifiers to SOME Perception checks, but not others, that elves receive in the Alpha sort of defeats the whole purpose of combining skills -- if they're going to be treated as separate skills, leave everything separate and just give more skill points.
(2) Figuring out the sub-skill modifiers for a batch of NPCs seems like DM make-work to me; it might not be a big deal for you. That's OK.
Like I said, if a group likes individual skills, they'll probably stick with the 3.5e system. If not, they'll use Pathfinder. If certain groups want to use 3.5 but change around the pricing and the skills listing (basically, the proposal here), that's also good for them, but it's not something that I personally feel is a significant enough improvement over the existing Pathfinder rules that it should replace them in print.
I agree about specific perception types being antithetical to skill consolidation. I can also see your point about NPCs; my perspective is from that of a player more than a DM, so for me the longer skill list has never come up as a huge issue. One of the primary reasons I wanted to discuss skill groups is that a lot of the discussion about skill consolidation revolves around how things are combined and if they should be combined at all (ie search and perception, or concentration). It felt like a system of skill groups would be a happy halfway point that would be familiar enough and wouldn't be hard to convert. It would be easy for people to just say "make a stealth check" if they didn't want to deal with the subskills, but they would still be there for the people who wanted to say "make a hide check". The difference isn't huge, but I'm not sure if I agree it isn't significant enough that it shouldn't make print just because it isn't different enough.
Alternatively, it could be that certain classes get certain groups and others have to buy the skills individually.That might work as well, but it would sure suck to be someone without a lot of class skill groups then -- not only miss the +3 class bonus, but also have to spend 2x to 3x the points for the sub-skills.
I think it could be a mixed bag not allowing free access to all skill groups. Pathfinder has done a good job of expanding the class skill lists in many of the classes, and its pretty easy to get that +3 from multiclassing. I could see it being an issue with subskills acting like having half ranks. On the other hand, if your character is going to be doing a lot of something that isn't on its class skill list, wouldn't it make sense for them to be multiclass? I think I'd prefer it if the skill groups were availible to all class, but leave class skills mostly as they are so that fighters wouldn't also be trained in tumbling but could have full ranks in Acrobatics.
It felt like a system of skill groups would be a happy halfway point that would be familiar enough and wouldn't be hard to convert. It would be easy for people to just say "make a stealth check" if they didn't want to deal with the subskills, but they would still be there for the people who wanted to say "make a hide check".
Yeah, I can see where you're coming from there. If you present the groups first, and then have an optional specific sub-skills section, with some way to tie together pricing and the like -- you might be able to pull off a situation where the pro-consolidation people can just play with broad skills, and the anti-consolidation people can still use a zillion different sub-skills, but they're all using the same rules set.
Yeah, I can see where you're coming from there. If you present the groups first, and then have an optional specific sub-skills section, with some way to tie together pricing and the like -- you might be able to pull off a situation where the pro-consolidation people can just play with broad skills, and the anti-consolidation people can still use a zillion different sub-skills, but they're all using the same rules set.
I think that's a good idea. You could say that each sub skill only costs a fraction of a skill point (hide costs 1/2 point per rank), but this could get messy with fractionals not working out when one skill group has two subs and another has three. If someone can come up with a way of doing this that avoids fractions and somehow sticks with whole numbers I think we'd have a good solution that would make everyone happy.
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Actually this is quite similar to either Iron Heroes "Skill Groups" and World of Darkness D20 "Skill Themes"
While i do liek this sistems, i also do liked how one skill could be a lot more versatile... in the end either you fo with this Skill Groups or the skill as Pathfinders use i suppose there won't be much change, just more bookeeping (i like bookeeping, some of my player's don't :P)