The Pathfinder RPG skill system is pretty good, nonetheless there are still some issues with the system. The first is that all the pre-requisites (especially those for feats and prestige classes) depending on skill ranks now require some extra calculations, which makes backward compatibility slightly more difficult. The second is that at first level PFRPG characters are skill-point poor compared to their 3.5E counterparts, which makes it difficult to flesh out a character at that level. There is a way to bypass both of these problems to some extent by using the system described below.
Virtual hit dice or virtual levels (I will use the two terms interchangeably) are a tool for assigning characters various starting characteristics that would normally depend on their class in a class-neutral manner. This ensures that the order of classes taken when multi-classing does not give a given character any undue advantages or disadvantages.
Every character gets 3 virtual hit dice at the beginning of the game. These do not count as hit dice or levels for any pre-requisites, effects or other considerations, unless explicitly specified in the text below.
Just like normal hit dice or levels, virtual hit dice also count towards determining the maximum ranks a character can have in a skill. Because there are 3 virtual levels or hit dice given at character inception, at (normal) level 1, a character will be able to have a maximum of 4 ranks in any single skill.
Virtual hit dice grant skill points. How many do they grant? It is prudent to consider some statistical facts about skill points and hit dice/levels:
Commoner as base for virtual HD: 2 + Int. bonus / die
Humanoid as base for virtual HD: 2 + Int. bonus / die
Warrior as base for virtual HD: 2 + Int. bonus / die
Lowest: 2 + Int. bonus / die
Medium-Low: 4 + Int. bonus / die
Medium-High: 6 + Int. bonus / die
Highest: 8 + Int. bonus / die
Mean of Possibilities: 5 + Int. bonus / die
Mode of NPC Classes: 2 + Int. bonus / die
Mean of NPC Classes: ~3 + Int. bonus / die
Median of NPC Classes: 2 + Int. bonus / die
Mode of PC Classes: 2 + Int. bonus / die
Mean of PC Classes: ~4 + Int. bonus / die
Median of PC Classes: 4 + Int. bonus / die
The above are the available choices for the skill point of virtual levels. Virtual hit dice can probably best be based on two possible approaches: lowest progression or average progression. For skills I would prefer to give virtual hit dice the average progression of PC classes, which would result in: 4 + Int. bonus / virtual hit die skill points.
The extra skill point per level that humans normally receive would apply normally, so humans would receive 5 + Int. bonus skill points per virtual hit die. If my suggestion of replacing the 1 hit point per level favored class bonus with a 1 skill point per level favored class bonus gets adopted, than the virtual hit dice are automatically treated as a favored class for all characters and they get their extra skill point per virtual hit die and it stacks with the extra human skill point.
It should be noted that using virtual hit dice will lead to a different number of starting skill points for some characters than they had in D&D 3.5 edition. Clerics, Fighters, Paladins, Sorcerers and Wizards will get 6 extra skill points at character creation, which I think would be more positive than negative. They can use these to flesh out their characters at the beginning and their skill point progression thereafter will be equal to what it was in 3.5E. Barbarians, Druids and Monks would receive the same amount of skill points as in 3.5E. Bards and Rangers would lose 6 skill points overall, whereas Rogues would be down by 12 skill points. Because these losses are precisely defined, they could be compensated.
(Note: Non-core classes would experience analogous effects.)
Compensation for the lost skill points could come in various forms. It would be possible to simply give the bards and rangers bonus 6 skill points and rogues bonus 12 skill points upon taking the first level of the class (thus the order of when the class is taken wouldn’t matter), though this might encourage one level dipping into these classes to obtain the extra skill points. It could be possible to spread these bonus skill points across several levels to mitigate this effect. Alternatively, these classes could get other forms of compensation, such as an extra feat for bards or rangers or two extra feats for rogues (based on the Open-Minded feat that grants 5 skill points) or altogether different abilities, perhaps aiding their skills (say +X bonus to several class skills if trained [or perhaps if maxed]), or the ability to advance in a ‘skill group’ appropriate to their class, or something similar.
The simplest solution would probably be to just give them the skill points they lost, but spread them over several levels. This could be done symmetrically (say 2 or 3 of the skill points per level until the loss is fully compensated, or asymmetrically, for example: 2 skill points at level one, 4 skill points at level two and 6 skill points at level three. The last step would, of course, be for rogues or non-core 8 skill point per level classes. The asymmetric method is predicated on the assumption that level dipping gets progressively less likely the more levels you are required to take to gain the full benefit of the desired goodies (in this case skill points), so ramping up the benefits across levels will mitigate level dipping significantly.
Note 1: Virtual hit dice are a design mechanic that could underlie character creation, but they would not necessarily need to be actually mentioned in the book even if used as a concept. It would be possible to simply state that a character can have maximum skill ranks equal to 3 + level and gets 12 + Class Skill Points + 4 x Intelligence Bonus skill points at character creation and so on. There is no need to actually state that some of these things come from virtual hit dice, though if it is desired to help people understand the basis of it, there is, of course, no problem in talking about virtual hit dice explicitly.
Note 2: I have considered an alternative of simply giving three free NPC class (Commoner, Aristocrat, Expert, Warrior or Adept) levels at the point of character creation or even letting each player choose which or even a combination of them, but that approach led to some problems that were a little less easily manageable than simply using virtual hit dice.
Note 3: The concept of virtual hit dice could be extended to also doing other things, such as granting a hit point bonus at level 1.
Note 4: An interesting variation of virtual hit dice would be virtual racial hit dice, which would differ depending on race. This would still fulfill the same goal as standard virtual hit dice, but would allow for greater differentiation among the races. For example, each race would then effectively grant a number of bonus skill points at character creation.
Note 5: The equal cost of class and cross-class skills in Pathfinder RPG should stay under the virtual hit dice system, as should the 1/2 maximum limit on cross class skill ranks, but the +3 bonus to class skills would disappear.
Yet again, the for prove to be excellent at eating my threads and creating double-posts when I try to counter it by submitting the thread again...