Skill Design


General Discussion (Prerelease)


I really like how Jason has designed the current skill system. However, I have an idea. (Forgive me if this has been mentioned earlier).

The only change I would like to see to the Pathfinder Skill System is for the one-time +3 bonus to class skills to be removed as a rule. In it's place I'd like to see the x4 skill points at 1st level put back in. You would be able to achieve the same results, while also allowing for more diversity in representing background with the skill rules.

That's all :)

Liberty's Edge

The reason it was changed (and I support the change) was that the x4 caused a major headache for creating characters above 1st level. It wasn't enough to know that a character was a bard 3/fighter 6/ranger 9 - in order to caculate the skill points correctly you needed to know which class was taken first.

This wasn't as often a problem for a player as it was for the DM and for anyone trying to 'edit' a submission - if the skill points didn't seem to match up, it gets pretty tricky to figure out what 'correct' looks like.

Dark Archive

DeadDMWalking wrote:

The reason it was changed (and I support the change) was that the x4 caused a major headache for creating characters above 1st level. It wasn't enough to know that a character was a bard 3/fighter 6/ranger 9 - in order to caculate the skill points correctly you needed to know which class was taken first.

This wasn't as often a problem for a player as it was for the DM and for anyone trying to 'edit' a submission - if the skill points didn't seem to match up, it gets pretty tricky to figure out what 'correct' looks like.

I just did a pathfinder rebuild of the Red Mantis Assassin NPCs, which are 8th level, and skills took me all of 1 minute to do. That was awesome.


I like the +3. I like it a whole lot.

My list of outstanding skill issues:

  • Make Disguise a craft.
  • Bring back Concentration (it was fair to all casters) and roll Spellcraft for ID into knowledge Arcana.

    Beyond that, all I would change is some of the less evocative names. (Anything with "Use" in it, and Sense Motive)


  • Skill names are mostly verbs or imperatives, which I think is a good idea. Quadrupling skills at 1st-level just makes Rogue/Ranger/Bard at 1st-level difficult to pass by.

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