Feats: Replace +2 / +2 skill bonus feats with a single feat


Skills and Feats


There's no need for separate feats like Persuasive, Stealthy, etc. They can all be replaced by a single feat that gives two +2 bonuses to two skills.

Liberty's Edge

no
the feat can be used to mix to skills that have nothing in common

this 2 feats are thematic and related

Sovereign Court

hogarth wrote:
There's no need for separate feats like Persuasive, Stealthy, etc. They can all be replaced by a single feat that gives two +2 bonuses to two skills.

I agree with you. There should be one feat. These feats take up a lot of room in the book that could be better devoted to other things. All we need is a writeup of how the two skills should, in some fashion, be thematically linked - at the GM's discretion. They clutter up the feat table and take space that could be filled with more interesting bits.

Liberty's Edge

hey i took both feats for my cleric
leave my feats alone i loved them since i first saw them in "song & silence"

take away some combat feats and add them in other books better :P


I agree, there has to be a way that is not confusing or clumsy to streamline them down to one feat for space purposes. Like a catch all "skilled" heading and then a short list of modifiers, like "persuader" "lurker" or the like within the text to keep the proper skill pairings intact.


Sorry to just "me, too", but uh... me, too!!

When a very common statement about design of this book is "not enough space", I think combining them into a single feat is a no-brainer. :)

But that's just my vote.


I agree, this should be a single feat, call it Skill Bump.

Thematic reasons for stringing an increase to two skills together can be suggested in the feat text.

Further one feature of this feat should be that while this feat can be taken multiple times, skills affected cannot be repeated. (I hope that makes sense.)

CJ


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I say make it one feat but then have a chart of the different skill combos. Then say you can take the feat more than once so long as you choose a different combo. Call it Skill Advantage or somesuch. Thats bound to take up less space than all the seperate write ups but still keep the point being your good at two related things.


zag01 wrote:
I say make it one feat but then have a chart of the different skill combos. Then say you can take the feat more than once so long as you choose a different combo.

I'd rather have an easier rule, like both skills have to be based on the same stat (e.g. two Cha-based skills or two Dex-based skills). That way the skills are automagically related.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 16, 2012 Top 32

Something to consider (and I don't know the answer): how many prestige classes list one or more of the double-skill feats as prerequisites?

Liberty's Edge

Epic Meepo wrote:
Something to consider (and I don't know the answer): how many prestige classes list one or more of the double-skill feats as prerequisites?

Several, though I can't really see this as much of an obstacle to conversion - the elimination of several of the feats (due to skill collapse) has alredy put us in a position where we need to separately determine whether a given feat might meet such a requirement, so we're basically already there.

I, too, would like to see a single feat that requires the skills in question to share a key ability.


hogarth wrote:
zag01 wrote:
I say make it one feat but then have a chart of the different skill combos. Then say you can take the feat more than once so long as you choose a different combo.
I'd rather have an easier rule, like both skills have to be based on the same stat (e.g. two Cha-based skills or two Dex-based skills). That way the skills are automagically related.

I like that the two skills are tied fairly tightly together and don't think just basing them on the same attribute is enough. Some examples:

  • Intimidate and UMD
  • Acrobatics and Disable Device
  • Appraise and Know(Rel)

A small table with about 6-8 skill combinations, or for that matter just simplify the feats to:

Magical Aptitude
"As athletics but with the UMD and Spellcraft Feats."


These feats could be consolidated and remain unchanged at the same time.

What I mean is one feat that grants +2 to two skills but have it list fixed sets of pairings to choose from that match the current +2/+2 skills.

This would save space/eliminate redundancy while preserving the thematic pairings and prerequisite compatibility.

Call it Skill Aptitude perhaps and allow it to be taken multiple times with each instance applying to a different pairing (can't pick the same pair twice).


hogarth wrote:
There's no need for separate feats like Persuasive, Stealthy, etc. They can all be replaced by a single feat that gives two +2 bonuses to two skills.

Yes.

Liberty's Edge

hogarth wrote:
There's no need for separate feats like Persuasive, Stealthy, etc. They can all be replaced by a single feat that gives two +2 bonuses to two skills.

While I like the flavor that those feats make up (due to the proximity in application of the two skills within the feat), I dont think it provides an abundant amount of fluff to warrant the space devoted to it. I have to agree with the OP here. Plus with all the skills being annexed and/or eliminated, there's already a modicum amount of needed adjustments from previous printed material when it comes to these feats, so I don't see it as any more problematic to add this change.

For the sake of creatures - it's been pretty simple so far - so many creatures have Alertness (+2 spot and listen) for our games we're just making it a skill focus Perception, instead.

So I dont see it being too big of a problem for DM to alter the creatures for past products.

Robert

Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber

As they stand, they make a nice alternative to Skill Focus - +3 to any skill you want, or +2 and +2? Higher total bonus, but not as high in either as you could get by focusing on one.

I prefer not to be able to mix and match. Taking what is offered is part of the deal.

If space is the big deal, maybe keep the current names but put them in a separate section with one umbrella description and then a list of specifics, almost like a table, with the feat name and its two skills.

Liberty's Edge

Mosaic wrote:

As they stand, they make a nice alternative to Skill Focus - +3 to any skill you want, or +2 and +2? Higher total bonus, but not as high in either as you could get by focusing on one.

I prefer not to be able to mix and match. Taking what is offered is part of the deal.

If space is the big deal, maybe keep the current names but put them in a separate section with one umbrella description and then a list of specifics, almost like a table, with the feat name and its two skills.

Well, theres also the point of making it more flexible - space is an issue - but I'm sure most want the customizability of cherry-picking the two skills.

If Skill Focus is going to remain a +3 bonus and +6 at higher level, then it's still far and away better than cherry-picking two of them (for a +2 each) for the same feat slot. So I think that it's a fair trade-off - flexibility for a MUCH lower pay-off.

Robert


Robert Brambley wrote:
Mosaic wrote:

As they stand, they make a nice alternative to Skill Focus - +3 to any skill you want, or +2 and +2? Higher total bonus, but not as high in either as you could get by focusing on one.

I prefer not to be able to mix and match. Taking what is offered is part of the deal.

If space is the big deal, maybe keep the current names but put them in a separate section with one umbrella description and then a list of specifics, almost like a table, with the feat name and its two skills.

Well, theres also the point of making it more flexible - space is an issue - but I'm sure most want the customizability of cherry-picking the two skills.

If Skill Focus is going to remain a +3 bonus and +6 at higher level, then it's still far and away better than cherry-picking two of them (for a +2 each) for the same feat slot. So I think that it's a fair trade-off - flexibility for a MUCH lower pay-off.

The +2/+2 feats are taken mostly because they stack with Skill Focus and players want to be really good at something. Usually it's Magical Aptitude and Stealthly plus Skill Focus UMD or Stealth respectively.

The other reason people take this is because they like the two skills offered. Rogues usually could benefit from a couple different of these.

The dual feats generally have one more commonly used skill combined with a less frequently used one to balance things out. As Mosaic said, taking what is offered is part of the deal.

I don't think the existing system is perfect but I don't think anything offered on this thread is better either.


How about this:

Skill Synergy
You focus your training in related skills.
Benefit: Choose one of the following skill groups. You gain a +2 bonus to each skill in that group. If you have 10 or more ranks in one of these skills, the bonus increases to +4 for that skill.

Acrobatic: Acrobatics and Fly.
Alertness: Perception and Sense Motive.
Animal Affinity: Handle Animal and Ride.
Athletic: Climb and Swim.
Deceitful: Bluff and Disguise.
Deft Hands: Disable Device and Sleight of Hand.
Magical Aptitude: Spellcraft and Use Magic Device.
Persuasive: Diplomacy and Intimidate.
Self-Sufficient: Heal and Survival.
Stealthy: Escape Artist and Stealth.

Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new skill group.

.

It's nice and short, no repetition, all in one spot (no searching for the right entry to see what skills go together in what feat, etc), AND it's backward compatible. Just change all previous prerequisite entries thusly:

Alertness --> Skill Synergy (Alertness)

Voila! And it brings back the concept of getting a synergistic bonus for related skills to the game.

You could even add a few more now that you have room, like:

Polymath: All Knowledge skills.
Factotum: All Craft and Profession skills.
Cultured: Linguistics and all Perform skills.

This would give all skills the option to have a +2 modifier alongside the +3.
Considering how underused the Knowledge, Craft, and Profession skills are, I don't think it's "overpowered" to have them be so broad. Perform needs all the help it can get, and Linguistics is only there for the Forgery aspect anyways.. and can be removed if Languages/Forgery gets an overhaul.


Kaisoku wrote:

How about this:

I was thinking something along the same lines. Allowing players to pick any two skills of their choice seems a bit dull and dry; pairing skills can place a character in a position of having some talent in a skill they wouldn't normally use. The option you've presented retains the feel of the old feats but trims page space.

Sovereign Court

I was also thinking of the sort of thing Kaisoku wrote. More elegant and makes it easier to find in the feat list.


Kaisoku wrote:

How about this:

Skill Synergy etc...

Nice and simple, saves space, backwards compatable - I like it alot :)


I also really like Kaisoku's work. I'll consider implementing that forthwith into my games :)


Kaisoku wrote:
Some interesting stuff

This looks like a good way of handling this. I have 1 minor issues with it though. Maybe folks in my group use knowledge skills more but I think Polymath is a bit over the top. I would suggest "Choose any 3 Knowledge Skills" would be more reasonable.


Dennis da Ogre wrote:
Kaisoku wrote:
Some interesting stuff
This looks like a good way of handling this. I have 1 minor issues with it though. Maybe folks in my group use knowledge skills more but I think Polymath is a bit over the top. I would suggest "Choose any 3 Knowledge Skills" would be more reasonable.

In my games, Knowledge skills tend to be among the most useful skills available, so even 3 Knowledge skills would be too much. 2 Knowledge skills, like any other skills would be just fine.

Liberty's Edge

Roman wrote:
Dennis da Ogre wrote:
Kaisoku wrote:
Some interesting stuff
This looks like a good way of handling this. I have 1 minor issues with it though. Maybe folks in my group use knowledge skills more but I think Polymath is a bit over the top. I would suggest "Choose any 3 Knowledge Skills" would be more reasonable.
In my games, Knowledge skills tend to be among the most useful skills available, so even 3 Knowledge skills would be too much. 2 Knowledge skills, like any other skills would be just fine.

agreed

3 knowledge is good enough

if no you will be as taking Bardic Knowledge with a feat

ok
having this as a "General Feat" giving +2 in 2 similar skills its ok... i would only want a sidebar giving examples or or specific skils, having a name or not


I'm surprised that no developers have been like, "My, my, what a great idea! This would surely shave several pages off the finished product!"

Liberty's Edge

Psychic_Robot wrote:
I'm surprised that no developers have been like, "My, my, what a great idea! This would surely shave several pages off the finished product!"

maybe half a page

those are the smaller and less fluffy feats :P


Psychic_Robot wrote:
I'm surprised that no developers have been like, "My, my, what a great idea! This would surely shave several pages off the finished product!"

If in fact they had not heard this same suggestion before. They don't need to pop in and note what they are doing in every single thread.


zag01 wrote:
I say make it one feat but then have a chart of the different skill combos. Then say you can take the feat more than once so long as you choose a different combo. Call it Skill Advantage or somesuch. Thats bound to take up less space than all the seperate write ups but still keep the point being your good at two related things.

Ooooooo... I like that one!

SKILL ADVANTAGE
When you take this Feat select one of the skill combinations from the table below. You get a +2 bonus on all checks involving either skill.

  • Agile - Acrobatics and Escape Artist
  • Animal Affinity - Handle Animal and Ride
  • Athletic - Climb and Swim
  • Deceitful - Disguise and Linguistics
  • Deft Hands - Sleight of Hand and Use Rope (Where is Use Rope? Your Modules use it. <CoCT>)
  • Diligent - Appraise and Linguistics
  • Investigator - Diplomacy and Perception
  • Magical Aptitude - Spellcraft and Use Magic Device
  • Negotiator - Diplomacy and Sense Motive
  • Persuasive - Bluff and Intimidate
  • Self-Sufficient - Heal and Survival

    ------------------------------
    RETIRED COMBOS(feats):

  • Acrobatic - Jump and Tumble (Combined into Acrobatics)
  • Alertness - Listen and Spot (Combined into Perception)
  • Nimble Fingers - Disable Device and Open Lock[/i] (Combined into Disable Device)
  • Stealthy - Hide and Move Silently (Combined into Stealth)


  • I agree with Kaisoku's idea. Nice, streamlined and effective.


    It seems an un-necessary waste of space to list all these separately.
    Requiring a thematic link is easy enough. I'd rather have other cool Feats in the space these ones take up.

    For "backwards compatability",
    all previous +2/+2 Skill Feats are "converted" to the new "Skillful" Feat, with the exact same 2 Skills.

    Kaisoku's idea (retaining specific pairs) seems like a good compromise, saving space by ditching the "header" and "footer" for each distinct Feat, and also keeps them all unified in one spot, rather than randomly distributed by their Name.


    Quandary wrote:

    It seems an un-necessary waste of space to list all these separately.

    Requiring a thematic link is easy enough. I'd rather have other cool Feats in the space these ones take up...

    Well, the way Kaisoku has written it, the list would not take more place than a single feat. I say this would be an acceptable loss of space for the convienience of easier conversion. Better than calling for DM abjucation in a standard feat; this would come up probably every second time someone chooses this feat... and that would suck. ;)


    Montalve wrote:
    Roman wrote:
    Dennis da Ogre wrote:
    Kaisoku wrote:
    Some interesting stuff
    This looks like a good way of handling this. I have 1 minor issues with it though. Maybe folks in my group use knowledge skills more but I think Polymath is a bit over the top. I would suggest "Choose any 3 Knowledge Skills" would be more reasonable.
    In my games, Knowledge skills tend to be among the most useful skills available, so even 3 Knowledge skills would be too much. 2 Knowledge skills, like any other skills would be just fine.

    agreed

    3 knowledge is good enough

    if no you will be as taking Bardic Knowledge with a feat

    ok
    having this as a "General Feat" giving +2 in 2 similar skills its ok... i would only want a sidebar giving examples or or specific skils, having a name or not

    While Knowledge skills are nice flavor choices, most of them lack any real mechanical benefit. Meaning, the +2 doesn't really help all that much for most of them.

    Of the 10 options, 4 of them (Engineering, Geography, History and Nobility) have no use outside the roleplay flavor, except maybe the odd single situational bonus (+2 vs getting lost, DC 20 to notice cave-ins).
    Dungeoneering, Local, Nature, Planes and Religion are only good for knowing your enemy's abilities, and even then, many listed types have few abilities worth spending skillpoitns on to discover. Planes might be the most useful since Outsiders are so varied in abilities and DR.

    Knowledge Arcana is probably the single most useful considering it's added uses of identifying spell effects in various ways AND it's Detect Magic tie-in.

    To me, a +2 to all Knowledge skills is basically a +2 to Detect Magic and Knowing Enemies abilities. This is comparable I think with say... Spellcraft and Use Magic Device, or Perception and Sense Motive.

    Keep in mind that you would still need to have at least 1 rank in each Knowledge skill to benefit from this +2 in each area. The feat doesn't give you the ability to use the skills untrained.
    Which makes it very different from the Bard ability (which also gives 1/2 Bard level bonus on top of that).

    .

    Now, if the Knowledge skills were all updated to be as useful as Arcana is currently, I'd say yes.. limit it to 2 (maybe 3) skills. However, mechanically, there's just not that much gained from having a +2 in "knowing proper court etiquette". So as it stands, keeping it at +2 to all Knowledge feels balanced to me.

    Sovereign Court

    Bah! I say Skill Focus should give +5 to one skill, and instead of those silly +2/+2 feats (which I have never seen a PC take... they are quick DM NPC fillers IMO), we should have ONE feat that gives +2 to ALL skills. Make it worthwhile or take them out of the book!


    Kaisoku wrote:
    While Knowledge skills are nice flavor choices, most of them lack any real mechanical benefit. Meaning, the +2 doesn't really help all that much for most of them.

    Hmmm, the mechanical benefit is not the only aspect. Knowledge skills help (and lack of them hinders) the PCs in a variety of ways, that can be (and probably should be) more effective than the +2 against getting lost in saving important resources (Sage's fees, or choosing the correct path in a dungeon, for example). In my campaign there is not one evening at the gaming table without a use of knowledge skills... because knowledge is power! ;P Of course, this is not very easy to express in numbers, as it depends on gaming style, but IMHO knowledge skills should be treated as powerful as disable device or at least handle animal... ;)


    I'm all for combining all skills into a single feat. Call it "Skilled" - that was the name Monte used in McWoD.

    I don't think we really need the thematic ties we have right now, but I wouldn't mind too much if there was a list of combos, like people above suggested.

    Verdant Wheel

    It would be nicer if these +2/+2 feats granted new minor uses of the skills, they really are great for background (but they can be also replaced by traits).


    Totally agreed. a waste of space and addition of complexity to have them as many different feats.

    Dark Archive

    KaeYoss wrote:

    I'm all for combining all skills into a single feat. Call it "Skilled" - that was the name Monte used in McWoD.

    I don't think we really need the thematic ties we have right now, but I wouldn't mind too much if there was a list of combos, like people above suggested.

    I believe this was also discussed on the Alpha threads, and the feat was called 'Talented' if I recall correctly. I also believe that most posters agreed that something like this would be better than having an X number of +2/+2 Feats with "flavourful" names.

    I, too, would rather have a single Feat (whether it would be called 'Skilled' or 'Skill Synergy' or 'Talented') that lets the player come up with the two skills -- at the DM's discretion, of course (to prevent any "abuse", should that happen). As others have pointed out, it saves all too precious space in the book, and it also encourages players to come up with logical combinations that fit their character (such as Survival and Perception or Survival and Acrobatics).

    Kaisoku's suggestion is good as well, but occasionally you might need a bit more freedom to enable "exotic" or "odd" skill combos -- e.g. Spellcraft and Fly, if the PC is a wizard who uses Fly-spells a lot. Yet I wouldn't gripe if Kaisoku's suggestion would end up in the book, *but* I'd rather not have it called 'Skill Synergy', since that is a completely different thing in 3E, and I think we still need to discuss if there is any chance to retain actual Skill Synergy bonuses in 3P as well.


    Daniel Moyer wrote:
    zag01 wrote:
    I say make it one feat but then have a chart of the different skill combos. Then say you can take the feat more than once so long as you choose a different combo. Call it Skill Advantage or somesuch. Thats bound to take up less space than all the seperate write ups but still keep the point being your good at two related things.

    Ooooooo... I like that one!

    SKILL ADVANTAGE
    When you take this Feat select one of the skill combinations from the table below. You get a +2 bonus on all checks involving either skill.

  • Agile - Acrobatics and Escape Artist
  • Animal Affinity - Handle Animal and Ride
  • Athletic - Climb and Swim
  • Deceitful - Disguise and Linguistics
  • Deft Hands - Sleight of Hand and Use Rope (Where is Use Rope? Your Modules use it. <CoCT>)
  • Diligent - Appraise and Linguistics
  • Investigator - Diplomacy and Perception
  • Magical Aptitude - Spellcraft and Use Magic Device
  • Negotiator - Diplomacy and Sense Motive
  • Persuasive - Bluff and Intimidate
  • Self-Sufficient - Heal and Survival
  • For my part, I would like to see this solution. Saves space, consolidates rules, preserves the status quo.


    Asgetrion wrote:
    Kaisoku's suggestion is good as well, but occasionally you might need a bit more freedom to enable "exotic" or "odd" skill combos -- e.g. Spellcraft and Fly, if the PC is a wizard who uses Fly-spells a lot. Yet I wouldn't gripe if Kaisoku's suggestion would end up in the book, *but* I'd rather not have it called 'Skill Synergy', since that is a completely different thing in 3E, and I think we still need to discuss if there is any chance to retain actual Skill Synergy bonuses in 3P as well.

    The name was just a name, it can be changed of course. If this were to be implemented, I hold no illusions that they would take my example and use it exactly as written.

    They need to keep the old combinations though, and hopefully the old names.

    While the core game might not use them beyond the feat itself, other sources (especially Prestige classes) use them for prerequisites. It's one less thing to worry over when converting things to Pathfinder.

    I'd rather have it that a DM adjudicates when someone happens to want a +2/+2 skill feat that doesn't fit mold, rather than have to adjudicate the prerequisites every time a Prestige class gets added to the campaign.
    Right now, all we need for conversion is to reduce the skill rank requirements by 3 (for the most part).

    Liberty's Edge

    Dennis da Ogre wrote:


    I like that the two skills are tied fairly tightly together and don't think just basing them on the same attribute is enough. Some examples:
    Intimidate and UMD

    What is wrong with these two working together?

    Think of it like Mr. T in the WoW commercials.

    "I pity the wand that won't work when Mr. T wants it to!"

    Sovereign Court

    Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber
    Daniel Moyer wrote:

    SKILL ADVANTAGE

    When you take this Feat select one of the skill combinations from the table below. You get a +2 bonus on all checks involving either skill.

  • Agile - Acrobatics and Escape Artist
  • Animal Affinity - Handle Animal and Ride
  • Athletic - Climb and Swim
  • Deceitful - Disguise and Linguistics
  • Deft Hands - Sleight of Hand and Use Rope
  • Diligent - Appraise and Linguistics
  • Investigator - Diplomacy and Perception
  • Magical Aptitude - Spellcraft and Use Magic Device
  • Negotiator - Diplomacy and Sense Motive
  • Persuasive - Bluff and Intimidate
  • Self-Sufficient - Heal and Survival
    ------------------------------
    RETIRED COMBOS (feats):
  • Acrobatic - Jump and Tumble (Combined into Acrobatics)
  • Alertness - Listen and Spot (Combined into Perception)
  • Nimble Fingers - Disable Device and Open Lock[/i] (Combined into Disable Device)
  • Stealthy - Hide and Move Silently (Combined into Stealth)
  • I like.

    Sovereign Court

    I have been wondering why this wasn't already done. I like the chart to keep them thematically related.

    Sovereign Court

    Skilled [General]
    Benefit: you get a +1 bonus to all skills.

    How's that?


    Kaisoku wrote:

    How about this:

    Skill Synergy
    You focus your training in related skills.

    Excellent proposal! I fully support it.

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