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Some skills are more useful than others. Some are nearly exactly the same as other skills. Some skills overlap in their relevence.
The new skill system is much more simplified. Cross class skills and multiclass characters are so much simpler to deal with, Obviously related skills have been consolidated to allow skilled characters to truly have a varied skill suite, rather than being forced to the same large number of related skills to carry out their usual functions. In my opinion, the system is much improved. There are a few glaring problems with the changes, however, and nearly all of them are at their heart an imbalance in the usefulness of one skill vs. another.
Some of these intra-skill balance issues are not going to be perfectly solvable - the usefulness of particular skills varies sharply by campaign, by DM, and by group playstyle. In my groups, Knowledge skills have proven to be useful and are often taken if they can be afforded. I have heard this is not the case with other groups. Some groups consist of a party with uneasy alliances throughout - in such a group, sense motive and perception to keep an eye on allied rivals grow in importance. Sometimes a DM perfers city adventures, and the survival skill is nigh worthless, while in others the conversational arts are neglected in favor of more succinct and physical types of discussion, usually involving the heavy use of blunt and sharp edged objects.
Let's do our best anyways, shall we?
SKILL LIST
Acrobatics -
- Move over difficult to traverse terrain (flat)
- Move through threatened areas without attracting attacks of opportunity (scaling)
- Jumping (flat)
- Bonuses to AC for defensive actions (flat)
Appraise -
- Appraise value of mundane items (scaling)
- Determine properties of magical items in conjunction with Detect Magic (scaling)
Bluff -
- Deceive an NPC (opposed)
- Feint in combat to remove a enemy's dex bonus to AC (scaling)
- Pass a secret message in "normal" conversation. (flat (opposed for unintended audience to understand))
- Create a diversion to allow a bluff check (opposed)
Climb -
- Advance up an incline (flat)
- Climb a vertical or horizontal surface (flat)
Craft(split into groups) -
- Create a physical object (flat)
Diplomacy -
- Change the attitude of an intelligent nonplayer character (flat)
- Gather information around town(flat)
Disable Device -
- Disable a mechanical device (flat)
- Open a lock(flat)
Disguise -
- Disguise yourself to hide your identity or impersonate someone (opposed)
Escape Artist -
- Escape ties/manacles/physical spaces (flat)
- Escape grapple (opposed)
Fly -
- Control flight and maneuver in the air (flat)
Handle Animal -
- Get an animal to perform a trick it knows or push it to do something it normally doesn't want to do (flat)
- Teach an animal a trick(flat).
- Rear a wild animal (flat)
Heal -
- Treat injuries, first aid, long term care(flat)
- Treat Deadly wounds to return hit points to injured characters(flat).
- Treat Poison or disease (scaling)
Intimidate -
- Force an opponent to act friendly for a short period of time (scaling)
- Demoralize opponents to impose combat penalties (scaling).
Knowledge (Arcana) -
- Answer questions on arcane matters, constructs, dragons and magical beasts (scaling)
- Identify spell effects, magically created materials (scaling).
Knowledge (dungeoneering) -
- Answer questions on aberrations, oozes, caves, underground environments (scaling).
Knowledge (engineering) -
- Answer questions on buildings, man-made structures (scaling)
Knowledge (geography) -
- Answer questions on lands, climate, people (scaling)
Knowledge (history) -
- Answer questions on wars, colonies, foundations of cultures and cities
Knowledge (local) -
- Answer questions on legends, personalities, laws, customes, traditions, humanoid information (scaling)
Knowledge (nature) -
- Answer questions on animals, fey, giants, monstrous humanoids, plants, vermin seasonand cycles, weather (scaling)
Knowledge (nobility) -
- Answer questions on lineages, heraldry, personalities, royalty (scaling).
Knowledge (planes) -
- Answer questions on outsiders, elementals, the different planes (scaling)
Knowledge (religion) -
- Answer questions on undead, gods and goddesses, myths, ecclesiastic tradition (scaling)
Linguistics -
- Speak multiple language and decipher unknown tongues given the time.(scaling)
- Create or detect forgeries (opposed)
- Learn a language (flat)
Perception -
- Perceive anything from the 5 senses (scaling)
Perform -
- Earn up to 3d6 gold for a DC 30 performance. (scaling)
Profession -
- Earn 1/2 your skill check in gold pieces for a week of work in your profession. (scaling)
Ride -
- Ride an animal, perform actions while riding animal. (scaling)
Sense Motive -
- Avoid being bluffed, intercept secret message (opposed)
- Sense enchantment, assess social situation (scaling)
Sleight of Hand -
- Entertain with magic tricks, palm an item(scaling)
- Pickpocket non-weilded items, hide items on oneself (opposed)
Spellcraft -
- Identify spells as they are cast, concentrate to cast a spell defensively, or not lose a spell you're casting(scaling)
Stealth -
- Avoid detection(scaling)
Survival -
- Keep yourself and allies safe and fed in wilderness(scaling)
- Follow Tracks (scaling)
Swim -
- Stay afloat, maneuver in water(scaling)
- Create or detect forgeries (opposed)
- Learn a language (flat)
Use Magic Device -
- Decipher a written spell.(scaling)
- Activate a magic device (flat or scaling)
- Emulate attributes to use specific magical items. (flat)
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ON COMBINING SKILLS
The most critical issue with regard to combining skills is leaving them with some level of parity. One skill should not obviously outshine another in value. If one skill is more often usful than another, than the other should provide a greater bonus in those times when it can be used, or it should provide opportunities to make itself useful - or it should be useful for mitigating some other dire weakness for a character.
I think there are classes of skills that are obviously strong, obviously weak, somewhat weak, and just about right. My personal breakdown looks like this:
Obviously Strong:
- Acrobatics - multiple mathematical advantages are conferred here. Tumbling to avoid AoOs tumbling to avoid falling damage, increasing mobility over difficult terrain, increasing movement options with jump and increases to Armor class while performing certain functions are universally useful to all character types, though it's more useful to some than others. Every single character in the game can gain significant combat advantage from ranks in Acrobatics. I would suggest something be removed from this skill, or the difficulty of performing certain extremely advantageous actions increase.
- Diplomacy - As the DCs for negotiating with creatures and changing their attitudes (permanently!!!) only scales by their beginning hostility, this skill is a no-brainer. I play it differently in my games simply because the description of the skill makes it quite powerful. The abuse of possible synergy bonus buildup for Diplomacy has been removed, for which I am grateful, but this is still an incredibly powerful skill. Every party should really have one diplomancer. I believe the use of this skill needs to change radically. Rich Burlew's alternate Diplomacy Rules might be a good starting point.
- Perception - this is slightly less overpowering in that it doesn't confer quite as many combat advantages. I think this isn't as overpowered a choice as Acrobatics because it has less in combat advantage to offer, and in most groups simply having one scout character is enough - therefore every character shouldn't feel compelled to max it out.
- Spellcraft - This is only useful for spellcasters - but it's pretty much required for spellcasters, given the defensive casting system. As part of the effort to bring parity between spellcasters and martial characters, I would remove defensive casting entirely and increase the DC for retaining a spell if damaged while casting, if given my druthers. I think Spellcraft will always, even with these changes, remain a very important skill for spellcasters. But that is probably as it should be.
Obviously Weak:
Craft - I think this is weak because it takes too long to make something useful and I have difficulties with crafting categories. There's no reason a person that can make a bow shouldn't be able to craft a high quality quarterstaff. Distinguishing between making a longbow and making a ranseur but not between making leather armor and platemail is frustrating. And any skill breakdown I make here is equally strange, or so specific as to render the skill even more useless. I think, for gaming purposes, Craft breakdowns for most adventuring equipments would be
- Alchemy
- Armor
- Weapon
- Mechanical(traps, locks, maybe crossbows and firearms would be here as well as Weapon?)
There would be other categories for less useful adventuring gear, but that seems to break up the utility of the most often sought after craft categories.
Knowledge (blah) - Knowledge skill usefullness varies sharply by campaign. Monster identifying knowledge skills are probably most often useful. Knowledge (engineering), Knowledge (nobility) and Knowledge (geography) are least often used, in my experience. I would like to see the following Knowledge list:
- Knowledge (arcana) - This one is reasonably well used. Adding some of Spellcraft's old uses to it as Concentration was folded into Spellcraft was an excellent choice, in my opinion. I would add knowledge of the non-alignment and non-divine planes (elemental planes, astral, etc.) to Knowledge (arcana) simply because it makes the most sense, and knowledge (the planes) is so situational in usefulness. I would add knowledge of aberrations to this knowledge because they often are arcane in nature.
- Knowledge (Cultures) - This will include Knowledge (geography), knowledge (history), knowledge (local) and Knowledge (nobility). This doesn't identify monsters, so in order to make it useful (and clear up all the problems Knowledge (local) introduced!), I'd just like to roll them up together. Paladins, Rogues and those with a keen need for social astuteness should have this as a skill to get along as they adventure through new and strange lands.
- Knowledge(nature) - Again, I find this one is often used in game - I would add Knowledge (dungeoneering) to this, except for the understanding of aberrations.
- Knowledge (religion) - This one is used in most games. I would add knowledge of all alignment or diety based planes this, and that's about it.
- Knowledge (warfare) - This would include Knowledge(engineering), some bits of knowledge (geography) assiciated with terrain for battle, knowledge(local) in weapons preferred by a culture or region, Knowledge(nobility) in knowledge of outstanding generals, tactics of rulers, Knowledge(history) as it relates to past battles, strategies and tactics. Knowledge(cultures) helps you negotiate your way peacefully through a region. Knowledge(warfare) helps you fight your way out when those negotiations break down.
As an aside, if Knowledges were broken up in this manner, I'd just give Bards a free rank each level in Knowledge(cultures) as a matter of course and call that Bardic Knowledge.
Profession - This is generally not meant to be a strong choice for a character - after all, if they were happy being a cooper, they wouldn't be going out to kill monsters and demi-gods!!! So maybe it's okay for this to be weak. One slight improvment might be to continue the idea of breaking down the possibilities into a few broader but more useful categories. Profession (Laborer), Profession (Artisan), Profession (Clerk), Profession (Entertainer), Profession (Politician) maybe?
Perform - In my opinion, this is the real stinker. There is no difference between Perform(Dance) and Profession (Dancer) or Profession (Entertainer). This skill is a waste of precious page space. As I've remarked in many former posts, forcing bards to take ranks in this stinky skill just adds insult to injury. I would strongly urge either reducing this to one Perform skill, with different "types" of performance being gained for each rank (like Linguistics), or removing it entirely and rolling anyone with ranks in Perform (kazoo) into Profession (Entertainer).
Somewhat Weak:
When compared with Acrobatics, Climb, Swim, Escape Artist, Fly all look pretty lackluster. There are multiple possibilities here. Climb, Swim, and Fly are all problematic as they are movement modes. Combining them leads to serious issues (are all good flyers good swimmers? Probably not - and it would make monsters with special movement modes a problem). Let's separate Acrobatics out, and take a look at the whole list:
- Balance(Dex)
- Climb(Str, movement)
- Escape Artist(Dex)
- Fly(Dex, movement)
- Jump(Str)
- Swim(Str, movement)
- Tumble(Dex)
The best way I'm seeing to look at these is try to attach one or two non-movement skills to each movement skill. I think the best way to do this is to look at creatures with a natural movement mode of that type, and see what makes good sense for such creatures, and what doesn't in general work. My best version right now is:
- Climb (Climb, Balance)
- Acrobatics (Fly, Jump, Tumble)
- Athletics (Swim, Escape Artist)
I would also like Ride and Handle Animal rolled into one skill called Handle Animal. I don't think either is so powerful that it's game breaking to combine them - and it makes sense, just like rolling spot and listen into Perception and hide and move silently into Stealth - they're two sides of the same coin.
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SUGGESTED SKILL LIST
So, these are my thoughts on what a good skill list for the current system would be. Sometimes I made a best guess when there were two stats that applied from old skills I combined. Same with classes that have these skills as class skills. Please take a look and see how my perception of skills fits within your gaming experience.
- Acrobatics (Dex) <Fly, Jump, Tumble> {Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Monk, Rogue}
- Appraise
- Athletics (Str) <Swim, Escape Artist> {Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Rogue} - probably add some feat to make athletics dex based - at it to agile maneuvers, maybe.
- Bluff
- Climb (Dex) <Climb, Balance> {Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Ranger, Rogue}
- Craft (Int) {All} options Alchemy, Armor, Machinery, Weapons
- Diplomacy
- Disable Device (I would remove the necessity for having "trapfinding" for finding high DC traps, or add Trapfinding as a general feat that rogues get for free)
- Disguise
- Handle Animal (Cha) <Handle Animal, Ride> {Barbarian, Druid, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger}
- Heal
- Intimidate
- Knowledge Arcana (int) {Bard, Cleric, Sorceror, Wizard}
- Knowledge Cultures (Int) <geography, history, local, nobility> {Bard, Cleric, Paladin, Rogue, Wizard}
- Knowledge Nature (Int) {Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Ranger, Wizard}
- Knowledge Religion (Int) {Bard, Cleric, Paladin, Wizard}
- Knowledge Warfare (Int) {Bard, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Wizard}
- Linguistics
- Perception
- Profession (Wis) - options Artisan, Clerk, Entertainer, Laborer, Politician
- Sense Motive
- Sleight of Hand
- Spellcraft
- Stealth
- Survival
- Use Magic Device
Thoughts? Comments?
I agree with Thomas here on the idea behind the Profession thing. I think it's a great idea that consolidates three relatively unavailing skills. By keeping it listed as Profession, players can even remember that they can make money off of it, even if they don't finish what they do (As Thomas provided in his example).
As for the rest of the skills, I think Knowledge (Cultures) is a great addition, as well are the rest of your consolidations. Unfortunately, I haven't seen my players ever use one of those skills (with the exception of Knowledge (Arcana)) and would love to see them have more "play time."
As always, lets keep in mind that there will always be some skills that seem "less than good" from different games' perspectives. As Jess said, some campaigns just don't use certain skills as much, and we have to come to terms with that ourselves. It shouldn't mean having to jack up the power on Survival or Sense Motive just because one person's campaign doesn't frequent it.
Now, if I might add my own harmless opinion, I always thought keeping Search with Perception was a little much, and (dare I say it) I actually don't use Acrobatics (Only because my own players hated the idea of having someone who's good at Tumbling automatically be good at Balancing, but hey, I'm here to appease them so whatever). I also want to make a point that someone else made (I can't find it at the moment) about Forgery being a function of Craft rather than Linguistics. It seemed to make sense that you would craft a forgery, so I adopted it and actually found players more interested in using it for some gosh darn reason. Also, the same person proposed the idea of making Appraise the opposed check to it, which also makes sense to me. I'd love to see this adopted by Jason, but if its not then thats OK... I'll just house-rule it myself :]
In conclusion, I support this skill buff system, and would hope it gets recognized.
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However, my real complaint is the opposite of yours - Craft/Profession/Perform. I understand your problem with Craft taking too long, and with the overlap of Profession/Perform; but in reality these are three different skills broken out in different ways. Would it be easier to understand if it broke out like this?:
- Profession(accountant)
- Profession(craft{barrels})
- Profession(perform{saxophon e})
I fail to see how your complaint is the "opposite" of mine. In fact, I like your suggestion quite a bit! My biggest complaint was that the difference between Profession and Perform was non-existent in mechanical terms, it was a waste of space, and forcing bards to take max ranks in a nearly useless, repetitive and, frankly, almost punative skill only exacerbates the base issue - Craft, Profession and Perform need something to bring them up to par in the skill list. I don't expect them to be equal in value to all the other skills - but they should be simplified and increased in usefulness.
Thinking about it more, I think your "opposite" refers to me narrowing down the permutations available for each skill, whereas you combine the skills and increase the available permutations from there. No worries, though. The point of my suggestions is never the method I use to try to balance the system. The point is always to remove a systematic weakness in the game rules. Having severely unbalanced skill choices is such a systematic weakness. Any method that increases the relevence of weak skills is a possible solution - and offering more than one possible solution lets Paizo pick the best one!