Newbie Skill Question

[DruLeeParsec]

I just want to make sure that I'm understanding the skill bonus situation correctly.

I roll up my character and find that several of my 6 abilities give me positive modifiers.

I look down the right side of my character sheet and I see a long list of skills that I can choose from and they each have an ability related to it.

Question #1: Do I apply my ability modifier to every one of those skills or just the ones where I spend skill points?

Then I pick the skills where I want to spend points (up to my hit dice number. So one point per skill for my new first level character).

Question #2: Does my bonus of +3 for in class skills apply to every skill that is in class or just the ones where I spend skill points?

I could see how if the answer to Question #1 is "You only use modifiers on skills where you purchased ranks" then question 2 is moot.

Thank you

[Paul Watson]

DruLeeParsec wrote:

I just want to make sure that I'm understanding the skill bonus situation correctly.

I roll up my character and find that several of my 6 abilities give me positive modifiers.

I look down the right side of my character sheet and I see a long list of skills that I can choose from and they each have an ability related to it.

Question #1: Do I apply my ability modifier to every one of those skills or just the ones where I spend skill points?

Then I pick the skills where I want to spend points (up to my hit dice number. So one point per skill for my new first level character).

Question #2: Does my bonus of +3 for in class skills apply to every skill that is in class or just the ones where I spend skill points?

I could see how if the answer to Question #1 is "You only use modifiers on skills where you purchased ranks" then question 2 is moot.

Thank you

My understanding is:

1) Yes, ability modifiers apply to all skills with the relevant ability, unless the skill is trained only.

2) No, the skill bonus only applies to class skills where you actually have ranks.

Hope that helps.

[DruLeeParsec]

Thank you Paul. That makes sense. I like the idea of having the +3 skill bonus for in-class skills only applying to skills you purchase because it makes those precious skill points mean something. If we applied the +3 to all in class skills then the points themselves get lost in the noise.