
Curry |
Ok, to be honest, I haven't worked through all the threads, so maybe this is doubled anywhere.
To say that, the system has seen some great improvements through the Pathfinder Rules. There's one thing I really have my concerns with.
The skill points at first level.
The thing I (and my players) really like about the 3.5 rogue, bard and ranger are their high skill points. That is because it was possible to create some versatile, broad based characters. We usually don't put 4 points into a skill at 1st level, but 1 to 2, only sometimes 4. Thus it is able to give a rogue ALL necessary skills plus additional flair-based enhancements like craft, profession or perform. And it let's him support the party in every case, not only the ones he is specialized in. This makes him a little bit weaker, but nevertheless useful.
By allowing only the basis skill point amount of the character class at first level, you enforce more specialized, but less versatile characters. Let's say, we have a rogue with an intelligence rating of 14, giving him an additionally 2 skill points, resulting in 10 at first level. With that he can choose not even half of the rogues class skills. Sure, he has still his 4 points in Stealth and Perception, but maybe he had to drop Acrobatics and Bluff, because he didn't want to relinquish Diplomacy and Craft and thought he would need Climb, Escape Artist, Disable Device, Use Magic Device, Sleight of Hand and Knowledge (Dungeoneering).
With the somehow condensed skill set and being only able to put 1 point per level in a skill it may not be necessary to recieve the quadruple amount of skill points. But what about the double? This would allow even the all-time skill point-low fighter to get about half the class skills he is able to choose from. Not to speak about the cleric, wizard, paladin, sorcerer - choose one. Do you really think it is satisfying to play a cleric with Int 10 who is only proficient with Knowledge (religion) - which should definitely have every cleric - and ONE other skill?
Ok, this is only something to discuss and think about. And maybe I got something wrong, as a not-native English Speaker?

Curry |
Don't forget, you get to add a +3 bonus to all class skills with a rank, and with the condensed skill lists, your skill points stretch farther than they used to.
I Know - but that's exactly what I mean - you put one rank in eight/six/four/two class skills and this results in an specialized, but not very broad skilled character.
Thinking about it, double skill points may be too much for a rogue, but not the other classes. One and a half?

ZebulonXenos |

I see your problem. It's somewhat alleviated by the fact that (give or take some) only two-thirds of the skills from 3.5e are actually in PF. Ex., the Rogue gets the benefits of five (!) of the classes iconic skills rolled up into Perception and Stealth alone.
As for the poor skill-point deprived classes, the oft-mentioned matter of doing away with the 2 SP might be enough to make it worth while (excepting the Wizard, perhaps, given that they'll have a high INT mod). I've always found it strange that the Fighter, in particular, apparently spent so much time learning how to hit something with a sword that even the (stereotypically) dumb-as-nails Barbarian had twice his base skill points. That'd put things about right in my book, at least, and would probably be the extent of what might creep its way into a core rulebook.
EDIT: Clarification; I mean giving the Cleric, Fighter, Paladin and Sorcerer 4 SP per level instead of 2. I'm not sure how much giving that to wizards would throw things off-kilter.
For house ruling suggestions, I believe I had a DM that gave us 40 SP to start with (this was in plain 3.5e, mind you, with the old skills system) regardless of class. That might be going a little bit overboard, but giving some flat points to be used at first level (four or five, maybe), perhaps with restrictions that they go into Perform/Profession/Craft/other flavor-type skills seems reasonable to me. Outright multiplying SP at first level might bias things in favor of the higher SP classes.

rowdy55 |

Yes your character might seem like a specialist starting out, but when you level up your not limited to what skills you put your skill points into, you don't have to put that rank in the same skill as you did last level, you can choose to diversify over specialize every Level up, not just level 1. And in Pathfinder you can even put ranks in cross-class skills without penalty, allowing you to diversify even more.

![]() |

House Rule option: Right now the default is set that the max rank in any skill = level. Change that to level+1 and you eliminate the every-1st-level-character-is-equally-skilled problem without screwing up backwards compatibility. It allows for every character and NPC ever created thus far and assumes they chose to spread out their skill points such that their ranks equaled their level, but one could make a specialist character who put the same number of points into fewer skills and ended up a little better. This really only makes a difference at 1st level when you've normally only got one point per skill, where as with this house rule you could have one rank ... or two!
Example: Under the current Beta rules, a rogue starts with 8 skill points. Because of the max ranks = level rule, she MUST spend them on 8 different skills, and ends up being 1 rank good at 8 things. With my house rule, she can be 1 rank good at 8 things, or 2 ranks good at 4 things, or 1 rank good at 4 things and 2 ranks good at 2 things, etc.
It allows for much more flexibility and diversity with regard to starting skill levels without messing up the formulas for determining how many skill points people get or how they can be spent AND maintains backwards compatibility. The only possible downside (and I don't mind it) is that some characters may be a tad more skilled than before, by one rank, but their overall allocation of skill points doesn't change so the character who is over-skilled in one area must be under-skilled in another.

![]() |

I house-ruled it to double skill points at first level, which hasn't seemed to skew my game at all but let people fill out their skills lists pretty well. The rogue was basically good at everything at 1st level, but the cleric and barbarian were able to have a wide enough range of bumps that they could keep up. In a game with only 3 active PCs, that helped -- I might keep it as is in a larger party.
The slight tweak of making max ranks lvl+1 seems to work too -- I think this is something pretty easily addressed with small changes, by and large the new skill system works out fine.

Curry |
Thanks to you all.
Example: Under the current Beta rules, a rogue starts with 8 skill points. Because of the max ranks = level rule, she MUST spend them on 8 different skills, and ends up being 1 rank good at 8 things. With my house rule, she can be 1 rank good at 8 things, or 2 ranks good at 4 things, or 1 rank good at 4 things and 2 ranks good at 2 things, etc.
Mosaic, as you described it, the characters will have even less skills they are trained in, and that's what I try to avoid. I think that's a really good idea if you want to create highly trained specialists, but not "Jack-of-all-Trades".
Yes your character might seem like a specialist starting out, but when you level up your not limited to what skills you put your skill points into, you don't have to put that rank in the same skill as you did last level, you can choose to diversify over specialize every Level up, not just level 1. And in Pathfinder you can even put ranks in cross-class skills without penalty, allowing you to diversify even more.
I think it is important to mirror the experiences the characters made before starting adventuring. We tend to improve only skills where any experiences were made in or which have been used between two levels. Otherwise the characters need to find a teacher, which may be difficult in the midst of wilderness. So why should they show their versatility not until second level?
It also makes the standard level 1 npc less interesting...
Then again a 1st level character, isn't meant to be a specialist in anything, they have just been trained with no experience, only when they have gained experience and leveled up, should they be allowed to specialize.
Ok, unless I got you wrong, that’s nearly what I mean.
Being restricted to put skill points in max 8 skills the rogue (or the cleric with 2) inevitably specializes. Why shouldn’t they have trained more skills? Does a fighter only need Ride and Swim? If they have been schooled in an academy they for sure also where trained in Handle Animal and Acrobatics. And they know how to care for their weapons, what would be mirrored in a rank in craft (weaponsmithing) or (bowery) or or or.. If a fighter chooses craft (weaponsmithing), what differentiates him from a smith (or expert, if you want so) at first level?And most of the smiths won’t ever be better than first level. So why should the above mentioned fighter ask for the help of any smith in his life if he can do it at the same level?
One of the GMs at my table started giving all classes +2 skill points/level, it hasn't broken the game so far so I started doing the same, characters seem a lot more interesting and 3D now, but then our games make use of skills a lot more often than your BaB.
That’s the same with our group. But in general I try to keep the number of house rules as low as possible and to go with the standard rules. Seems as would it have been necessary for more than our group to improve the number of choosable skills at first level. That’s not to create munchkins or super-characters, just to create broader skilled characters. Why improve the special abilities, but restrict the general abilities in the form of skills?
Maybe I am to narrow-minded, I just wanted to improve the skill options at first level, so I didn’t thought of improving the skill points at higher levels, but that’s also seems worth to think about.