So I was thinking earlier about how the 3.5 skills balance, jump, and tumble all got rolled into the acrobatics skill. Then I got to thinking about climb and swim and wondered what other people would think of this: combine climb and swim into 1 skill called athletics. I honestly think it would help out quite a bit because if a games not water based you likely won't take ranks in swim and then when you need to save a group of drowning people that have weights attached to their ankles you won't have to hope you roll good to catch up to them. The only problem I see with this is that it would be harder to rule races with climb and swim speeds because the +8 bonus would only apply to half the skill. Any thoughts on whether this would work well or not?
Those kinds of creatures would just get a +blah to athletics while swimming, etc.
I think it's a good call for a house rule.
For what it's worth, here are some house rules including this.
Hm... I'll have to try it then lol
I like it!
Seems to be a common house rule. With all the Skill changes, not sure how they missed this one.
Seems to be a common house rule. With all the Skill changes, not sure how they missed this one.
A lot of people asked for it, and I remember a rather heated debate about it. There was a lot of disagreement, and I guess the devs decided to stick with the status quo.
The biggest thing that annoyed me about the decision to do it as they did it is they took Jump away from Fighters, because they didn't give Fighters Acrobatics as a class skill, which screws up backwards compatibility for Fighter conversions (and it makes sense for Fighter to have Acrobatics as it stands anyway, for finesse builds.).
I don't use this houserule yet but for future campaigns I'm thinking about folding Balance, Tumble, and Escape Artist into one skill (who actually uses Escape Artist, anyway? It's largely for Combat Maneuvers, and it's not intuitive to me to let a skill into the mechanics of what's otherwise handled by CMB/CMD) and Climb/Jump/Swim -- basically all the Dex-based mobility/acrobatics into one skill, and all the (originally) Strength-based mobility/movement-based efforts into one skill.
A great Alpha-phase debate carried on about this (HERE), but didn't make the final cut.
I argued then (to some acclaim) that Jump should have been taken out of Acrobatics and folded into an Athletics skill with Climb, as the two STR-based skills represent hurdling an obstacle in some way. Swim, on the other hand, should stand alone. It is wholly different in mechanics from jumping and climbing and is NOT something everyone knows how to do, whereas even the worst of us can jump and climb.
A great Alpha-phase debate carried on about this (HERE), but didn't make the final cut.
I argued then (to some acclaim) that Jump should have been taken out of Acrobatics and folded into an Athletics skill with Climb, as the two STR-based skills represent hurdling an obstacle in some way. Swim, on the other hand, should stand alone. It is wholly different in mechanics from jumping and climbing and is NOT something everyone knows how to do, whereas even the worst of us can jump and climb.
I kind of agree that with this. I know not everyone knows how to swim but my big problem is that you rarely use swim in a campaign that's not set on the sea. This is the case in a campaign I'm playing in and our DM decided to have us save some drowning NPC's that were locked together and being pulled under water. By the time my character (the only 1 of us with disable device) jumped into the water they were too far down for me to catch until they reached the bottom then I had to unlock 5 people in 6 rounds.
I'd have no problem with athletics just folding all of the physical movement types of things, honestly - jump, climb and swim seem just fine.
Alternatively, let the two skills combine as it stands (ie: balance and tumble = acrobatics, and climb and swim = athletics) and have "jump" be more like a special case/maneuver/whatever that can be keyed off of either Athletics, or Acrobatics - what ever favors the PC most.
I'm always kind of generous that way as I gm, so :shrugs: I'd have no problem with my suggestion above, though. I'd also have no problem keying it to either/or permanently for someone else's house rule either, though.
As a principal, anything that cuts down the amount of skills out there is a *good* move overall. Condensing skills, or creating more uses for existing skills is also a good idea (it just provides a better investment for spending the skills in the first place). Most skills are highly circumstantial at best and have minor impact with interacting with the world that stressing over Swim, no, ATHLETICS seems worthless relative to the effects of something like a ring of water breathing, or the spell itself.
I just didn't like it myself.
I think my reservation is that there are folks who are strong and can climb, but can't swim at all. Yeah, I know, there are lots of skills with problems like that in the game, but still. Some people just can't swim.
I don't begrudge you the house rule, if it helps your game. I just figured I'd offer the counter-reasoning. (not by way of starting a flamewar, please)
My thought is that the people to whom you refer are defaulting to their stat: those who can run fast and/or jump high, but not swim are usually relying on their high str score, not necessarily actual training in running and jumping. Athletes (ie; those who have ranks in athletics) are almost always going to be able to swim. (barring campaign specifics, of course) Even if he isn't formally trained in swimming, the training and experience with athletics in general will allow him to apply his kinesthetic understanding to swimming. Yeah, realistically he wouldn't be as good at swimming, but a marathoner wouldn't be as good at jumping, either. The point in my mind is to collapse skills together which could reasonably be associated, so the sparse skill points players do get go a bit further, and characters can actually do these super-situational skills when they do come up...
These are pretty much my exact thoughts.
A great Alpha-phase debate carried on about this (HERE), but didn't make the final cut.
I argued then (to some acclaim) that Jump should have been taken out of Acrobatics and folded into an Athletics skill with Climb, as the two STR-based skills represent hurdling an obstacle in some way. Swim, on the other hand, should stand alone. It is wholly different in mechanics from jumping and climbing and is NOT something everyone knows how to do, whereas even the worst of us can jump and climb.
+1
for my campaign I changed over to using the Acrobatics (balance & Tumble), Athletics (Climb & Jump) and Swim skills.
not that it totally related to what we are talking about here but I also kept Search as stand alone skill.
I've decided when I run again that I will also make an athletics skill, which will be Climb, Swim and Jump. Acrobatics will still include Jump and you will be able to use whichever you prefer for jump checks.
If I were to combine Climb and Jump into Athletics I would allow the Agile Athlete feat from Races of the Wild (at least that's where I think it is) that allows you to Climb and Jump with dex.
If I were to combine Climb and Jump into Athletics I would allow the Agile Athlete feat from Races of the Wild (at least that's where I think it is) that allows you to Climb and Jump with dex.
I was doing that too :)
+1
for my campaign I changed over to using the Acrobatics (balance & Tumble), Athletics (Climb & Jump) and Swim skills.
not that it totally related to what we are talking about here but I also kept Search as stand alone skill.
Thanks for the kudos. We seem to think much alike, for I also have kept Search as a separate skill, while Perception still includes Spot and Listen.