Swapping out skills: Balance Query

[IdleMind]

This question came up from a player during character creation. The player in question wants to make a heroic noble knight (were playing Core only, no APG) and asked if he could swap out some of his class skills to make a couple non-class skills into class skills.

In this specific instance he wanted to swap out Knowledge: Dungeoneering and Handle Animal from the Fighter list for Diplomacy and Sense Motive.

The idea led me to think, how bad is this to allow players to do this, assuming they aren't swapping in and out exclusive skills (i.e. no swapping out something for Disable Device or other "Trained Only" skills)?

I'd also make it so Craft and Profession could not be swapped out (as they are pretty universal). Thoughts on this idea? Tweaks? Criticisms?

-Idle

[Nosforontu]

While I think you might see cases of players dumping "bad skills" for "good skills" I don't think the game itself will really become unbalanced by it. After all the encounter really doesn't care if the D.C. X skill challenge was solved by any particular class only that someone in the party managed to roll high enough to succeed.

Years ago I ran a birthrite game in 3.5 and one of the options available for the players was to take a domain turn (one month of game time), and learn a new rank in any skill up to the cap on max ranks for their level. Several characters did so (mostly on various professions that became important to their kingdom such as sailor). It had no meaningful affect on play balance because the max level of theeir skill never changed just the possibility that they were trained in it did.

[karkon]

I think it would be fine to add those skills. Optionally you might want to let him use the cavalier's skill list as they have All the social skills but not a lot of the practical skills. I think it would be a fair trade especially since the fighter gets fewer skill points per level.

[Karel Gheysens]

IdleMind wrote:

I'd also make it so Craft and Profession could not be swapped out (as they are pretty universal). Thoughts on this idea? Tweaks? Criticisms?

it is my personal believe that what you are doing is completely unnecessary.

There are many trait that do exactly that. Give out class skills that were class skills before the trait. It appears to me this is exactly what you want. They were designed to allow for more enhanced history.

I think you gain some things by doing this. You gain the advantage that you know it will be balanced. Traits are tested many times. If they all take one trait, nobody will be overpowered. Second, you encourage the other players to create a history for their characters aswel.

Now, I'm not sure there is a trait for a noble knight giving out Diplomacy and sense motive. Though I think you can easily create one specially for him. It's not like he'll ever be overpowered in that region. Sorcerers or bards are going to have much higher charisma so no problem.

Not sure where to pdf is though it's free and as far as I know, they're not APG.

[Bob_Loblaw]

IdleMind wrote:

This question came up from a player during character creation. The player in question wants to make a heroic noble knight (were playing Core only, no APG) and asked if he could swap out some of his class skills to make a couple non-class skills into class skills.

In this specific instance he wanted to swap out Knowledge: Dungeoneering and Handle Animal from the Fighter list for Diplomacy and Sense Motive.

The idea led me to think, how bad is this to allow players to do this, assuming they aren't swapping in and out exclusive skills (i.e. no swapping out something for Disable Device or other "Trained Only" skills)?

I'd also make it so Craft and Profession could not be swapped out (as they are pretty universal). Thoughts on this idea? Tweaks? Criticisms?

-Idle

I don't think it's bad but I do think it's unnecessary. With skill boosting feats, it's very easy to get those skills to where you want them. You no longer have to deal with the 1/2 ranks either. Also, with a single level dip in a class that provides those as class skills, they will always grant the +3 class skill bonus.

You can make the changes if you like though. It's unlikely that it would affect your game negatively.

Sometimes dipping is a better way to simulate the character anyway.