Just thinking a book like this could be interesting to make skills a more lively part of the game, just pondering what such a book could bring to make it interesting enough. I'd like to hear some ideas.
Book of Ultimate Skill
A few things that might be included:
- Skill Tricks
Like in the 3.5 book complete scoundrel, I really liked the general idea of skill tricks to have 'specialized' skill uses in exchange for an investment in skill points to learn a trick, like a fancy manoeuver usable once per combat or another skill related benefit.
- Optional rules and uses for skills
Smoothing out some skills with alternate rules for knowledge, crafting and other skills or uses for skills that you have not thought of before. Possible alternate rules for taking 10 or 20 or aid another.
- Tools and Equipment
Gear to either make (specific) skill applications possible, enhance skills or otherwise interact with skills.
- Magical Items and spells
Like Tools and Equipment, but magical.
- Class Options
Mainly options to make characters with more skill points or skill tricks, perhaps by exchanging other class features, like heavy or medium armor proficiency or bonus feats. Maybe some archetypes, feats or optional race abilities.
IIRC the devs said there will be no third "Ultimate" book.
I guess that a hardcover Book of Not Contributing to Combat wouldn't be much of a hit with the crowd, to be honest.
Ok please don't get hung up on the name it was just a name that popped up.
I am aware a book dealing with skills might not be popular at first glance, though I am very interested in such a book.
What could it include to make you interested in such a book ?
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I'd actually like a book of expanded skill uses - it's just that I doubt that demand is big enough to warrant a hardcover. But I think that some of that material could be scattered across the other books. For example, Ultimate Combat could perhaps have new combat maneuvers and uses for Acrobatics in combat. "Revisited" books and bestiaries could have Knowledge DC tables for identifying monsters (I really miss those). Companion books could include specific skill uses for given race/class (I think some of that is already in Companions).
Speaking as someone who has played in a number of 3.5 and Pathfinder RPG games now where the focus was on skill use, social battles and intrigue, along with some tactical combat and dirty fighting, I'm all for a book containing something along these lines and was disappointed that there would be no book dedicated to the subtler side of D&D. Though I do realize that playing the game this way is somewhat rare, and there would be less of a market for an entire book dedicated to such.
Still, there's no reason why a book focused on such things wouldn't contribute to combat situations... it would be a very different flavor of combat, however. Performance Combat and Spell Duels aren't everyone's cup of tea either :)
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May not a Complete or Ultimate book but like an "Adventurer's Guide" or "Adventurer's Kit" book that gave player options for the more mundane and practical side of adventuring. Like a feat that allowed someone to perform some mundane healing on the party, something not as quick and abundant as healing spells but something better than sleeping it off. Of maybe a feat or trait that allows someone to use survival to made food that provided a boon to the party.
Me too.
As silly as most people found the ELH skill stuff, I think it was wonderful, and any expansion of what, where, how and why people can use skills is something I'm all for.
I'm just not a fan of the Skill Tricks that were introduced in Complete Scoundrel ... that was Yet Another Rule-set to learn. Ugh.
So +1 to new and expanded explanations of skill uses, -1 to new rules for skills :)
A way to make it more viable would be to include classes and equipment that fit the theme. More optional rules would not hurt either.
I'd like revisions to the skill-focused classes (Rogue...well ok, mostly Rogue) so that they can actually contribute something useful to the group.
Kirthfinder has Skill tricks that are actually useful and powerful--they basically use Skills to duplicate the effects of spells and other supernatural abilities (and they are limited per day just like a spell, actually). For example, as a first level skill trick, they could use Diplomacy to duplicate Charm person, or Perception to duplicate Alarm.
Otherwise, skills are, and always have been, an afterthought in d20*. If you're using it for non-combat games, it's probably because you never learned another system, since, practically all of them (that are not D&D clones themselves) are better suited for a non-combat, skill-focused sort of game.
I'm not saying Pathfinder handles skills badly or anything, I'm just saying it handles them appropriately for the genre and style it's going for, and that means skills correctly take a firm back seat to magic and combat.
*Literally, skills were an afterthought in the long run, since originally, D&D had no skills at all. The closest thing to "skills" were special Rogue abilities like Hide, Open Lock, Pick Pocket, Climb, etc. Only Rogues and Rangers could do those things.
Everyone else had only combat stats. If you wanted to do something else, it was up to the GM. Most things, they'd just let you do. If you said you looked at X, you saw X and all the details, no roll needed. Sometimes, you just played it out--usually, you could only convince someone if you gave an actually convincing argument. Other times, you just picked an attribute and tried rolling under it.
I wasn't a fan of skill tricks. Mostly because I had had the thought of doing a lot of them while I was learning 3.5e. Then I find out that I have to spend skill points to be able to do something tied to my skills? The book was out before the DM who taught me the game allowed me access to it (we started slow, to avoid bloat for the new players like myself), and the concept was there.
While it's not the best comparison, I initially thought of it like spending BAB on a different way to swing a sword. It should already be tied to those points, I shouldn't lose them to be able to do something intentionally tied to the ability.
That's kind of muddled, but maybe you get my point.
Think of if you researched a spell that did X, and you and the GM agreed it should be 2nd level. Then a book comes out with the exact same spell, and it's 3rd level. I imagine that would be the feeling of when skill tricks came out for people who played skillful characters doing awesome stuff. "I've been doing this for a while, but now I can't, because the rules exist elsewhere."
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I'm really not for the case of spending skill points to get new powers and abilities. I am just speaking of a resource that gave better uses for the skills we already have ranks in. For example in one of the FR books it stated one could draw a magic circle and give himself a bonus to there spellcaster level and is gave a knowledge arcana DC. In the pathfinder case I am thinking of the use of skills meeting a DC or passing a test and getting a boon.
Don't get me wrong: a book full of stuff you can do with skills would be great. Just don't make it done through feats or spending skill points or anything like that. The design of skills is that you are getting better at using them by putting points into the specific ones. You take away from that concept if you require other sources of learning just to use them as you want to.
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I agree. Having to spend skill points on skill tricks was a poor design. It means that a supposedly "skilled" character has to actually be worse at the general use of his skills in order to be able to do one or two specific tricks.
It would be like someone having to be worse at figure skating in order to be able to do a triple lutz. it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
But I'd love a book full of creative skill uses.
I would like to see the book.
I'd enjoy a book like this greatly.
The way I'd do skill tricks is a requisite number of skill points in given skills. Such as a social trick requiring 3 ranks in bluff, 5 ranks in diplomacy, and 2 ranks in disguise. No idea what it'd do, but just an example.
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Here is a suggestion of a new use of something we already have w/o costing a feat...
Shielding defensively as a Standard Action: You can choose to shield defensively when attacking. If you do so, you take -2 a penalty on all attacks in a round to gain a bonus to AC until the start of your next turn depending on your shield. This action cannot be performed on a buckler but only on a shield. This cannot be combined with fighting defensively
Small shield = 2
Large Shield = 3
Tower Shield = 4
***
Above that is intended to not be a feat or trait but a player option, like fighting defensively.