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Characters don’t gain skill ranks neither at character creation nor when they level up. Skill rank prerequisites for feats, prestige classes and other character options are replaced by character level.
I haven't actually tested it yet but I plan to, what are your initial thoughts on this crazy idea?
EDIT: I would still keep the +3 bonus to class skills (only, it would apply to all class skills because there are no skill ranks)
There is a variant in 3.5 Unearthed Arcana, where you use your class level as your bonus for all class skills, instead of using points and being allowed your level plus three. In PF this would translate to a +1 per level in all class skills, but without the +3 training bonus. I'm sorry if thats confusing. Its a valid approach for a group that wants to focus less on crunch in favor of fluff. I would do it if the rest of the group is. Generally though, customization is part of the allure of 3d ed./3.5/PF style gaming.
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I think is awful. what would mundane character do with their life? who would play a rogue? who would risk to climb a cliff or to swim even in calm waters?
Climbing cliffs and swimming in calm waters are both DC 10.
Rogues would have a +3 because it's class skill for them (sorry I wasn't clear enough on that) and they would still add their Dex bonus. If they're Athletic they get another +2, and if they have Skill Focus they have another +3. Those feats now look a lot more interesting. Spells and magic items that give skill bonuses also start to look better.
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Characters don’t gain skill ranks neither at character creation nor when they level up. Skill rank prerequisites for feats, prestige classes and other character options are replaced by character level.
I haven't actually tested it yet but I plan to, what are your initial thoughts on this crazy idea?
EDIT: I would still keep the +3 bonus to class skills (only, it would apply to all class skills because there are no skill ranks)
Wow. I don't think I've ever been so violently against something in my whole life.
So, what? The fighter who's spent years fighting dragons and BBEGs is still endagered by a pool of water? The wizard who has been traveling and learning doesn't know anything more about magic than the guy who got out of wizard school last week?
Do not want.
This is quite close to what DDNext is doing in the playtest (except you don't add +3 to the class skills, you roll and add +1d6/+1d8/+1d10.
It could work, but you need to rebalance all the skill DCs.
Even a str 20 paladin have good chances to drown if he wears a full plate.
Not really. Assuming he has a single rank (ie: he learnt how to swim), he'll have +9 to swim, minus 5 from the full plate (if it's masterwork), he has the same swimming ability than any average commoner with STR 13 and swimming as class skill, and more than any spellcaster in his group.
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If a paladin jumps into water with full armor he is asking to get himself drowned.
If he takes his armor before swimming, he would have his Str bonus, let's assume +4, against DC 10 he has to roll a 6, a 70% success chance.
Since rogues have a lot of class skills, they would have a lot of free +3 bonuses to skills (even if they don't have ranks in them).
Setting aside the clear concerns with the skills whose DC's don't scale with level like Swim, what about the skills whose DC's do scale? Beyond a certain point, you will never identify anything with Knowledge, never demoralize anyone with Intimidate, never successfully feint with Bluff, etc. And what about high-DC skills like Use Magic Device that are all but impossible without several ranks?
What does Int do for non-Int-casters now? How do you learn additional languages?
What's the point of continuing to take levels in rogue after getting a bunch of class skills from the first level? How do you justify any third-level wizard, who has never given a thought to sneaking in his life and has terrible Dex, suddenly becoming more stealthy than even a twentieth-level rogue with one spell?
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I think there is an inherent "problem" with any skill based system and it has to do with suspension of disbelief. At low levels characters struggle in combat and with skills. Struggle is great fun because overcoming the odds is what the game is all about. At high levels a character can still face an even tougher combat foe and the outcome is in doubt. However, at high levels most skill checks should be easy. Easy is boring but any other frequent result is hard to imagine.
Take open locks. At low level it makes sense that a rogue has trouble opening even basic locks and can't open anything complex. By 10th level a rogue should be a wiz with locks and open almost everything with ease. It just doesn't make sense that every lock a 10th level rogue stumbles upon just happens to be incredible complex and rare. He did not run into those locks at lower level. Why are they suddenly everywhere now? Likewise if the world is full of 10 ft. chasms to jump at 1st level, why are the chasms all 30ft wide at 10th level?
Game balance wise it makes sense to up all skill dc's as the characters gain levels. Reality wise, however, it really makes suspension of disbelief difficult.
My general solution as a GM is just to let the characters be awesome at high levels. Yes it makes the skill system routine in most cases, but then you can occasionally throw in that transdimensional arcane lock created by a mad genius from a prior age to keep the challenges comming.
edit horrible spelling
Setting aside the clear concerns with the skills whose DC's don't scale with level like Swim, what about the skills whose DC's do scale? Beyond a certain point, you will never identify anything with Knowledge, never demoralize anyone with Intimidate, never successfully feint with Bluff, etc. And what about high-DC skills like Use Magic Device that are all but impossible without several ranks?
What does Int do for non-Int-casters now? How do you learn additional languages?
What's the point of continuing to take levels in rogue after getting a bunch of class skills from the first level? How do you justify any third-level wizard, who has never given a thought to sneaking in his life and has terrible Dex, suddenly becoming more stealthy than even a twentieth-level rogue with one spell?
All good questions, and it turn good points. Your posts are rather insightful when not ripe with sarcasm. I suppose the assumption for this system is that multi-classing does not occur, and we have a group of players who do not want to bother with working the system. I like the idea, but... I haven't personally met the group of players yet. :)
At what point do you think the skill system breaks down? As in, how many ranks in a class skill does it take before you feel that the DCs are broken?
I feel like this is, in large part, an issue of differing expectations from the system. Take a look at Calibrating Your Expectations from The Alexandrian, if you haven't read it already.
Basically, what it comes down to is that most fantasy heroes are probably about 5th or 6th level. So 5 or 6 skill ranks is about the extent of what we even imagine humans as capable of. By the time a character gets to 15th to 20th level, they're demigods. Even in full plate, do you expect a demigod to fail Swim checks in stormy water?
Most skill checks aren't going to be interesting at high levels. Why should they be, unless they're truly epic?
The trouble with this is you're not considering power.
As written, skills SUCK. You can replace most of them with a spellcaster or a magic item too long, which gets rid of the failure chance. This approach only gets more powerful over time, as spells get ever more powerful effects and can be used ever more freely.
Characters who depend on skill checks are already weaker than characters who depend on magic. Sometimes, they are weaker at their own specialized job than a magical generalist. That's a problem, and this rule will make it so much worse.
The rogue will be reduced to a fighter who's bad at fighting and the fighter will go from being competent at a very small range of tasks to competent at only one: hitting people. Spellcasters will still be able to use their normal approach to almost every problem.
A lot of people have a problem with the charisma stat at the moment. It's only good for specific class features and a couple of skills. Since you just made it practically impossible to succeed at those skills beyond about 3rd level, it's even less useful for classes that don't expressly require it. If you like playing charismatic characters or dislike people habitually dumping charisma to 7, that's a bad thing.
What's much worse is you just reduced intelligence to the same low level of importance. It's only good for prepared arcane casters under these rules.
There are several tasks which can no longer be practically accomplished under this system.
You can't use social skills on powerful characters, even if you are one.
You can't pick the best locks, even if you're the best thief. Once the enemy's budget extends to expensive locks you might as well re-roll your lock picking guy.
You can't use knowledge checks to identify anything powerful.
You can never be good enough at a musical instrument to earn even a ffew gold every performance.
You can never identify high level spells.
You lose many of the functions of UMD.
I am pretty sure crafting is largely out of reach, if you want to make anything expensive.
Last of all, I think you're making a terrible thematic mistake. High level characters fight monsters and win. They laugh at orcs. Some laugh at much scarier things. Spellcasters tell reality to sit down and shut up. They summon avatars of the gods to do stuff for them.
Skill dependent characters are meant to be about that awesome. They break the rules and to incredible things that real people cannot do because they're just that awesome. As long as you can see how it's physically possible, it should be possible for a sufficiently powerful skill user to do it, difficulty no object.
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At what point do you think the skill system breaks down? As in, how many ranks in a class skill does it take before you feel that the DCs are broken?
I feel like this is, in large part, an issue of differing expectations from the system. Take a look at Calibrating Your Expectations from The Alexandrian, if you haven't read it already.
Basically, what it comes down to is that most fantasy heroes are probably about 5th or 6th level. So 5 or 6 skill ranks is about the extent of what we even imagine humans as capable of. By the time a character gets to 15th to 20th level, they're demigods. Even in full plate, do you expect a demigod to fail Swim checks in stormy water?
Most skill checks aren't going to be interesting at high levels. Why should they be, unless they're truly epic?
I think you got it. My expectations were off track. Great article. Thanks everyone for their replies.
I actually feel myself going in a sideways direction. Next time I run, I was going to make a few modifications to the skill point gain. I want the player characters to start off with more skill, but the skill point gain can get ridiculous and at certain modifiers it becomes a question of why roll certain skills.
Instead of having intelligence affect skill point by level, it only adds once. However, to compensate this I am allowing the full intelligence score not just a bonus. This gives them more points to start with, keeps intelligence to valid to obtaining skills, while maintaining skill points from level as a strength. (I also give fighters 4 skill points per level)
I am setting a hard cap of 10 ranks.
The cap is your level +3 for class skills, half of that for cross class skills (similar to 3.5, but without half points). This in conjunction with the hard cap makes it so that characters can rapidly reach their maximum capability with the things that their good at, and then broaden their horizons.
There is no +3 for class skills.
To me, it just gets too silly when a character has a +30 or +40 to their skill. Why even roll anymore? With rising DCs, It gets to a point where if you either maximize a skill or you just don't bother. If you fail it by an amount that isn't even half the ranks you put into it, it seems harsh because your character was one of the most skilled people and failed. It seems cheesy or hit by GM fiat, even if it wasn't. You get set into a mindset, you don't fail.
Now, there are some other changes that need to be made in other places. For example certain spells need to be fixed or nicked. I've always hated how invisibility just gives you a flat +20 to stealth, which gets dumb when someone uses it to sneak past a blind foe. And then there's magic items. Actually it's mostly the magic that kills skills.
Are you changing all the DC's as well to make up for the new cap?
And have you considered capping spells at fifth level?
Characters don’t gain skill ranks neither at character creation nor when they level up. Skill rank prerequisites for feats, prestige classes and other character options are replaced by character level.
I haven't actually tested it yet but I plan to, what are your initial thoughts on this crazy idea?
EDIT: I would still keep the +3 bonus to class skills (only, it would apply to all class skills because there are no skill ranks)
you would still be faced with tests being failed often at low levels and auto-suceeded at mid to high level. In other words, I doubt this solution would fix the percieved probem.
My 'fix' was on the contrary to allow bigger base bonus at start, higher DCs and slower skill progression.
Are you changing all the DC's as well to make up for the new cap?
And have you considered capping spells at fifth level?
Maybe some of the higher DCs, so that they're still possible. With my system, the lower DCs will actually be reached more quickly. Skill Focus, 16 in an attribute, and full ranks grants +10 at level 1. You also start with more skills, etc.
At level 7, a fighter with 20 strength, skill focus (climbing), and all 10 ranks (total of +21) can climb an overhang with handholds only by taking 10. This is without magic items. This is without changing the DCs.
If you look through the book, most DCs don't go over 30.
There are other things that should be changed, but DCs aren't exactly one of the big deals. Maybe the source of DCs. Skill DCs should never be based off of CMD in my opinion, and the idea that a higher CR creature is harder to know about then easier is anti-intuitive.
As far as capping spells. It isn't spells 6th-9th that take the spotlight off of rogues and fighters. It's 1st through 3rd. Spells that emulate their abilities, but better.
... and the idea that a higher CR creature is harder to know about then easier is anti-intuitive.
I don't think knowledge checks for higher CR creatures being more difficult is counter intuitive at all.
Sure, there are probably plenty of legends about that huge Red Dragon from the mountain -- probably far more than there are about the local bears that are just a fact of life. But how accurate are those legends when it comes to the strengths and weaknesses of the dragon? How many first level Commoners actually survived an incident with the dragon to be able to accurately report about it? Of those, how many wouldn't embellish the story or outright make things up, knowing that nobody could dispute their claims?
The high Knowledge DC for higher CR creatures isn't suggesting that you're less likely to know something about the creature. It represents the difficulty of separating the fact from fiction. That fiction may even make it hard to properly identify a creature. If the legends told you that the Red Dragon was literally on fire, even though that's not true, you might mistake a Phoenix for a Red Dragon, no?