kyrt-ryder wrote: Right, thanks for the reminder Goth Guru.
I leave Scribe Scroll as-is. Potions are merged into Craft:Alchemy.
Just an odd thought...
But wouldn't Profession: Smith be a better fit than Craft?
There are a number of good reasons to merge craft into the professions, but it's not something I've done yet.
kyrt-ryder wrote: There are a number of good reasons to merge craft into the professions, but it's not something I've done yet. Or to take a critical look whether the linked ability should always be Intelligence or Wisdom...
Goth Guru wrote: I don't want to weaken spellcasters and pretend that strengthens skills, because it doesn't. Requiring Craft skill doesn't really do that, though. Wizards, with their high Int, generally have more skill points than they know what to do with, and they get Craft as class skills. Using Craft to make magic items keeps wizards as the best item crafters.
Damian Magecraft wrote: But wouldn't Profession: Smith be a better fit than Craft? There's no such skill -- or at least there shouldn't be. Crafts involve making things. ANY skill that involves making something is, buy definition, a Craft skill. Professions are service fields -- accountants, escorts, whatever.
PRD wrote: A Craft skill is specifically focused on creating something. If nothing is created by the endeavor, it probably falls under the heading of a Profession skill. Granted, the PRD then shoots itself in the foot by listing "brewer" as a Profession skill, but I'm going to consider that a mistake and not a precedent.
Honestly, I feel perform could be replaced with various profession (musician, actor) et cetera.
Ilja wrote: Honestly, I feel perform could be replaced with various profession (musician, actor) et cetera. Totally agree, the profession skill seams underused, merging perform craft and profession could make it more useful.
The again, one should think about dividing some other skills, so there could be diversity. Returning the "use rope" was a common theme in my game circles.
Ill post some ideas when I'm not on a phone with a dying battery. However I will say I'm not a fan of the more impossible uses of skills I've seen here (function as featherfall, hold your breath forever) and would prefer more mundane ones. For example you can take no damage for one foot per rank so long as you are within arms reach of a wall/cliff/etc so if you fall off a 30' cliff you take no damage as you tap, hump and generally control your fall for the firsr say 15 feet (15 ranks) you control your fall, then it gets too much and you freefall the rest of the way. So someone with 15 ranks takes a 30 foot fall but only works out damage as if it were a 15 foot one.
EDIT
Maybe take a page from D20 Modern and make profession a "business" skill. That is its just profession not profession - X and represents a knowledge of how to make money from various skills and abilities. So you have profession X ranks and your roll represents you making contacts, convicing people to buy what your selling, advertising campaigns, producing prducts for less than your selling them for etc. If you see what I mean? Only problem would be you need to figure out alternatives for things where it foes het used e.. profession. Sailor, profession soldier. I wouldn't combine it with perform, craft myself. However this way you can ha e craft cooking to make meals and profession to run the resturant. Someone with a high cooking can fail because they don't know how to rin a business while someone who produces rubbish can turn a huge profit because they know how to run a business.
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To each his own of course Liam, but '1 foot per rank with an object nearby' strikes me as being completely outside the scope of this thread and almost fits more inside the default Pathfinder game. Heck, Monks can 'slow fall' with a wall up to an eventually unlimited distance in PF core, and Slowfall is one of those typical 'worthless monk class features' that seldom see play and aren't really worth the ink their printed with.
When a simple level 1 spell lets you ignore 60 feet of fall damage per caster level, it's kind of ridiculous to think that being acrobatic can't enable you to better 'absorb the shock' of 5 feet per rank in the skill. (In fact, for my own games I'm likely going to go with 10 feet per rank.)
Kirth Gersen wrote: There's no such skill -- or at least there shouldn't be. Crafts involve making things. ANY skill that involves making something is, buy definition, a Craft skill. Professions are service fields -- accountants, escorts, whatever. You certain it's not perform: Arithmetic?
I shudder to think that accounting is charisma-based though.
kyrt-ryder wrote: To each his own of course Liam, but '1 foot per rank with an object nearby' strikes me as being completely outside the scope of this thread and almost fits more inside the default Pathfinder game. Heck, Monks can 'slow fall' with a wall up to an eventually unlimited distance in PF core, and Slowfall is one of those typical 'worthless monk class features' that seldom see play and aren't really worth the ink their printed with.
When a simple level 1 spell lets you ignore 60 feet of fall damage per caster level, it's kind of ridiculous to think that being acrobatic can't enable you to better 'absorb the shock' of 5 feet per rank in the skill. (In fact, for my own games I'm likely going to go with 10 feet per rank.)
That wasn't meant to be an example of high level skill use just to illustrate the difference between tricky to do and supernatural effects. You can slow your fall by using a nearby surface through skilled acrobatics, you can't jump off the empire state building s just float to the ground by flipping, twisting and using your elite acrobatics skills. I do have high level skill uses but I figures I'd leave them till I can post the lot. Especially since based on another thread I want to edit them a bit.
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Every time someone says "fantasy demigods are limited to what's physically realistic for ordinary real-life people," a puppy somewhere gets thrown off a tall building.
Kung Fu Joe wrote: Every time someone says "fantasy demigods are limited to what's physically realistic for ordinary real-life people," a puppy somewhere gets thrown off a tall building. Luckily the puppy has many ranks in acrobatics, so it lands happily on its feet.
Back to the point of the thread, I'd rather just see high DCs for "impossible" things than "You can suddenly do X if you have Y ranks in a skill". Rather than "Feather fall at 15 ranks in acrobatics", just have "Fall 60' with no damage: DC 40"
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Kung Fu Joe wrote: Every time someone says "fantasy demigods are limited to what's physically realistic for ordinary real-life people," a puppy somewhere gets thrown off a tall building. ArfarfarfarfarfarfarfTHUMP.... NNNOOOOOO!
Liam, look what you made Abadar do.
thejeff wrote: Luckily the puppy has many ranks in acrobatics, so it lands happily on its feet. . . . No. That was a cat who also has many ranks in disguise.
Dotting for full reading this weekend!
Awesome stuff!
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thejeff wrote: Kung Fu Joe wrote: Every time someone says "fantasy demigods are limited to what's physically realistic for ordinary real-life people," a puppy somewhere gets thrown off a tall building. Luckily the puppy has many ranks in acrobatics, so it lands happily on its feet.
Back to the point of the thread, I'd rather just see high DCs for "impossible" things than "You can suddenly do X if you have Y ranks in a skill". Rather than "Feather fall at 15 ranks in acrobatics", just have "Fall 60' with no damage: DC 40" I think DCs are okay for things that are just more difficult than what ordinary sane people are trying. But for the "nonmagical fantasy" stuff, I think actually requiring skill ranks may be better. This nicely links to to levels, just like spells; otherwise you could just stack bonuses to checks and get the ability prematurely. Linking it to skill ranks establishes a good base of comparison with spells, so we can say things like "something that could be done with a spell at level X may be doable with a skill at level X+Y".
Also, focusing on skill ranks favors classes like the rogue, who actually have that many skill ranks, over the wizard (who spent his ranks on other skills) who just has a really big bonus from some spell.
Ascalaphus wrote: thejeff wrote: Kung Fu Joe wrote: Every time someone says "fantasy demigods are limited to what's physically realistic for ordinary real-life people," a puppy somewhere gets thrown off a tall building. Luckily the puppy has many ranks in acrobatics, so it lands happily on its feet.
Back to the point of the thread, I'd rather just see high DCs for "impossible" things than "You can suddenly do X if you have Y ranks in a skill". Rather than "Feather fall at 15 ranks in acrobatics", just have "Fall 60' with no damage: DC 40" I think DCs are okay for things that are just more difficult than what ordinary sane people are trying. But for the "nonmagical fantasy" stuff, I think actually requiring skill ranks may be better. This nicely links to to levels, just like spells; otherwise you could just stack bonuses to checks and get the ability prematurely. Linking it to skill ranks establishes a good base of comparison with spells, so we can say things like "something that could be done with a spell at level X may be doable with a skill at level X+Y".
Also, focusing on skill ranks favors classes like the rogue, who actually have that many skill ranks, over the wizard (who spent his ranks on other skills) who just has a really big bonus from some spell. Yeah, but then it also becomes much more of a binary "Can do/Can't do" kind of thing and doesn't really feel the same as skills. I guess you could double up and say DC 40, but you can't even try if you don't have 15 ranks.
Still, I prefer the feel that nothing is impossible with skills, just insanely hard. Many of the proposals don't feel like slowly improving to above human levels, but more like suddenly gaining magical abilities.
thejeff wrote: Still, I prefer the feel that nothing is impossible with skills, just insanely hard. Many of the proposals don't feel like slowly improving to above human levels, but more like suddenly gaining magical abilities. That's one of the things I was trying to allow for with my synergy suggestion, even though I used spell effects as examples. To stick with my first example, a sufficiently high climb result, with the right synergy, should become a climb speed (ie, spider climb).
But it was supposed to look somewhat supernatural, since the idea was (partly) to reduce reliance on spells that make skills less attractive anyway.
Thejeff: thats why bonuses should be scaling. It shouldnt be no ability until 15 skill ranks and the ignore all fall damage, if its 10 ft per rank beyond 5 it becomes slowly growing past what is human.
Though i prefer some kind of resistance to fall damage instead since that doesnt become irrelevant as soon as distances grow.
Ascalaphus wrote: I think DCs are okay for things that are just more difficult than what ordinary sane people are trying. But for the "nonmagical fantasy" stuff, I think actually requiring skill ranks may be better. There's no reason this has to be either/or. You can require "X" ranks, or even "X ranks as a class skill," but also set a DC and require a check.
Ilja wrote: Though i prefer some kind of resistance to fall damage instead since that doesnt become irrelevant as soon as distances grow. If you were separating Acrobatics out into 'Jump', 'Tumble' and 'Balance' then raw fall damage resistance could slot into Jump or Tumble fairly well.
There's just SO MUCH STUFF in Acrobatics that- so long as its kept combined- its trivially easy to keep piling it up until it becomes as much of a go-to-skill as Perception is now.
Ignoring a notable amount of fall distance (similar to the Catfall psionic power) is valuable but has less of an overall impact than resisting raw fall damage would.
Another thing that occurred to me was to give Climb minor cold resistance, because the more climbing experience/challenges one undergoes, the colder temperatures they condition themselves to as they push themselves to higher peaks.
Not sure which rank to hand it out at, but a value equal to ranks sounds alright to me.
kyrt-ryder wrote: Another thing that occurred to me was to give Climb minor cold resistance, because the more climbing experience/challenges one undergoes, the colder temperatures they condition themselves to as they push themselves to higher peaks.
Not sure which rank to hand it out at, but a value equal to ranks sounds alright to me.
Personally, I hand out those kind of benefits with increasing favored terrain bonuses. e.g.:
Favored Terrain (Mountains)
Bonus: Benefits
+2: Move across slopes and scree as if they were normal terrain
+4: Ignore altitude sickness, and gain endure elements (cold)
+6: Gain climb speed equal to 5 ft. x bonus
Kirth Gersen wrote: Ascalaphus wrote: I think DCs are okay for things that are just more difficult than what ordinary sane people are trying. But for the "nonmagical fantasy" stuff, I think actually requiring skill ranks may be better. There's no reason this has to be either/or. You can require "X" ranks, or even "X ranks as a class skill," but also set a DC and require a check. That's what I meant, yes. "If you have 10 ranks in X, you may try Y."
kyrt-ryder wrote: There's just SO MUCH STUFF in Acrobatics that- so long as its kept combined- its trivially easy to keep piling it up until it becomes as much of a go-to-skill as Perception is now. That's sort of the direction I'd like to in with ALL skills. If we have one super-skill, and the rest granular sub-skills, maybe we could merge all the related sub-skills into super-skills as well. That approach is a big "plus" for the fighter, for example, who could maybe put half his skills ranks in Athletics, and still be able to climb, swim, run, jump, ski, and play rugby.
Ascalaphus wrote: Kirth Gersen wrote: Ascalaphus wrote: I think DCs are okay for things that are just more difficult than what ordinary sane people are trying. But for the "nonmagical fantasy" stuff, I think actually requiring skill ranks may be better. There's no reason this has to be either/or. You can require "X" ranks, or even "X ranks as a class skill," but also set a DC and require a check. That's what I meant, yes. "If you have 10 ranks in X, you may try Y." I guess I see the advantage, but it seems pretty minor to me. If it's just to keep the wizard's from getting the effects by casting a spell, many of the spell effects just give benefits anyway, rather than boosting skills.
The wizard won't cast a spell giving him a +20 bonus to Acrobatics to get the slowfall ability, he'll just cast Featherfall.
But mostly my focus is that I'd rather have the skills just let you do "impossible" things with the skill, rather than granting semi-related special abilities at various rank levels. Cold resistance from Climb isn't where I want to go. Climbing polished glass ceilings is.
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thejeff wrote: The wizard won't cast a spell giving him a +20 bonus to Acrobatics to get the slowfall ability, he'll just cast Featherfall. Ideally, to my mind, the spell effects would be scaled down a tad, and we'd meet in the middle. I'd love it if, instead of "+20 to Stealth," invisibility instead gave "+1 per rank of the recipient," for example.
Kirth Gersen wrote: thejeff wrote: The wizard won't cast a spell giving him a +20 bonus to Acrobatics to get the slowfall ability, he'll just cast Featherfall. Ideally, to my mind, the spell effects would be scaled down a tad, and we'd meet in the middle. I'd love it if, instead of "+20 to Stealth," invisibility instead gave "+1 per rank of the recipient," for example. But then does it not actually turn you invisible? I like the spells to have actual magical effects. I want a way to turn invisible.
I just also want really high skills to be able to get similar practical effects.
thejeff wrote: But then does it not actually turn you invisible? I like the spells to have actual magical effects. I want a way to turn invisible. Sure, you'd still have a 50% miss chance, and would require a Perception check to pinpoint, and all that. It just wouldn't also automatically make you totally undetectable (inaudible and incapable of bumping into things, etc.) -- that would still be on you, instead of getting covered by the free +20 to stealth. Frankly, invisibility with no bonus to stealth is still pretty attractive.
A long-lasting, low-level spell cast by someone with no skill ranks should NEVER automatically supersede a skill used by a high-level, skilled character -- especially when it's doing that on top of its other effects. If it does, that's like the game saying, point-blank, that skills are not meant to be taken seriously.
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Kirth Gersen wrote: Frankly, invisibility with no bonus to stealth is still pretty attractive. This is my preference. Invisibility makes you invisible, but does NOTHING to enable you to effectively 'sneak.' Without the Stealth skill, you will be heard. Without Survival and Stealth, you will be smelled. Etc.
Kung Fu Joe wrote: Every time someone says "fantasy demigods are limited to what's physically realistic for ordinary real-life people," a puppy somewhere gets thrown off a tall building. It's a blink dog puppy. It blinked to just over the pile of garbage and it's fine. It needs a bath, but it's fine. :)
kyrt-ryder wrote: Kirth Gersen wrote: Frankly, invisibility with no bonus to stealth is still pretty attractive. This is my preference. Invisibility makes you invisible, but does NOTHING to enable you to effectively 'sneak.' Without the Stealth skill, you will be heard. Without Survival and Stealth, you will be smelled. Etc. OTOH, it being just as easy to notice the invisible person as if he wasn't invisible seems very off to me.
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thejeff wrote: kyrt-ryder wrote: Kirth Gersen wrote: Frankly, invisibility with no bonus to stealth is still pretty attractive. This is my preference. Invisibility makes you invisible, but does NOTHING to enable you to effectively 'sneak.' Without the Stealth skill, you will be heard. Without Survival and Stealth, you will be smelled. Etc. OTOH, it being just as easy to notice the invisible person as if he wasn't invisible seems very off to me. It's not easy to see them (not possible at all, barring supernatural sight of some kind), and if they stand still and don't do anything, you'd never notice them without Scent or Blindsense.
But if they start walking or casting a spell with verbal components? They're every bit as easy to hear as normal.
thejeff wrote: kyrt-ryder wrote: Kirth Gersen wrote: Frankly, invisibility with no bonus to stealth is still pretty attractive. This is my preference. Invisibility makes you invisible, but does NOTHING to enable you to effectively 'sneak.' Without the Stealth skill, you will be heard. Without Survival and Stealth, you will be smelled. Etc. OTOH, it being just as easy to notice the invisible person as if he wasn't invisible seems very off to me. You've never been in the PERFECT hiding spot playing hide and seek and gotten the hiccups?
Man, that happened to me all the time ;)
kyrt-ryder wrote: thejeff wrote: kyrt-ryder wrote: Kirth Gersen wrote: Frankly, invisibility with no bonus to stealth is still pretty attractive. This is my preference. Invisibility makes you invisible, but does NOTHING to enable you to effectively 'sneak.' Without the Stealth skill, you will be heard. Without Survival and Stealth, you will be smelled. Etc. OTOH, it being just as easy to notice the invisible person as if he wasn't invisible seems very off to me. It's not easy to see them, and if they stand still and don't do anything, you'd never notice them without Scent.
But if they start walking or casting a spell with verbal components? They're every bit as easy to hear as normal. Sure, they're every bit as easy to hear as normal, but we usually do an awful lot of our perception with our eyes. There are reasons we don't just blindfold all the guards.
Shouldn't be any easier to sneak by the blinded guard, right?
Zilvar2k11 wrote: thejeff wrote: kyrt-ryder wrote: Kirth Gersen wrote: Frankly, invisibility with no bonus to stealth is still pretty attractive. This is my preference. Invisibility makes you invisible, but does NOTHING to enable you to effectively 'sneak.' Without the Stealth skill, you will be heard. Without Survival and Stealth, you will be smelled. Etc. OTOH, it being just as easy to notice the invisible person as if he wasn't invisible seems very off to me. You've never been in the PERFECT hiding spot playing hide and seek and gotten the hiccups?
Man, that happened to me all the time ;) There's a difference between "Invisible person can't be found" and "Invisible person is just as easy to find as visible one"
Why bother with the hiding place? You're no easier to find if he can see you.
Idea: You only gain skill RANKS from character class levels. Racial Hit die merely grant you skill BONUSES.
I would probably make a sole exception for Outsiders, who likely exemplify skills and get them as part of their incarnation.
This would nicely serve to represent the power of learning vs innate instinct, and mean you don't need to rewrite the whole monster paradigm to reflect the new skill distinction. Gaining class levels becomes important if you want to gain true Skill.
This would also make a clear divide between WHAT you know (ranks) and HOW WELL you know it - bonuses. There might be a guy with +20 and only 5 ranks in climb who can climb anything...slowly. There might be a guy with 10 ranks who can't climb much, but he can do so REALLY fast if 10 ranks grants a climb speed.
I've always felt there should be a clear line between Ranks and bonuses. Target DC's are not everything skills should entail.
As for the power of ranks: as you level, you're becoming superhuman. Your skills start defining and affecting reality right along with you. A healer with 20 ranks understands how the human body works as well as the entire human race currently understands it. A Stealther should be able to escape the notice of Fate and duck away from divinities, reality itself would hardly know he's there. 20 perception means you can look at things on so many levels and see what is out of place it's mind-boggling...you notice EVERYTHING, and automatically know what is and is not important.
Whereas +40 to a check just means you can do what healing you know more quickly, can beat an opposed check better, or can see stuff a bit further away.
Make Ranks something special.
==Aelryinth
thejeff wrote: kyrt-ryder wrote: thejeff wrote: kyrt-ryder wrote: Kirth Gersen wrote: Frankly, invisibility with no bonus to stealth is still pretty attractive. This is my preference. Invisibility makes you invisible, but does NOTHING to enable you to effectively 'sneak.' Without the Stealth skill, you will be heard. Without Survival and Stealth, you will be smelled. Etc. OTOH, it being just as easy to notice the invisible person as if he wasn't invisible seems very off to me. It's not easy to see them, and if they stand still and don't do anything, you'd never notice them without Scent.
But if they start walking or casting a spell with verbal components? They're every bit as easy to hear as normal. Sure, they're every bit as easy to hear as normal, but we usually do an awful lot of our perception with our eyes. There are reasons we don't just blindfold all the guards.
Shouldn't be any easier to sneak by the blinded guard, right? NOPE!
He still gets a perception check as normal, he just can't see what it is he's perceiving.
That being said, I suppose a -3 penalty to perception checks when perceiving someone they can't see might be appropriate. The same difference as that between a class skill and not a class skill.
During combat you can't hear the invisible elephant in the room. Unless you are a bat you can't even tell what squares it occupies. Don't make me question whether you can smell anything else while there's a barbarian in the party. :P
Some animal companions can smell invisible creatures. Humans, dwarves, elves, and such can't. A bat familiar can eco-locate invisible creatures.
Don't change invisibility. Change perception. At 5 ranks perception you can roll to spot invisible things without the minuses. At 10 ranks you can try to spot improved invisibility.
A lot of interesting talk. A few notes:
-I still think sticking to skill ranks is primary. I want there to be a difference between someone experienced (IE, has the ranks) vs someone who is not (they can have the same check thanks to spells/boosters, but they cant do quite as much).
-Personally, I dont see invisibility as much of a problem. A very large part of human perception is vision after all. And, the spell doesnt immunise you against scent, tremorsense, etc... So if all it takes is a guard dog to stop you, it's usefullness is limited. Then again, there are several problematic spells that are similar.
-Gaining passive ability VS. gaining the chance to make a high DC "special check": I had originally focused on passive abilities to make it simpler; having to keep track of all one's abilities can be a chore. But I can understand the appeal of the second choice.
Anyway, I'm happy this is creating some discussion!
williamoak wrote: A lot of interesting talk. A few notes:
-I still think sticking to skill ranks is primary. I want there to be a difference between someone experienced (IE, has the ranks) vs someone who is not (they can have the same check thanks to spells/boosters, but they cant do quite as much).
-Personally, I dont see invisibility as much of a problem. A very large part of human perception is vision after all. And, the spell doesnt immunise you against scent, tremorsense, etc... So if all it takes is a guard dog to stop you, it's usefullness is limited. Then again, there are several problematic spells that are similar.
-Gaining passive ability VS. gaining the chance to make a high DC "special check": I had originally focused on passive abilities to make it simpler; having to keep track of all one's abilities can be a chore. But I can understand the appeal of the second choice.
Anyway, I'm happy this is creating some discussion!
Of course, if it's just "Can do really ridiculous things with ridiculously high skill checks", there really aren't any more abilities to keep track of. You just have to know the skills and have an idea how hard things are.
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