I was thinking about implementing a house rule in my next game to buff class skills and was wondering if anyone had tried anything similar or might know where I could find info on something similar.
Something like:
You gain half your class level +3 as a bonus on all class skills.
Additionally with a high enough skill check a character could have effects similar (or identical) to spells. Essentially giving non-casters some of a casters out of combat utility. I'm considering things like the epic skill uses form the v3 Epic Level Handbook
e.g. spider-climb like effect with a high enough climb skill check, suggestion like effect with a high enough bluff or diplomacy, imparting the shaken, or even stunned condition with a high enough intimidate check. I might limit these additional uses of the skill to characters who have the skill as a class skill.
There are three goals for the house rule.
1. It makes classes more specialized. While a +3 bonus is huge at level one at high levels it becomes less significant and weather a skill is a class skill or not becomes less significant.
2. By boosting the power of skills in general but limiting it to class skills this *might* help non-casters compete with casters out of combat.
Has anyone done anything like this or have any suggestions for what effects high level skills could produce?
You're thinking bigger than I ever have with skills, but I'm planning to try out giving my PCs a free rank in every class skill at first level, +Int to spend on cross-class skills. Then proceed as usually from 2nd level on. Like you mentioned with the +3 though, that would be huge at 1st level and insignificant later.
Maybe just say you automatically get Skill Focus free on class skills when you put a rank into them (instead of the permanent +3). You get the same +3 at 1st level, but then you get to upgrade that to +6 at 10 ranks.
I do like the idea of spell-like accomplishments though. I once had a bard that as up to +42 on Perform (violin). The CRB states that a DC 30 performance can "draw attention from...extraplanar beings"!! And yet that was really nothing more than a gold star on my forehead. Sure, my GM could have thrown me a bone, but how much cooler if I could have done something really awesome and spell-like as a rule with that ludicrously high investment?!
I partly second wildebob. Anyway, just a couple of considerations: first of all, a +3+1/2 level is a really huge bonus for a class skill. Just think of a 10th level char: he get, with max ranks, a straight +18 to a class skill. That's not taking into account feats or ability mods. Our racial/class bonuses. Then, I would follow the same mechanics of skill focus: you get a +3 on class skill that become a +6 if you have 10 or more ranks. And I would allow to stack with skill focus. So a skill focused 10th level will have a straight +22 if he spent a feat on it. I wouldn't go beyond this. The spell-like skill effect is nice, but it should be anyway really hard to achieve for chars.
I partly second wildebob. Anyway, just a couple of considerations: first of all, a +3+1/2 level is a really huge bonus for a class skill. Just think of a 10th level char: he get, with max ranks, a straight +18 to a class skill. That's not taking into account feats or ability mods. Our racial/class bonuses. Then, I would follow the same mechanics of skill focus: you get a +3 on class skill that become a +6 if you have 10 or more ranks. And I would allow to stack with skill focus. So a skill focused 10th level will have a straight +22 if he spent a feat on it. I wouldn't go beyond this. The spell-like skill effect is nice, but it should be anyway really hard to achieve for chars.
Yes I was thinking that the extreme skill bonuses will start to have a larger effect around level ten when skills start to become obsolete because the caster likely has the right spell available. Also the huge number would be required for the DC 40+ spell-like skill uses.
Hmm. A more reasonable bonus would be: your bonus for putting a point into a class skill increases from +3 to +4.