|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
that just seems down-right OP in the extreme... gestalting both together and giving better skills than the rogue(12+Int), while maintaining feat and armor progression and sneak attack seems OP enough, but then adding more of the rogue abilities... that just seems ridiculous.Warrior-RogueI've often considered just gestalting fighter and rogue. That, as a class, looks pretty playable to me.I did this a while back, with a few extra bonuses. (Although I did it before the Unchained Rogue.) I think it's a much more balanced class than either of the two alone (and it hits some of the literary archetypes more, like Conan).
Yeah, it's ridiculously underpowered compared to full casters.
But I think it's pretty well in the "fun" range of tier 3-ish or so.
|
|
that just seems down-right OP in the extreme... gestalting both together and giving better skills than the rogue(12+Int), while maintaining feat and armor progression and sneak attack seems OP enough, but then adding more of the rogue abilities... that just seems ridiculous.Warrior-RogueI've often considered just gestalting fighter and rogue. That, as a class, looks pretty playable to me.I did this a while back, with a few extra bonuses. (Although I did it before the Unchained Rogue.) I think it's a much more balanced class than either of the two alone (and it hits some of the literary archetypes more, like Conan).
Adding (chained)rogue abilties to a class doesnt make it better
(except maybe sneak attack)
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
To compare with a low level rogue(which are generally all I play), when I get a + 3 Int I get 11 skill ranks per level and am generally the highest skilled character questioning which skill not to level, this character gets just as many skill ranks when he dumps Int and essentially makes himself retarded...
The thing is, the Core Rogue is not actually a good skill class -- it just plays one on TV. I understand your confusion. The class listing Skills as 8+Int looks like it should be very good for skills. The class description and role even explicitly call out the Rogue's skills as a selling point. But the fact is, Rogues are horribly outshined in terms of skills by Bards.
The Bard's 6+Int skills is extremely misleading.
From the very beginning, Bardic Knowledge effectively gives 10 free skill ranks every two levels (with the caveat that they must be spent on Knowledge skills), or an average of 5 per level. If you want to double down, this effectively raises the skill rank cap on Knowledge skills from 1/HD to 1.5/HD.
Starting at level 2, Versatile Performance gives you a "buy 1 get 2 free" deal on skill ranks. You get another one of these deals every 4 levels after that. In case that wasn't good enough, some of these useful skills, like Acrobatics and Sense Motive, essentially get to use the Bard's Charisma modifier rather than their normal attribute; Bards often have good Charisma. If you want to go the extra mile, you can take Skill Focus on one perform skill and also get it on two other associated skills. Again, you get that "buy 1 get 2 free" deal, this time on skill related feats.
Starting at level 5, Lore Master allows the Bard to take 20 on a Knowledge skill as a standard action and they can always take 10, even in combat. This doesn't give you any more effective skill ranks, but it does let you leverage those solid Knowledge skills even better.
When it's all said and done, a level 10 Bard is essentially getting 17+Int skills. And it gets magic on top of that.
Compared to the Rogue, what is it giving up for that? Not much. The Bard has better saves (though it doesn't have Evasion or Uncanny Dodge). They have the same BAB and with Inspire Courage affecting an entire party and the ability to grab Arcane Strike, the Bard is likely contributing as much to combat as the Rogue -- without having to worry about flanking in melee and with no loss of effectiveness using a bow.
Even accounting for the Rogue's +0.5/level to Disable Device, the Bard is literally doubling the Rogue's effective skill ranks before Intelligence.
Okay, so lets pull back and pit the Core Rogue against something more in line with its skill potential. Like, the Wizard.
The Wizard only get 2+Int skill ranks, but Intelligence is its primary attribute. By level 10, you're quite possibly looking at 22 Intelligence. Plus, the Wizard is putting a much higher priority on a Headband of Vast Intelligence than the Rogue can really afford to without sacrificing combat effectiveness.
So, by level 10, the Wizard is looking to get the same number of skill ranks as a 10 Intelligence Rogue. In case that wasn't good enough, the Wizard is also a full caster with plenty of spells available that somewhat obviate the need for some skills entirely, such as Spider Climb and Invisibility.
Of course, you mentioned getting a 16 Intelligence. Unless you rolled very good stats, though, that has a noticeable impact on your combat potential. The Core Rogue needs Constitution to stay alive in melee, Dexterity for the AC and possibly attack rolls, and Wisdom to avoid losing horribly to a bad Will save. You likely don't want to dump Strength below 10 to avoid the damage penalties and low weight capacity. Out of combat, you probably want a decent Charisma to make use of your social skills. Assuming a 20 point buy and a class that gives you an Intelligence bonus, you're spending 25% of your point buy on being better than the Wizard at skills.
The Wizard can get away with nothing but Intelligence, but will likely put at least something into Dexterity and Constitution for good measure. That thing that makes the Wizard good at skills also happens to make it even better at both combat (through higher spell DCs) and utility (through additional spell slots).
Even looking at something more similar, the Ranger trades away 2 skill points compared to the Rogue and receives a lot of survivability and combat prowess in exchange. And the Ranger still gets spells.
So, to recap:
The Core Rogue is not good at skills. It must sacrifice combat viability to best the Wizard at skills, while the Wizard boosts its combat capability and skills at the same time. The Rogue has no hope of competing with the Bard on skills, as the Bard can make the same combat vs skills trade-off as the Rogue.
I can tell you, a highly skilled "Full retard" is a problem from an RP perspective...
The term "idiot savant" comes to mind.
There are archetypes that are decent with dirty tricks, and surprise maneuver is a nice modifier for dirty tricks and etc.
The thing I feel it's missing is
A)change every single 1+1/5 lvl talent to 1/2 lvl/day
B)maybe something like:
Tool mastery: at 3rd lvl and every 4 levels thereafter every competence, circumstance and untyped bonus a rogue gets to a d20 roll from an item increases by +1So p.e. at lvl7, eyes of the eagle will give +7 bonus to rogue.
Or if he is disabling with mwk tools and a +4 magic item would get a +10 combined instead of +6
And etc
Can't you just give them a scaling bonus instead? That sort of bonus involves a lot of little niggly number adjustments, is difficult to track and is pretty much a hilariously unbalanced rules element looking for an enabler to snap the skill system in two with(a hypothetical item that gives +1 to a skill stacking up to 5 times, for example). Instead, figure out the numbers you expect the rogue to get out of the ability, and just give them to the rogue unconditionally. No risk of the rogue getting cheated out of numbers due to not dumpster diving enough, and no risk of the rogue getting a bonus of +(yes) to their skill mods.
Can't you just give them a scaling bonus instead? That sort of bonus involves a lot of little niggly number adjustments, is difficult to track and is pretty much a hilariously unbalanced rules element looking for an enabler to snap the skill system in two with(a hypothetical item that gives +1 to a skill stacking up to 5 times, for example). Instead, figure out the numbers you expect the rogue to get out of the ability, and just give them to the rogue unconditionally. No risk of the rogue getting cheated out of numbers due to not dumpster diving enough, and no risk of the rogue getting a bonus of +(yes) to their skill mods.There are archetypes that are decent with dirty tricks, and surprise maneuver is a nice modifier for dirty tricks and etc.
The thing I feel it's missing is
A)change every single 1+1/5 lvl talent to 1/2 lvl/day
B)maybe something like:
Tool mastery: at 3rd lvl and every 4 levels thereafter every competence, circumstance and untyped bonus a rogue gets to a d20 roll from an item increases by +1So p.e. at lvl7, eyes of the eagle will give +7 bonus to rogue.
Or if he is disabling with mwk tools and a +4 magic item would get a +10 combined instead of +6
And etc
custom made items can break the game either way (p.e. conituous mage armor +shield item) and thus are strictly under gm juristiction. so this ability doesn't break the game any more than the monk with custom items, or the wizard with custom spells. it breaks as the gm allows to break, and in most occasions (read 90%) that only official items are allowed, then it doesn't break at all.
as for bookkeeping. you HAVE to be joking. You will have usually less than 5 magic items dedicated to skills, and maybe another 3-4 or so mwk tools, or in 99% of the cases a travelers anytool to cover your mwk tools. It doesn't requirte any more booking than giving set skills a scaling bonus and having to revisit them every level to see the changes. The difference being instead...
The reason the item stacking thing is an issue is because any item that gets printed has to be balanced around the rogue having access to it. Every single one. If under your system, if a level 7 rogue picks up boots of haste and the +1 competence to attack ioun stone then they get an extra +4 to their attack on top of what the items normally give. +1 competence to saves ioun stone become +3 bonus and so on. And every item that gets printed can potentially make it worse. So the game ends up needing to skirt around competance, circumstance and untyped bonus providing items because adding them in at reasonable prices would make the rogue's numbers jump up even more. It screws with the design space of the game badly for no good reason. Even worse, it can cause wide variations in the rogue's power depending on what items are available. The rogue shouldn't break when item availability works a certain way. When I say "break", I mean this in terms of both the "this sucks" sense, and the "I can maybe fail on a 1 for every single roll I make" sense. It also varies wildly depending on system mastery. A new player isn't going to dumpster dive through d20pfsrd looking for the relevant bonuses, but some more experienced or mechanically minded players will. Some players will just copy guides and end up with a highly optimized monster, because picking items X, Y and Z is really damn easy unless the GM designs the game around preventing it. If the game is balanced around the rogue not dumpster diving then doing so will destroy all semblance of difficulty for any task that involves the rogue making some sort of check. If it is balanced around dumpster diving then not doing so will mean the rogue goes right back to sucking. If it is somewhere in the middle, then the rogue swings from being too bad in the numbers department to being too good unless the player or the GM carefully moderates what bonuses they get.
This is why the number tracking becomes a problem - the ability encourages dumpster diving for little bonuses. That ends up being a pain when you have 8 different Ioun stones boosting attack, saves, initiative and a whole bunch of skills (some of which boost multiple skills in only some circumstances), along with three skill boosting slotted items, a handful of consumables (oh, hey, these are items too! Joy) and maybe 1 or 2 items that switch on and off, like boots of haste (which give an untyped attack bonus). The ability heavily favors picking up as many cheap stacking items as you can, which means that the bookkeeping issues of higher levels start showing up much earlier because a class feature encourages picking up 7 different minor items instead of a +2 Dex belt and a +1 cloak of resistance. The fact that few to none of these bonuses use the printed effect because the rogue changes them all just adds insult to injury.
So in summary, what you have is an ability that makes the 3.PF problem of 50 bajillion little numbers to a bonus much worse, makes the class's power extremely swingy depending of the system mastery of the player and has basically no advantages over a scaling bonus mechanic that the rogue can choose where to apply (whose power can be easily assessed and tweaked by the game designer).
As for thematics...
a) why does a rogue have anything special with regards to some equipment? Does a wizard get more use out of magic cloaks and headbands because they are magic? What about a fighter - should the enhancement bonus on their magic weapon jump up by 1/4 levels because they know how to use it well? If the rogue was just skilled, they shouldn't need a bunch of magic items to get most of the bonus (just like a fighter with weapon training). Also, heroic roguish types are depicted as frequently pretty lucky, which a scaling bonus could easily be fluffed as. Besides, this means that a rogue who has to make do with inferior tools in a bad situation actually ends up crippled because they lose all their numbers. Last time I checked, this is where roguish types are supposed to excel compared to others. They should thrive in adversity, not suck.
b) This isn't a reason for liking it at all - all it requires to let a rogue player specialize is letting them choose where the numbers go. You can do that with a scaling bonus or a flat bonus or a bonus to equipment bonuses or almost anything else.
c) So fluff the numbers. Skill is an explanation. So is luck. How dull is "the rogue gets bigger numbers from their stuff...just because..". Once again, the problem is that you bothered to fluff the mechanic you like, but not the one you don't.
Lastly, isn't the wildly varying item dependancy generally seen as a problem in Pathfinder? A quarter wealth campaign shouldn't cripple the rogue while leaving the wizard and druid only mildly worse off, should it? A double wealth campaign shouldn't shoot the rogue straight up into "pass on a 2" territory while others only jump up in power a small amount, right?
Your "solution" is very strange both crunch and fluffy wise. Give the martials some sort of innate bonus like the ones from the automatic bonus progression is way better in both ways.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The main problem rogue's have skillwise is not ranks, it's maximum bonus.
With disable being the exception, rogues lack the high maximum score the rest of the skill classes reach:
Bard: by chaining things to cha and adding morale+competence bonuses through bardic/spells they "outskill" the rogue
Inquisitor: lots of +wis on skills, chaining skills to wis, gaining +1/2 lvl on skills, etc
Wizard: crapton of skills due to int main stat without sacrifing anything, coupled with the fact that those skills are int based makes them effectively "kings of knowledge's" for no cost at all.
Investigators: yeah lol, at least +10 maximum compared to anything really.
Slayers: even slayers with studied target have higher maximums than the average rogue.
So in the end, the average rogue will have a stat+3+lvl maximum, while most other classes will have at least 4-10+ more maximum on their key skills
Effectivly rogue is not a king on his "specialty" which is supposed to be skills.
Giving him a talent that reads as "choose 1+int skills (min 2), you get +1/2lvl on those." Would help with that.
This.
Having a bunch of skills and class skills doesn't solve anything, just makes you a versatile 2nd ranker.
It's the HIGHEST bonus which counts. And this class doesn't have the built in bonuses to get those. Other classes are better at the skills. This gestalt just has enough to always be the back-up if they wish to be.
So, no, not overpowered in the slightest. Try it, max out a ton of skills, and then watch the other people in the party either be better at them then you, or completely sidestep/exceed them with spells.
==Aelryinth
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
skill should be dumbed down, not powered up.
In 1e, if you needed to ride a horse, you said "I ride the horse".
Everyman skills have been turned into a skill point sink.
suddenly, conan needs higher intelligence to get more skill points to jump, climb and swim better.
If conan is wearing brestplate with his massive strength the wizard who cant lift a spear can be "smart enough" to swim climb and jump better than he can....
I dont think INT points should could and skill points to physical abilities.
I dont think "action" skills (ride, swim, jump etc) should be base on a point system.
they should be class based, pojnts from the levels in the class.
Fighter may only get 2 general skill points but 5 points for action skills (like climb, swim, ride)
Wizard might get 4 general skill points but only 1 for action skills.
Something like that.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think your problem there is that skill points scale off Int, and only Int.
It also means that animals have almost no skills. That's why there are so many creatures with a +8 racial bonus - that's replacing the skills the system should give them but doesn't because everything is about Int.
How would you feel about a nearly identical system, but every stat gives points for skills that are relevant to it? Strong people have lots of skill points for climbing. Smart people have lots of points for knowledge and so forth. That way a Genius wizard can't be a better climber, swimmer, acrobat, rider and sneaker than a fighter without even trying much, but they can be better at "bookish" skills. It would need tweaking, but it's probably better than what PF does right now.
I think your problem there is that skill points scale off Int, and only Int.
It also means that animals have almost no skills. That's why there are so many creatures with a +8 racial bonus - that's replacing the skills the system should give them but doesn't because everything is about Int.
How would you feel about a nearly identical system, but every stat gives points for skills that are relevant to it? Strong people have lots of skill points for climbing. Smart people have lots of points for knowledge and so forth. That way a Genius wizard can't be a better climber, swimmer, acrobat, rider and sneaker than a fighter without even trying much, but they can be better at "bookish" skills. It would need tweaking, but it's probably better than what PF does right now.
yes that would work.... but people should get "general" points they can spend anywhere too.
also, I think "long lived" races should get more general skill points... they HAVE to learn something by being a teenager for 100 years!
I think your problem there is that skill points scale off Int, and only Int.
It also means that animals have almost no skills. That's why there are so many creatures with a +8 racial bonus - that's replacing the skills the system should give them but doesn't because everything is about Int.
How would you feel about a nearly identical system, but every stat gives points for skills that are relevant to it? Strong people have lots of skill points for climbing. Smart people have lots of points for knowledge and so forth. That way a Genius wizard can't be a better climber, swimmer, acrobat, rider and sneaker than a fighter without even trying much, but they can be better at "bookish" skills. It would need tweaking, but it's probably better than what PF does right now.
yes that would work.... but people should get "general" points they can spend anywhere too.
also, I think "long lived" races should get more general skill points... they HAVE to learn something by being a teenager for 100 years!
I would probably leave the default skill points that classes get as free to be applied anywhere. Although those numbers would need to be tweaked too
Long lived races are their own kettle of fish. It's stupid that some races take decades upon decades to reach adulthood without being wildly different to humans. Having races that can live to 400 alongside races that live to 100 but are supposed to be relatively equal in capabilities and fairly similar in most ways will tend to lead to massive absurdities.
This is a bit of a tangent, but it has occurred to me that making either immortality or a greatly extended lifespan reasonably acquirable at higher levels makes most of the issues disappear(keeping immortality difficult is probably a good idea, because it justifies things like Liches existing). Elves can reach maturity at the same time as humans without much issue, because most elves will go on to be tree farmers or whatever. An elf that spent 300 years farming trees will at most be a couple of levels higher than Bob the old human turnip farmer. Fewer creatures from long lived races will want to risk their long life spans in order to adventure, which makes up for the higher number of elves who are of an age where they could go and adventure. As soon as an elf does go out and get it's 15 levels in fighter/magic user or whatever, it's long life span ceases to be a special case because everyone else has long life spans too for whatever reason. It justifies why long lived races don't have a disproportionately large number of high level characters compared to short lived races.
As soon as an elf does go out and get it's 15 levels in fighter/magic user or whatever...No full martial characters besides Monks gain pseudo-immortality. Only a few fullcasters get the real deal 100% immortality.
I know. Changing that would make it easier to explain the absurdities created by allowing 160 year old Elf Wizards to work besides 16 year old Human Sorcerers and expecting them to be roughly equal (represented by both being level 1).
Why do Martials need better things?
Easy, so they can have or make their snazzy, bombastic, and pimptastic entrance, that's why.
PS Based on this...
Who learns anything as a teenager?
Many of us military folks learned quite a bit in our teens.
I could land naval gunfire coming from miles away on a moving target 500 meters away from my OP by the time I was 19. A skill called triangulation, and its not like I am some kind of savant. It's something many marines are taught.
I also learned how to drive, how to court the opposite sex, how to ball room dance and how to operate heavy farm equipment, how to back up a trailer (NOT intuitive)
How to drive a manual transmission and how to not only ID plants and trees but how to ID edible and poisonous plants.... all of this between th ages of 14-19.
Of I forgot, fishing, hunting, camping, how to make a fire without matches, first aid....holy cow I learned half of what I know at those ages.
I also learned ho to spin a 20 sided dice like a top and drive the DM crazy when he had to wait a minute for the result of my "roll"
Granted pretty much none of those are skills being learned by most teenagers today.Who learns anything as a teenager?
Many of us military folks learned quite a bit in our teens.
I could land naval gunfire coming from miles away on a moving target 500 meters away from my OP by the time I was 19. A skill called triangulation, and its not like I am some kind of savant. It's something many marines are taught.
I also learned how to drive, how to court the opposite sex, how to ball room dance and how to operate heavy farm equipment, how to back up a trailer (NOT intuitive)
How to drive a manual transmission and how to not only ID plants and trees but how to ID edible and poisonous plants.... all of this between th ages of 14-19.Of I forgot, fishing, hunting, camping, how to make a fire without matches, first aid....holy cow I learned half of what I know at those ages.
any teen who wants to can.... by game terms that would mean I would have had to have had the skill points to spend to acquire the skills.
Some kids maybe got way better at video games than I did, or got laid more than I did (which wasnt hard to accomplish back then).
Had better coin collection
Studied harder,
Learned french.
Youd be SURPRISED the skills teens learn or even master.... just adults poo poo that shyt as being useless and most teens eschew that stuff for "important" adult trappings.
I was EASILY on my way to drawing for marvel comics when I was in HS...in fact at my 10 year HS reunion everyone was SHOCKED I wasnt a comic book artist, fully expecting to show up the the reunion and see that was my profession.
But my dad crapped all over that and wouldnt let me chase that profession...
Yay I ended up retired military and a landscape designer.... his railroad was SO successful!
Granted pretty much none of those are skills being learned by most teenagers today.Who learns anything as a teenager?
Many of us military folks learned quite a bit in our teens.
I could land naval gunfire coming from miles away on a moving target 500 meters away from my OP by the time I was 19. A skill called triangulation, and its not like I am some kind of savant. It's something many marines are taught.
I also learned how to drive, how to court the opposite sex, how to ball room dance and how to operate heavy farm equipment, how to back up a trailer (NOT intuitive)
How to drive a manual transmission and how to not only ID plants and trees but how to ID edible and poisonous plants.... all of this between th ages of 14-19.Of I forgot, fishing, hunting, camping, how to make a fire without matches, first aid....holy cow I learned half of what I know at those ages.
any teen who wants to can.... by game terms that would mean I would have had to have had the skill points to spend to acquire the skills.
Some kids maybe got way better at video games than I did, or got laid more than I did (which wasnt hard to accomplish back then).
Had better coin collection
Studied harder,
Learned french.Youd be SURPRISED the skills teens learn or even master.... just adults poo poo that shyt as being useless and most teens eschew that stuff for "important" adult trappings.
I was EASILY on my way to drawing for marvel comics when I was in HS...in fact at my 10 year HS reunion everyone was SHOCKED I wasnt a comic book artist, fully expecting to show up the the reunion and see that was my profession.
But my dad crapped all over that and wouldnt let me chase that profession...
Yay I ended up retired military and a landscape designer.... his railroad was SO successful!
Sounds like you could have used a more open-sandbox approach to parenting.
I dont think INT points should could add skill points to physical abilities.
You envision a game in which everyone in the party, except the wizard, always has a 7 Intelligence? That's an odd thing to wish for.
I dont think INT points should could add skill points to physical abilities.You envision a game in which everyone in the party, except the wizard, always has a 7 Intelligence? That's an odd thing to wish for.
PFS? :)
ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The problem with skills is that some are vastly more important than others, yet cost the same.
I dont think INT points should could add skill points to physical abilities.You envision a game in which everyone in the party, except the wizard, always has a 7 Intelligence? That's an odd thing to wish for.
No...but a standard fighter is more likely to have an 8 int.
But GOSH he cant afford any LESS skills.
Most of my characters sport a 13 int just for extra skills.... I more likely to play a rogue or an inquisitor when I can.
Sounds like you could have used a more open-sandbox approach to parenting.Granted pretty much none of those are skills being learned by most teenagers today.Who learns anything as a teenager?
Many of us military folks learned quite a bit in our teens.
I could land naval gunfire coming from miles away on a moving target 500 meters away from my OP by the time I was 19. A skill called triangulation, and its not like I am some kind of savant. It's something many marines are taught.
I also learned how to drive, how to court the opposite sex, how to ball room dance and how to operate heavy farm equipment, how to back up a trailer (NOT intuitive)
How to drive a manual transmission and how to not only ID plants and trees but how to ID edible and poisonous plants.... all of this between th ages of 14-19.Of I forgot, fishing, hunting, camping, how to make a fire without matches, first aid....holy cow I learned half of what I know at those ages.
any teen who wants to can.... by game terms that would mean I would have had to have had the skill points to spend to acquire the skills.
Some kids maybe got way better at video games than I did, or got laid more than I did (which wasnt hard to accomplish back then).
Had better coin collection
Studied harder,
Learned french.Youd be SURPRISED the skills teens learn or even master.... just adults poo poo that shyt as being useless and most teens eschew that stuff for "important" adult trappings.
I was EASILY on my way to drawing for marvel comics when I was in HS...in fact at my 10 year HS reunion everyone was SHOCKED I wasnt a comic book artist, fully expecting to show up the the reunion and see that was my profession.
But my dad crapped all over that and wouldnt let me chase that profession...
Yay I ended up retired military and a landscape designer.... his railroad was SO successful!
Not REALLY.... my dad was right, I wouldnt have made much money doing that.
I should have finished my degree at Yale, any degree.But, I am exceptionally talented at mentoring and teaching youth.
Its something I should have done as a career... everyone says so.
Instead, I try to train the ones I can for a career in Landscaping.... unrealized talent I guess.
I dont think INT points should could add skill points to physical abilities.You envision a game in which everyone in the party, except the wizard, always has a 7 Intelligence? That's an odd thing to wish for.No...but a standard fighter is more likely to have an 8 int.
But GOSH he cant afford any LESS skills.
Most of my characters sport a 13 int just for extra skills.... I more likely to play a rogue or an inquisitor when I can.
There's an alternative theory that since Fighter's already get just two skill points per level that dumping int works out since it just shaves down the stubble.
But GOSH he cant afford any LESS skills.
In a point buy he can't afford them.
There is aminimum of 1 skill point per level. So someone with 2 skill points per level with a 9,8, 7 (or less) all have the same number of skill points. Your opportunity costs for that 1 skill point is 4 character points : roughly a 5th of your total in a 20 point buy game. Its usually enough to up your con score another 2 points, and put the favored class bonus into skills and snag +1 fort and a few more hit points before you ride the pharasma express.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I dont think INT points should could add skill points to physical abilities.You envision a game in which everyone in the party, except the wizard, always has a 7 Intelligence? That's an odd thing to wish for.
That is yet another thing that would be nice to fix.
Can't we just agree that there are many intertwined problems with the skill system that feed off each other, and it needs to be rebuilt from the ground up to fix them, so any simple statements like "I dont think INT points should could add skill points to physical abilities" aren't likely to be practically implementable in the system as is without causing even worse problems, but as a guiding design principle for a future system the statement has validity.
Oh let's just name rulesets we would like to see copied then.
Personally I'd prefer Shadowrun's attribute meaningful impact and skill management.
Just a list of some of the things that have been suggested as problems with the skill system in Pathfinder.
Too big a variance in the number of skills different classes get.
Too big a role played by the Intelligence stat in giving bonuses.
Skills all cost the same but aren't equally valuable.
Many skills just don't do enough especially in comparison to spells.
Some skills seem to have very powerful effects (Diplomacy) even if that effect isn't well defined.
Skills are too binary, success or fail with no other consequences.
Class skills push characters towards class stereotypes.
Some skills are very vague about their effects.
Some skills have DCs that aren't sensible or consistent.
Skill ranks are too variable between PCs, so to make a challenge for some characters you have to completely shut others out of a situation.
So 5e skills or a PF unchained replacement?
I dont think INT points should could add skill points to physical abilities.You envision a game in which everyone in the party, except the wizard, always has a 7 Intelligence? That's an odd thing to wish for.
I had a similar idea to him a couple years ago...
Int would give you skill ranks to be spent on Int-based skills, Disable Device, Heal and/or UMD.
Con would give you skill ranks to be spent on Str or Dex-based skills (except Disable Device), Perception, Profession and/or Survival.
Cha would give you skill ranks to be spent on Cha-based skills (except UMD) and/or Sense Motive.
I couldn't figure out the number of skill points, though... Characters always ended up with too many skill points. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but not what I had in mind either.
Still... I do think the idea could work.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The thing is, you probably want to keep Int as having some modicum of value for everyone other than wizards, or everyone else will dump it, the way everyone except bards, paladins, and sorcerers dumps Cha -- because there's absolutely no down side to it. It's like you're putting a big flashing sign in the rules that says "Hey, dump this! Free stat points here!" Having Int affect only Int-based skills, for people who don't even get those in their class package, is essentially giving it no value to them.
People complain all the time about dump-statting, but the incentive to do so is built right into the game, and any time you make a change that favors it, you increase the incentive. It applies if you roll for stats (put low rolls in useless ones), and it applies even more massively using point-buy (where you can actually increase stats by dumping others).
On the other hand, if you just gave everyone all 14s, then it wouldn't even matter which stat did what, or if some of them don't do anything at all...
Personally... I don't mind people dumping attributes. I don't know why people get upset when characters put low values on ability scores they barely use. I don't think every attribute should be important for every class, much less for every character.
If you want to play a dumb Fighter who knows nothing other than riding his horse and beating people up... More power to you! If you want to play a sickly Wizard who is a super genius but has no people skills and barely capable of staying on the saddle... Have fun!
I think its kind stupid, both from a logical and from a balance perspective, that the guy who spends all his day training may not have enough ranks to invest in the skill that the trained every day, to the point where they become class skills... But any scrubby Wizard who spent all his youth in a library can be an expert acrobat, climber, swimmer and social butterfly because he's just that smart.
Giving yourself a weakness to boost your strengths is something everyone does to an extent or another. Both in game and in the real world.
There's nothing inherently wrong with stat-dumping... IME, it's more often than not butthurt GMs who complain about it.
Those who don't like stat-dumping can simply not do it or take it away from their game... But IMO, the "official" rules should give players as many options as possible, and then allow them to add their own restrictions, as that allows more people to enjoy the game.
OTOH, adding arbitrary restrictions to the game "all druids must be neutral, all undead are evil, whatever" harms the game because it takes options away. And while additions can be houseruled in just as easily as restrictions, official restrictions mean the players who disagree with those restrictions will rarely if ever, see support for their gaming tastes.
All games have arbitrary restrictions...they are called 'rules'.
Rules are what give games flavor and purpose.
As soon as you start moving the rules and the barriers, you change the game.
So having those 'all druids must be neutral, all undead evil' is as necessary to having a certain kind of game as NOT having them is necessary to having another kind of game.
Not having options is at times as or more important then HAVING options. The fact you might want them does not make them good or bad...continue to want! House rule what you like!
But saying they are 'bad' is also 'wrong'. Plenty of people LIKE those restrictions for very good reasons...they make the game what it is, and not getting everything you want makes for a good game.
==Aelryinth
I dont accept the premise that rules are what grant things purpose. Flavor is much harder to nail down, but I don't think that the game could ever be improved by saying that all undead must be evil when there are examples of the opposite in popular literature. You may as well just say none of these sorts of stories are allowed with this rule system.