What would you think if skills were done this way?

[noble peasant]

Now this isn't some sort of well thought out and perfected idea, just a thought that popped into my head and sounded neat. What if skills were divided into "physical skills" and "mental skills?" Each class got a set number of "physical skill ranks" and "mental skill ranks" that could only be applied to the skills in the category they have been designated for. Ranks from intelligence can be put wherever you please.

I think this would be a neat way to give out more ranks to certain classes, while kind of keeping them focused on what the class is geared towards. However I could see it being considered problematic as it may give out to many ranks to say rangers rogues bards and what have ya. As I said it was just a random thought that felt I'd enjoy to share and hear thoughts I on. :)

[Bob Bob Bob]

Let me track down a post real quick. Ah, here we go.

Recursion! wrote:

Skills at least have a much broader selection, but it's still loaded. Str has 2, Dex has 7, Con has none, Int has 14, Wis has 5, Cha has 7. Then there's the measure of usefulness. Str is just Climb and Swim. Dex is pretty much just the thief skills (and a couple very situational ones). Int is basically metagame skills (knowledge, appraise, spellcraft). Wis is by far the most important (perception) but also covers sense motive. Cha is the social skills... and Handle Animal and Use Magic Device, for some reason.

So there's only 9 physical skills and 26 mental ones, and that's only counting profession and craft once (though it does count all the knowledges separately). Basically everybody with any physical skills would be a thief or an athlete, because that's pretty much all they can do with them.

So, if you want to develop this further I'd suggest instead of dividing it by stat dividing it by use. So a wizard would get 2 skill points to spend on "magic" (spellcraft, know (arcana), know (planes), use magic device?) and any bonus from Int could be spent freely. A fighter would get 2 points to spend on "conditioning" (climb, swim, acrobatics?) and 2 points on "training" (stealth, survival, prof (soldier), ride?), maybe 2 more points on "guarding" (perception, sense motive, intimidate, diplomacy?). It would let you hand out more skill points while not necessarily increasing power (if I gave a fighter max ranks in Swim and Climb for free, nobody would notice). It makes sense from a thematic perspective (presumably your class skills were things you learned preparing to be that class) and archetypes could change the skill lists if they changed the class theme. Also, rather than worry about archetype collision if they change any skills, they'd both have to change the same "set" of skills. So a bard archetype which traded the social skills wouldn't collide with one that traded the knowledge skills (or something like that).

Only problem I really see is that there would be a whole bunch of skill lists. Every type of spellcasting should get spellcraft but they each have their own knowledge skills and other thematic skills. Arcane and divine would get know (planes), nature magic not so much. Arcane is probably the only one where use magic device makes much sense. Sense motive falls under both the social skills and as a defensive thing for guard duty, perception is both hunting (or survivalist?) and guard duty. Basically every class skill list would get chopped up into bite-sized pieces, but that means there would be a whole lot of little individual lists, different for each class.

And if the skill lists aren't broad enough you're kind of stifling player creativity by saying "you must have these skills for this class". Thankfully, that's a problem you can solve by throwing more skill points at them in a set or add a whole new set to spend on (because sets are not as valuable as free-floating skill points).

[Qaianna]

I remember one game had skill groups. Your class had access to one or more groups (although, as it was low-magic, 'Athletics' was a popular one), and one rank there counted as a rank in each of its component skills.

[glass]

Qaianna wrote:

I remember one game had skill groups. Your class had access to one or more groups (although, as it was low-magic, 'Athletics' was a popular one), and one rank there counted as a rank in each of its component skills.

Iron Heroes.

_
glass.

[Qaianna]

glass wrote:

Qaianna wrote:

I remember one game had skill groups. Your class had access to one or more groups (although, as it was low-magic, 'Athletics' was a popular one), and one rank there counted as a rank in each of its component skills.

Iron Heroes.

_
glass.

Ah, right. I remember being in a group working towards setting one of those up. Interesting traits, although I can see why Pathfinder didn't pick up Mighty Build as one. (Benefit: wield as if +1 size.)

[AntiDjinn]

Take a look at Grouped Skills in Pathfinder Unchained. I have been using it to write up NPC's (did not impose it on my players since they said they didn't want a skill set change and didn't want to retro-write their characters). Works great for quick NPC generation: Even for a middling to high level rogue, I have 3 to 5 skill groups to pick, then a handful of specialty skills and I am done. No level-by-level skill rank allocation.

As it turns out, changes in the way skill are purchased, rather than in how they are executed, makes little difference in game play. It is a timesaver to general skill totals, but an NPC with 15 total sense motive mod still makes the same roll regardless of the build mechanics by which the total was generated.