Pathfinder Unchained introduced numerous awesome subsystems and ideas for how to alter your game
I finally, finally gained access to Starfinder today, so, of course, my very first, initial thought was, "Hey, I've not played a game, yet! I can't wait! I'm so hype! So why don't I entirely alter the skill system?!"
... can't say that I'm sane.
Anyhoo, Background skills, Consolidated skills, Grouped skills.
Wheeeeeeeeee~!
First, let's look at Starfinder Skills, and compare those to Pathfinder Skills (fortunately, the Pathfinder Legacy chapter can help with this!):
}NONE{ - - - - - - > > > Appraise, Use Magic Device
Acrobatics < - > Acrobatics, Escape Artist, Fly
Athletics < - > Climb, Swim
Bluff < - > Bluff
Computers < - > NONE (probably the closest was a variant of mysticism)
Culture < - > Knowledge (history, local, nobility), Linguistics
Diplomacy < - > Diplomacy
Disguise < - > Disguise
Engineering < - > Disable Device, Knowledge (engineering)
Intimidate < - > Intimidate
Life Science < - > Knowledge (nature)
Medicine < - > Heal
Mysticism < - > Knowledge (arcana, planes, religion), Spellcraft
Perception < - > Perception
Physical Science < - > Knowledge (dungeoneering, geography)
Piloting < - > NONE (probably the closest was Profession (sailor))
Profession < - > Perform, Profession
Sense Motive < - > Sense Motive
Sleight of Hand < - > Sleight of Hand
Stealth < - > Stealth
Survival < - > Handle Animal, Ride, Survival
}VARIOUS (engineering, mysticism, or appropriate profession){ < < < - - - - Craft
So, the first thing you should notice is that, to some extent, outside of introducing two new skills, they already did a partial version of both consolidating skills, and grouping them together at the same time. Plus, with the elimination of Appraise (and UMD, sort of), they already relegated some skills to Background skills... well, sort of - really, they handle it more by making them assumed to be auto-succeed (pg 500).
BUT! We won't let that stop us, will we?!
Oh, no, we will not!
So let's tackle first!
We'll look at second!
And we'll address the possibility of last!
Alright!
To do this, we'll want to compare PF skills, SF skills, and PF Background skills, to net a set of SF skills.
Looking at the PF background skills, we have:
Appraise
Artistry
Craft
Handle Animal
Knowledge (engineering)
Knowledge (geography)
Knowledge (history)
Knowledge (nobility)
Linguistics
Lore
Perform
Profession
Sleight of Hand
We notice some things right away: craft has been fully distributed into other sources, profession and perform have been blended (making them redundant), one skill is assumed to be an automatic success, and several of the skills have been blended with other, more broadly useful information skills.
That said, there are still some things we can do.
First, we'll eliminate Appraise - it's cool, but SF eliminated it from the system, and, though I think it's possible to make a place for it, as loopy as I am for wanting to do this, I'm not loopy enough to build an entire expected rules element just for one skill that is effectively replaced by myriads of others. Plus, with the freedom given by the new Profession skill, there's no reason to presume Appraisal is needed - Profession covers that quite well. We'll also eliminate Perform as an independent skill - it goes straight into Profession, now. Similarly, Craft was put into Profession, so that's another chop! Pretty sure Artistry is a method of making money/stuff, which is rolled into Profession.
Knowledges are relatively well blended, but anything you'd want from those is decent enough for a Lore skill - given there are no longer specific "knowledge" skills to reference.
Culture, Life Science, Mysticism, Physical Science, and Profession. Lore is a similarly vague element to Profession, but I like Lore as a method of suggesting something slightly different. So let's look at what's left.
Handle Animal
Linguistics
Lore
Profession
Sleight of Hand
That's not that many. That's not a bad thing, but let's actually examine how those look in the game.
Handle Animal: a specific use of the Survival skill
Linguistics: a specific use of the Culture skill
Lore: a skill that relates to several partial skills
Profession: make money, partial Lore
Sleight of Hand: this is actually a full skill - complete with entertain (as if Profession), hide object, palm object, and pick pocket sub-skills. That said, that's exactly what it does in PF (and draw hidden weapon, as well), so it might work well as a background skill. It might work well, as-is, but if some think it's too powerful, it could be broken into its partial skills.
Speaking of, that's one way to expand some of the background skills: choose partial skills from other skills and turn them into Background skills.
So, for example, let's look at Acrobatics: balance, escape, fly, and tumble. Each of those could work for background skills, but as a profession: balancing (professional trapeze artist), escaping (professional escape artist), fly - that one is unique enough it might serve for its own thing - and tumble (professional tumbler). So, from Acrobatics, we've got profession and fly.
Next, let's look at Athletics: climb (professional rock climber), jump (I, uh, I got nothin'), and swim (professional athlete swimmer). So that's two professions and a jump.
Next, Bluff: you've got diversion (I don't think this works as an individual skill), feint (profession: fencer), lie (this is literally just bluff), pass secret message (this fits better under sleight of hand). So... one profession, and several skills that don't really work well on their own, or could possibly be a profession skill. Computers is similar - a few profession conceits, a bit of perception. Culture lets us have linguistics and lore.
Diplomacy leaves us with change attitude (either handle animal or some sort of profession: diplomat), gather information - a perfect profession (detective) skill, Disguise lets you change appearance... but not much else. Engineering lets us arm explosives, assess stability, craft tech items, disable device, identify a creature or technology, or repair an item - all easily specific uses of profession or lore. Intimidate also nets us a profession: bully, and demoralize which... isn't really, but might be good for certain uses (though I think bully would work better for most of those). Life sciences net craft (lots of professions), identify (lore), or recall (also lore). Medicine is just a bunch of related skills - first aid, long-term care, long-term stability, treat deadly wounds, treat disease, and treat drugs or poison. A lot of those are called "treat" - a solid background skill name. Mysticism goes back into crafting, disable devices, identification, and recollection - various profession skills.
Perception nets us pierce disguise (professional), and search (professional). Physical Science nets craft, and recall - profession and lore. Piloting nets us fire starship guns, navigate, pilot a starship, or pilot a vehicle. Gunner, navigator, ship pilot, and vehicle driver/pilot are all actually pretty solid professions. Sense Motive nets detecting deception, discern secret message, or sense mental effect: professionals paid to notice deceptions (lawyers and inquisitors), discern secret messengers (codebreakers), sense mental effects (professional psychics or readers). Stealth nets hiding and sniping, so a hide skill or a professional sniper.
Survival nets "endure sever weather" (I don't know how to make this a non-survival skill), follow tracks (profession: tracker), handle an animal (it works as-is), live off the land (profession: farmer/hunter), orienteering (profession: guide/pathfinder/etc.), predict weather (profession: weatherman), rear a wild animal (profession: trainer), and ride (works as-is).
So that leaves us with the following list:
Fly
Handle Animal
Hide
Jump
Linguistics
Lore (specify)
Profession (specify)
Ride
Sleight of Hand
Treat (specify)
Huzzah! Our first variant Skill System!
I want to point out that several of these skills are redundant with the real skills. But that's not really a problem - they are background skills and, if a character never has the primary skill as a class skill (or never takes ranks in it), it'll never be a wasted character option. Plus, giving that extra two skill points can permit the party to work together in unusual circumstances where only one would otherwise be able to function.
Ultimately, this doesn't really empower people over-much (these are like 1/3 the skill, at most), but it does permit them to work with their teammates - this allows you to mostly make reasonable decisions and help run things more smoothly, I'd think.
EDIT: Note: the lore, profession, and treat skills are supposed to be individual and specified. So, Lore (eoxian opera) or treat (diseases) or whatever. Hope that helps!
Sweet!
Acrobatics <-> Acrobatics (except jumping), Escape Artist, Fly, Ride
Athletics <-> Acrobatics (jumping), Climb, Swim
Finesse <-> Disable Device, Sleight of Hand
Influence <-> Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate
Nature <-> Handle Animal, Knowledge (dungeoneering, geography, nature)
Perception <-> Perception, Sense Motive
Performance <-> Disguise, Perform
Religion <-> Knowledge (planes, religion)
Society <-> Knowledge (history, local, nobility), Linguistics
Spellcraft <-> Knowledge (arcana), Spellcraft, Use Magic Device
Stealth <-> Stealth
Survival <-> Heal, Survival
So, let's compare that to the SF/PF skill chart, from before.
}NONE{ - - - - - - > > > Appraise, Use Magic Device
Acrobatics < - > Acrobatics, Escape Artist, Fly
Athletics < - > Climb, Swim
Bluff < - > Bluff
Computers < - > NONE (probably the closest was a variant of mysticism)
Culture < - > Knowledge (history, local, nobility), Linguistics
Diplomacy < - > Diplomacy
Disguise < - > Disguise
Engineering < - > Disable Device, Knowledge (engineering)
Intimidate < - > Intimidate
Life Science < - > Knowledge (nature)
Medicine < - > Heal
Mysticism < - > Knowledge (arcana, planes, religion), Spellcraft
Perception < - > Perception
Physical Science < - > Knowledge (dungeoneering, geography)
Piloting < - > NONE (probably the closest was Profession (sailor))
Profession < - > Perform, Profession
Sense Motive < - > Sense Motive
Sleight of Hand < - > Sleight of Hand
Stealth < - > Stealth
Survival < - > Handle Animal, Ride, Survival
}VARIOUS (engineering, mysticism, or appropriate profession){ < < < - - - - Craft
So, once again, some of - even much of - our work is done for us.
But, as always, there's always more to do!
First, the Finesse skill was a "catch-all" non-stealth, non-Acrobatics-like dexterity skill. That's useful! That allows us to bundle Piloting and Sleight of Hand!
Influence was "the charisma skill" which was pretty rockin'!
Perception was a decent absorber for both Perception and Sense Motive - I'm kind of partial to the name "Insight" but we have what we have. I'll roll with it, here (though, if you're listening Paizo, I reeeeeeaaaaaally want you to call it "Insight" if you ever do this officially).
Disguise is now in a bit of a weird place. Previously, it'd been rolled into Perform, so both skills could go together, but now Perform is a sub-facet of Profession, which is demonstrably far more broad than the Disguise skill could easily be bundled with. Influence is a bit off-theme for Disguise - while each of the Influence skills actively Influence a person in some way, Disguise is substantially more passive, in some ways - it's a DC-setting skill ("I set the DC that others must succeed") rather than a DC-hitting skill ("I make the DC to make it happen). This, interestingly, is exceptionally similar to Stealth. Hence, for this purpose, I'm actually going to roll those two together, as the "Infiltration" skill. Now, let me be clear, this isn't really a perfect super-solution - Disguise is Charisma, after all, while Stealth is Dexterity - but not only do I think this is the best solution for a consolidated list, I think it's necessary. Without some bundling of not-alike skills, we're going to be left with a loooooot of skills - too many to really justify the Consolidation in the first place. Still, I'll want to address this down the line.
Though I'm a bit loathe to do so, I'm going to have to bundle Heal Medicine and Survival together again under Survival: otherwise when you eliminate other things, there's just no place for it to really go. It also fits the survival theme, of being able to survive harsh environments by medical knowledge. It's just... it doesn't work the other way. Doctors aren't exactly associated with survival expertise: it's not that they can't be, but it's not a solid association. Nonetheless, it works "well enough" for a group of adventurers doing their thing, and being stuck with a consolidated skill list!
Life Sciences and Physical Sciences can easily be blended into a single skill: Sciences.
Acrobatics and Athletics are interesting as well - they're basically both methods of movement, meaning that they're all about the power of the form and economy of its actions to get from place A to place B. This suggests a singular skill: Movement. Again, I'll need to address the ability score disparity, later.
Computers and Engineering are very diverse fields, but they both have two things in common: mathematics (too generic, even for this), and systems - either data, electronic, physical, or similar. I could actually see Engineering potentially placed into Sciences and Systems, so... that might be a thing. For now, I'll stick to the "Systems" skill, and see where we suss out.
And that pretty much just leaves Mysticism and Profession. That's... not a nicely synched skill set, alas.
Plus, we've not actually justified our own subsystem. Let's look at our current list.
Finesse <-> Piloting, Sleight of Hand
Influence <-> Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate
Infiltration <-> Disguise, Stealth
Movement <-> Acrobatics, Athletics
Mysticism <->
Perception <-> Perception, Sense Motive
Profession <->
Sciences <-> Life Sciences, Physical Sciences
Systems <-> Computers, Engineering
Survival <-> Medicine, Survival
Hm. Grim.
Notice that in the original Pathfinder system, each skill (with the exception of Stealth) had a minimum of two skills that could replace it. Six had two, five had more than two, and one had one; things like Appraise, Craft, and Profession were dropped entirely (generally relegated to the Background Skill subsystem, if you used it, or ignored, if you didn't), in total dropping PF's 35 unique skills (26 if you lump all the knowledges together) down to twelve: to less than half, and nearly a third.
We, on the other hand, have reduced the 19 unique Starfinder skills down to ten: that's more than half. Plus, Influence aside, no consolidated skill has more than two skills blended together, and Mysticism has none: sure Pathfinder's huge skill array could get away with that - once - but in Starfinder's economy, we're not making this system worthwhile.
The first task is to drop Profession. PF did it, and, though I don't like it, it's a valid thing to eliminate and/or relegate to Background Skills; we can just assume any of the other skills can be used to make money in a vague sort of way, if we need a way to do that. Now we're down to nine, and a sliver of a expanded utility (with Profession incorporated into all skills)... but that's still not really enough. We haven't bought ourselves justification.
We could try something pretty crazy - putting Piloting into Movement (as that is, in fact, exactly what you're doing - you're just moving a big object instead of yourself) and the already-consolidated Infiltration into Finesse. This would drop us to eight by granting us two one-for-the-price-of-three skills. I'm not suuuuper fond of it, but it feels slightly more justified, as a system.
Let's pull back a moment and take stock of where we are.
Finesse <-> Disguise, Sleight of Hand, Stealth
Influence <-> Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate
Movement <-> Acrobatics, Athletics, Piloting
Mysticism <->
Perception <-> Perception, Sense Motive
Sciences <-> Life Sciences, Physical Sciences
Systems <-> Computers, Engineering
Survival <-> Medicine, Survival
Okay, so, we're doing a lot better - and I mean a loooot better.
But still, we can to just a hair better, I think.
Looking at Mysticism (it's been bothering me - much like Stealth in the original), let's think about what it does and its features.
- Wisdom based: so, survival or perception? Hm...
- Crafting. Look, no big, any skill can be crafting.
- Disable a magic device. Oof, a biggy.
- Identify a spell being cast. Useful!
- Identify a creature. Hard to justify wisdom...
- Identify a magic item. Useful!
- Recall Knowledge. Definitely intelligence-like-sound...
- Repair Item. Again, sounds like Craft, i.e. intelligence.
So let's compare similar skills:
- Crafting: engineering (intelligence) and profession (any mental score); this sounds like a good thing to give to the Systems skill; this is good because it justifies systems' broad base by adding esoterica - magical elements - to it.
- Disable magical device: this is, like, clearly either Finesse or Systems. I'd probably put it under Systems, as a device is functionally magical engineering and/or magic can be equated to computer hacking only more movie-like , so it seems to fit well.
- Identify a spell: well, this is unique to mysticism. I'd peg it as a potent skill-defining effect, in that way. To me, this actually feels really well justified as an aspect of Perception, given that spells seem esoteric enough that intuiting the concept of what is being cast just feels correct: it fits with the whole psychic/magically sensitive effect, as well as Sense Motive's ability to notice mind-affecting effects - this is just a greater utility of that.
- Identify a creature: this is actually really, really easy: just put it into Science and Systems. The only two non-mysticism identification skills are engineering (now systems) and life sciences (now sciences); this sort of identification fits perfectly with an intelligence-based conceit.
- Identify a magic item. This is, again, unique to mysticism. That said, it's actually similar to engineering's ability to identify technology, so system is a natural fit. That said: I'd put it into Science as well. Why? because Science really needs some love, frankly.
- Recall knowledge: science!
- Repair item: this is clearly systems, as that's exactly what the engineering part of that skill does.
So Mysticism thus gets partitioned:
- Perception: identify a spell or magic item
- Science: identify a creature (dragon, fey, magical beast, outsider, undead), identify a magic item, recall knowledge
- Systems: crafting, disable magical device, identify a creature (magical construct), identify a magic item, repair item
Hoof! This is at least somewhat similar to how the original Consolidated Skill treated Acrobatics - removing jump to a more appropriate strength-based skill - but a bit more intense. You'll notice that after-the-fact, I added identifications to the Perception skill, and shared some traits among the three skills. It feels better - like you're opening up valid character options supported by film and literature - to do so, to me. Also, it's at this point, that I'm going to break out my favorite name: "Insight." No longer does Perception really cover what the skill is doing, as the heavy intuition factor bringing up non-lore information seems to come from something beyond mere sensory information. This feels like solid justification for the name change, to me... but I may be biased.
So let's look at how we're doing, now:
(Adding formatting changes to make sure the new skills are able to be clearly noticed.)
Finesse <-> Disguise, Sleight of Hand, Stealth
Influence <-> Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate
Insight <-> Perception, Sense Motive; Mysticism (identify spell or magic item)
Movement <-> Acrobatics, Athletics, Piloting
Sciences <-> Life Sciences, Physical Sciences; Mysticism (identify dragon, fey, magical beast, outsider, or undead, or magic item; recall knowledge)
Systems <-> Computers, Engineering; Mysticism (crafting, disable magical device, identify magical constructs, identify magic item, repair item)
Survival <-> Medicine, Survival
Okay! Now we're down to seven skills, and have added a fraction of functionality to all of them (the making money thing ala profession), and we've a robust, mostly-sensible combinations.
I'm going to call this one, complete!
... except that it's here, just as I do so, and I'm starting to comb through the classes for unexpected interactions that I notice a very, very big hole: I lack the Culture skill!
Caaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp~! :/
Still, it's not exactly a total loss of work. In fact, it could be a relatively simple fix, and be exactly the boost needed to move Science and Systems away from each other by a step. Culture is an intelligence skill with lots of information about people, places, things, ideas, and all sorts of similar topics.
What does that sound similar to? Science.
But Culture isn't Science! True... so that requires a name-change to encompass the idea. What? How about: Erudition. This bypasses the lesser Background-like Lore, removes the call-back to the outmoded Knowledge, and fundamentally encompasses what all three skills are trying to get at: "the quality of having or showing great knowledge or learning; scholarship." This also helps diverge the concept of Systems from that of the more lore-based skill.
So once again, we're at seven skills!
Erudition <-> Culture, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences; Mysticism (identify dragon, fey, magical beast, outsider, or undead, or magic item; recall knowledge)
Finesse <-> Disguise, Sleight of Hand, Stealth
Influence <-> Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate
Insight <-> Perception, Sense Motive; Mysticism (identify spell or magic item)
Movement <-> Acrobatics, Athletics, Piloting
Systems <-> Computers, Engineering; Mysticism (crafting, disable magical device, identify magical constructs, identify magic item, repair item)
Survival <-> Medicine, Survival
Now, let's look at how this impacts classes.
Classes like Envoy are going to get a substantial boost, but how do you handle skills that are only partially covered by their abilities, like Skill Expertise or Expertise Talent?
For the first, it's pretty simple. The skills they gain are covered with Erudition, Finesse, Influence, Survival, and Systems - five skills. They gain at 1st, 5th, 9th, 14th, and 19th levels: that's five. Simple.
For the second, it's a little more complex, but, for the most part, it should be a simple matter of replacing Skill Name for new Name, since they already qualify most such uses with "when you use <X> skill to do <y>..." making no particular effort to convert necessary - it simply functions as-written. For some, like Convincing Liar or Cultural Savant, you might allow it to apply to all checks of the related skill (incredibly powerful), only uses pertaining to the original skill ("Influence checks to create a diversion, feint, lie, or pass a secret message..."). or even take the opportunity to alter its effects ("Influence checks to change attitude under false circumstance, create a diversion, feint, or lie...").
EDIT: It should be clear, but just in case it's not, you should, in fact, halve all the skill points a given class has. So an envoy, for instance, becomes 4+(1/2 INT modifier) skills per level, instead. Enjoy!
So, I'd appreciate feedback on the two systems I've completed! I'm sure I've missed something, as I'm not as in-depth into the system, as I'd like - I tend to learn through tinkering, so this is both my way of trying to make something nice for you guys, and to learn how to play with a singular part of the system, as I mangle my way through!
Feedback (constructive) is appreciated! Hope this helps!