|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hey all, so what I wanted to do was to post am argument to,keep signature skill and why I think they are a good thing. First off the current way they are being handled is wrong and I agree with many people that in their current form they do nothing good. My solution is 3 fold.
1) When picking a race you will be given 3 options of skills and from these 3 one will be a signature skill. Example Dwarf, dwarves get Craft (self explanatory), Athletics (represent there natural strength and hardiness) and finally Lore (because a dwarf's memory is as long as their beards).
2) When picking a background you will be given 2 options and you choose 1. Example Bartender, you already get trained in Alcohol Lore so Lore and say craft (because you know how to make a strong brew).
3) Keep the signature skills in classes but limit them to only 2.
Here you make race and backgrounds even more important and allows those who like to,play optimal choices can do that but also keep player choice the for front. Additional add in the retraining for Sig-skills. Say to retrain is dounle your level in weeks to represent the dedication and time needed for that change.
My argument is that I see why Pazio wants signature skills, so a player can feel amazing so when the player Dwarf Barkeep says he makes the best beer in all the realm he isnt just blowimg smoke, they can back it up. I don't think,it needs to,be completely renoved I think,it just need a retool.
Well that is my argument. Thoughts? And remember keep up the good work and be awesome to each other.
So signature skills are supposed to be the PF2 equivalent of class skills, that is that one's class prepares them for excellence in a skill more than if they were a different class.
But I wonder if we couldn't make it work by letting anyone pick whichever skills they want to promote past expert, and letting "signature skills" just be whatever you would need training in to do your job in your class (and perhaps have fewer of them). Classes already give free training in a lot of things, so why not a handful of skills. As it stands it's possible to play a cleric who is untrained in religion for all of 20 levels, which is kind of weird... like how did they get ordained?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm not sure about adding them to ancestries (maybe in certain exceptional cases, eg: Kitsune - Acrobatics). That puts limits in a different way (ie, i might really not want to play a dwarf but...).
I do very much like the suggestion of adding a signature skill to backgrounds however, alongside Lore. That keeps what I like about Traits in PF1 - that they could be a way to add class skill to create unexpected and hence distinctive characters.
I love the idea of signature skills.
I love protecting the *default* of classic archetypes.
SgSks should be a lot more meaningful.
SgSks should be accessible to any character who decides to pay a trade-off to buy into something outside their archetype.
I think just making a general or skill feat to get an additional signature skill would solve most of the problem.
I had a notion of how to solve this, that isn't too far from yours, OP, but I think it's a bit simpler:
You are limited to a single legendary skill (two for rogues). Additionally, you have Three (six for rogues) signature skills, at least one of which must be chosen from your class skill list (aka, what are now your class mandated signature skills; I could see changing this to "at least two" if the number of signature skills is increased for characters with low #s of signature skills).
This allows for the player to decide why their signature skills are the way they are, but limits them to at least one of their class skills (I wouldn't mind no limitations, but I will cede that if Paizo thinks there's a point to it, then this is an acceptable compromise), as well as making it so only the most skilled of classes can be legendary, which I see as the apex of skill, at more that one area of skill.
While perhaps it doesn't hew to backgrounds, the fact that backgrounds grant you a skill feat (many of which scale on skill rank) rewards you for choosing that skill as a signature. And as for not tying it to Ancestry, to me that's a feature, not a bug.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I am not a personal fan of Signature Skills capping skill progression. I believe a character with strong motivation to excel within a nonstandard field shouldn't be arbitrarily prevented from doing so.
Nevertheless, the argument is sound that a class should define, to an extent, what training you'd receive.
Thus, my proposed alternative is as follows:
Signature skills define the training a class provides. At 1st level, you begin play Trained in the class's signature skills. Characters also begin play Trained in an additional amount of skills equal to their Intelligence modifier. You may advance any skill to Master/Legendary at the appropriate level as normal.
This solves two issues:
First, this assigns more value to Intelligence. Currently it's a clear dump stat, but giving it the option of allowing flexibility in adding an extra Trained skill might tempt more classes into putting a free boost or two into it.
Second, this gives incentive to classes to invest into Signature skills as they level up, but allows them to go a different direction if they prefer.
Third, this solves many of the "Cleric doesn't know about Religion, Druid doesn't know about Nature, Rogue doesn't know how to Pick Locks" issues.
Currently, (with the exception of Alchemists, for reasons unknown) every class gains a number of bonus Trained skills equal to their number of Signature skills. It's obviously intended that they invest these into the skills for that class. Let's cut out the middle man.
I don't think I agree with making Signature Skills the ones you get trained for free - it more or less works for the casting classes sure, but martials are generally more freeform in what exactly you can do with them. Not every Rogue should be able to pick a lock, for example, because the class is just as suited for the suave noble scion who fights by feinting and outmaneuvering as it does the underhanded backstabber.