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One of the best things about the playtest rules is the acknowledgement of three modes of play: encounter, exploration and downtime. The rules also do an excellent job in making sure that no one class exclusively grabs the limelight during encounter mode. All classes have a chance to shine.
But that isn't true for the other two thirds of the game. For legacy reasons, some classes can become trained in ample skills to be effective during exploration and downtime modes (rogue, ranger) while others do not (fighter, barbarian). Worse, in order to maximize their effectiveness in encounter mode the unskilled classes are encouraged to use their limited resources on skills such as athletics that have less use during exploration mode. As a result, exploration mode is the time when the fighter catches up on his social media.
I understand that historically the rogue (i.e. thief) was the only class to have any skills at all. But I don't see any story reason that fighters and barbarians are automatically unskilled morons. In fact, the literary versions of such characters are often the opposite (Conan, Fafhrd, Elric, etc).
Why not give the same number of skills to all the classes? If anything it would increase the customization of all classes.
If that is not possible for legacy reasons, then I have another suggestion. Most of the classes have one or two "must have" skills. For example, Thievery for Rogues, Perform for Bards, Religion for Clerics, Arcana for Wizards, Athletics for Fighters/Barbarians, Survival for Rangers/Druids, and so on. Without these key skills each class is not functional.
Why not just give each class their key skills without having it count toward their total number of skills? In other words, just give Fighters athletics for free and let them use their skill training on the truly optional ones.
Evergreen post: Signature Skills is a bad system and needs a redesign.
Evergreen post: Signature Skills is a bad system and needs a redesign.
Are you saying: "just pick talents, no signature skills"? or are you saying "make sure each class has the same number of signature skills"?
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I said this in my Giant Totem post. I believe all classes should get a set number of skills to be trained in, say 6 but the player gets to pick which skills those are. I think each class should then get to pick either 3 signature skills of their choosing or get rid of signature altogether and give each class 2 skills they are experts at. This way it gives diversity to every character.
I said this in my Giant Totem post. I believe all classes should get a set number of skills to be trained in, say 6 but the player gets to pick which skills those are. I think each class should then get to pick either 3 signature skills of their choosing or get rid of signature altogether and give each class 2 skills they are experts at. This way it gives diversity to every character.
After thinking about this some more, i think each class should get the same number of skills increases per level — lets say 6. Among those skills will be one or two signature skills that are simply those that relate directly to the class — such as Theivery for Rogues.
Would that work?
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No Signature Skills are pretty bad and need to be removed. It would be much better if one could just choose whatever skills they want to increase, instead of being restricted to only their Signature Skills. Especially since for most classes they have no choice about their Signature Skills.
I said this in my Giant Totem post. I believe all classes should get a set number of skills to be trained in, say 6 but the player gets to pick which skills those are. I think each class should then get to pick either 3 signature skills of their choosing or get rid of signature altogether and give each class 2 skills they are experts at. This way it gives diversity to every character.
Yes, but, most character classes are basically required to take certain skills. For example, Rogue with Thievery. You might as well just give rogues expertise with Thievery at a certain level because they would be crazy not to do it.
If paizo adopted your suggestion wouldn't people just complain that having to take certain skills to make their class work amounted to a "skill tax"? I say, just assign one or two mandatory signature skills to each class and let them pick sig skills from the rest.