Xaden
19th of July, 2006, 15:00
WARNING: This thread may contain offensive material to those who feel the way D&D does skills is perfectly fine. Read on at your own discretion. Consider yourself warned.
Opening:
Who else finds the way D&D does skills is crap poor? I mean, lets just take the simple example of a fighter with an 8 in intelligence. In my mind, 8 is average (maybe on the low side (like a C-), but still average), yet if you wanted him to have athletic skill, forget about it! Jump and Climb, two athletic skills (omitting Swim) and he can't even get the two of those at full ranks. The character can get both, but it would be like if they were cross-class skills for him, half his possible maximum ranks for a skill; and that would be all he had. This seems rediculous to me! Even the developmentally disabled are capable of more skills (especially as they are broken down so much in D&D) than that! And here we're just talking about a fighter with average intelligence trying to be athletic and he cannot even reasonably do that much!
Combining Skills:
Then there's just the issue of skills being broken down too much. Do you really need both Hide and Move Silently skills? I've always had a problem with this. Tell me, who is trying to silently walk across the middle of a crouded room (Move Silently without Hide)? And who is trying to stay cloaked in a shadowy corner whistling to himself (Hide without Move Silently)? Is it just me, or should these two skills be one? If you're trying to remain unheard, you're trying to remain unseen, and if you're trying to remain unseen you're trying to remain unheard. Stealth skill is all you need.
Then there's Disable Device and Open Lock. Now as I understand it, Disable Device (among many other uses) is used to disarm traps, including say a needle trap within a keyhole. So now you have your character with Disable Device and they are able to use thin wire and tweeser implements within a keyhole to manipulate pins, springs and maybe tiny gears, but yet they cannot pick a lock? While I admit to only a tiny amount of knowledge about picking locks, it seems to me that lock picking would involve many, if not all of the same skills needed to disarm a spring-loaded poison needle trap from a lock. And if you Disable a lock, wouldn't it be reasonable to say that it would no longer latch? Isn't Disable Device enough (and just let Open Locks be subsumed by that skill).
Then there's the social skills: Gather Information, Bluff, and Diplomacy. Now let's just consider the implications here. If you just had Bluff, you would only be able to lie and decieve well, as long as you weren't trying to get information (that would be the Gather Information skill), or get someone to like you (the would be Diplomacy). Likewise, if you only had Diplomacy, you could get people to like you but they still won't give you information (that's Gather Information) nor could you lie or decieve to get people to like you (that's Bluff). And if you had only Gather Information, you could get information from people, but you couldn't lie to do it, nor would anyone like you afterwards (no Bluff or Diplomacy respectively). Now I mention these thing to point out just how rediculous these situations are and there just shouldn't be this sort of rediculousness. Let's just have a Socialize skill to cover it all (you could lie to get information or get people to like you (until they saw through the lie) or get people to like you and then they might give you information or whatever, which makes much more sense to me).
There are others like this that bother me too, such as Knowledge (Arcane) and Spellcraft, those should just be one skill, and Tumble and Balance, lets just call those two Acrobatics. The list goes on and on.
Too Many Knowledges?
Also I think they went a bit overboard with the breakdown of the Knowledge skills, there's just too many. It isn't even possible for a wizard to know almost anything (especially if he wants to ba able to do anything else with any skill, such as Climb or Jump (have you never met anoyne who is both athletic and knowledgeable; I've met many people like that and it has in fact been scientifically proven that exercise and physical activity helps the brain)).
Solutions:
Now ranting and raving is one thing, but mostly useless and it just tends to piss people off (or at least, that's what I've found in my past) so how about some solutions to these problems.
1) Change the skills around a little, take a gander at this skill list and let me know what you think:
Acrobatics
Alertness (covers Spot, Listen, and possibly other senses (while we do not have the scent capacity of a dog, we can smell smoke from fires and the like, or scents comming from a kitchen)
Animal Handling
Arcane (Knowledge (Arcane) and Spellcraft)
Artistic Expression (Painting, Sculpting, Poetry, Writing, etc.)
Athletics (Climb, Jump, Swim)
Craft
Disable Device (Open Lock, and disarming traps, etc.)
Empathy (its the Sense Motive skill, but with a friendlier name)
Forgery
Geography (Covers Geography, History, Cultures, Religion, etc.)
Investigation (Search, research (such as in a library))
Math/Science (Architecture, Engineering, Gravity, etc.)
Medicine (it's the Heal skill with a different name)
Meditation (Concentration and Autohypnosis (from the Psionic's Handbook))
Monsters (as in, knowledge of (yes it can be learned through personal experience, but certainly one could find things out BEFORE a behir shoots you with lightning, etc.))
Nature (knowledge of plants, animals, weather)
Performance (Acting, Disguise, Musical Insturments, Dance, etc.)
Presence (could be used for Intimidate, but also for leadership through other means: Intelligence, charm, or what-have-you).
Profession
Psionics (knowledge of, including Psicraft skill)
Ride
Sail (running a boat, from a small dingy to a large pirate ship (or larger!))
Sleight of Hand
Socialize (Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, your social grace basically)
Stealth (Hide, Move Silently)
Survival
Planar Knowledge (knowledge of the planes and their denizens)
Warcraft (Battle tactics, military formations, figuring out supplies for troops, etc.)
Use Magic DeviceThere, 29 skills instead of 45! It covers more-or-less everything (or all that's covered in the PHB) and it's neat and concise, and now you can have a fighter with an 8 in intelligence and still be athletic (which should not be a struggle under normal circumstances).
2) But how about a completely different approach to figuring out skill points? What if you left the skills as they are in the Player's Handbook, but perchasing skill ranks within specific skills would be cheaper or more expensive depending upon the ability score it's dependent upon and your relivant ability score, instead of it just being dependent upon Intelligence. For example, if our above fighter (8 Int, and lets just say 16 Str for sake of argument) could purchase ranks in Jump, Swim and Climb on a 1 skill point for 2 skill ranks basis, while purchasing Knowledge skill ranks would be on a 3 skill points for 2 skill ranks basis (maybe). So every class would just get their "magic number" of skill points, unmodified by Intelligence every level (2 for fighters (instead of 2 + Int modifier), 4 for barbarians (instead of 4 + Int mod), 6 for rangers, etc.) and the only thing that would determine how many skill ranks they could purchase for a given skill would be its corresponding ability and the character's corresponding ability score. So a chart might look something like this:
Abiltiy Score: Ranks/Point Spent:
1 1/4
2-3 1/3
4-5 1/2
6-7 2/3
8-12 1/1
13-14 3/2
15-16 2/1
17-18 5/2
19-20 3/1
Or something along those lines. This way, someone with a high Strength has an easy time purchasing ranks for Climb, Jump and Swim, and someone with a high Intelligence has an easy time purchasing Knowledge skills, and likewise the reverse is true (someone with a low Strength has a hard time pruchasing ranks in Climb, Jump and Swim, etc.). It might also be easier with such a system to eliminate cross-class skill penalties (which I always thought were kind of crappy to begin with. What should determine which skills are "class" skills and which aren't should be character concept, not just class (sometimes the two are tied, sometimes they aren't. What if you want to play an agile fighter, with cross-class skill penalties it's hard to because you buy half ranks for things like tumble and balance (which would be appropriate for an agile fighter))).
Conclusion:
Whenever I DM, I end up using the abbreviated skill list I listed above, with no skills ever being cross-class and I even give extra skill points to each class (except Rouge, which I feel gets enough). I just let Intelligence modify the number of skill points you get, and it seems good. I realize that probably right now many of your munchkin senses are going on full alarm, but honestly, I haven't found that a few extra skills really unbalances a game of D&D (of course the mosters get the extra skills as well, so yeah, it's all good), but I realize that some of you will disagree. What'cha gonna' do, I suppose? Everyone has their own opinions (and you have every right to have your own). I just find that the way skills are done as is in D&D just leaves me feeling dissatisfied, and generally when I find a rule to be dissatisfying if I really love the game (and I do love D&D, I've been playing it for 14 years now (I know, some of you have played it longer, but that doesn't mean I can't still love it)) I'll change the rule and love the game even more then. So yeah, have phun telling me how wrong I am to do the things I do! :D WWWEEEEE!!!!!
Opening:
Who else finds the way D&D does skills is crap poor? I mean, lets just take the simple example of a fighter with an 8 in intelligence. In my mind, 8 is average (maybe on the low side (like a C-), but still average), yet if you wanted him to have athletic skill, forget about it! Jump and Climb, two athletic skills (omitting Swim) and he can't even get the two of those at full ranks. The character can get both, but it would be like if they were cross-class skills for him, half his possible maximum ranks for a skill; and that would be all he had. This seems rediculous to me! Even the developmentally disabled are capable of more skills (especially as they are broken down so much in D&D) than that! And here we're just talking about a fighter with average intelligence trying to be athletic and he cannot even reasonably do that much!
Combining Skills:
Then there's just the issue of skills being broken down too much. Do you really need both Hide and Move Silently skills? I've always had a problem with this. Tell me, who is trying to silently walk across the middle of a crouded room (Move Silently without Hide)? And who is trying to stay cloaked in a shadowy corner whistling to himself (Hide without Move Silently)? Is it just me, or should these two skills be one? If you're trying to remain unheard, you're trying to remain unseen, and if you're trying to remain unseen you're trying to remain unheard. Stealth skill is all you need.
Then there's Disable Device and Open Lock. Now as I understand it, Disable Device (among many other uses) is used to disarm traps, including say a needle trap within a keyhole. So now you have your character with Disable Device and they are able to use thin wire and tweeser implements within a keyhole to manipulate pins, springs and maybe tiny gears, but yet they cannot pick a lock? While I admit to only a tiny amount of knowledge about picking locks, it seems to me that lock picking would involve many, if not all of the same skills needed to disarm a spring-loaded poison needle trap from a lock. And if you Disable a lock, wouldn't it be reasonable to say that it would no longer latch? Isn't Disable Device enough (and just let Open Locks be subsumed by that skill).
Then there's the social skills: Gather Information, Bluff, and Diplomacy. Now let's just consider the implications here. If you just had Bluff, you would only be able to lie and decieve well, as long as you weren't trying to get information (that would be the Gather Information skill), or get someone to like you (the would be Diplomacy). Likewise, if you only had Diplomacy, you could get people to like you but they still won't give you information (that's Gather Information) nor could you lie or decieve to get people to like you (that's Bluff). And if you had only Gather Information, you could get information from people, but you couldn't lie to do it, nor would anyone like you afterwards (no Bluff or Diplomacy respectively). Now I mention these thing to point out just how rediculous these situations are and there just shouldn't be this sort of rediculousness. Let's just have a Socialize skill to cover it all (you could lie to get information or get people to like you (until they saw through the lie) or get people to like you and then they might give you information or whatever, which makes much more sense to me).
There are others like this that bother me too, such as Knowledge (Arcane) and Spellcraft, those should just be one skill, and Tumble and Balance, lets just call those two Acrobatics. The list goes on and on.
Too Many Knowledges?
Also I think they went a bit overboard with the breakdown of the Knowledge skills, there's just too many. It isn't even possible for a wizard to know almost anything (especially if he wants to ba able to do anything else with any skill, such as Climb or Jump (have you never met anoyne who is both athletic and knowledgeable; I've met many people like that and it has in fact been scientifically proven that exercise and physical activity helps the brain)).
Solutions:
Now ranting and raving is one thing, but mostly useless and it just tends to piss people off (or at least, that's what I've found in my past) so how about some solutions to these problems.
1) Change the skills around a little, take a gander at this skill list and let me know what you think:
Acrobatics
Alertness (covers Spot, Listen, and possibly other senses (while we do not have the scent capacity of a dog, we can smell smoke from fires and the like, or scents comming from a kitchen)
Animal Handling
Arcane (Knowledge (Arcane) and Spellcraft)
Artistic Expression (Painting, Sculpting, Poetry, Writing, etc.)
Athletics (Climb, Jump, Swim)
Craft
Disable Device (Open Lock, and disarming traps, etc.)
Empathy (its the Sense Motive skill, but with a friendlier name)
Forgery
Geography (Covers Geography, History, Cultures, Religion, etc.)
Investigation (Search, research (such as in a library))
Math/Science (Architecture, Engineering, Gravity, etc.)
Medicine (it's the Heal skill with a different name)
Meditation (Concentration and Autohypnosis (from the Psionic's Handbook))
Monsters (as in, knowledge of (yes it can be learned through personal experience, but certainly one could find things out BEFORE a behir shoots you with lightning, etc.))
Nature (knowledge of plants, animals, weather)
Performance (Acting, Disguise, Musical Insturments, Dance, etc.)
Presence (could be used for Intimidate, but also for leadership through other means: Intelligence, charm, or what-have-you).
Profession
Psionics (knowledge of, including Psicraft skill)
Ride
Sail (running a boat, from a small dingy to a large pirate ship (or larger!))
Sleight of Hand
Socialize (Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, your social grace basically)
Stealth (Hide, Move Silently)
Survival
Planar Knowledge (knowledge of the planes and their denizens)
Warcraft (Battle tactics, military formations, figuring out supplies for troops, etc.)
Use Magic DeviceThere, 29 skills instead of 45! It covers more-or-less everything (or all that's covered in the PHB) and it's neat and concise, and now you can have a fighter with an 8 in intelligence and still be athletic (which should not be a struggle under normal circumstances).
2) But how about a completely different approach to figuring out skill points? What if you left the skills as they are in the Player's Handbook, but perchasing skill ranks within specific skills would be cheaper or more expensive depending upon the ability score it's dependent upon and your relivant ability score, instead of it just being dependent upon Intelligence. For example, if our above fighter (8 Int, and lets just say 16 Str for sake of argument) could purchase ranks in Jump, Swim and Climb on a 1 skill point for 2 skill ranks basis, while purchasing Knowledge skill ranks would be on a 3 skill points for 2 skill ranks basis (maybe). So every class would just get their "magic number" of skill points, unmodified by Intelligence every level (2 for fighters (instead of 2 + Int modifier), 4 for barbarians (instead of 4 + Int mod), 6 for rangers, etc.) and the only thing that would determine how many skill ranks they could purchase for a given skill would be its corresponding ability and the character's corresponding ability score. So a chart might look something like this:
Abiltiy Score: Ranks/Point Spent:
1 1/4
2-3 1/3
4-5 1/2
6-7 2/3
8-12 1/1
13-14 3/2
15-16 2/1
17-18 5/2
19-20 3/1
Or something along those lines. This way, someone with a high Strength has an easy time purchasing ranks for Climb, Jump and Swim, and someone with a high Intelligence has an easy time purchasing Knowledge skills, and likewise the reverse is true (someone with a low Strength has a hard time pruchasing ranks in Climb, Jump and Swim, etc.). It might also be easier with such a system to eliminate cross-class skill penalties (which I always thought were kind of crappy to begin with. What should determine which skills are "class" skills and which aren't should be character concept, not just class (sometimes the two are tied, sometimes they aren't. What if you want to play an agile fighter, with cross-class skill penalties it's hard to because you buy half ranks for things like tumble and balance (which would be appropriate for an agile fighter))).
Conclusion:
Whenever I DM, I end up using the abbreviated skill list I listed above, with no skills ever being cross-class and I even give extra skill points to each class (except Rouge, which I feel gets enough). I just let Intelligence modify the number of skill points you get, and it seems good. I realize that probably right now many of your munchkin senses are going on full alarm, but honestly, I haven't found that a few extra skills really unbalances a game of D&D (of course the mosters get the extra skills as well, so yeah, it's all good), but I realize that some of you will disagree. What'cha gonna' do, I suppose? Everyone has their own opinions (and you have every right to have your own). I just find that the way skills are done as is in D&D just leaves me feeling dissatisfied, and generally when I find a rule to be dissatisfying if I really love the game (and I do love D&D, I've been playing it for 14 years now (I know, some of you have played it longer, but that doesn't mean I can't still love it)) I'll change the rule and love the game even more then. So yeah, have phun telling me how wrong I am to do the things I do! :D WWWEEEEE!!!!!