Oh, I get it now, Fighters /should/ have spells.

[Whatever]

If you're going to run with the 3.5 skill system as is, then Rangers should get skill mastery (take 10 even when threatened) for the following skills:

Level 1: Climb, Handle Animal, Jump, Ride, Survival, Swim, Use Rope

later: Spot, Listen, Hide, Move Silently

Possibly some other skills as well, although not anything like Use Magic Device.

[TarkisFlux]

I'm guessing that at this point it would be better to use TOP as a starting point?

No, don't do that. Make your own thing, something better. Then I can mine it for ideas or adopt it wholesale.

[Midnight_v]

If you're going to run with the 3.5 skill system as is

Eww... just reading that makes me retract my previous post. Almost anything else is preferable. Sigh.

[Duke Flauros]

No, don't do that. Make your own thing, something better. Then I can mine it for ideas or adopt it wholesale.

Well, it was a tremendous step in the right direction. As opposed to 3e skills (UMD and concentration Vs profession and pick lock), tome skills all gave level-appropriate benefits to characters. If you were to make any changes, I would suggest simply giving players "trained" skills, which provide benefits at various breakpoints. Characters could sneak around without the hide skill, but they wouldn't get the benefits of actually having the skill, like hide in plain sight. Allowing players to split skillpoints results in an annoying amount of bookkeeping.

[TarkisFlux]

I would suggest simply giving players "trained" skills, which provide benefits at various breakpoints. Characters could sneak around without the hide skill, but they wouldn't get the benefits of actually having the skill, like hide in plain sight. Allowing players to split skillpoints results in an annoying amount of bookkeeping.

If you want to talk about it in context, there's a thread for that sort of suggestion / discussion. Unless you wanted it to go in whatever these guys are working on instead. It would be interesting to see what they get out of it.

[hogarth]

If you're going to run with the 3.5 skill system as is

Eww... just reading that makes me retract my previous post. Almost anything else is preferable. Sigh.

Wow. Not even close.

I've said this again in other threads and I'll say it again: the 3E skill system really was a quantum leap forward compared to other games.

The fact that it doesn't work at high levels is because no (pre-4E) edition of D&D has ever made any fucking sense at high levels, not because of something specific in the 3E skill system.

And if Diplomacy and Stealth are fucked up, it's because Diplomacy and Stealth have been fucked up in every skill system ever designed. Again, that's not specific to 3E D&D.

[erik]

I suppose I am even not concerned about DnD skill problems and solutions anymore, so I'll stick to the more theoretical skill discussion.

A "skill" is a thing a character can do. That is all it is.

If skill has that broad a meaning, then you risk falling into the problem of sharing the purchasing pool with abilities of wildly varying utility and rates of obsolescence. So fine, they're all skills, but we need a way to differentiate between them on at least two sets of fields: Role Protected vs. Universal, and Super vs. Mundane.

So skills could have the tags [Class] [Universal] [Supernatural] [Expertise].

Thing is, there's no reason to restrict mundane stuff at all, as you noted that revelation is not particularly bold, so [Universal] is redundant with [Expertise] skills, and by that same token [Supernatural] is redundant with [Class], so despite having 4 Tags, there are really only have 3 categories of skills.

Expertise. Universal Supernatural. Class.

In this sort of system, you'd get a pool of Expertise skills, none of which is absolutely necessary but may help out with various plot solutions, and add a bit of color to a character to where they feel have something to do outside of combat. I think having somewhere between 5 to 10 mundane schticks (out of say about 25-30) is enough to have flavor and variety.

You don't need a tremendous gradient of skill proficiencies like d20 had. Untrained, Trained and Mastered are probably enough in a fantasy game where the mundane skills don't matter so much. If it were a modern type setting with lots of mundane skill games then you might want a larger gradient, but fantasy, naaaaah.

For supernatural type skills, a simple binary state of having it or not is probably good enough, so no gradient is required there to differentiate skills. Level and attribute modifier should be sufficient I think.

Universal Supernatural skills would have their separate pool to select from, and I am more fuzzy on what a proper sweet spot limit to these powers would be. Some of them may also come from magic items and as such be interchangeable, and some may be granted by classes, but not necessarily be role protected.

Class skills would again be a spot where I am fuzzy on what the sweet spot amount would be to have an interesting set of choices yet not have option paralysis. I suppose if these are in the same neighborhood as Universal Supernatural skills then their cumulative amount would be what needs to be considered.

Some things still not addressed by this set-up are a distinction of combat vs. non-combat skills, and also power schedules or costs.

Does this sound like the beginnings of a workable skill concept for a fantasy RPG?

[Duke Flauros]

If you want to talk about it in context, there's a thread for that sort of suggestion / discussion. Unless you wanted it to go in whatever these guys are working on instead. It would be interesting to see what they get out of it.

The TOP is great, but individual allotment of skill points leads to stuff like one point which counts for half a point in ten cross class skills, one point which counts for a point in five skills, three points which count for 1.5 points in four skills, five points which count for five points in two skills and two skills maxxed out. There's a tremendous amount of bookkeeping, which doesn't need to exist.

I suppose I am even not concerned about DnD skill problems and solutions anymore, so I'll stick to the more theoretical skill discussion.

A "skill" is a thing a character can do. That is all it is.

If skill has that broad a meaning, then you risk falling into the problem of sharing the purchasing pool with abilities of wildly varying utility and rates of obsolescence. So fine, they're all skills, but we need a way to differentiate between them on at least two sets of fields: Role Protected vs. Universal, and Super vs. Mundane.

So skills could have the tags [Class] [Universal] [Supernatural] [Expertise].

Thing is, there's no reason to restrict mundane stuff at all, as you noted that revelation is not particularly bold, so [Universal] is redundant with [Expertise] skills, and by that same token [Supernatural] is redundant with [Class], so despite having 4 Tags, there are really only have 3 categories of skills.

Expertise. Universal Supernatural. Class.

In this sort of system, you'd get a pool of Expertise skills, none of which is absolutely necessary but may help out with various plot solutions, and add a bit of color to a character to where they feel have something to do outside of combat. I think having somewhere between 5 to 10 mundane schticks (out of say about 25-30) is enough to have flavor and variety.

You don't need a tremendous gradient of skill proficiencies like d20 had. Untrained, Trained and Mastered are probably enough in a fantasy game where the mundane skills don't matter so much. If it were a modern type setting with lots of mundane skill games then you might want a larger gradient, but fantasy, naaaaah.

For supernatural type skills, a simple binary state of having it or not is probably good enough, so no gradient is required there to differentiate skills. Level and attribute modifier should be sufficient I think.

Universal Supernatural skills would have their separate pool to select from, and I am more fuzzy on what a proper sweet spot limit to these powers would be. Some of them may also come from magic items and as such be interchangeable, and some may be granted by classes, but not necessarily be role protected.

Class skills would again be a spot where I am fuzzy on what the sweet spot amount would be to have an interesting set of choices yet not have option paralysis. I suppose if these are in the same neighborhood as Universal Supernatural skills then their cumulative amount would be what needs to be considered.

Some things still not addressed by this set-up are a distinction of combat vs. non-combat skills, and also power schedules or costs.

Does this sound like the beginnings of a workable skill concept for a fantasy RPG?

The beginnings, yes. You'd have to have someone competent(eg: ghostwheel, tarkisflux, MisterSinister, K, Surgo) design it to work, rather than having Mearls & co have a go at it.

A potential problem I can see is either
A) Not allowing classes to do something they aren't specialized in. (Your berserker can't sneak because he's a berserker)
B) Allowing a non-specialist to be better than a specialist. (the druid being better at melee combat than a fighter)

Universal Supernatural skills would have their separate pool to select from, and I am more fuzzy on what a proper sweet spot limit to these powers would be. Some of them may also come from magic items and as such be interchangeable, and some may be granted by classes, but not necessarily be role protected.

You would have to make all of them useful in some way, so that even if some were more popular than others, there would be no trap options.

[erik]

You'd have to have someone competent(eg: ghostwheel, tarkisflux, MisterSinister, K, Surgo) design it to work, rather than having Mearls & co have a go at it.

In lieu of someone competent, this is my pet project in addition to a theoretical thought exercise. I'm basically describing what I already have on paper (well, computer file).

A potential problem I can see is either
A) Not allowing classes to do something they aren't specialized in. (Your berserker can't sneak because he's a berserker)
B) Allowing a non-specialist to be better than a specialist. (the druid being better at melee combat than a fighter)

Neither of those are potential problems with that basic system as I see it.

A) Nope. Not gonna limit any class to be denied the ability to do mundane tasks. Berserkers aren't berserking 24/7. Hell, even Conan was a polyglot.
B) That is only possible if the class skills fail at whatever role they are supposed to be protecting. So yes, don't make skills that fail. And just a jab at that example- melee combat is not something that is role protected.

You would have to make all of them useful in some way, so that even if some were more popular than others, there would be no trap options.

Yes, the notion is that all skills would be useful in some way, and to avoid trap options. I think that goes for any viable design.

[Midnight_v]

If you're going to run with the 3.5 skill system as is

Eww... just reading that makes me retract my previous post. Almost anything else is preferable. Sigh.

Wow. Not even close.

I've said this again in other threads and I'll say it again: the 3E skill system really was a quantum leap forward compared to other games.

The fact that it doesn't work at high levels is because no (pre-4E) edition of D&D has ever made any fucking sense at high levels, not because of something specific in the 3E skill system.

And if Diplomacy and Stealth are fucked up, it's because Diplomacy and Stealth have been fucked up in every skill system ever designed. Again, that's not specific to 3E D&D.

Fair enough.