D&D 3.5 Condensed Skill List

Bigode · Post by **Bigode** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 12:45 am

"Campaign function" can well include "a bunch of people join, without tim to share their disparate bodies of knowledge in detail". Bullshitting for hours sure isn't universal, so it means being skilled at something. What? Well, I suggested that trap knowledge might be under Disable Device above. The difference's that you make a "deal with traps check" to "know about traps", not some BS meant to give equal knowledge randomly distributed to everyone.

Hey_I_Can_Chan · Post by **Hey_I_Can_Chan** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 1:00 am

Dude, what do you want Knowledge skills to do? Really, what are they for? Is it so you can provide more information to one character over another? Is it so one character can then act on that knowledge to do something spectacular? What's the point of them? If they don't do anything but hang out in the background saying, "Well, blew a lot of ranks on that!" why the fuck have them?

You realize that when any Knowledge skill out there that provides actual knowledge about something, that knowledge is going to be shared with the group anyway, so why make a big deal out of it by making it a skill?

What's the point? Every skill should have a knowledge component--Sleight of Hand should give you knowledge about famous cons, Spellcraft about famous magicians. Whatever.

Skills should do something not rot there hoping the DM's gonna throw some nobility and royalty your way.

Bigode · Post by **Bigode** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 1:32 am

Seems your last post agrees with me to some extent. I was more criticizing the idea of "make some random d20 roll" - which's at least the impression I got from your explanation of how Spycraft did it.

Though, the point would be to make it possible for different parties to know or not about some subjects. However, that can be done by folding knowledge into active skills just as well.

And all skills sit there waiting for tests to be thrown one's way. The flipside's that there's no actual reason you couldn't get a proactive scheme going off K (nobility and royalty), actually.

ZER0 · Post by **ZER0** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 3:12 am

Well, I don't know about Spycraft, but in D&D the only real use for Knowledge skills that I've seen is to identify monsters, and it's damn good for that. I mean, it's entirely possible a D&D character could go 11 levels without ever even hearing of a Hamatula, being told to kill one, not having ranks in Knowledge (the planes) and so not being able to tell wtf it is or wtf it can do, and going into the fight completely unprepared.

The point I'm making is that Knowledge skills are useful as Knowledge skills, so long as they all do something. The monster ID skills do. The rest, not really. Which is why I kind of lumped the rest into a 'politics' category that covers all that campaign background shit. I don't actually expect anyone to ever take it.

EDIT!

Oh, yeah. I just remembered. I was in a Living Greyhawk adventure at Panda a few years back, and there was this half-orc Barbarian in our group with 2 ranks in Knowledge (delicious). That was funny.

Bigode · Post by **Bigode** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 4:14 am

0: the thing is, Engineering does as much if not more if masonry (the rooted kind) is present than Planes does if a hamatula's present. They seriously ... "do stuff" from your POV. Both of them, if called upon.

And I could get behind (not my preference actually, but I see it as viable, for sure) folding all of them into stuff that "does stuff" in a more concrete sense. But where to shove Planes, for example?

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 5:29 am

He wants to talk about traps in ancient ruins. Are you seriously saying you'd want him to make a Knowledge (history) check about that? That his bajillion ranks in Disable Device would be insufficient?

I would say yes. Mind, Knowledge (history) would be as well, on its own.

Small talk doesn't require much investment either way, but if he actually wants useful information that will actually help him understand something or get an advantage at something, he better have Knowledge.

Knowledge skills are good for "I invested time and effort learning about this thing that took an uncommon amount of time and effort."

Knowledge (Nobility and Royalty) should be useful for identifying heraldry, famous kings and what they did, and other things having to do with kings and nobles.

But "Spellcraft lets you know about famous magicians!" only works to a point.

You may have heard of something just by Spellcraft, but if you want to be familiar enough to know any details, Knowledge: Legends (or whatever) would be a good idea.

Whether Knowledge (arcana) covers anything Spellcraft doesn't isn't the point. Some Knowledges do. And should stay that way. Having study and familarity with lore be fluffy but meaningless is highly unappealing.

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 7:55 am

Well with skills like profession, craft, perform, languages and knowledge just being largely flavor and requiring training, could we just make them auto level. One skill point buys at a cross-class max and 2 points buys it at class skill max? It would seem to me that this would be a sufficiently low cost in comparison to paying for "real" skills

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 8:07 am

Assuming that they're made as "fake" skills that there's no reason to invest points in, I'd agree. I'd rather have the game make me actually care about Knowledge: Nobility and Royalty or Profession: Bowyer or if those are listed as skills at all, however.

Its not just flavor in a setting where being able to recognize heraldry is really important to be able to do so. Unfortunately, D&D is locked in wargame/dungeon crawl mode, so you'd be better off not even making a token investment.

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 8:19 am

Well while they are useful for the story they really don't equal skills like spot and move silently and therefore don't deserve to be worth as much. Skills should be valued on practical use. You'd be lucky to roll knowledge heraldry once an adventure while you'll roll spot a dozen times. So while both have value, one should obviously be worth more.

The alternative is to give out a completely separate set of points allocated to these secondary skills as is done in SR.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 8:27 am

Or to make the time/s you roll the "secondary" skills actually matter, instead of making them both unimportant and underused.

Part of the problem is that the game is set up so there's very little reason it will have any impact if you fail a Knowledge check ("story grinds to a halt" is really not a problem for the character in the sense failing to notice an ambush is).

That is kind of disappointing.

What I really don't want is to just merge them with "useful" skills. There ought to be a benefit to studying lore and so on that isn't just "I share it with the group anyway."

So I would say the following make sense as knowledges outside merging with say, Survival for Knowledge (nature)...

Knowledge (region)
Knowledge (history - either general or specific)
Knowledge (nobility and royalty)
Knowledge (the planes)
Knowledge (religion)

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 8:32 am

How exactly are you going to make knowledge heraldry and nobility a more important skill, equal to spot? Sure you might use it more in a game heavily involve in kingdom politics but it's really not able to compare to your ability to notice important things that are going to kill your ass. Even if you were to provide a bonus to diplomacy with nobles based on a successful roll or roll it into a larger knowledge pool, it's just never going to be as good as spot.

It is better to recognize the value of things and weight them accordingly than try to make them equal when they really can't be.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 8:35 am

The problem is that if the game is set up so that it is equally important or more important to be familiar with the kingdom's politics as to be perceptive to physical danger, it is worth it.

In a game determined to render anything outside a dungeon irrelevant, no possible cost is worth paying.

And while it may not be as valuable as Spot overall in most campaigns that don't revolve around the court, it can easily be as valuable as any other skill that you use in certain situations...which is good enough to justify paying full price instead of it being forced still further into meaninglessness.

"If it won't save your life directly it isn't worth taking." sharply limits the skills and characters that are worth playing, which is annoying. A game that cannot support something other than killing machines is a piss poor RPG.

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 8:47 am

A knowledge skill is just a situational ability, sometimes it will be worth more than others. And all it really does is let the DM tell you thinks you don't already know without roleplaying. Even in a heavily political game, players can accumulate the information through other means.

Spot is not a situational ability, you can use it in almost any situation. It can help you understand a political situation as much as against monsters (you notice the Duke and the duchess seem to be cold to one another which a knowledge roll would have told you that the two have hated each other for years).

In any game you need to weight the value accordingly. Heck you could just have different tiers of skills set at the beginning of your campaign tell players which ones will come into play more heavily. If I run a game which is not going explore the underdark, I'll warn my players that knowledge underdark will be nearly useless and not worth the point.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 8:52 am

If you could obtain it readily through other means, it wouldn't require study and effort to the point it would cost points higher than 0.

Basic familarity should not cost points. Knowing that soandso is not the rightful heir because ____ should take effort.

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 10:26 am

So what exactly do you want knowledge skills to do?

I see them as an investment in time saving; it's instant access to information. I don't need to investigate, I just check to see if I know the information anyways. Obviously this doesn't provide secret information but I would show the level to which you have general knowledge on the subject. Which is why, while somewhat useful I would not rank it with Spot and other more versatile skills.

But you can't limit information access to having a knowledge skill. You can't say that I can't talk to a page to get the information of who that noble is over there. Asking takes time and money, and leaves a trail for other people to follow what information I've been seeking. So knowledge skills are potentially superior to not having it, but it is not the only way to get information.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 10:29 am

Yes, but I can say that if you want detailed information readily available, or to make sense of what the hell the terms to describe the coat of arms he's using mean, you need the skill.

"That's Baron ____." doesn't mean anything unless you know who Baron ___ is. And saying "but then I ask who he is." gets to the point of asking for the people who did spend the points to be assfucked for actually studying it.

baduin · Post by **baduin** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 12:05 pm

The skills should be divided into two groups: adventuring and non-adventuring. You gain adventuring skills by spending skill points etc. Non-adventuring skills (Knowledge, Craft, Perform, etc) are gained by reading books, spending time and money on training etc. You could gain some non-adventuring skills for coming from a particular background etc. In other words - they are not tied to levels.

Hey_I_Can_Chan · Post by **Hey_I_Can_Chan** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 1:13 pm

I'm good with the idea of gaining a body of knowledge each level or whatever. Saying that you've the Arcana background is valid and might be a reasonable compromise. However, I'm still not sure such things are necessary. So far, the only thing these would do is identify monsters, which lets you kill them better. What's wrong with folding that into a Spellcraft check ("Oh, shit, it's a balor!") or a Disable Device check ("Yeah, that's a mimic")?

If all Knowledge skills do is speed play, why not just speed play instead of dicking around with pretending to speed play?

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 3:13 pm

Hey_I_Can_Chan wrote: What's wrong with folding that into a Spellcraft check ("Oh, shit, it's a balor!") or a Disable Device check ("Yeah, that's a mimic")?

If all Knowledge skills do is speed play, why not just speed play instead of dicking around with pretending to speed play?

I'm good with the idea of skills being more general though some rename would be appropriate.

The value of being able to check if you know something is that you don't need to ask somebody. It's information that doesn't need to be paid for, that doesn't leave a trail of your inquiry. You don't look like a dick asking the guard who the guy with the funny hat is, you know he's the duke when you see him. You're not leaving a trail of witnesses watching you ask about the fire knives in this area. You're not paying the local wizard to tell you about this ancient artifact.

That is a valuable asset IMHO, not spot valuable, but not just a pile of poop on your sheet either. Which is why I suggested either a very low skill point cost or a separate skill point system entirely a la SR.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 3:25 pm

This is why I just have one knowledge skill (and one craft skill) and use professions (which are gained by being a member of a class, having a certain background, training, buying with skill points, or completing an adventure) to determine what you know. It's hand-wavy, but allows allows for varying degrees of level-based knowledge on different topics to be grown (in breadth) asymmetrically to level.

arangatang · Post by **arangatang** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 9:13 pm

I favour having "skill tiers". A rank in the most useful skills (for the typical adventurer in a typical campaign) can be purchased for 1 skill point, as normal. Less powerful skills can be purchased for perhaps one half or even one third of a skill point. The tiering might look something like this:

Tier 1: Use Magic Device, Tumble, Disable Device, Hide, Move Silently, Spot, Listen, Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Concentration, Spellcraft, Open Lock

Tier 2: Disguise, Handle Animal, Ride, Heal, Sense Motive, Jump, Swim, Climb, Sleight of Hand, Ride, Search, Speak Language, Survival, Balance, Escape Artist

Tier 3: Profession, Use Rope, Knowledge, Decipher Script, Forgery, Gather Information, Perform, Craft, Appraise

This needs some work. The above could also benefit from combining skills, phasing out unnecessary skills, etc. Any thoughts?

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Fri Dec 19, 2008 1:26 am

Other than that if some skills are more valuable to that extent, I'd charge more for them (not less than a point...fractions are an unnecessary pain), I'd accept something like that.

But Tier 3 being Tier 3 is a sad statement on how irrelevant those things are made to be, not on how useless they would necessarily be.

If you needed Profession: Bowyer to ensure you really did have "arrows whenever you needed them", or Profession: Sailor to handle sailing, they'd be tier 2, at least.

Hey_I_Can_Chan · Post by **Hey_I_Can_Chan** » Fri Dec 19, 2008 1:42 pm

Why not just make the lower-tiered skills more valuable?

Champions charges the same basic prices for almost all of its skills, with the implication that the skill chosen will be applicible and useful in the game world, and therefore just as valuable as any other skill.

Why would anyone, knowing that some skills are shittier than others, ever take a shitty skill, except for A) role-playing, or B) deceptive self-gimping ("I'm not an unbalanced character--see I have the shitty skills!")?

I'd feel much better about Use Rope if it did more than splice 'em and knot 'em and made me master of the lasso, able to bind people in combat, and use rope trick at will.

I'd feel much better about Decipher Script were it just Decipher, worked on all kinds of symbols (sacred, heraldry, gang tats); served as the written version of Use Magic Device; let you make inferences about author's histories and backgrounds; and gave you a shot at preparing a wizard spell from a spellbook.

Seriously, un-shit-ify the shitty skills rather than a tier system.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Fri Dec 19, 2008 10:40 pm

And/or tone down the awesome skills.

Appraise ought to be worth something, but Spot should not dominate the game.

So maybe Decipher Script works more or less as is. But guess what. You actually need it instead of it being one of the Skills That Low Level Spells Render Irrelevant or that never come up.

zeruslord · Post by **zeruslord** » Fri Dec 19, 2008 10:57 pm

Decipher Script, Gather Information, Knowledge, etc. are skills that are required to get to the adventure. If you don't have them, somebody randomly walks up to you in the tavern and tells you what you need to know or, in the case of Decipher Script, nothing will ever need to be deciphered if it matters to the plot unless the plot is rewritten to take into account the fact that you need to find a sage. Any ability that is exclusively plot-related will only come up if one or more characters have it.