How to award extra skills in d20...

[Crissa]

Okay, so as a racial bonus...

• Give a +2 bonus to a skill: (Like Elves or Dwarves)
• Easy to balance.
• Easy to explain.
• Easy to remember.
• Stacking troubles.
• Have to spend to make relevant.
• ...Which means often it's just fluff.

• Give a skill at crossclass:
• Easy to balance.
• Hard to explain.
• Hard to stack.
• Is it relevant?

• Give a skill at full: (Like Humans)
• Easy to remember.
• Easy to explain.
• Is it different than choosing the skill?
• All of a race that good at something?

I'm leaning towards just giving full of a skill to most races. But I was wondering if I could say, give cross-class value to a race... Would that be worthwhile? Is 'All (5) knowledge skills at half' equal value to 'two skills at full'?

Would you consider a race that got several at half (cross-class) balanced to a race that got two skills at full vs one that got one skill at full plus a bonus?

-Crissa

(I'm working on making a simplified d20 setting that's complex enough to please me but simple enough so that my spouse will play - she prefers complexity up front rather in gameplay, like AD&D, Champions, etc)

[Draco_Argentum]

Depends a lot on the skill really. Getting anything with an opposed roll cross class is totally lame.

I'd call two skills at full the best option. As long as you get two good skills its going to be good for anyone who has to make choices about what to take. If you're a high int rogue its probably not worth much.

Full plus a bonus elf style isn't that great. +2 isn't that much compared to the sort of bonus you can get in 3.x anyway.

Cross class would only be useful at all for skills that happen to have static bonuses. Even then when you are able to make the checks you're several levels above the point where it was level appropriate.

[Crissa]

Draco, I'm not entirely certain what you read. Because I can't determine how your answer is related to my question. I am known for dropping words and often just not being clear, but...

What?

-Crissa

[CatharzGodfoot]

If you want to give out skills at lower bonuses, do it at 1 + level. That makes the difference significant while retaining usefulness for the skill.

[Draco_Argentum]

Its pretty clearly a short summary of the relative usefulness of the options you presented. If you can't see how that might be related to your question regarding the balance of said options smoke less crack.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

This is actually typical for Gaming Den discussions. You come out with an idea and ask for advice, then people discard your ideas, come up with their own, and take off running with them, leaving your questions unanswered.

That's why I don't ask any questions here about gaming, because they won't be answered.

[JonSetanta]

We get back around to the original topic. Eventually.

[Prak]

Counterpoint to Sigma: Dead Man's Hand....

[Bigode]

Counterpoint to Sigma: Dead Man's Hand....

You mean the game where Frank ended doing your work for you?

Count and Crissa: all relevant questions were answered - cross-class isn't balanced in any meaningful way against in-class, and Catharz already said what works best.

[Crissa]

If you want to give out skills at lower bonuses, do it at 1 + level. That makes the difference significant while retaining usefulness for the skill.

The problem was that the final 'solution' had nothing to do with the initial question. And I have no idea what the comment about bonuses was about.

Of course two skills is the best, it's in the middle. Of course +2 elf-style is kinda weak. I said so. I agreed.

So I'll try the question again.

• Are these good options, flavorwise, balancewise:
• Five skills at competent (none are skill vs skills)
• Two skills at level appropriate (some may be skill vs skills)
• One skill at level appropriate, plus a bonus

[/b]
That gets me away from 'must spend resources to access the bonus', and there will be some variance based upon stats. I am using the pips version of the skills (Zero being untrained, one being competent, two being level-maxed, three-plus being only allowed if it's a special skill like survival or perform).

And how much should the bonus be? Is two skills too much? Is one skill that you get to choose equal to one skill you don't

-Crissa

...Wierd, I hadta use two close tags on the bold.

[Bigode]

Use just the middle. Finding 5 unopposed skills, and varying them between races' more work than it's worth (also, since I recall that you compressed skills, giving bonuses to 5 seems like too cookie-cutter). And full plus bonus means making just one race good at a skill.

[CatharzGodfoot]

If you want to give out skills at lower bonuses, do it at 1 + level. That makes the difference significant while retaining usefulness for the skill.

The problem was that the final 'solution' had nothing to do with the initial question. And I have no idea what the comment about bonuses was about.

Of course two skills is the best, it's in the middle..

I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about.

So I'll try the question again.

• Are these good options, flavorwise, balancewise:
• Five skills at competent (none are skill vs skills)
• Two skills at level appropriate (some may be skill vs skills)
• One skill at level appropriate, plus a bonus

[/b]
That gets me away from 'must spend resources to access the bonus', and there will be some variance based upon stats. I am using the pips version of the skills (Zero being untrained, one being competent, two being level-maxed, three-plus being only allowed if it's a special skill like survival or perform).

No, they aren't balanced. If 'using the pip system' means what I think it does, giving out 'five skills at one pip' is very different from saying 'the character always has a minimum of 5 ranks. With pips you just sink 5 more pips in and you've got 5 maxed skills. In normal D&D it's much more messy.

Remember that even Knowledge skills can be active (for example, as an archivist).

Anyway, IMO the pips you're using make it much more clean. Give the character a fixed number of pips (say, 3), and it's as balanced as D&D ever needs to be. With the exception of particularly good or useless skills.

And how much should the bonus be?

Plus three of four seems a good number. As much as you get at low levels from your best attribute. I'm assuming you means for 3 pip skills, since you've already shrugged off the idea of max -3.

Is two skills too much?

Not if you keep things balanced pip-wise.

Is one skill that you get to choose equal to one skill you don't

That depends entirely on if you would have chosen to take the skill you're forced to take anyway. Because of the ease of Min/Maxing in D&D, I'd say that at the very least one selectable skill is not worth two predecided ones unless the skills are particularly shitty (use rope, open locks).

[Prak]

Counterpoint to Sigma: Dead Man's Hand....

You mean the game where Frank ended doing your work for you?

Actually I mean the one where I proposed a Western Spellslinger campaign setting for D&D and Frank took it an created a whole fucking new system...

[Crissa]

Frank does that.

And the pip system is: zero = untrained, one = competent, two = character level +3. There isn't a third pip for most skills. There's also only a dozen skills. Over ten levels we go from 0/2/4 to 0/7/13. With a third (race bonus) pip it could go from 0/2/4/8 to 0/7/13/17 which is sorta pushing it, really, but...

I don't think the +1 was memorable at all.

-Crissa

[JonSetanta]

I never extracted any "pip" system from the long multipage rants (or maybe I just skipped over it?) but from what you describe it seems very efficient.
I'd replace skill points with that completely.

[Crissa]

Since most skills are only taken at max ranks, and there's thirty some skills, encouraging people to take many skills at less than optimal, this system was designed. Lotsa math up front, but all ranks would then be the same, which simplifies character design.

Players get Int+Class+Race skills. If they have more than one class, they get the average of the classes, weighted by how many levels they took. (Add each class level together and divide by character level. So a Rogue/Fighter 2 would be (8+2*2)/3 gets four skills. To add more detail in it, each skill is worth two pips; you can invest extra pips in some skills, or only take one pip in a skill and get it at half value (but trained).

• Simplified Skill List
• Knowledge INT
  Arcana (Spellcraft, Psonics, Devices, Aberrations, Undeath)
  Nature (Animals, Plants, Physical)
  Local (History, Geography, Religion, Nobility, Symbols, Legends)
  Planes (History elsewhere, Divine, Outsiders, Myths)
• Athletics (Jump, Swim, Climb) STR
• Acrobatics (Balance, Tumble) DEX
• Awareness (Listen, Spot, Search) WIS
• Decipher (Appraise, Forgery, Decipher Script) INT
• Deception (Bluff, Disguise) CHR
• Devise (Disable Device, Engineering, Open Locks, Disable Rune) INT
• Husbandry (Handle Animal, Train Animal, Ride) WIS
• Persuade (Diplomacy, Intimidate) CHR
• Legerdemain (Escape Artist, Sleight of Hand, Use Rope) DEX
• Intuition (Sense Motive, Gather Information) WIS
• Stealth (Hide, Move Silently) DEX
• Survival (Heal, Survival) WIS +1 climate zone per skill pip
• Perform (Perform, Script) CHR +1 performance form per skill pip
• Concentration (Concentration, Scry) CON *
• Spellcraft (Spellcraft, Scry) INT *
• Use Magic Device (Use Psionic Foci) CHR *
• Craft (Craft, Profession, Field of Study) INT
  * - Restricted

It's somewhere else here on the board. When I use this I also ditch the class skill list and let people choose whatever they want; I'm also thinking of increasing the ranks by half instead of one every level.

-Crissa

[virgil]

I think I've seen pips before, 5 rank increments, but that was from someone else. Of course, I'm quite possibly wrong on several levels.

As for the Dead Man's Hand, from what I recall, he felt that using d20 was the wrong way to do it; and gave his reasons why.

EDIT: Ah, I was wrong. Curses

[Prak]

Actually Pips sound like a better thought out version of what Pathfinder is doing...

[Calibron]

Taking Credit

[Crissa]

Yep, it's Calibron's idea.

^-^

-Crissa

[Calibron]

It's nice to be back, by the way.

[Crissa]

So...

No one would choose a 'Skill plus a Bonus' over 'Two Skills' in this system?

-Crissa

[JonSetanta]

It's nice to be back, by the way.

Welcome back, pal.

And Crissa: I choose first option.

[Prak]

I think both options have their merits.

[Calibron]

To try to answer the original question: The flat bonus you normally get with races isn't a good thing since, as was mentioned, you need to use character resources to get any real benefit out of it and it will help push people off the RNG.

Half-ranks can be useful in and of itself for skills that don't primarily make use of opposed rolls, and for generally useful skills like Awareness or Acrobatics the vast majority of characters would be happy to put the remaining necessary ranks into the skill to get full use.

Full ranks would of course be a welcome addition to a race.

As for your latest question, I think giving away two full rank skills to a race would be powerful enough that you wouldn't leave much else to add to them, assuming no racial hit die that is, so I'd be wary of that option.