Consolidating skills [Archive] - Wizards Community

Consolidating skills [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
yrogerg
03-22-08, 12:01 PM So, I *really* like the change 4e has made to skills. I really like the idea of giving everyone a roughly equal *number* of skills, but consolidating several of them that either were closely related or made no sense to take without the others (such as Hide and Move Silently, presumably Spellcraft and Knowledge: Arcana, and so on). It works well in 4e because they've gotten rid of skill points, and give everyone an equal *number* of skills to be trained in. So now, the rogue is "highly skilled" in that their skills: Thievery, Streetwise, Acrobatics, and so on, *do* a lot of things, whereas other classes' skills are, presumably, not quite as robust.

The problem is, 4e's not out yet, and I'm working on a 3.5 game. I want to consolidate several of the skills, but I also want to keep the skill rank system for the time being. Again, the issue is that most of the no-brainers like Hide and Move Silently, Open Lock and Disable Device, and Spellcraft and Knowledge: Arcana all favor high-skill classes.

So, my question is this: has anyone done this before? If so, what skills did you consolidate, and how did you deal with any class-imbalance issues?
ashmanonar
03-22-08, 01:46 PM Can you link where you read this? I'd be interested to see what they came up with.
yrogerg
03-22-08, 04:02 PM Can you link where you read this? I'd be interested to see what they came up with.

The article on the rogue (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dramp/20080222a) discusses some of this, but the best place for a summary is ENWorld (http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=4e#skills).

They've discussed this elsewhere; the general idea is that you gain a modifier to all skills based on your level, and being "trained" in a skill gives you a bonus and lets you do some things you couldn't do untrained. It's basically the same as SWSE. From the article, they mention that the skills that a rogue can have "trained" are some of the more robust skills. And as you can see, there's comparatively few of them, with fairly general names that suggest broader use. "Athletics", "Acrobatics", "Streetwise", and the like. Stealth and Perception, we already know, are the collapsed versions of Hide and Move Silently, and Spot and Listen, respectively.

To return this to 3.5, though, I'd toyed around with the idea for my 3.5 games before, but I couldn't figure out how to do it without going the direction 4e did, and scrapping skill points. Without redoing the skill list, trimming a few skills out entirely, and finding a new way to balance rogues and wizards, I'm having trouble coming up with a way to use something like this in 3.5 without disfavoring non-Rogues and non-Wizards even more.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
yrogerg 03-22-08, 12:01 PM	So, I really like the change 4e has made to skills. I really like the idea of giving everyone a roughly equal number of skills, but consolidating several of them that either were closely related or made no sense to take without the others (such as Hide and Move Silently, presumably Spellcraft and Knowledge: Arcana, and so on). It works well in 4e because they've gotten rid of skill points, and give everyone an equal number of skills to be trained in. So now, the rogue is "highly skilled" in that their skills: Thievery, Streetwise, Acrobatics, and so on, do a lot of things, whereas other classes' skills are, presumably, not quite as robust. The problem is, 4e's not out yet, and I'm working on a 3.5 game. I want to consolidate several of the skills, but I also want to keep the skill rank system for the time being. Again, the issue is that most of the no-brainers like Hide and Move Silently, Open Lock and Disable Device, and Spellcraft and Knowledge: Arcana all favor high-skill classes. So, my question is this: has anyone done this before? If so, what skills did you consolidate, and how did you deal with any class-imbalance issues?
ashmanonar 03-22-08, 01:46 PM	Can you link where you read this? I'd be interested to see what they came up with.
yrogerg 03-22-08, 04:02 PM	Can you link where you read this? I'd be interested to see what they came up with. The article on the rogue (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dramp/20080222a) discusses some of this, but the best place for a summary is ENWorld (http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=4e#skills). They've discussed this elsewhere; the general idea is that you gain a modifier to all skills based on your level, and being "trained" in a skill gives you a bonus and lets you do some things you couldn't do untrained. It's basically the same as SWSE. From the article, they mention that the skills that a rogue can have "trained" are some of the more robust skills. And as you can see, there's comparatively few of them, with fairly general names that suggest broader use. "Athletics", "Acrobatics", "Streetwise", and the like. Stealth and Perception, we already know, are the collapsed versions of Hide and Move Silently, and Spot and Listen, respectively. To return this to 3.5, though, I'd toyed around with the idea for my 3.5 games before, but I couldn't figure out how to do it without going the direction 4e did, and scrapping skill points. Without redoing the skill list, trimming a few skills out entirely, and finding a new way to balance rogues and wizards, I'm having trouble coming up with a way to use something like this in 3.5 without disfavoring non-Rogues and non-Wizards even more.