Skill Feats [Archive] - Wizards Community

Skill Feats [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Mesiolan
02-27-07, 04:00 AM If somebody takes a feat for Skill Focus, or one of the many two-skill feats (Alertness, Negotiator...), the PC just gets a small bonus to one or two skills.

I am thinking about a house rule like this: I you pick a weak feat like this, in addition it turns the one or two skills picked into class skills, no matter what class levels you take.

Do you think this rule steps on the toes of the skillmonkeys? Few PCs take Skill Focus or Alertness anyway, and when they do it's usually for a class skill.
Xeviat-DM
02-27-07, 04:14 AM I've been using this rule for years. If it means anything, only a few characters have taken me up on the offer. That means to me that, on the surface, the change does not add so much power to them to make them no-brainers. I've never had a rogue that felt like the fighter who picked up Stealthy was stepping on their toes.

Good call.
tarkin
02-27-07, 03:15 PM Horrible Call.

Displays a total lack of understanding of how the feats work.

If you dislike a feat, don't take it. If you like the idea of a feat, but think it is weak, make a new feat, similar to the original, but better. It does not need to use the original as a pre-req.

Explanation of how the Feat system works:

There are two kinds of feats.
1) Great feats that people want. Usually, but not all the time, they have pre-reqs.

2) Sucky feats intended to be taken only to qualify someone for a pre-req for other feats.
------
The Skill Feats are usually of type 2, suck feats intended to be used as pre-reqs for better things. See ArchMage. They have to take icky Skill Focus Spellcraft.

The only difference between making up your own feat and changing an existing one is that when you change a feat, you upgrade everything else that uses it as a pre-req.

So by not making your own feat you are:

A) Admitting you know about the things that use it as a pre-req.

B) Not looking at those things (or at least pretending not to look at them)

C) Powering them all up along with the feat intended to be sucky.

D) Using the fact that a pre-req was sucky as an excuse to power up the really cool thing (that is not sucky) even though the game designer intentionally wanted to balance it by requiring you to waste a feat.

Make up your own feats, don't try pull a fast one and change the existing feats.
lint trap
02-27-07, 03:21 PM Horrible Call.

Perfectly reasonable call. Turning these feats into vectors for class skills is like resurrecting Kits from 2nd edition; it gives you a great deal of variety for tweaking characters. Now you can have non-rogue guards with decent Listen/Spot checks (via Alertness), which has always been a pet peeve of mine.

Go for it.
Nom
02-27-07, 03:29 PM 2) Sucky feats intended to be taken only to qualify someone for a pre-req for other feats.Or, "sucky feats that both Monte Cook and Mike Mearls have publicly acknowledged are examples of a flawed design policy".

Creating underpowered standard feats simply as a mechanism of reducing the power of optional rules is brain-dead. If the PrCs are overpowered as a result of the feats actually being useful (very unlikely), then fix the PrCs too.
Finarin Panjoro
02-27-07, 03:31 PM While I think Tarkin may be somewhat overstating his case he does have a point. Another danger of what you're doing is allowing the side stepping of multi-classing for entry into PrCs. Skill requirements are often there to force someone to multi-class or to wait until they have enough cross-class ranks to qualify.

Those requirements are also in place to allow quicker access to certain classes. For example, by your rules anyone with 3 skill points per level (a human cleric maybe) who takes the stealthy and skill:focus disguise feat can qualifty for Assassin in exactly as much time as a rogue. The skill requirements are designed to make this class easier for rogues to access.

I created a separate fighter only feat called Skill Emphasis that does what you're describing (but only for fighters and they can only take it once). They can take Skill Emphasis: Alertness and gain Spot and Listen as fighter class skills. So a fighter with Skill Emphasis: stealthy could qualifty for Assassin much more rapidly than a normal fighter, but he'd still have to pay cross-class ranks for his ranks in Disguise so its still easier for a rogue.
jameswilliamogle
02-27-07, 06:08 PM Several campaigns I've played in also allow 1-2 class skills to be swapped w/ non-class skills during character creation.

Also, Skill Focus is quite a Pink Ninja style feat. You take it at low level, and regret it at high. What I've done in my campaign is make the feat give a bonus of +1 per 3 levels you've attained. Thus, it scales decently, and doesn't make low-level skill monkeys too good. [The main reason for this is I also allow retraining, and I'd rather do something like this than have all Artificers / Truenamers / etc take Skill Focus at 1st then retrain at 6th.]

I never considered making them count as in-class... I can see from above that there are repurcussions...
Orcdoubleax
02-27-07, 06:40 PM In non combat heavy role-playing campaigns these feats are often taken solely on thier own merit. I will admit this is a smaller portion of campaigns as the influnce of vieo games has changed how PnP is played.

no matter how powerful feats all feats would be compared to the twenty best possible feats. The twenty weakest feats would always be considered useless.

As for the original Idea. I like it the idea of them being class feats. I don't tink it is overpowered and it is in the flavour of what the feat is about. Of course it makes adaptive learning meaningless.

Alertness is the only one that is maybe dangerous with this.
Xeviat-DM
02-27-07, 06:41 PM Tarkin, I've seen you stating this idea time and time again, and I, and others, believe you are fundamentally wrong.

For instance, if a PrC was balanced with a character having taken a "sucky feat" in mind, then the PrC would only gain 1 feat worth of extra abilities, or even less, to make up for the sucky feat. Yeah, sure, a player may have had to play through a couple of levels with said "sucky feat", but what about games that start at higher levels and have that "suck period" ignored entirely.

And as Nom said, system creators and other designers have pointed out the flawed principal of such a system. I'm unsure if such feats exist in Cook's Arcana Unearthed or Arcana Evolved.

I'll repeat: if one sucky feat does a great PrC make, then said great PrC can only really be one feat more powerful than a core character.
azmodael
02-28-07, 12:08 PM Skill focus is an awesome feat for some skills like Use Magic Device for example... especially at low levels. Later you can retrain if you want. Otherwise fighters wielding scrolls and USING them will be so blatantly overpowered...
Rhuxley
02-28-07, 12:30 PM The Skill Feats are usually of type 2, suck feats intended to be used as pre-reqs for better things. See ArchMage. They have to take icky Skill Focus Spellcraft.
[COLOR="Indigo"]Make up your own feats, don't try pull a fast one and change the existing feats.

Idiot logic. Your telling me that someone who doesnt have spellcraft as a class skill might want to become an archmage? How does it power them up any?

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Mesiolan 02-27-07, 04:00 AM	If somebody takes a feat for Skill Focus, or one of the many two-skill feats (Alertness, Negotiator...), the PC just gets a small bonus to one or two skills. I am thinking about a house rule like this: I you pick a weak feat like this, in addition it turns the one or two skills picked into class skills, no matter what class levels you take. Do you think this rule steps on the toes of the skillmonkeys? Few PCs take Skill Focus or Alertness anyway, and when they do it's usually for a class skill.
Xeviat-DM 02-27-07, 04:14 AM	I've been using this rule for years. If it means anything, only a few characters have taken me up on the offer. That means to me that, on the surface, the change does not add so much power to them to make them no-brainers. I've never had a rogue that felt like the fighter who picked up Stealthy was stepping on their toes. Good call.
tarkin 02-27-07, 03:15 PM	Horrible Call. Displays a total lack of understanding of how the feats work. If you dislike a feat, don't take it. If you like the idea of a feat, but think it is weak, make a new feat, similar to the original, but better. It does not need to use the original as a pre-req. Explanation of how the Feat system works: There are two kinds of feats. 1) Great feats that people want. Usually, but not all the time, they have pre-reqs. 2) Sucky feats intended to be taken only to qualify someone for a pre-req for other feats. ------ The Skill Feats are usually of type 2, suck feats intended to be used as pre-reqs for better things. See ArchMage. They have to take icky Skill Focus Spellcraft. The only difference between making up your own feat and changing an existing one is that when you change a feat, you upgrade everything else that uses it as a pre-req. So by not making your own feat you are: A) Admitting you know about the things that use it as a pre-req. B) Not looking at those things (or at least pretending not to look at them) C) Powering them all up along with the feat intended to be sucky. D) Using the fact that a pre-req was sucky as an excuse to power up the really cool thing (that is not sucky) even though the game designer intentionally wanted to balance it by requiring you to waste a feat. Make up your own feats, don't try pull a fast one and change the existing feats.
lint trap 02-27-07, 03:21 PM	Horrible Call. Perfectly reasonable call. Turning these feats into vectors for class skills is like resurrecting Kits from 2nd edition; it gives you a great deal of variety for tweaking characters. Now you can have non-rogue guards with decent Listen/Spot checks (via Alertness), which has always been a pet peeve of mine. Go for it.
Nom 02-27-07, 03:29 PM	2) Sucky feats intended to be taken only to qualify someone for a pre-req for other feats.Or, "sucky feats that both Monte Cook and Mike Mearls have publicly acknowledged are examples of a flawed design policy". Creating underpowered standard feats simply as a mechanism of reducing the power of optional rules is brain-dead. If the PrCs are overpowered as a result of the feats actually being useful (very unlikely), then fix the PrCs too.
Finarin Panjoro 02-27-07, 03:31 PM	While I think Tarkin may be somewhat overstating his case he does have a point. Another danger of what you're doing is allowing the side stepping of multi-classing for entry into PrCs. Skill requirements are often there to force someone to multi-class or to wait until they have enough cross-class ranks to qualify. Those requirements are also in place to allow quicker access to certain classes. For example, by your rules anyone with 3 skill points per level (a human cleric maybe) who takes the stealthy and skill:focus disguise feat can qualifty for Assassin in exactly as much time as a rogue. The skill requirements are designed to make this class easier for rogues to access. I created a separate fighter only feat called Skill Emphasis that does what you're describing (but only for fighters and they can only take it once). They can take Skill Emphasis: Alertness and gain Spot and Listen as fighter class skills. So a fighter with Skill Emphasis: stealthy could qualifty for Assassin much more rapidly than a normal fighter, but he'd still have to pay cross-class ranks for his ranks in Disguise so its still easier for a rogue.
jameswilliamogle 02-27-07, 06:08 PM	Several campaigns I've played in also allow 1-2 class skills to be swapped w/ non-class skills during character creation. Also, Skill Focus is quite a Pink Ninja style feat. You take it at low level, and regret it at high. What I've done in my campaign is make the feat give a bonus of +1 per 3 levels you've attained. Thus, it scales decently, and doesn't make low-level skill monkeys too good. [The main reason for this is I also allow retraining, and I'd rather do something like this than have all Artificers / Truenamers / etc take Skill Focus at 1st then retrain at 6th.] I never considered making them count as in-class... I can see from above that there are repurcussions...
Orcdoubleax 02-27-07, 06:40 PM	In non combat heavy role-playing campaigns these feats are often taken solely on thier own merit. I will admit this is a smaller portion of campaigns as the influnce of vieo games has changed how PnP is played. no matter how powerful feats all feats would be compared to the twenty best possible feats. The twenty weakest feats would always be considered useless. As for the original Idea. I like it the idea of them being class feats. I don't tink it is overpowered and it is in the flavour of what the feat is about. Of course it makes adaptive learning meaningless. Alertness is the only one that is maybe dangerous with this.
Xeviat-DM 02-27-07, 06:41 PM	Tarkin, I've seen you stating this idea time and time again, and I, and others, believe you are fundamentally wrong. For instance, if a PrC was balanced with a character having taken a "sucky feat" in mind, then the PrC would only gain 1 feat worth of extra abilities, or even less, to make up for the sucky feat. Yeah, sure, a player may have had to play through a couple of levels with said "sucky feat", but what about games that start at higher levels and have that "suck period" ignored entirely. And as Nom said, system creators and other designers have pointed out the flawed principal of such a system. I'm unsure if such feats exist in Cook's Arcana Unearthed or Arcana Evolved. I'll repeat: if one sucky feat does a great PrC make, then said great PrC can only really be one feat more powerful than a core character.
azmodael 02-28-07, 12:08 PM	Skill focus is an awesome feat for some skills like Use Magic Device for example... especially at low levels. Later you can retrain if you want. Otherwise fighters wielding scrolls and USING them will be so blatantly overpowered...
Rhuxley 02-28-07, 12:30 PM	The Skill Feats are usually of type 2, suck feats intended to be used as pre-reqs for better things. See ArchMage. They have to take icky Skill Focus Spellcraft. [COLOR="Indigo"]Make up your own feats, don't try pull a fast one and change the existing feats. Idiot logic. Your telling me that someone who doesnt have spellcraft as a class skill might want to become an archmage? How does it power them up any?