Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Birgo 04-27-07, 08:30 AM	Actually I've got a pb with the skill list. Many skills "echo" one another, so that when you buy ranks in a skill, you'll also want to buy some in its "brother" skill. For example, if you're a rogue or ranger, you'll want to buy ranks in BOTH Hide and Move silently. If you want to be aware, you'll buy ranks in BOTH Listen and Spot. If you're a monk, you'll want training in BOTH Tumble and balance. If you're a fighter or barbarian, the best places to spend your skill points are in Climb, Jump, and Swim. To simplify these things and avoid "double spending", I reduced the skill list by regrouping skills that go together: Hide and Move silently become a single skill: Sneak; listen and Spot become Perception, Tumble and Balance become Acrobatics, and Climb, Jump, Swim become Athletics. Another thing that worried me is Knowledge. I wanted to avoid the "Sorry, if you don't have any ranks in Knowledge(history) you can't possibly know more about this dragonmarked family". So I got rid of knowledge skills and set a Knowledge check; each time a character want to know smth about smth, he makes a check: d20 + character level + int modifier + misc modifier, so that every character get a chance to know some particular piece of info about anything, whether It comes from travelling experiences, etc... What do you think of these simplification? any idea or suggestions? I don't think It unbalances the game because D&D is mainly an adventure game, so skills are somewhat "secondary": many skills are truly useful, but some are really "flavor" skills: profession, maybe craft or handle animal. What's the use of heal in an Eberron campaign where action points can be spend to stabilize? What's the use of skills such as forgery, use rope? In past time, there was no skills in D&D: the game was less rich, but was it less interesting? I have another house rule for a feat that simplify its use, but I wanted to know if you think this rule unbalances the game. Dodge is a good feat, but most of the time, player forget using it. So I came up with this: Dodge gives the character a +1 dodge bonus to AC, active all the time, except when the character is flat footed (it's a dodge bonus). After all, there's weapon focus which gives +1 to all attack rolls with a weapon: every character eventually meet the prerequisite (BAB +1), whereas not every character has Dex 13+. What do you think?
Arcade 04-27-07, 08:46 AM	For the skills, you are going down a similar path as the new Star Wars Saga RPG and I wouldn't be surprised if similar changes occured in future D&D versions. I know I'd be interested in taking some of their changes and implementing them. Combining the skills like you mentioned is one thing. I would take your knowledge skills down a notch and make them 1/2 level instead of full level (also taken from the new star wars rules) and let characters invest ranks on top of that to have characters who specialize in certain knowledge- after all those wizards need to spend their points on something.
starfire311 04-27-07, 10:33 AM	Dodge is a good feat, but most of the time, player forget using it. So I came up with this: Dodge gives the character a +1 dodge bonus to AC, active all the time, except when the character is flat footed (it's a dodge bonus). After all, there's weapon focus which gives +1 to all attack rolls with a weapon: every character eventually meet the prerequisite (BAB +1), whereas not every character has Dex 13+. What do you think? my house rule for dodge is that you are dodging the person you attacked unless otherwise specified. Oh and I am not a fan of combining skills.
Catzilla 04-27-07, 02:12 PM	I'm all for consolidated skills, but it could mess with balance if you're not careful how you go about doing it. Also, I believe that most PrC's require X number of ranks in certain skills to qualify for them, so I'd look closely at that too. For knowledge checks, I let all my players make general knowledge checks using d20+Int modifier, but still let them invest skill points into specific areas of knowledge. This gives everyone a chance, but gives characters with points invested (like Wizards and Knowledge: Arcana) an increased chance of success with certain checks. I like starfire311's take on Dodge.
SilvercatMoonpaw 04-28-07, 09:37 AM	A bit of advice is to make sure that if you combine Hide and Move Silently to also combine Spot and Listen, otherwise the whole thing becomes sort of redudant due to now having two skills to oppose one. While I realize that Spot and Listen have uses outside just detecting sneaking opponents, they lose a lot of their use when the combination is in effect. Also it just makes more sense that you don't use each sense individually but together. For Knowledge I just think all you need is to allow untrained checks to go above DC 10 results. @starfire311: Why don't you like combining skills? It's sort of a useless comment to post unless you know you're going to be playing in this particular game.
trapspringer 04-30-07, 04:27 PM	This is a good idea, and as has already been mentioned I bet we will see an implementation of this system in umpteen years with the release of a new edition of D&D. For the time being, however, be ready to modify feats and just out-and-out ban prestige classes in order to minimalize the ramifications of your actions. You will also want to reduce the number of skills a class gets per level by half (their bonus skill points from intellignece/race will balance out the fact you aren't splicing all the skills).