Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Solik 09-14-05, 11:38 AM	In my campaign, I've made some various changes to some of the skills (mostly to remove some that were "useless" in our group, or to combine some that didn't make much sense to be kept apart). For instance, Disguise is now part of Bluff, Hide and Move Silently are now Sneak, Decipher Script is simply gone, and Jump, Balance, and Tumble have been combined into Acrobatics. For the most part, this has worked okay. However, it's stripped Fighters of one of their few class skills (they do not get Acrobatics), and several classes (mostly fighter-types) have no need of skill points to begin with. This makes Int entirely useless for these builds (while I don't mind min-maxing, I would prefer that it come at a cost -- you should give up something by making that choice). My idea to resolve these things is to allow players to purchase feats with skill points. Players may purchase a feat for 6 skill points. They may only purchase one such feat per level and may not purchase a feat at level 1. This feat cannot be a prerequisite for another feat gained at the same levelup, nor can another feat gained at the same level function as a prerequisite for the purchased feat. There is a feat in the Complete books (Open Minded, I think in Complete Adventurer) that allows a player to gain 5 skill points. I figure 6 to go the other way would be pretty balanced. I also feel that it would benefit the fighter-types, who have the most need for it. Incidentally, since you can't save skill points in 3.5, we'll simply let players "invest" skill points towards a feat until they put all 6 in it (similar to half ranks for cross-class skills). One player, however, feels that it gives rogues a significant advantage. I disagree because I feel that rogues need to be putting ranks in skills (even with some of the skill condensing we've done, rogues still have uses for a good 15 skills). He's also worried that it nerfs the sorcerer in favor of the wizard. I'm not sure I agree, since wizards need their points for knowledge skills anyway, but he may have a point there. So what do you guys think? What potential imbalances could this create? Is this additional flexibility a good idea, or is it rather ill-conceived? All critique appreciated.
Arcade 09-14-05, 12:33 PM	For starters, you can try reading this thread. It is very recent and deals with many of these issues: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=496066 Besides that, my opinion is skill heavy characters will make out better in this system. Take the ranger. He gets 4 extra skill points compared to the fighter per level. That means every 3 levels, he can buy 2 more bonus feats than the fighter. After he buys improved toughness with this, the only difference between the fighter and the ranger is that the ranger can't use heavy armor,but the trade off is getting 2/3 bonus feat per level as compared to the fighter's 1/2. And the ranger gets all his bonus feats and abilities on top of that. While it always sounds like a good idea, IMO, feats and skills are not meant to be interchangeable.
Solik 09-14-05, 12:59 PM	How the hell did I miss that? Ahwell, thanks for the link :)