I really like these variant rules for skills:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/alternativeSkillSystems.htm#levelBasedSkills

One thing that bugs me a little is that adopting this system nerfs Intelligence a little bit, since you don't get the extra skill points for high Intelligence any more. In this thread I'm looking for house rules for what you might do with Intelligence under this system vis-a-vis skills.

Option 1: Add an additional cross-class skill as a class skill per point of intelligence bonus. I don't like this much; you've got a lot of skills already and intelligence bonuses can get pretty high pretty fast. This option seems to penalize rogues.

Option 2: Have a floating 'skill focus' or 'skill penalty' equal to your intelligence bonus, divided up as you see fit. So an INT 16 character would get a +3 to any one skill: if you wanted your wizard to be good at alchemy or your rogue to be good at disabling traps, you'd add that here. I like this better but it seems a little weak.

Optoin 3: As option 2, but you get it twice. This seems closer to the right value for the attribute score somehow.

These would be marked on the sheet as bonus feats, methinks. "Variable Skill Focus: Disable Device", where the bonus was always equal to the Intelligence bonus.

Superficially I like option 3 pretty well but I just started thinking about this. Any thoughts for other approaches?

I always found that particular variant less than exciting. If you find skills that unimportant, you might as well switch to a more C&C-like mechanism. Add attribute, add level if appropriate, go, go...

The Star Wars Saga system is one of the best simplification efforts nowadays, not much to track there.

Still, if you really want to go that way:

4) The int bonus represents a fixed amount of times a character can re-roll a skill d20 per game day. "Thinking twice about it, maybe I should jump here, where there's less wind"

5) Int skills are at half-value, i.e. half your level is added.

Quote from: Sosthenes4) The int bonus represents a fixed amount of times a character can re-roll a skill d20 per game day. "Thinking twice about it, maybe I should jump here, where there's less wind"

5) Int skills are at half-value, i.e. half your level is added.

With 4, that's not a bad idea, but it's a little bit 'gamey', and what do you do with the Int penalty? Let the GM force up to x rerolls on you per day?

I don't understand how 5 helps the value of your Intelligence score.

I don't really want to argue about the system; I hate keeping track of skill levels (don't mind keeping track of skills themselves, just skill levels) and like characters to have a decent chance to do lots of different things they think of, so it seems like it's a pretty good fit for me and the way I play. YMMV, obviously.

Quote from: CalithenaWith 4, that's not a bad idea, but it's a little bit 'gamey', and what do you do with the Int penalty? Let the GM force up to x rerolls on you per day?

I've never been a big fan of int penalties to skills. Especially for the afflicted classes, the minimum number of 1 is reached pretty soon, so even the degree of stupidity doesn't influence the game that much.

Quote from: CalithenaI don't really want to argue about the system; I hate keeping track of skill levels (don't mind keeping track of skills themselves, just skill levels) and like characters to have a decent chance to do lots of different things they think of, so it seems like it's a pretty good fit for me and the way I play. YMMV, obviously.

We're talking about the "you get all your class skills at your class level" variant, right? Work blocks d20srd, so I had to go by the link in a locally stored SRD document. One further problem with that variant is that at low levels the skill adds are too low, if you really go lvl+att, as opposed to the normal maximum of lvl+3+att.

What's wrong with the maximum ranks, limited choice? There you'd just have to keep track of what skills you've got, the level is all the same. Even cross-class skills only have one possible value. So that's two numbers to memorize, plus attributes. Plus a check list of skills, which you have no matter what.

Star Wars Saga simplified that a bit more. Choose x+int skills from your class list, where you've got ( 0.5 * lvl)+att+5 in them. Spend a feat to train in another skill or get an additional +5 to a already trained skill. This changes the values a bit. You start out pretty good, get equal to a normal D&D guy at mid-levels and lag a bit at the end.

Maximum ranks, limited choice as done in the official rules works out wonky with multiclassing.

The Star Wars: Saga system is better and I like big bonuses at 1st level, though I can live without them. Still has the multiclassing issue though (unless you know a different system).

If the low bonus is really a problem, I could see starting all skills at +2 at first level instead of +1. I suppose you could even go to +4 but that might get pretty hairy.

All that said, I'm starting to think Option 1 is actually my best choice for the level-based skills option. Dumbo INT 6 has to drop 2 class skills, Smartereth INT 18 gets to pick a bunch of extra cross-class skills as class skills.

Then you can have smart sneaky fighters, which I actually like.

Well, it's okay for really smart guys, but the Int 13 fighter has one additional skill, which probably isn't good enough to get him into a foreign niche.

And you're right, SWS doesn't work as well with the miserly skill lists of D&D and without multi-classing for some concepts. Allowing Skill Training to be used on cross class skills will solve that and seems to be a popular house rule. But that won't work in D&D either as feats are to sparse.

But well, knowing every skill at the same level seems a bit bland to me. Wizards don't have knowledge specialties, every rogue knows how to forge documents, lie to people and disable traps. At that stage, I don't know whether the skills actually are worth having.

Intelligence, vis a vis skills, isn't really nerfed in the Saga rules.  Sure you don't get 'extra points' to distribute to any given skill, but sweet baby jeebus, my 'test character' with the 17 INT got three extra skills to acutally use. Double what the soldier class gives. Given that Feats are the only other way to gain new skills that's pretty keen.

Now, if only they'd done away with the damn 'class skills' thing. Its even more aggrivating as I don't see any way to gain cross class skills without actually changing classes. Still mucking about with it, but damn!  Sneaky soldiers just don't exist in their world... Conan would be disappointed. :what:

Quote from: SpikeIntelligence, vis a vis skills, isn't really nerfed in the Saga rules.  Sure you don't get 'extra points' to distribute to any given skill, but sweet baby jeebus, my 'test character' with the 17 INT got three extra skills to acutally use. Double what the soldier class gives. Given that Feats are the only other way to gain new skills that's pretty keen.

Now, if only they'd done away with the damn 'class skills' thing. Its even more aggrivating as I don't see any way to gain cross class skills without actually changing classes. Still mucking about with it, but damn!  Sneaky soldiers just don't exist in their world... Conan would be disappointed. :what:

Conan was totally a multiclass Thief/Barbarian.

I remember that they had to seriously change the multi-classing rules for the Lankhmar boxes, as about everyone was multi-class there.

And yeah, in a class-based game Conan, isn't really a straight Barbarian. He started out that way, but quickly went into thievery, piracy and even spent some considerable time as an officer.

I dunno.  I play by the basic rules, but the way I make my characters pretty much just means I get X+Int bonus number of skills, and I always max ranks.

I don't multiclass much though, but I can see where you'd be disatisfied with the complexity that gets introduced with varying class sets and numbers of skill points.

The first thing I'd do is make it so that all skills are class if they are class for one of your character's classes, regardless of which class is currently being levelled.  I think technically this is already the rule in 3.5 now, but it wasn't in 3.0, and it was stupid as hell.  

Varying skill points is a trickier one though.  For a single class, that effectively makes the number of skills you have, but that gets all muddled up when you're dealing with multi-classing as not all classes will have the same base value.  You could give the X+Int for number of skills in the new class and require they be different from the original class.  Essentially all skills are always assumed to be max ranks, so multiclassing just gives you new picks, but if there's not as many new picks as newly available class skill options, the extra picks are wasted.  

That seems a bit powerful though, and also gives way too much of an advantage to a multiclassed character over a single-classed.  It would be a nice flip to the usual shafting you get on skill points when multiclassing though.  And it would be a simpler way to handle things.

Maybe just a flat rule instead.  You take the base X+Int picks for your base class, and just like, 1 or 2 picks for any new classes taken after the first.  Maybe a limit rule too, to keep players from uberclassing just to fillout the skill list.  Only X number of new picks beyond base class.