Drinking & Dragons

Rules/Skills

From Drinking and Dragons
Revision as of 15:06, 6 January 2009 by >Mqs (accidentally marked minor!)


Intro

Randy and I have wanted to do this for some time, and we though that with the next campaign starting it would be a good time. If this majorly fucks things up, I will gladly axe it and have everyone reassign skills freely. Most classes got too few skill points, and class skill lists become far too much a restriction to creativity. However, even by adding more skill points and eliminating class skill lists, the skill list was too big. So many skills combine obviously, and revisions (SW Saga Edition, Pathfinder, Fourth Edition) provide a good example for this. Randy and I have discussed the table below and agree* it is a good skills list as a base.

Disagreements*: I wanted to merge heal and sense motive. I also wanted to add the "Monster Lore" knowledge skill that only identified monsters (but monsters of all types).

Skill List

Normal Skills

Name Stat Components
Acrobatics DEX Balance, Escape Artist, Tumble
Animals CHA Handle Animal, Ride
Athletics STR Climb, Jump, Swim
Concentration CON Autohypnosis, Concentration
Craft INT Craft
Deception CHA Bluff, Disguise
Diplomacy CHA Diplomacy, Gather Information
Heal WIS Heal
Inspect INT Appraise, Search
Intimidate CHA Intimidate
Linguistics INT Decipher Script, Forgery
Mechanics DEX Disable Device, Open Locks
Perform CHA Perform
Profession WIS Profession
Sense Motive WIS Sense Motive
Sleight Of Hand DEX Sleight of Hand
Spellcraft INT Spellcraft (Psicraft)
Survival WIS Survival, Use Rope
Use Magic Device CHA Use Magic Device (Use Psionic Device)

Knowledge Skills (all intelligence)

  • Arcana (includes psicraft)
  • Architecture & engineering
  • Dungeoneering
  • Geography
  • History
  • Local
  • Nature
  • Nobility & royalty
  • Planes
  • Religion
  • Tactics

Special Skills (no relevant ability)

  • Initiative
  • Speak Language

Details

  • With merged skills, all uses of the component skills are part of the new skill.
  • There are no skill synergies. Skill synergies were a hack in the SRD rules because of the realization of the similarities and overlap between so many skills.
  • There are no class or cross-class skills.
  • This makes creating a +2/+2 to two different skill feat harder to create and name. Work for it!
  • This system lets us use a more broad definition of skills, and thus lets us more easily pick a skill for an ad hoc action.
  • This allows armor check penalties to be applied by the use. While most uses of Acrobatics, Athletics or Stealth will still require an armor check penalty, there may be others that do not. For example, an armor check penalty applies when using Animals to mount quickly, but not to guide a mount or train a beast.
  • For prerequisites (for feats and prestige classes), just use the new skill.