Freeing Social Skills
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Just so we're clear, we're not giving more skill points to any classes if we do this.
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Seems like an acceptable trade to not give as many skill points to certain classes (sans Bard and Ranger which get 6 per level in 3.5E anyway) if in exchange more classes don't have to dip into others just to be better at diplomacy/perception.
It does indeed free up a lot of room for concepts. Not all Rogues are charlatans who can smooth talk their way past anything and some Fighters are charismatic generals who can persuade soldiers to follow them into battle and intimidate their foes into surrendering.
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I would like to point out you can still make those chrismatic solialite fighters currently, you just have to invest more skillpoints in it as it is not how avg fighters are. All the social skill are cross classable.
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Why do we have to cross class when we could just have it available for all to use? Social skills have 0 mechanical impact, they only come into play when a DM chooses to use them, otherwise you are already gimping yourself for taking them, so why doubly punish someone who wants to play a pc a certain way rp wise by forcing them to lose skill points on classes that sometimes don't get a lot in general, like sorcerer or fighter? It also doesn't make sense RP wise to multiclass into a class that gets social skills like rogue, because why suddenly from taking a speech class you learn how to stab someone in the back well and how to dodge fireballs without taking damage?
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Doubly punish? That is a bit of an overstatement. You have the skills, they are not typical for every class, so some classes have to cross class into it. That is only a "single" punishment at best. Your acting like it cripples someone to put ranks in a cross class skill, when I know that is bs. My last PC (Rismente) primarily used Appraise as a cross class skill. Yeah, I had to spend a few extra skill points, yeah I chose gear to aid that skill, did it feel like a punishment? No.
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Appraise has a use outside of RP as well, players can choose to ignore your social skills, DMs can choose to ignore them, appraise can't be ignored by the ingame system. That's why they should be available to all classes, because there's a pretty decent chance of the skill getting ignored, negating it, making it in the case useless to have taken it, even if it was the right time to use it. But that is my take on it, it seems the biggest reason some want to keep it is because that's how it's always been in 3.5.
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It is to some degree doubly punishing, being that you pay twice as many skill points to be half as good at a skill while cross classing.
The argument being made here, however, is that I don't find any particularly good reason that these social skills should be locked behind classes. I see absolutely no reason that a sorcerer, who's backgrounds can be infinitely diverse, would be unable to be as persuasive as other classes. I disagree entirely with the notion that these skills in particular are special in ways that others are not, and indeed there are others I would like to see opened up as well but these skills in particular hold very little mechanical value other than letting people properly stat out their PCs.
Opening up concepts is always going to be beneficial in the long run. Breaking out of the stereotypes and letting players better flex their creative muscles while staying within the mechanical lines is a pretty great start, in my opinion.
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I think a good solution would be for PCs to be able to pick their class skills and have some that are just baseline across all PCs, however I understand if this can't be done or would be a pain in the ass to bypass with scripts.
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Condensing and changing skills(like the social ones) to make more sense so that there are less skills to choose from and have a broader use. Again, though, I say this with the understanding that scripting is tedious.
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We had fighter kits forever ago, couldn’t we have social kits?
Or you know how in 5e there is backgrounds? Maybe a similar system like the kits, but for social skills and crafting skills that are backgrounds?
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@Matticusthegreen said in Freeing Social Skills:
We had fighter kits forever ago, couldn’t we have social kits?
Or you know how in 5e there is backgrounds? Maybe a similar system like the kits, but for social skills and crafting skills that are backgrounds?
Ive seen this done on other servers and it seems a reasonable approach, that way your fighter can get a boost in bluff or persuade, and a bard or rogue might be tempted to go for a different background.
The argument that 'it doesnt affect the mechanics of the game' is frankly bs, as DMs can and do check the levels of skills and attributes, and quests in the past certainly, have rewarded people with high persuade with more £££.
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It effects very little in terms of mechanics. Also the cost for these classes to invest skill points into primarily rp skills is a lot higher than say for a rogue. Most fighters even if human don't get much excess in skillpoints(which is fine) and so them choosing an rp skill over say.. Spellcraft? Is a lot more of a downside mechanically. This doesn't seem to me anywhere near an abusable change and helps players get more into the different dynamics of their character.
If this change does occur I think it is acceptable so long as there are no additional skill points available as a result. -
Forgive the newb question but what all skills are considered social skills?
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Persuade, Bluff, and Intimidate are the 3 social skills in question.
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Was a decision ever reached about this?
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The decision was to keep it as-is.
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IMO social skills don't need changing. It makes sense for classes who have it as class skills to have better scores than others, but i know DMs would take it into account if your fighter had maxed out the skill and taken feats to boost it.
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The classes that have Persuade, Bluff, and Intimidate sorta makes sense, and several classes here on COA have expanded class skill selection or extra skill points to make up for the lack of variety in my opinion. I actually looked them up via the NWN wiki and can list them by skill if you want, but it breaks down to roughly 52% of base classes have Persuade, and just over 20% of them have Bluff, the same just over 20% have Intimidate. I haven't checked the skill changes in full on the forums but have seen the classes least represented in the mix have other bonuses to them.
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@citizenbane said in Freeing Social Skills:
IMO social skills don't need changing. It makes sense for classes who have it as class skills to have better scores than others, but i know DMs would take it into account if your fighter had maxed out the skill and taken feats to boost it.
Petty much this.
Every DM I've encountered takes this into account - if there is a fighter who has taken lots of bluff, I'm gonna reduce the DC a bit, if they have taken Skill focus, I'll drop it heavily, if they have drank a charisma potion, have skill focus, invested in the skill and have an item with the skill? They're probly just gonna win on a roll of anything but 1, tbh.
That's me, and every DM is a little different, but every DM I've seen takes investment into account.