Freeing Social Skills
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Make social skills available to all classes! Locking these skills behind certain classes isn't particularly interesting to me, and letting players choose what they are invested in is always a better methodology to me than putting them in a box.
There are some other ways of implementing this that I think are very interesting as well, but I'm not sure how possible they are and this seems like a simple solution that is easily implemented.
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I had to choose a bard just to get social skill, but wanted to play a sorcerer. Wish it would've been implemented back then.
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Was this implemented, or closed?
If closed, why don't it say "not happening?"
If implemented, don't think it's working, and so that'd be a bug?
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It was definitely never implemented.
I still stand by this post.
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It makes sense to me. Social and sense skills (Search, Spot and Listen) should be open to all. Some classes just get more points per level to diversify.
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@Gorga469 If that is the case, then ALL skills should be open to all classes, which just makes no sense. The social skills have very little mechanical impact. If you open the other ones up, IMO, you start messing with the balancing between each class. Even if you do not allow the three major ones (UMD, Spellcraft and Animal Emp), opening the anti sneak skills will have a huge impact on sneaky classes.
Fighter, as an example, has already had their skills increased. If you can make a tank, that now has the skills to maximize ANTI sneak skills, it will definitely impact the balance between classes.
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@O-louth said in Freeing Social Skills:
@Gorga469 If that is the case, then ALL skills should be open to all classes, which just makes no sense. The social skills have very little mechanical impact. If you open the other ones up, IMO, you start messing with the balancing between each class. Even if you do not allow the three major ones (UMD, Spellcraft and Animal Emp), opening the anti sneak skills will have a huge impact on sneaky classes.
Fighter, as an example, has already had their skills increased. If you can make a tank, that now has the skills to maximize ANTI sneak skills, it will definitely impact the balance between classes.
This.
If you want social skills, cross class them, and accept that someone who has spent their life training to be a soldier might not have the same persuasive powers as a trained confidence trickster.
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The notion that giving other classes access to social skills somehow makes the classes that do have them worse is so weird to me. A rogue can and probably will be very good at bluff, but a fighter having the option to be good at as well doesn't strike me as something that cheapens the ability at all. The fact that these skills are so restricted is extremely annoying to concepts that would be, in my opinion, very interesting to see play out.
Locking these abilities behind classes is such an old way of thinking, and using them to open up characters to a wider range of concepts is never a bad thing in my eyes. In this case, with social skills, there's no real mechanical issues that have to be addressed and is one of the easiest ways to help players just play what they want to play without jumping through so many hoops.
Again, to reiterate. A Fighter having access to Bluff does not make a Rogue worse at Bluff.
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@HellzYeah said in Freeing Social Skills:
The notion that giving other classes access to social skills somehow makes the classes that do have them worse is so weird to me. A rogue can and probably will be very good at bluff, but a fighter having the option to be good at as well doesn't strike me as something that cheapens the ability at all. The fact that these skills are so restricted is extremely annoying to concepts that would be, in my opinion, very interesting to see play out.
Locking these abilities behind classes is such an old way of thinking, and using them to open up characters to a wider range of concepts is never a bad thing in my eyes. In this case, with social skills, there's no real mechanical issues that have to be addressed and is one of the easiest ways to help players just play what they want to play without jumping through so many hoops.
Again, to reiterate. A Fighter having access to Bluff does not make a Rogue worse at Bluff.
+1
It kills me that my cleric has to cross class into intimidate because she is meant to be intimidating even though it doesn't have any mechanical use and it probably won't ever get any RP use.
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I like this idea. Social skills confers no massive mechanical advantage. The classes that are already good at these things would likely still be more capable, as many of them have an abundance of skill points.
Sense skills would probably be a different matter as they do offer a mechanical edge against sneaks etc. UMD and AE for all would be wierd, maybe even unbalancing, given how powerful they can be.
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I like it too. It opens up more concepts outside of the same overdone stereotypes we've endured for the past 12 years or whatever. Folks might also be more inclined to invest in social skills to more accurately represent their characters, which is a good thing for a roleplay server.
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@HellzYeah said in Freeing Social Skills:
The notion that giving other classes access to social skills somehow makes the classes that do have them worse is so weird to me. A rogue can and probably will be very good at bluff, but a fighter having the option to be good at as well doesn't strike me as something that cheapens the ability at all. The fact that these skills are so restricted is extremely annoying to concepts that would be, in my opinion, very interesting to see play out.
Locking these abilities behind classes is such an old way of thinking, and using them to open up characters to a wider range of concepts is never a bad thing in my eyes. In this case, with social skills, there's no real mechanical issues that have to be addressed and is one of the easiest ways to help players just play what they want to play without jumping through so many hoops.
Again, to reiterate. A Fighter having access to Bluff does not make a Rogue worse at Bluff.
This ^
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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.