Skill points discussion.
ForSerious
Member Posts: 466
Each class has a baseline amount of skill points given per level, plus the intelligence modifier.
One skill point may be spent on a class skill.
Two may be spent on a non-class skill.
Non-class skills may only be advanced to half the player level, plus 2 from player creation.
The baseline amounts were defined when there were about 19 (Skills specific to a class like preform could be excluded in this number.) skills to choose from. Since then, there have been 9 more skills added to choose from.
Looking at the fighter class. They don't get many class skills to choose from. Intelligence does not really help them in their fighting abilities—except to be able to get combat expertise. This makes most fighters gain 3 skill points per level. Spending two whole skill points on a non-class skill becomes unthinkable. Because of this, the general fighter only ever spends skill points in their favorite three class skills, and does not deviate.
I've always held the idea that it's fine for players to not excel in every skill, but with the added amount of skills, the general fighter can't even do that. Spending any skill points on a non-class skill means being limited to advancing 2 skills ever if trying to maximize the quantities. The class skill being able to be maxed, and the non-class skill being half the max potential by level 40. If the player went for two non-class skills, then one would be able to max at about 20 and the other around 10. Maybe I'm interpreting the intent behind skills and skill points wrong. I just think it would be nice if it was more possible, and normal, for a general fighter to be able to have like 15 points in three non-class skills—and still be able to have greater amounts in their class skills.
There are many more aspects we can look at, but mainly I want to put this idea out there: If each class were to get even just 2 more baseline skill points per level, I think it would allow for more randomly skilled players.
Mainly I want that 'unthinkable' statement I made, to become something people would be more okay with doing.
One skill point may be spent on a class skill.
Two may be spent on a non-class skill.
Non-class skills may only be advanced to half the player level, plus 2 from player creation.
The baseline amounts were defined when there were about 19 (Skills specific to a class like preform could be excluded in this number.) skills to choose from. Since then, there have been 9 more skills added to choose from.
Looking at the fighter class. They don't get many class skills to choose from. Intelligence does not really help them in their fighting abilities—except to be able to get combat expertise. This makes most fighters gain 3 skill points per level. Spending two whole skill points on a non-class skill becomes unthinkable. Because of this, the general fighter only ever spends skill points in their favorite three class skills, and does not deviate.
I've always held the idea that it's fine for players to not excel in every skill, but with the added amount of skills, the general fighter can't even do that. Spending any skill points on a non-class skill means being limited to advancing 2 skills ever if trying to maximize the quantities. The class skill being able to be maxed, and the non-class skill being half the max potential by level 40. If the player went for two non-class skills, then one would be able to max at about 20 and the other around 10. Maybe I'm interpreting the intent behind skills and skill points wrong. I just think it would be nice if it was more possible, and normal, for a general fighter to be able to have like 15 points in three non-class skills—and still be able to have greater amounts in their class skills.
There are many more aspects we can look at, but mainly I want to put this idea out there: If each class were to get even just 2 more baseline skill points per level, I think it would allow for more randomly skilled players.
Mainly I want that 'unthinkable' statement I made, to become something people would be more okay with doing.
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The Wizard has a low skill set and base points too but over time you end up with more points than than class skills so I tend to get Concentration, Spellcraft, Lore, Heal, Appraise, Persuade than late game Tumble.
Having the option to open up into other skills like in KOTOR 2 where you can spend a feat to add a class skill was very useful.
In a game where you only have one character instead of a party I see what your saying, a Fighter with extra skill points would benefit from making persuade a class skill or perhaps a finesse Fighter unlocking Tumble but unless you get some sort of Mod your only option is hording skill points than multiclassing into a Rogue to go from 0 to 10+ in one LVL up.
This discussion is coming from the context of: I feel like we've been given more bread but still have the same small amount of butter to spread over it.
With what you said about Wizards, it sounds kind of silly to give them 2 more points per level, but then, that is how they were intended to be with skill points.
and since NWN is based off of the DnD rules, that is just how it goes for a fighter. If you had an ACTUAL party and you could actually use their skills ( like appraise, diplomacy, heal, ect ) then it wouldn't be an issue
in PnP, a fighter only has 3 or 4 skills is no where near a big deal because you can either use house rules if you are playing a solo adventure or you will be in a party, and everyone will have their role of at least 1 or 2 skills that they do better than anyone else
and in fact, the fighter is already given more class skills than they should have in NWN, lore ( which is a derivative of knowledge arcana ) and heal are not fighter skills in PnP, but yet in NWN 1 & 2 they are ( actually not sure about heal in NWN 2 )
to be honest, i think the skill system in NWN is actually very generous based on PnP comparisons except for the fact that only thieves and bard can put points into UMD which i think is pretty silly, luckily they fixed that in NWN 2
You can wear every armor type, easily dualwield or use Any kind of weapon.
Tumble is the only skill that looks after base points to increasy the ac bonus. The rest are easily upgraded with items.
Im not sufre if umd is allowed as a cross Class... But a couple levels of rogue isn't so costly being a fighter.
Most of the other skill can be upgraded with items to certain point.
I don't think fighter are soooo nerfed... But they are boring.
Forget the fighter class for now. How about Paladin? They get the same 2 baseline skill points per level and have the same incentive to not spend points in Intelligence. It is generally unthinkable to spend any points in a cross-class skill.
The Ride skill seems to have been added specifically with Paladins in mind, yet no more skill points were added to accommodate this new class skill. Now you have to choose one of the other limited class skills to neglect. If you're the type of player that evenly distributes skill points to all class skills, your level 40 Paladin now has significantly less skill levels overall—This is all I'm trying to get at. There are more skills to spend points on, but not more points to spend. Is that okay, or should something be done about it?
In the case of paladins they are especialists. And some of their Class skill don't need to be maxed (persuade or heal). Anyway they are Good in what they are meant to do.
Perhaps the only changes I would propose (and I have done) are for the ranger Class, giving them 2 skillpoint extra per level, tumble and traps as Class skill, point blank shot and rapid shot as bonus early and hips at 17. Mainly cause their specialty is a little lame in nwn compared to pnp 3.5. Even with those changes they don't become over powered nor transform into jack of all trades
One of the reasons I made this thread was to find out if people think adding more skill points per level would make characters into jacks of all trades.
well to be honest, skills in the long scheme of things aren't even really needed to be honest
and if you are a human with 12 INT, at the lowest you get 4 skills per level which all you really need
if you are a melee character going solo in the NWN modules all you need are;
discipline; to help fight against knockdowns and the such
tumble; for the AC bonus
spell craft; for the saving throw bonus vs spells
lore; to be able to identify items
and even with that said you can still get by without those for a melee character, and every other skill is really just to make your life a little bit easier in certain areas ( for example there is no skill where you MUST have it to get say special item, and if you didn't have said skill you couldn't get it otherwise )
having persuade and appraise really at the end of the day just give you a bit more cash near the end of the game, so unless you are really struggling for funds, it doesn't really matter
( in fact, just from the joinable companion items and greater mask of persuasion alone, give you a nice CHA boost + persuade boost, where you can wear those without any skill in persuade and still get most persuade skill rewards )
so to be honest, i think the skills are fine just the way they are, especially if you balance out your ability scores more evenly throughout your character
at level 1 having all 18s is very noticeable, but once you hit higher levels even if you had one 18 and five 14s its barely noticeable
so it doesn't really hurt your character to bump up that INT score a bit if you want some extra skill points, even if INT is considered a "dump" stat
Having the option I would make my Wizard good with Persuade and Appraise because I get so much use from it but in NWN 1 there really isn't much use of all the skills, Intimidate and Bluff don't have much use compared to Persuade, beyond identification Lore has no use unlike in NWN 2 where you can use it in conversations.
If you want to disable traps you have to be a master because some traps are insane for DC and only a master Rogue will even be able to deal with it.
Let's say they did put in a system for you to make a cross class skill a class skill, I imagine for balance reasons it would need to cost the character to do it.
Let's say your a Fighter with 14 INT which would let you maintain max in four class skills but you want Tumble and Spellcraft as your passive support skills, I would test a system where the Fighter has to spend 1 feat to boost the base skill than once you've invested 5 points into Tumble you unlock a second feat you can pick up to make it a class skills.
That means your LVL 10 before you can even do that and you spent 2 feats for it, that's a high cost and certainly not worth it unless you get a lot of use from that skill, a Fighter can afford to do that but in the end why would you?
You could be a LVL 4 Fighter and take 1 Rogue to spend your points you banked up and do it again at LVL's 8, 12 & 16 and that nets you more points to spend because Rogue gets 8 base points instead of 2.
A Wizard would be loath to do that because you don't advance your magic everytime you take a Rogue LVL and why pick a lock in NWN 1 when you can bash or nuke it or better yet have a Pixie Familiar take care of locks and traps after I clear the room of enemies.
Fighter's do tend to be boring on their own unless you multiclass, than you start getting some flavour, I'd love to play an Eldritch Knight or Mystic Theurge but I'm too lazy for mods these day.
It also meant the fighter could dabble in crafting or persuasion, however they wanted to build out their character. Overall it works and creates less complaints from me because discipline was already a point sink :-P
Who plays a fighter without combat modes and maneuvers anyway? Do you really need three weapon specialization feats? A multiclass sure, but a single class fighter without even one maneuver is just dumb—called shot only needs a single BAB! Don't get me started on consumables.
Anyway... Some skills are highly usable even as cross-class, like tumble and set traps. Spellcraft can be nice too, but that's situational with auto-fail saving throws, and it counts towards the cap anyway, just like sacred defense. But if there are none better... And a single rank in open lock or disable trap is not to be slept on. Also, some skills are highly environment depended. One doesn't always have access to healer's kits, for example. To say nothing about ride and speech skills. Even the detection skills are of relative use—not very in the OC. Tumble is probably the most safe skill to take, even as a cross-class, for any melee build.
Just remember, one doesn't even have to max skills they do take, a fifteen modified skill level in set trap is good enough for many a build.
Max cross-class ranks is floor((level+3)/2). It cost twice as much per rank. Ergo, a fortieth level demi-human single-class fighter with fourteen intelligence can get four cross-class skills at rank twenty-one with four left-over skill points, four class skills at rank forty-three, or a mix of the two. Cross-classing tumble and spellcraft, which is a common strat, one can stop at twenty ranks in tumble, and twenty to twenty-five modified spellcraft—for example taking skill focus:spellcraft—and have an extra six to ten points to shovel into something at the last few levels; like heal, lore, discipline, or concentration.
Can't they already do that?