Optional rules for skills

[Angelbialaska]

I think that a major problem with skills in Birthright is how you must assign skill points to certain skills that you must have something in to collect regency points for your domain.

A fighter has to be level 4 for instance, before they can gather full RP from Province and Law holdings and even then they have spent 6 skill points for Diplomacy rank 3 (cc), 7 skill points for warcraft rank 7 and 5 skill points for Lead rank 5. That is a total of 18 skill points required.

Int 10 human fighter would have 21 skill points on level 4, leaving only 3 skill points for other skills.

Personally I feel that the need to invest such great amounts of skill points in certain skills, especially for a low level fighter, is very much a hindrance. This is my primary reason to think that an additional 8 skill points on level 1 and 2 extra skill points per level would be an aid to solve the harsh skill demands.

[Osprey]

A fighter has to be level 4 for instance, before they can gather full RP from Province and Law holdings and even then they have spent 6 skill points for Diplomacy rank 3 (cc), 7 skill points for warcraft rank 7 and 5 skill points for Lead rank 5. That is a total of 18 skill points required.

Int 10 human fighter would have 21 skill points on level 4, leaving only 3 skill points for other skills.

Except that Anuirean and Khinasi Fighters now have Diplomacy as a class skill (in the 3.5 BRCS, Ch 1). Now only 15 points.

5 ranks in each mean the fighter need only be 2nd level to get maximum RP collection from Land and Law holdings. And having 2 of his main skills be Lead and Warcraft is exactly what a serious landed/law regent should be spending his skill points on - even if he's not too bright otherwise.

In Brechtur, Rjurik, and Vosgaard, I have noticed a generally low average province level, suggesting that most regents in these regions really aren't all that skilled as landed regents.

In Brechtur, they can easily enough start as a noble or rogue and get many skill points.

The Rjurik and Vos have it a lot harder, but guess what: they're the 2 most un-developed regions in Cerilia, so this seems to me like a pretty fair representation for all of the human cultures.

Non-human races tend to have fairly low levels of provinces too (if any), and dwarves having Fighter as a favored class makes multiclassing as a rogue, cleric, or anyone else with the Diplomacy class skill quite feasible. Elves suffer a bit, but they tend to be wizard regents first, landed a distant second.

Truth be told, what Fighters suffer from the most as landed regents is not having Administrate as a class skill. Ouch. This is the single biggest reason that Nobles (along with 4 more skill points per level) are now the dominant landed regent class, and fighters have slipped a notch to being "excellent law regents, fair landed regents." But hey, they're Fighters - they're good at fighting. Really good, in fact. And having a landed regent who can kick some serious butt, and lead his armies to do the smae, well - that's worth a lot to a realm, especially one with violent neighbors (i.e., most of Cerilia).

[Green Knight]

Originally posted by Angelbialaska@Feb 16 2005, 02:26 AM
I think that a major problem with skills in Birthright is how you must assign skill points to certain skills that you must have something in to collect regency points for your domain.

A fighter has to be level 4 for instance, before they can gather full RP from Province and Law holdings and even then they have spent 6 skill points for Diplomacy rank 3 (cc), 7 skill points for warcraft rank 7 and 5 skill points for Lead rank 5. That is a total of 18 skill points required.

Int 10 human fighter would have 21 skill points on level 4, leaving only 3 skill points for other skills.

Personally I feel that the need to invest such great amounts of skill points in certain skills, especially for a low level fighter, is very much a hindrance. This is my primary reason to think that an additional 8 skill points on level 1 and 2 extra skill points per level would be an aid to solve the harsh skill demands.

Indeed a problem, especially since fighters are so profilic in Birthright. However, this is a BRCS rule (RP collection by skills) so it isn't really relevant to me...

[Green Knight]

Hi,

I've updated and added to the various skill options to make their use a little clearer. This post was orininally something of a brainstorm session, but since it got a lot of replies I felt it was appropriate to spend some more time clarifying those options.

[geeman]

At 03:40 PM 2/15/2005 +0100, Danip wrote:



>I have noticed that the 2 skill points that a not smart fighter gets

>really hurts in a non-dungeon game. When you add in the new BR skills

>this hurts even more. I am playing with a human fighter with int 9. He

>only really has one skill. In comparison, my ranger/rogue is a skill

>demon. We almost cannot play the same game. Im poor for combat and he

>is poor for anything non-combat.



One of the things that I put into the skill system that I use is that the

skill points a character class gets is related to the number of class

skills they have. I give each of the classes skill points equal to about

1/3 of the number of class skills that the class has. It makes for a more

reasonable character development than the (more or less) arbitrary amounts

of skill points assigned to the various classes in 3e/3.5 that have no

relationship to the actual types of skills available as class skills to

those classes while preserving the amount of variation possible within the

classes themselves. By connecting skill points with class skills one can

then use them both as factors to balance character classes rather than just

skill points alone.



Gary

[RaspK_FOG]

I spoke of how I worked with my upcoming Masque of the Red Death campaign but gave little detail of the way things go...

Masque of the Red Death takes place in 1890 and had (and, in my conversion, still has) 4 core classes which represent 4 very generic archetypes: the adept, who is a least powerful magician, the mystic, who is more of a shaman in his channeling the power of spirits, the tradesman, who is between the wanderer from the Wheel of Time and the Expert from Unearthed Arcana and the DMG, and the soldier, who is like the warrior from Unearthed Arcana.

In my campaign, each class gets some skills by default (adepts, for example, get Knowledge [arcana] and Spellcraft), plus a number of class skill alocation points; each class then spends these class skills on some skills to have them as class skills. The system is a little complicated but has no mechanic flaw as far as I have seen and I can explain it in detail if you are interested...

[Osprey]

I'm finding the new cultural skills rules from Ch 1 of the BRCS a really excellent addition to my BR campaign. Having a few background skills as class skills, determined by one's culture, is very sensible.

The only thing I've been left wondering is why every culture/society, human or otherwise, doesn't have a select group of cultural background skills that are always treated as class skills. Non-humans, for instance, have racial bonuses to certain skills, yet these aren't necessarily class skills for them - not too useful for, say, the elven mage or dwarven fighter.

I'd prefer a setting where every culture is represented by a key set of skills that are always class skills. These represent what is commonly taught to children growing up within a culture, so that they become ingrained as "normal."

For instance, why not allow any Sidhelien to have Hide, Knowledge (Nature), Listen, Move Silently, and Spot as class skills? I have a hard time envisioning a typical BR elf who isn't exceptional (by human standards) in these abilities. A +2 racial bonus means "slightly better" in D&D mechanics (a 10% improvement in a d20 system), not really exceptional, just an edge.

Same with dwarves: why not give them Appraise, Craft, Knowledge (Dungeoneering), Knowledge (History), and Profession as cultural skills?

In fact, one could probably vouch for any one Profession skill being a background class skill at 1st level, regardless of class or race.

Even more interesting would be to allow humans, representing their versatile nature, to choose any one skill as a background class skill in addition to the standard selection of cultural ones.

All of these options just allow for more diversity of skills in PC's, which in the end allows for more interesting and non-generic characters and role-playing. Especially nice for those poor fighters and sorcerers, which have very few decent choices for class skills.