Tome of Prowess (3.5e Sourcebook)/Supporting Changes

=Supporting Changes= By making substantial changes to the skill system, we open up a few attached subsystems to scrutiny as well. This chapter details changes to the class features and subsystems most impacted by the skill changes presented here.

Updated Class Features
Some of the changes we've made in the skills chapter step on the feet of certain classes. The following class features have been updated as a result.

Spellcasting
For skill dependency reasons, as well as thematic reasons, some changes have been made to the primary spellcasting attribute of some classes. This may change the attribute that determines the maximum spell level available to a character, as well as the attribute that determines bonus spells and spell save DC.

Divine Spellcasters
The divine spellcasters have been divided into two groups that correspond with their primary spellcasting skill:

Clerics, Paladins, and similar spellcasters remain attached to the divine source, as their spells are straightforwardly granted by their deities. These spellcasters draw their power from the strength of their convictions and their connections with their patrons, and their spellcasting stat is henceforth Charisma instead of Wisdom. As they have class features that depend on this stat anyway, it's not really a big deal. They remain tied to the Knowledge (religion) skill in its new form, Thaumaturgy, which you may have noticed is a Charisma skill.

Druids, Rangers, and similar spellcasters become more firmly attached to the natural world as the source of their spells and no longer need to revere any particular deity. The spellcasting stat for these characters remains Wisdom. They remain tied to Knowledge (nature) in its new form, Geomancy, which you may have noticed is a Wisdom skill. They no longer have secondary ties to Knowledge (religion).

Arcane Spellcasters
Bards remain an arcane class, and now use Intelligence as their primary spellcasting atribute. This gives them a bonus to their casting skill, Arcana, and other skills that they do not have spells to readily duplicate. The efficacy they lose in the Charisma skills isn't a concern since they already have spells to cover those bases. The idea that all spontaneous casters must use Charisma as their primary spellcasting attribute was an interesting one, but one that does not fit with the new skill system. Since we also have a set of Charisma casters, there is no need to retain the bardic connection for the attribute.

Sorcerers are a special case. At first level, they may select whether they are arcane, divine, or natural casters. their primary spellcasting attribute from Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma. Their selection also determines whether they select their spells from the wizard, cleric, or druid lists as well as which related skill they consider their primary casting skill. This decision may not be changed later. Most sorcerers are arcane casters.

Bardic Music
The perform skill has been moved to a background skill, and is no longer available for the bardic music class feature. Instead, a bard may use their bardic music class feature with any performance style in which they have Grade II or higher background ability. When a character acquires their first bard level, they acquire also Grade II in one performance style of their choice.

Additionally, the bardic music class feature is mapped to class level instead of perform ranks. Bards gain virtual ranks in this non-skill equal to their class level +3, and may add their charisma modifier to these virtual ranks when making checks. When a perform check is called for by a class feature, the bard instead adds their class level + their charisma modifier + 3 to the d20 roll. These virtual skill ranks may not be used for any other function, however, including the old skill abilities.

Bards also find the acquisition and advancement of new performance styles more easy than characters of other classes, and replace the standard base advancement time with a time period based on their class level, as indicated in the table below.

Trapfinding
The ability to find traps of any DC has been folded into the Devices skill, so the class feature written in the SRD provides no actual benefit. Use the following replacement text instead:

Trapfinding: As a full-round action, you may move up to your base speed while also searching each 5’ square immediately in front of you for traps. You must "take 10" when you use this ability, and can not make a check for squares searched in this way. If you reduce your speed to only half of your base speed, you may "take 15" for the round instead. You may do this, in difficult circumstances and without penalty, even if you do not have 4 ranks above the minimum required to use the search ability, but you are limited to only finding traps you could otherwise find based on your ranks in Devices.

Wild Empathy
The ability to influence an animal's or magical beast's attitude towards you has been subsumed into the creature handling skill, so the class feature written in the PHB provides no actual benefit. Use the following replacement text instead:

Wild Empathy : You are able to understand and make yourself understood to animals and magical beasts in a very limited fashion. You can glean their emotional state or very basic instructions (such as "come", "danger", "stay", etc.) from their actions and speech, and can impart those things to them. If a creature is suspicious or hostile towards you, you are unlikely to get anything useful. If the trusting village dog had witnessed Timmy falling into a well and came to get you for help, for example, you would understand that the dog was worried and wanted you to come with it. As another example, if you were attacked by a starving magical beast who saw you as food, you could identify that motivation behind its assault and attempt to help it instead of killing it in self defense.

Saving Throw Adjustments
Some of the changes we've made interact with the saving throw system in non-obvious ways. These are some things you'll want to keep in mind.

Some Instantaneous Spells Aren't...
Several skills now act as backup saving throw devices, and these are fairly far reaching. Stone to Flesh, for example, could be resisted for rounds and eventually fought off even after the initial fortitude save was failed. Casters of these effects need to be aware of the effects that their spells will have if we expect them to cast them responsibly (which we do). So it should be very clear that targets will have the ability to resist a large array of spells for a time and possibly even shrug them off eventually, but during that time they will suffer a great deal of action loss. The spells will still hurt substantially, especially if you target an opponent with little or no skill at resisting, but they are slightly less powerful than they once were.

There are two reasons for this change. The first is simply to keep people more involved in the game. A spell that once ended involvement for an indeterminate amount of time now keeps the player at the table for several additional rounds, making checks and taking whatever actions are allowed to them. The second reason is a purely thematic one. Lots of source material includes the targets of such spells fighting them for a time, and either breaking free or suffering while it claimed them. The game fails to support these conventions utterly, even though doing so is straightforwardly better for those at the table. So we do now.

{{Underbar|

Suggested Rule: Alternate Saving Throw Modifiers

 * Because the skills that backup saving throws are based on the same attributes that currently provide bonuses to saving throws, there's a lot of defensive potential tossed into only half of the attributes. It would be nice to spread that dependency around a bit, if only to make the worth of the various attributes more balanced. It is easier to refluff the save adjustments than the skills though, so that is what we propose here.

Instead of the standard attribute bonuses to saves, we suggest using the following assignments. This is not a "use the higher of the two" proposal, this is an actual replacement assignment. The old attribute assignments don't impact saving throws at all in this variant, instead only serving to increase the chances of a character freeing themselves from the effects of a failed saving throw via the new skill mechanics. The updated assignments are:
 * Fortitude saves gain a bonus equal to your Strength modifier.
 * Athletes who focus on muscle to the exclusion of endurance get sick rarely, even less than those who can run for miles. When they do fall ill, however, they suffer for quite some time, far longer than those who focus on endurance. This makes it easy to assign strength to the primary save and constitution to the backup ability.


 * Reflex saves gain a bonus equal to your Intelligence modifier.
 * The dexterous and quick are good at removing themselves from the line of fire, but the cunning and intelligent are often simply not in the line at all or are better prepared for it. The cunning and intelligent lack the prowess to slip free when their plans go wrong, though. This makes it easy to assign intelligence to the primary save and dexterity to the backup ability.


 * Will saves gain a bonus equal to your Charisma modifier.
 * The willful and sure are harder to bend to your will than those with experience alone. Once broken, though, they tend to stay as such, unless they have a hardened mind and the wisdom to find a way free. This makes it easy to assign charisma to the primary save and wisdom to the backup ability.}}

Revised Animal Training Rules
The rules for training animals a specific trick in the PHB aren't anything special, but they basically aren't broken either. They fail to scale to higher CR creatures at all, however, and don't take into account the creature's attitude towards you. The revised creature handling skill does these things, and the default DCs presented in the PHB wind up a bit high if used straight with the revised skill. The rules for training an animal for a purpose don't work well with a scaling time scale like the revised skill uses. To accommodate these changes, use the following information for training creatures.

Training a Creature a Task
A creature with an Intelligence score of 1 can learn a total of 3 tricks, while a creature with an Intelligence score of 2 can learn a total of 6. Creatures with an intelligence of 3 or greater can learn any number of tricks, but are actually sentient and may not perform the task when asked or pushed.

Training a creature to know a trick requires an Creature Handling check. The base DC is determined by the creature type, the creature's CR, and the trick itself. A list of tricks, their DCs, and descriptions is listed here.

Training a Creature for a Purpose
A creature is considered trained for a purpose when they know all of the tricks required to fulfill that purpose. A creature who knows all of the tricks for a purpose gains a special ability related to that purpose as well. It is possible to have a creature trained such that they meet several purposes, but they only gain the special quality from one of them. When a creature learns enough tasks to qualify for a purpose, it may gain the benefit automatically at that time. Otherwise changing the purpose of a creature counts as teaching them a new trick, requiring time and a check as any other training does.

Training Domesticated vs. Wild Creatures
The sole difference between a wild animal and its domesticated version is that the domesticated animal often has a default attitude of Indifferent or Comfortable towards people and civilization in general, instead of Hostile or Suspicious. For this reason, it is often beneficial to domesticate an animal before you begin training them for a special purpose, like teaching a Dire Lion to be a combat mount.

If you do not intend to sell the creature after training, but are only training them for your personal use, this is less important. You can simply adjust their attitude towards you and then train them. You will not suffer the large attitude penalty during training or later on if you need to push them to perform a trick. Other people will need to deal with the normal attitude of the creature, however, because the default attitude was not adjusted. The creature will still be skittish or aggressive towards others, but that may not be a concern.

Revised Spellcasting Interruption
Concentration isn't the only skill used to cast without interruption anymore. It is somewhat harder for primary casters to cast spells while taking damage, but easier for them to avoid provoking attacks of opportunity. These changes are part of the skills themselves and have already been discussed in that chapter, but are referenced again here to make them easier to find.


 * Attempting to cast defensively is done with a check using your relevant casting skill. See Arcana, Geomancy, or Thaumaturgy for more information. Note that failing this check does not ruin the spell, but simply means that your action provokes attacks of opportunity.
 * Attempting to cast while distracted, jostled, restrained, grappled, or under the influence of a distracting spell that does not deal damage is done with a concentration check. Note that you can not cast spells with somatic components while you are grappling. See the Concentration skill for details.
 * Attempting to cast a spell with somatic components while grappled is impossible, so you must first escape the grapple with an escape artistry check. See the Escape Artistry skill for details.
 * Attempting to cast a spell while you are taking continuous damage, either from an attack or from the environment, or are struck in the middle of casting requires an endurance check. See the Endurance skill for details.

Revised Tracking Rules
If you know what you're looking for, you can find and follow the trail of pretty much anything. Finding or following a trail is generally done with the Survival skill, and the DC is determined by the surface the tracks are on as well as the circumstances of those leaving the tracks.

Base DC: Determined by trail.

Check Result:
 * DC+10 and above: You locate the trail and may follow it flat out if you like. You need to make an additional check after 20 miles or when the DC increases by 5 points. The trail may as well be painted neon; it's that obvious to you.
 * DC+5 to DC +9: You locate the trail and may follow it at a hustle if you like. You need to make an additional check after 10 miles or when the DC increases by 5 points. It's pretty clear to you where they're headed.
 * DC+0 to DC +4: You locate the trail and may follow it at your regular pace if you like. You need to make an additional check after 5 miles or when the DC increases by 5 points.
 * DC-1 to DC-5: You locate the trail and may follow it no faster than half your base rate. You need to make an additional check after 2 miles or when the DC increases by 5 points.
 * DC-6 and below: You fail to locate a trail at all. You can retry after 1 hour (outdoors) or 10 minutes (indoors) of searching. If you don't feel like searching, you can of course go anywhere you like at whatever pace you feel appropriate.