Ratings[edit]
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Spanambula favors this article and rated it 4 of 4!
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| I'm a big fan of not making players feel like their PCs don't know anything despite years of adventuring and experience. Helping the traditionally melee-only types feel relevant outside of combat makes the game more fun and encourages good RP. It also just helps people make more mechanically well-rounded characters, of which I am also a fan.
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Ghostwheel likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.
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| With the changes following my suggestion, I think this is solid now.
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Eiji-kun favors this article and rated it 4 of 4!
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| Poor Fighter is always shafted. This helps.
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Ramifications
Does this not make Int the prime dump stat, even moreso than Cha, as there's virtually no penalty in dumping it for most of the skills apart from the Knowledges? --Ghostwheel (talk) 13:31, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
- No; this just sets a minimum. Anyone who wants more than a handful of skill points per level (the four free, plus something worthless and something class based) will still need a higher Int. Besides, skills are mostly not that powerful. It's just not fun not being able to contribute stuff to the party outside of combat. --Undead_Knave (talk) 14:47, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
- Yes, but many people invest 10-12 in Int at most, and little else into it unless they're playing a wizard or psion. This makes it autodump to 8 (or 7 in PF) as there are no downsides whatsoever to having low Int compared to 10ish with this variant. I agree that it's not fun being unable to contribute stuff outside combat, but I don't think this is the way to go about it. Maybe setting a minimum of 4 for the number of skill points per level pre-Int modifier would be better, but this simply does away with any downside whatsoever to having a penalty for the most part. --Ghostwheel (talk) 15:24, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
- One of the biggest offenders for this was the Fighter who basically needs an Int higher than 12 to not be terrible (Int 13 prereq on about half of the combat maneuvers) outside of homebrew. Sticking them with the just the minimum per level gives them 2 skill points, which isn't even enough to get stuff that people generally say is absolutely required skill-wise, let alone anything interesting. --Undead_Knave (talk) 15:49, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
- If you truly believe this, then make the minimum for classes 6 instead of 4, while still applying Int modifier. Heck, you could just give everyone across the board 4 more skill points per level. Would there be a problem with that? --Ghostwheel (talk) 15:53, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
- It would make Int as much as a dumb stat as Cha is, arguably. Overall it help people who are really MAD all the while having a good Int is still an attractive option. --Leziad (talk) 21:02, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
- I'd argue that it makes it even moreso; while Cha can be used on initial reactions for people meeting the party for the first time, even not with the party face, a penalty on knowledge skills isn't nearly as impactful on play. Is there any difference between adding +2 to +4 skill points to all characters across the board, which would still keep Int meaningful while doing basically the same thing?
- Plus, I think we can agree that it's a bad thing that Charisma is often a dump stat, since it isn't as important as other skills. Do we really want to make another stat be on that level, or even moreso? --Ghostwheel (talk) 21:08, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
- Strength is a dumb stats for nearly all the spellcasting class. The only non-dumb stats are arguably Dex, Con and Wis. Even with this rule, Cha is an even worse dumb stat than Int, initial reactions barely matter especially if you have a party face. How characters react to the PC with low CHA is fiercely in the realm of the GM, the same GM that make people react badly to character with low CHA may also expect a character with Low INT to play dumb. Beside all this, Int also affected craft and decipher script skill checks which may be important to some classes (like a fighter maintaining his gears). Even with this rule High Int is still more desirable than High Cha. I am also fiercely of the opinion that having a low stat should not cripple an entire aspect of your character, the fact the entire skill system rest on INT was a terrible design flaw, since the entire social system and delving system rest on the skill system mean that Low INT also hamper those aspect as well. As it stand, having low INT mean you just don't participate outside of initiative, you cannot meet the prerequisites for most prestige class, you can"t climb or swim effectively making dungeon delving a lot harder.
- Also to answer your last question, I appreciate that there are some stats that are not required to be high to be useful. Having CHA 10 is about on the same level as having CHA 6, CHA only matter when it really high. Despite it description it does not affect initial reaction inherently (unless the DM throw you a bone). If anything we should make a variant rule that make all stats useful, but not critical to have... hmmm there an idea. --Leziad (talk) 21:45, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
- Alright, late to the game on this. Sorry, felt rather crappy yesterday. Not really sure what to add now. Time for mild redundancy! I guess if a fighty guy wants to dump his Intelligence, he can/could, but side-effects include: preventing himself from being able to craft reasonably so he can have decent gear/custom gear/not DM dependent gear/shop dependent gear/save money on his gear dependence, know those maneuvers getting used (Martial Lore), get access to certain feats (like Combat Expertise and down the chain). So, there's still plenty of reason to get Intelligence for a fighty guy character, but with this, he can at least do the rest of his job okay without it, like hitting things maybe a little harder or also being able to use a bow (because point buy to boost his stats elsewhere because he's not a caster and he needs several stats). I lost my train of thought along the way somewhere. Something about was just going to have minimum skill points granted by class per level be 4 (instead of the crappy 2 that mostly fighters are hindered most by). Wizards would get even more skills then but whatever I guess, they're wizards. So, the question then: How do we get characters the skills they should have, as simple as possible, with as few weird side-effects as possible? Short version: I totally don't mind changing this at all if it makes it work better. --Ganteka Future (talk) 20:30, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
- I personally feel like it would be better to just bump the least number of skill points per level classes get by 2-4 points, which would still make how low you go with Int matter. A fighter with 6 or 10 Int isn't going to get Combat Expertise either way, but with the current way the variant goes, you've got no real incentive not to dump your int as low as it'll go if you didn't care about it *too* much in the first place. --Ghostwheel (talk) 21:20, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
