Pathfinder 1E Class vs. Cross Class Skills in Pathfinder

[Roman]

The Pathfinder Alpha (1) skill system is vastly preferable, in my mind, to the skill system of SW Saga or 4E, where it is impossible to be bad at a skill at higher levels. Indeed, in practice I almost always give both my PCs when I play and NPCs when I DM max ranks in their skills, so it works out like the Pathfinder system. That said, however, there are players who do like to tinker with their skills and assign different numbers of ranks to different skills. 3.5E system supports both: I can assign max ranks to my skills and have it simple, whereas those who like it can really fool around with their skills. As such, I don't see any major benefit of the Pathfinder Alpha (1) system over the current 3.5E skill system that supports both simplicity and detail depending on what one wants to get out of it. (Still, unlike the 4E skill system, the Pathfinder Alpha (1) skill system works fine for me.)

It is a bit of a bad form to quote oneself, but I am doing this, beacause I feel that Paizo have run along with this kind of thinking with the new skill system in Alpha 2, which makes it even easier to max skills than the 3.5E system, but still supports tinkering for those who want it. Kudos to Paizo all around on the new system - I really like it!

If I were to have one suggestion, though, I would recommend increasing the bonuses to class skills with level, so that the distinction between a maxed out class skill and non-class skill at level 20 is not +20 vs +23. I would suggest a progression that increases the bonus to class skills by +1 every four levels, starting with level 2. This would result in the following bonus to class skills:

Level 1: +3
Level 2: +4
Level 6: +5
Level 10: +6
Level 14: +7
Level 18: +8

Why did I chose a progression every 4 levels starting with level 2? I would recommend it, because it meshes well with the other progressions in Pathfinder - it gives a bonus at levels, where the universal progression grants neither a feat nor an ability score increase. It also seems to work out pretty well in terms of final numbers. +28 for a maxed out class skill versus +20 for a maxed out non-class skill is a substantial difference, but maxed out non-class skills can still be useful at that spread.

(If we have a progression of this sort, it could be possible to remove the front-loaded +3 bonus at 1st level in lieu of a +1 bonus, or even a complete absence of an initial bonus, but I think the initial +3 bonus, although a bit front-loaded, is fine.)

I should also mention that a decent idea to prevent dipping a skill point in each class skill just to gain the bonus, might be to rule that the class skill bonus cannot exceed the number of ranks one has placed into the skill.

None of these changes are really necessary - from my perspective the skill point system is already good. Nonetheless, I do feel that especially the first change would improve the skill system further.

 

[Virtue]

I agree with you

Jason liked someones idea about giving a skill bonus at the levels in Pathfinder when you dont get a feat or a Stat mod

 

[arbados]

Roman:
I like your ideas a great deal! I cannot even find one area that I would disagree with. I think the front loaded +3 is fine, but your suggestions makes it even better!!! I am a big supporter of the Pathfinder RPG and am excited to see these boards here!

 

[Arrond Hess]

With the static DC's that are prevelant for skill checks, wouldn't it be more prudent to cap cross-class skills at 1/2 your character level, beyond first level?

1) It would support the goal of backwards compatability, that FPF is striving for.
2) With the static nature of the majority of skill DC's, those DC's will become easier to beat with your bonuses, and not require to make a skill check. Meaning you will be able to accomplish these things earlier in your career. (I'm not entirely sure if that is a good thing.)

 

[Roman]

Roman:
I like your ideas a great deal! I cannot even find one area that I would disagree with. I think the front loaded +3 is fine, but your suggestions makes it even better!!! I am a big supporter of the Pathfinder RPG and am excited to see these boards here!

Well, thank you! I appreciate the love.

I am also very excited about the Pathfinder RPG and am eagerly following its development and introducing the new concepts into my campaign for playtesting.

 

[Roman]

With the static DC's that are prevelant for skill checks, wouldn't it be more prudent to cap cross-class skills at 1/2 your character level, beyond first level?

This was indeed one of the suggestions given to Paizo when Alpha 1 was released. I am not sure why they didn't take it, but I assume that they did not want to have two maximum skill levels for reasons of simplicity, although I don't think it really complicates things.

1) It would support the goal of backwards compatability, that FPF is striving for.
2) With the static nature of the majority of skill DC's, those DC's will become easier to beat with your bonuses, and not require to make a skill check. Meaning you will be able to accomplish these things earlier in your career. (I'm not entirely sure if that is a good thing.)

I don't really think that this is a problem. The higher skill scores really only kick in at higher levels, when the party can often do most of that stuff anyway through magic and besides, there is the removal of skill synergies that used to give boni before, which the rising class skill boni compensate for.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Okay, after so much love, I have to be contrary:

I see why you're doing it, but to me, it looks like a unnecessary fiddly bit that makes statting PCs and NPCs harder. You have to manage skill points per level and a level-dependent modifiers. And you have again to distinguish between class and cross-class skills (a chore especially for monsters, where class skills are rarely spelled out explicitly anyway).