Skills and Sub-skills

[RandomUsernamehmimo71]

As part of my ongoing effort to mold D20 into a system more suitable to my personal style of play, I'd like to introduce a system I've been thinking about- It modifiies Skills in such a way that Characters can have a greater specialization, without crippling their existing works.
The skills below are examples, not to be taken as the only skills, particularly with regard to the knowledges, crafts, professions, etc.

Better formatted version at http://www.darkenedsky.com/Subskills.pdf, as I can't get ENworld to format nicely.



Sub-skills- To accept greater variation in the skills in D20, we can break several of the skills into Sub-skills.

Each Subskill is an aspect of a skill, used in a particular instance. For instance, the Athletics skill can be used to allow a character to Jump,Swim,Climb, or Balance. He can put ranks into Athletics normally, and perform any of these sub-skills, or any other action requiring athletics, with his normal Athletics score.

He is also able to put skill points into each sub-skill, however. For each skill point that he puts into a sub-skill, he gains two ranks in that sub-skill.

To calculate the total modifier that a character has to a sub-skill, the character adds the ranks specific to the sub-skill, and the ranks in the "core" skill above it.

Example-

Gareth the 1st level Acrobat has an Athletics with 4 ranks. He has an 18 dex, so his modifier to Balance is 8.
Upon reaching 2nd level, Gareth spends one skill point specificly in the sub-skill of Balance-- This skill point grants him two ranks, bringing his ranks in Balance to 6, the maximum allowed at his level.

His modifier to Balance is now 10, although the modifier to his other Athletics skills is unchanged.


Max Ranks = Level + 3
Max Subskill Ranks = 1.5 Max ranks


Level Max******Max
****Ranks******Sub-skill Ranks
1******4******6
2******5******7
3******6******9
4******7******10
5******8******12
6******9******13
7******10******15
8******11******16
9******12******18
10*****13******19
11*****14******21
12*****15******22
13*****16******24
14*****17******25
15*****18******27
16*****19******28
17*****20******30
18*****21******31
19*****22******32
20*****23******34

Each skill designated with a single * is a core skill, each with **** is indented within it. It is then either a subskill (as defined in this document), or an example of pick-one, such as Knowledges are in D20 core. This is indicated below.


* Athletics

Jump​

Swim​

Climb​

Run​

Balance​

*Deception

Disguise​

Innuendo​

Hide Emotion​

Bluff​

*Concentration
*Craft/Repair (Pick One)

Armor​

Ale​

Swords​

Sculpting​

Sewing​

*Escape Artist
*Forgery
*Investigate

Gather Information​

Research​

Puzzle​

Riddle​

Examine Artifacts​

Decipher Script​

*Handle Animal

Ride​

Train​

Calm​

*Hide
*Knowledge (Pick One)

Engineering​

Streatwise​

Ettique​

Occult​

Law​

Dwarven Law​

Gnomish Law​

Local (Pick One)​

Voustha​

Grensha​

Nagog​

*Linguistics

Orc​

Goblin​

Kobold​

*Listen
*Manipulation

Pick Pockets​

Juggling​

Slight of Hand​

*Move Silently
*Perform

Sing​

Oratory​

*Persuade

Intimidate​

Bribe​

Bargain​

Interrogate​

Seduce​

Motivate​

Diplomacy​

*Search

Track​

*Sense Motive

Empathy​

Motivation​

*Spot

Appraise​

*Tinker

Open Locks​

Disable Device​

*Spellcraft
*Survival

Use Rope​

Find Shelter​

Forage​

Hunt​

Navigate​

Predict Weather​

*Treat Injury

Herbalism​

Surgery​

Field Medicine​

*Tumble
*Vocation (Pick One)

Barber​

Sailor​

Merchant​

Sewing​

 

[Kemrain]

Gareth the 1st level Acrobat

Good god.. I don't know you. You are dead to me.

- Kemrain the Appalled.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

B R O K E N !

 

[RandomUsernamehmimo71]

Frukathka, could you elaborate? I'm not entirely sure how it would be so obviously broken.
The maximum some one could have would be a 50% boost in skill power, in a specific area. That's the sort of thing that's easy to adjust for in the DCs, keeping mindful that no everyone will specialize. We don't want to make it assumed that people will.

While you might think that giving sub-skills are more powerful, for the most part, they are things that a skill Already does. It's just enumerating them. The others are just combinations of little-used, or IMO underpowered skills- Moving Diplomacy and Intimidate into one skill. Intimidate is a nice skill, but it's rarely worth it by itself.

I'd also argue that in most campaigns Jump is not going to be as game-mechanic importaint as, say, Spot.

I'm perfectly willing to discuss the merits or drawbacks of such a system, but I need a little more to go on.

Colin

 

[Razz0putin]

I'm really impressed. I like this. I am a little concerned about having subskills be so high of ranks but upon a casual look through this looks good.

 

[Tonguez]

I like it

and I especially like how you have attempted to maintain balance by doing things like leaving Tumble out of Athletics and Move Silently and Hide seperate

 

[Terraism]

It looks interesting, but I'm curious as to some of the skills you've got listed. It looks like you broke up a lot of the core skills, in addition to consolidating them. Got any details on that?

 

[Arkhandus]

Being able to climb mountains, or run really fast, has absolutely nothing to do with being able to swim. If you haven't specifically trained in swimming, such as if you grew up in a desert or on a mountain, you're going to sink and drown if you ever find yourself in deep water. You can be the World's Strongest Man and you'll still drown if you haven't specifically learned to swim through practical experience. Likewise, knowing how to swim has absolutely nothing to do with being able to climb real well, or cross a tightrope.

I wholeheartedly suggest that Swim be a completely separate skill. The other athletic skills I can at least barely wrap my mind around as being vaguely related to some extent. Learning how to climb may include learning to balance well, and it may improve leg strength to some extent for running and jumping, or vice versa, but it's a very weak link.

 

[Tonguez]

Being able to climb mountains, or run really fast, has absolutely nothing to do with being able to swim. If you haven't specifically trained in swimming, such as if you grew up in a desert or on a mountain, you're going to sink and drown if you ever find yourself in deep water. You can be the World's Strongest Man and you'll still drown if you haven't specifically learned to swim through practical experience. Likewise, knowing how to swim has absolutely nothing to do with being able to climb real well, or cross a tightrope.

Not true

I'd imagine that Athleticism relates to how 'fit' someone is (over and above raw physical condition) and once they get over the initial shock of being in the water (a will save?)someone who is 'fit' is going to be better able to kick to the surface and be able to attempt to dog paddle for longer. Most non-swimmers drown due to panic (will) not lack of technique (skill)

 

[RandomUsernamehmimo71]

If moving swim out of Athletics is a good idea, then you can do that
Hell, I can do it in my game. The reason it's there is that the DC to swim in calm, normal water is 10.
Anyone can do it.. Which makes the skill particularly underpowered. It's simply Not wort the skillpoints, when people could be putting them in more-used skills such as tumble, or Hide & Move.

It looks like you broke up a lot of the core skills, in addition to consolidating them

In a way, I suppose. I was trying to show off the idea. You can't do that with just the skills in the PHB
The idea was to create "sub-skills" that are a specialization of a particular skill, ie, One aspect. This implies breaking the skill up into it's component parts, so you can specialize in one or two.
If one of my players wanted to specialize in an aspect I didn't think of, that's Great! Just go ahead and add it on.. I obviously didn't cover every possible sub-skill, particularly with Crafts/Knowledges/Profession

I combined Jump/Climb/and Balance because they didn't get enough use as-is, and someone would be more likely to take them this way. It's the reason I included Swim as well.
I added "Run" because in D20 proper, there is no way to see who would win in a Sprint.
Races must be pretty boring, because everybody runs Exactly 4-5x 30ft/6sec


In investigate, I added two skills, Puzzle and Riddle, because my PCs have gotten stuck on a riddle that I've given them too many times, once nearly leading to a TPK. At times we both KNOW that their characters should be able to figure it out, as their characters are better trained at this, but an INT/WIS check doesn't seem like enough, given that the check can only be modified by 4, and the Roll itself is 1-20.. The roll will have FAR more to do with success than the Int score.
Hence, the expanded skill.


I pulled Pick Pockets into Manipulation, so that I could include classic Slight of Hand/Prestidigitation as an additional sub-skill.

I broke the parts of Diplomacy into the Persuade subskills, such as Bargaining to receive a better price, or seducing someone at a bar
The Diplomacy skill I left in as a sub-skill I meant more as a Charm.. A Make people think what I'm saying makes sense.

I renamed Profession to Vocation because I HATE the way profession works in D20. It's basically Just for making money in downtime, or for NPCs to make money. My thought with Vocation is that people should be able to make checks to know Basic Knowedge things in their field- For instance..
What ocean water looks like when it's deep, versus when it's shallow might not be basic knowedlge (Low DC. 10ish) to you and I, but to a sailor, it absolutely should be. My thought for Vocation is that not only could PCs use the skill to make money, but they could use it for checks against the things they aught to know.



In all, I think that a subskill system that allows MaxRanks*1.5 isn't over-balanced. It still caps you each level, it just lets you sacrafice some uses of a skill, to get better in others.

If you'd rather, you could look at the system as a Feat

Feat: Specialization
Choose one aspect of a skill, such as hunting in survival, or Bribe in Persuade. The characters ability is this sub-skill gains a +5 competency bonus.
(This is twice the +5 skill emphasis bonus, knocked down one for fairness)

Personally, I like it as just skills, but that's another way to look at it, if it seems too powerful for you..


Ideas and thoughts are greatly appreciated.

(And does anyone know how to format a table in this blasted thing?)

Colin "Throwing out ideas" Davis