OOC

[Roughtrade]

17 minutes ago, TheFred said:

you're acting like you can never learn new skills after L1 which is, well, patently untrue. 🤷‍♂️

Fighter. 2 skill points a level. At level five he needs 8 skill points to earn a new skill. That takes four levels of leveling to earn but by then the fighter is 12th level so he needs 15 skill points to earn a new skill. That fighter is never going to learn a new skill. It will be impossible.
 

Magician. 20 intelligence. 2+5=7 skill points. At eleventh level needs 14 skill points to learn a new skill. Has to wait another level so he has 14 points, except now he needs 15 skill points. It is impossible for him to learn a new skill.

And all of that presupposes it is a class skill. Non-class skills half the level where you can effectively learn a new skill. A fighter trying to learn a non-class skill, a new language for example, can never build up enough skill points to get one rank after second level. A magician can’t learn to ride unless they do it by level seven.

So yes, you can learn a new skill. I never used the word impossible. I said it was stupidly difficult. Stupid to make the cost so onerous and stupid to have this convoluted math which can cause a character to miss out on multiple levels of his skill allotment just to get one rank in a skill they want.

A magician can take a level in swordsage at level 20 but he cannot learn how to swim.

[TheFred]

Ah, the old arrow-and-tortoise trick, right? Tortoises can never be hit by arrows, because by the time the arrow hits them, they've moved on?

In your example, the Fighter could keep putting ranks in until L13. In eight levels, he's spent 16 ranks, which is exactly the number needed to max out a skill.

The scaling is, admittedly, pretty bad... I can totally take the point that that's harder than it should be, sure, but (a) it's very possible and (b) to be fair, that's pretty much the worst example, a 2sp/level class with no Int bonus (and not a Human).

Also, you said "learn" a new skill, not max a new skill. "Learning a skill" means putting, what, one single rank into it? I'm not sure why you say a Fighter can never put a rank after second level... it just costs 2 skill points per rank, so he may never max it (though max for a cross-class skill is 1/2 anyway) but he can certainly progress it. Even your L12 Fighter example, whilst he won't be as good as a L12 Rogue with max ranks, he's already as good with that skill as a L5 character of any class (and possibly better, since he'll have better gear and possibly better stats, etc)... which is, by the way, roughly Olympian levels of skill, so on a par with the real world's very best people? You don't need 23 rank in Swim to "know how to swim" - otherwise no L1 characters would be able to swim at all!

[Roughtrade]

21 minutes ago, TheFred said:

it just costs 2 skill points per rank,

No. By strict rules. To learn a new skill in 3.0 "If you want to pick up a new skill for your character, you can spend skill points equal to his or her character level +3. These skill points buy 1 rank each if the new skill is a class skill or 1/2 rank each if it’s a cross-class skill." Page 62 PBH 

 

At no point in any of my conversations have I been talking about putting ranks into skills someone already knows.

I have been talking about learning a new skill.

A level 20 Magician wanting to learn to swim would have to spend 23 skill points to get Rank 1/2 in swim.

 

[TheFred]

Ah, I see! Yeah, that's like, super old-school PHB wording... technically true, you can do that... but you can also just spend ranks (it doesn't, after all, say that you must do that). On the very same page: "3. If you have not maxed out a skill, you can spend extra skill points on it and increase its rank further." ... basically, you spend ranks on a 1:1 basis, or 2:1 if it's cross-class, that's it, just the same as at L1. The 3+level thing is just to max it out, I guess because they assumed you would be doing that (a lot of old PHB stuff is written that way). Pretty sure though that everyone has more or less just been ignoring that line for the past 20 years since it's not super helpful.

There's no reason you can't just put, like, 3 ranks into a skill, and call it a day (even at L20).

Edited December 3, 2023 by TheFred (see edit history)

[Roughtrade]

2 minutes ago, TheFred said:

The 3+level thing is just to max it out,

 

No. The 3+Level thing is to get a SINGLE rank.

2 minutes ago, TheFred said:

There's no reason you can't just put, like, 3 ranks into a skill, and call it a day (even at L20).

Except you need to spend more skill points than you have available to do it.

What character class has 23 or more skill points a level to spend?

[Grand Poobah]

7 minutes ago, Roughtrade said:

 

No. The 3+Level thing is to get a SINGLE rank

Never played such a rule

[TheFred]

Yeah that's... definitely not true. Or, I dunno, maybe everyone houseruled it immediately because it's so bizarre and nonsensical? I can certainly see why you'd think 3rd edition was bad at skills!

It doesn't say you have to do that, or that the buying skills ranks normally thing is only for skills you already have ranks in... and whilst I suppose it doesn't explicitly call the converse out either, it makes zero sense that you wouldn't just keep using the same rules that you did at first level. At the very least, this is how... I think approximately 100% of people play it, and how the D&D-derived video games also work. 🤷‍♂️

[Roughtrade]

9 minutes ago, Grand Poobah said:

Never played such a rule

Honestly, I cannot remember anyone ever using it. It might have been excised from the record by later printings.

But it's in my hard copy and the only pdf copy I can find on the web.

[Roughtrade]

5 minutes ago, TheFred said:

everyone houseruled it immediately because it's so bizarre and nonsensical?

This is probably true

 

Addendum

This seems like it should be a poll over in game discussions. "Have you ever used this rule"

 

I think I may start it.

[TheFred]

Those words are definitely there... but like I said, I think it's kinda oldschool PHB wording. They wrote a lot of stuff back then that just kind of assumed you'd do stuff a certain way and never explicitly went over things; I guess they weren't expecting things to be rules lawyered. Like, they say how to spend skill points at L1, why say that, duh, it's the same at subsequent levels? It's quite possibly clarified in the Rules Compendium or something, I dunno. At any rate, I'm pretty certain that that's just assuming you're planning to max a new skill, not just put a few ranks in it.

Anyway, yeah... if that were the case, it would be a terrible rule, and I guess explains all the dislike. 🙂 But you can invest just a few ranks at each level, which makes it rather easier to become competent (if not - necessarily - the best) at something new.

[Roughtrade]

15 hours ago, Michael said:

In my defense, you guys are posting *Alot*. :). I'd go with scared.

Also how does pathfinder do skills?

We did it again over something rather not about the game. You can probably skip everything from the point where you posted this and start here.

Except there was this....

5 hours ago, Polyphemus said:

Looks, like I have a lot of posts to catch up on. Excited to do so, but fyi probably won’t be able to post until tomorrow. Kerapsis will just be off in the background trying not to get drawn in to Molgrug’s tirades until then.

 

 

[Roughtrade]

2 hours ago, TheFred said:

think it's kinda oldschool PHB wording.

Last comment.

10 hours ago, Roughtrade said:

If you want to pick up a new skill for your character, you can spend skill points equal to his or her character level +3.

The word we were missing is "Can". Not that you have to. You can. It is just an awkward restating that your max skill rank is your level +3.

So, the other good thing about PF skills. Your max rank is your level. Class skill, not class skill. Max rank is your level.

 

 

This is what I get for not playing 3.x in so long. I got into the books instead of just running off of muscle memory.

[Michael]

Feel free to open a thread here or indeed somewhere else to continue this, but I'd prefer the dnd vs pathfinder skill comparison stop in OOC.

 

I'd like an IC post from one (or better both) @W0LF and @Polyphemus, regardless will update tomorrow.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Michael (see edit history)

[W0LF]

Hey mate, I’m in a quarterly business review meeting all day, then out with the GM of the company. So unlikely to be able to post (doing this from the phone) until tomorrow sorry

[Polyphemus]

Got a post up, sorry for the delay.