(3.5) New Skill: Resilience [Please help polish]

[Kaihaku]

I was trying to think of a more interesting Constitution Skill. It's not very polished so I'd vastly appreciate help making it work. Thanks.


Resilience (CON)
Check: While wounded you can shrug off some of the harm inflicted for a moment. Roll a Resilience check VS. your remaining hit-points. If successful, you gain your Constitution score in temporary hit points.
Action: Full Round Action
Try Again: Yes.
Special: Temporary hit-points produced by this Skill have a duration of ten rounds, cannot exceed the character's maximum hit-points, and do not stack with temporary hit-points from any source.

If it's this limited of an application I suppose I could make it a Feat. Hmmm...

Original Skill

Resilience (CON)
Check: The DC and effect depend on the task you attempt.


{table=head]Task | Resilience DC
Stabilize | 20 + number of negative hp
Resist Death | 20 + Damage Dealt / Effect DC
Resist poison | Poison’s save DC
Resist disease | Disease’s save DC
[/table]

Stabilize: When you are Dying and unstable you may make a Resilience check vs. 20 + number of negative hp to stabilize. If you fail this check you take 1 hit-point of damage.

Resist Death: When you are killed, you may make a Resilience check vs. Damage Dealt or the Effect DC. If successful you are reduced to -9 hit-points.

Resist Poison: Every time you would make a saving throw against poison, you may use your Resilience Skill modifier in place of the saving throw.

Resist Disease: Every time you would makes a saving throw against disease effects, you may use your Resilience Skill modifier in place of the saving throw.

Resurgence: When you are Dying and stable you may make a Resilience check versus DC 20 + number of negative hit-points. If you are successful, you gain temporary hit-points equal to your Constitution score. The temporary hit-points gained from this use of Resilience do not stack with other temporary hit-points from any source including this Skill and they fade after 5 rounds.

I actually thought of it while watching Diehard and thinking about what a beating Willis was getting. I am/was pondering having Resurgence work whenever, not just when Dying.

[Eloel]

This already exists to some extent. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/skills/autohypnosis.htm)

[Leeham]

I suppose this is good for campaigns without psionics. I'd love to see a barbarian shrugging off death like that.

[Kaihaku]

Indeed, I'd forgotten as it's been some time since I've played with Psionics...

Hmmm... Well, while I hate to be redundant I'd like for a more impressive Constitution Skill. How to differentiate? Make it focus on Temporary Hit-points instead and remove the Poison/Disease aspects?

[Kellus]

Or you could just add a new use for the Autohypnosis or Concentration skill to grant temporary hit points when you're at the negatives. Although I'm not sure that's something I really want to see; healing like that without the use of magic just doesn't make any sense to me. I know it's temporary hit points (which, by the by, don't have a duration), but it still breaks the verisimilitude. Much like healing surges in 4E. If you really wanted Con to play a part, you could give the new uses to Autohypnosis and then make a feat to use Con in place of Wis for that skill.

In any case, I'd advise against creating a new skill, especially one so similar to an existing skill. There's a finite number of skills for a reason; a player only has access to a finite number of skill points, and every new skill not accounted for in the rules spreads his resources thinner. In general, it's probably a better idea to make the idea a new use for an existing skill instead of creating a new one entirely. Not to mention that nobody has Resilience as a class skill.

Also, bear in mind that there is only one skill that uses Con as a relevant ability for a reason. It's a very powerful ability score, already being tied to hit points and an important saving throw. It doesn't need to be any more important.

[Kaihaku]

Or you could just add a new use for the Autohypnosis or Concentration skill to grant temporary hit points when you're at the negatives. Although I'm not sure that's something I really want to see; healing like that without the use of magic just doesn't make any sense to me. I know it's temporary hit points (which, by the by, don't have a duration), but it still breaks the verisimilitude. Much like healing surges in 4E. If you really wanted Con to play a part, you could give the new uses to Autohypnosis and then make a feat to use Con in place of Wis for that skill.

Thanks for pointing out the lack of duration, I'll add one in.

I disagree that it breaks verisimilitude for a wounded but tough character to pull him/herself together enough to get back on his/her feet. I don't think it's unbelievable for someone to suffer a serious wound and fall unconscious but then awaken after their body has a moment to pull itself together enough for them to stumble back to their feet. If it were actually healing, I would agree with you, but that was the whole point of it being temporary hit-points.


In any case, I'd advise against creating a new skill, especially one so similar to an existing skill. There's a finite number of skills for a reason; a player only has access to a finite number of skill points, and every new skill not accounted for in the rules spreads his resources thinner. In general, it's probably a better idea to make the idea a new use for an existing skill instead of creating a new one entirely. Not to mention that nobody has Resilience as a class skill.

Good points. I have my own reasons for not following them but I acknowledge their validity.


Also, bear in mind that there is only one skill that uses Con as a relevant ability for a reason. It's a very powerful ability score, already being tied to hit points and an important saving throw. It doesn't need to be any more important.

I'm not convinced that balance was the reasoning behind WotC's decision but there's no way to really know.

It's not that CON isn't important enough already, it's that it's boring. In media, often enough the heroes are Tough rather than Strong, they get the snuffing beat out of them, then stumble back to feet and give it another try.

[Kellus]

I'm not convinced that balance was the reasoning behind WotC's decision but there's no way to really know.

Guess again. It's no coincidence that Charisma, the ability score not tied to any statistics, also has the largest number of relevant skills associated with it, including an umbrella skill. That's the only reason someone would put ranks in Charisma. Constitution is already a vitally important skill for any character with regards to hit points and Fortitude, one of the two important saving throws. Add in more skills for it (especially one like this for combat types, who already have a good reason to invest in Constitution; notice that the only existing Con-based skill is of the most use to non-melee characters) and you risk running into the same problem with Dexterity, where it governs tons of skills but is also tied to Reflex and AC.

I'm not saying that one extra skill for Constitution is going to break anything, because it's surely not. I'm just saying that making new skills in general, and especially for Constitution, is usually not in the best interest of game balance.

Also take in mind existing material. Feats, classes, and that sort of thing are easy, because anybody that qualifies for them can take them. Anybody can take a skill; if you want to add it and have it be relevant with the existing material out there, you're going to have to go through pretty much every existing prestige class and compile a list of who'll have it as a class skill.

[hr]

That aside, as far as the actual mechanics go, they're a bit lacking.

Stabilize already exists with Autohypnosis.

Resist Death disagrees for the DC with the text on the table, and in any case seems abusable when you reach absurdly high skill checks (which you will have, with the enormous breadth of material augmenting skills out there). It seems you can use it as much as you want. Combined with something like Diehard, somebody with an enormous skill check would be practically invincible. Also, the "effect DC" is not very clear on what spells this works against. Just spells that deal hit point damage? How about death effects? Disintegrate? Flesh to stone?

Resist Poison already exists in Autohypnosis, and is written better than this. Poison is one of the most important use of Fortitude, and you don't need to actually use the skill to benefit from this. Which is silly, since that's what a skill is supposed to do. I can't actually think of any other normal uses of skills that are based off of ranks and not rolls.

Resist Disease is much the same. Really, are these things really neccessary? You can already use Constitution to resist poison and disease; it's built right into the rules with Fortitude saves. What exactly is this person doing differently from somebody not using the Resilience skill against the effect, and instead just making a normal Fortitude save? It works for Autohypnosis because you're actually rolling, and it's the mind telling the body to ignore the poison. That's actually a different effect from just "I resist the poison REALLY HARD."

I already talked about resurgence, although it should probably be on the table as well.

[hr]

Sorry if I sounded harsh, I'm just trying to help. For the record I do think it's a neat idea. I just think you may be going about it the wrong way.

Good work, and I hope I see more of your stuff!

[Kaihaku]

Guess again. It's no coincidence that Charisma, the ability score not tied to any statistics, also has the largest number of relevant skills associated with it, including an umbrella skill. That's the only reason someone would put ranks in Charisma. Constitution is already a vitally important skill for any character with regards to hit points and Fortitude, one of the two important saving throws. Add in more skills for it (especially one like this for combat types, who already have a good reason to invest in Constitution; notice that the only existing Con-based skill is of the most use to non-melee characters) and you risk running into the same problem with Dexterity, where it governs tons of skills but is also tied to Reflex and AC.

You're probably right. I tend not to give WotC enough credit when it comes to things that they actually did balance well.


I'm not saying that one extra skill for Constitution is going to break anything, because it's surely not. I'm just saying that making new skills in general, and especially for Constitution, is usually not in the best interest of game balance.

Out of curiosity then, what do you think about Pathfinder's treatment of Skills? You mentioned that maybe WotC wasn't so clueless in the Skills it distributed, if splitting up acrobatic Skills was meant to balance things out how does combining them affect that balance?


Also take in mind existing material. Feats, classes, and that sort of thing are easy, because anybody that qualifies for them can take them. Anybody can take a skill; if you want to add it and have it be relevant with the existing material out there, you're going to have to go through pretty much every existing prestige class and compile a list of who'll have it as a class skill.

As I said, a very valid point. It won't affect my personal implementation for reasons I won't go into but since I listed this as 3.5 those problems are definitely things to consider.


That aside, as far as the actual mechanics go, they're a bit lacking.

I won't be addressing the Autohypnosis points because I quite forgot it existed and they are absolutely valid. Nothing to say to them, if I keep going along these lines I'll be removing them.


Resist Death disagrees for the DC with the text on the table, and in any case seems abusable when you reach absurdly high skill checks (which you will have, with the enormous breadth of material augmenting skills out there). It seems you can use it as much as you want. Combined with something like Diehard, somebody with an enormous skill check would be practically invincible. Also, the "effect DC" is not very clear on what spells this works against. Just spells that deal hit point damage? How about death effects? Disintegrate? Flesh to stone?

It is extremely abusable at high skill checks. I figured I'd let the forum point me towards how to fix that.

Good point on what spells it protects against, I was only thinking of straight up death effects but neglected a huge range of gray area.

I introduce this specifically because I wanted to give meatshields a chance to survive death effects that would normally slaughter them (there are quite a few) but in retrospect it was probably ill advised in this form. A feat might be more appropriate.


I already talked about resurgence, although it should probably be on the table as well.

Resurgence was the original use I conceived of and remains my favorite. If I keep this as a Skill it'll probably remain the focus.


Sorry if I sounded harsh, I'm just trying to help. For the record I do think it's a neat idea. I just think you may be going about it the wrong way.

No worries, one of the things I like about GITP as compared to other forums is that people are highly critical but, usually, in a constructive way. I'm not taking it personally, this is probably the best community I've come across for fielding and refining ideas. Criticism will just make the end product better, even if it's drastically changed shape by that point.