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Grod_The_Giant
2013-01-20, 06:29 PM
We are taking suggestions. And by taking suggestions, I mean "please contribute skill tricks." The more the merrier.

Skills

Characters gain skill points from their class, which may be spent on any skill on a 1-1 ratio, to a maximum number of ranks equal to the medium progression (2/3 level +3). Skill points may also be spent to purchase skill tricks.

The Skills

Acrobatics (Dexterity): This represents a character's ability to tumble past his enemies, fit into small spaces and perform other, similar feats of dextrous movement.
Animals (Wisdom): This represents a character's ability to gain an animal's trust or train them, as well as his ability to care for them and ride them.
Athletics (Strength): A character's ability to climb, run, swim, jump and perform other extraordinary physical feats.
Concentration (Wisdom): A character's ability to ignore pain and distracting events around him.
Deception (Charisma): A character's ability to deceive others by lying, feinting or disguising their mannerisms.
Devices (Dexterity): A character's ability to manipulate, repair or jam delicate machinery or pick locks.
Expertise (Intelligence): A character's knowledge about street culture, current events and politics, noteworthy locals and other such applies knowledge.
Heal (Wisdom): A character's ability to care for the wounds and ailments of others.
Insight (Wisdom): A character's ability to prevent being deceived, as well as recognizing the mental state of others.
Intimidation (Charisma): A character's ability to bend others to their will.
Investigation (Intelligence): A character's ability to find tiny clues and find necessary information.
Linguistics (Intelligence): A character's ability in forging documents and finding forgeries, knowledge about ancient manuscript and obscure languages, learning new languages.
Lore (Intelligence): Knowledge of religious customs, dogma and hierarchies, history, nobility and other ancient and current events.
Occult (Intelligence): Knowledge about distant planes, rare creatures and magical occurrences and rituals.
Perception (Wisdom): The ability to notice small details, detect hidden enemies and react to them quickly.
Persuasion (Charisma): The ability to convince others of one's viewpoint through words and to make deals.
Rapport (Charisma): The ability to befriend others, gather information, and make conversation.
Sleight of Hand (Dexterity): The ability to pick pockets, perform small tricks of legerdemain, and move small objects around without being noticed.
Stealth (Dexterity): A character's ability to move silently and covertly without being noticed.
Survival (Wisdom): Practical knowledge about navigation, foraging in the wilderness, tracking, finding shelter and other such wilderness abilities.



The Tricks
Skill tricks fall into 3 categories.

Apprentice tricks require 5 ranks of appropriate skills, and are based on high-level human achievement-- think Conan.
Journeyman tricks require 10 ranks of appropriate skills, and are clearly superhuman abilities-- think Spider Man.
Master tricks require 15 ranks of appropriate skills, and are based on mythology-- think Hercules or Gilgamesh.


Apprentice Skill Tricks

Mighty Leap (Athletics)
Requirements: 5 ranks of Athletics
Effect: When making an Athletics check to jump, the DC for the check doesn't double if you fail to move 20 feet in a straight line prior to jumping. If you do move 20 feet in a straight line before attempting a jump, you gain a +5 competence bonus on your check.


Journeyman Skill Tricks

Leaps and Bounds (Athletics)
Requirement: 10 ranks of Athletics, Mighty Leap
Effect: The DC for a high jump is equal to the distance you wish to clear, rather than 4 times the distance to be cleared. You don't take damage when falling after a successful jump.


Master Skill Tricks
Touch the Stars (Athletics)
Requirements: 15 ranks of Athletics, Mighty Leap, Leaps and Bounds
Effect: When rolling Athletics checks to determine the distance you jump, you leap 5 feet for every point of the result, instead of one. The distance you jump does not count towards your total movement speed for the round.

In addition, there is one special skill trick available to all, without rank-based requirements:

Specialization (Any)
Requirements: none
Effect: Characters gain a +1 bonus, +1 for every 5 additional class levels, to a specific subset of a skill-- Stealth (Move Silently), Occult (The Planes), and so on.

Eldan
2013-01-20, 06:42 PM
So... about the write-ups I had? Especially the one on how skills worked, at least, should probably be saved to this thread.

Also, If I may make a remark? I'm not sure these should be skill tricks, isntead of advanced uses.

One important thing about skill tricks, as with feats, is that they should add something new. Not just improve the base skill, but give a kind of new ability. These don't.

Conor77
2013-01-20, 07:00 PM
Yes, and I think it would be prudent to have some knowledge of how the skills will be used in-game before we can make skill tricks for them. Your examples point out that Jumping is the same as it was in 3.5, but how do we design skill tricks for, say, Occult? I don't know whether identifying a spell is already part of Occult, and I should just make it easier or better in some way, or if there needs to be a skill trick to enable identifying spells.

Eldan
2013-01-20, 07:02 PM
I had started a general write-up for the skills earlier.
I got up to concentration before my laziness kicked inn.

Grod_The_Giant
2013-01-20, 08:00 PM
Oh yeah, sorry, Eldan. But, ah... here's my thought on the advanced uses verses skill tricks thing... we kind of only need one. Both are good ways of adding snazzy, high-power abilities to skills. But having both is probably redundant, not to mention creating a lot more work for ourselves. Personally, I think I'd prefer tricks, even if they are upgrades (as long as they're big upgrades)-- it's more customizable, and since skill ranks don't increase at the same rate as character level, you'll have enough points to play with.

Eldan
2013-01-20, 09:41 PM
Fine. But we still need the write-ups for the basic uses before we can do tricks.