What Can Your Character Do? (Or: Skills)

Okay, so, let's talk about Skills for a moment, earlier I mentioned that I liked them, quite a bit.  Even though I agree that they are not necessarily essential for a tabletop to run, and run smoothly, I think they are still rather important, fore one main reason: it tells a character what they can do.

Now, I understand the argument that comes with RPGs and skills in particular, it's usually some variation of "Skills actually limit you because you can only do what you have skills for, but in a skill-less game, you can do anything."   Yes, this is true, however, I think that in a game that has unlimited freedom, you're going to see a lot of people wheeling around trying desperately to figure out what they can do, and then making up rules to go along with it.  The beauty of skills is that they eliminate this need to come up with rules by making a hard fast and relatively simple method (you roll, add to modifier, compare to a number you need to beat, if you beat it, yay!  If not, then you fail and can't try again) and also because they give your character a starting place.

When you come to a door, there are a multitude of ways you can handle it, and some clever players will come up with ways that I could never think of right now, but the traditional player, and the new player (remember, we are catering the game towards them too) may not be as clever and may need some guidance, so they look down at their character sheet, see the Lockpicking and think ... "Hey I could do that", or maybe they see the Knowledge: Archetecture and they think, maybe there's some special way to open the door, let's see if my character knows it.  Sure, there's still the option to crowbar the door open with the blunt side of your sword, or kick it down, or hack into it with an axe, but skills give a nice jumping off point that starts stirring the players' minds and giving them options.

Plus, the skill rules can be applied to nearly every sort of check, streamlining the rulebook and gameplay in general, as it also gives the DMs a nice base to work with.  So like I said, I like skills, and I'm willing to make a game without them, however, I want to present you with a simplified list of skills that I think would work for our game.

Here's the skill list from Pathfinder which is a consolidated list of the 3.5 skill list (we'll use it as our starting point):

Acrobatics

C

C

—

—

—

C

—

—

C

—

—

Yes

Dex*

Appraise

—

C

C

—

—

—

—

—

C

C

C

Yes

Int

Bluff

—

C

—

—

—

—

—

—

C

C

—

Yes

Cha

Climb

C

C

—

C

C

C

—

C

C

—

—

Yes

Str*

Craft

C

C

C

C

C

C

C

C

C

C

C

Yes

Int

Diplomacy

—

C

C

—

—

—

C

—

C

—

—

Yes

Cha

Disable Device

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

C

—

—

No

Dex*

Disguise

—

C

—

—

—

—

—

—

C

—

—

Yes

Cha

Escape Artist

—

C

—

—

—

C

—

—

C

—

—

Yes

Dex*

Fly

—

—

—

C

—

—

—

—

—

C

C

Yes

Dex*

Handle Animal

C

—

—

C

C

—

C

C

—

—

—

No

Cha

Heal

—

—

C

C

—

—

C

C

—

—

—

Yes

Wis

Intimidate

C

C

—

—

C

C

—

C

C

C

—

Yes

Cha

Knowledge (arcana)

—

C

C

—

—

—

—

—

—

C

C

No

Int

Knowledge (dungeoneering)

—

C

—

—

C

—

—

C

C

—

C

No

Int

Knowledge (engineering)

—

C

—

—

C

—

—

—

—

—

C

No

Int

Knowledge (geography)

—

C

—

C

—

—

—

C

—

—

C

No

Int

Knowledge (history)

—

C

C

—

—

C

—

—

—

—

C

No

Int

Knowledge (local)

—

C

—

—

—

—

—

—

C

—

C

No

Int

Knowledge (nature)

C

C

—

C

—

—

—

C

—

—

C

No

Int

Knowledge (nobility)

—

C

C

—

—

—

C

—

—

—

C

No

Int

Knowledge (planes)

—

C

C

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

C

No

Int

Knowledge (religion)

—

C

C

—

—

C

C

—

—

—

C

No

Int

Linguistics

—

C

C

—

—

—

—

—

C

—

C

No

Int

Perception

C

C

—

C

—

C

—

C

C

—

—

Yes

Wis

Perform

—

C

—

—

—

C

—

—

C

—

—

Yes

Cha

Profession

—

C

C

C

C

C

C

C

C

C

C

No

Wis

Ride

C

—

—

C

C

C

C

C

—

—

—

Yes

Dex*

Sense Motive

—

C

C

—

—

C

C

—

C

—

—

Yes

Wis

Sleight of Hand

—

C

—

—

—

—

—

—

C

—

—

No

Dex*

Spellcraft

—

C

C

C

—

—

C

C

—

C

C

No

Int

Stealth

—

C

—

—

—

C

—

C

C

—

—

Yes

Dex*

Survival

C

—

—

C

C

—

—

C

—

—

—

Yes

Wis

Swim

C

—

—

C

C

C

—

C

C

—

—

Yes

Str*

Use Magic Device

Pathfinder has one of the more simplified lists of skills, there's only about two dozen there, but I think that we can trim some of the fat down even more.  So let's break each skill down and talk about what it does.

Acrobatics - how well you can balance, jump, etc.
Appraise - can you tell how much something's worth? (Useless, easily could be combined with craft/profession)
Bluff - how well can you lie/tell stories (I think we could dump this with something else)
Climb - Really? We could dump this with something else
Craft - I like it, it gives tons of options but I think we could combine it with Profession easily
Diplomacy - Overpowered but I like it
Disable Device - Traps and the like, I think we could combine it with lockpicking
Disguise - We could dump this with Bluff
Escape Artist - ...Eh it's specific but I think we could dump it somewhere
Handle Animal - A nice skill, not to broad, not too niche, let's keep it
Heal -  Much needed
Intimidate - We could combine this with diplomacy, once again, a bit overpowered
Knowledges - This will get its own section, we could easily combine some of them
Linguistics - A neat one, like Handle Animal, not too niche, not too broad
Perception - Very nice skill, let's make it passive though
Perform - Nice for the bards, but not a lot of other classes take it, maybe make it profession?
Profession - Nice and broad, essentially the area where you can make up skills and add a lot of flavor
Ride - Dump with Handle Animal
Sense Motive - Eh ... This could be combined somewhere, although I like it
Sleight of Hand - very specific, could be combined
Stealth - Like it overall, maybe combined?
Survival - A nice solid skill, not too broad, not to niche (eliminates need for knowledge nature/geography)
Swim - ...Seriously?
Use Magic Device - Combine it with Knowledge Arcane, I never understood why this was seperate

So here's how I think we could break the skills down:

Acrobatics - Keep
Athletics - Jump, Climb, Swim, Run, etc.
Dishonesty - Combine bluff and Disguise
Negotiation - Sense Motive, Intimidate, and Sense Motive (tone down what they can do)
Thievery - Disable Device and Sleight of Hand
Breaking and Entering (need a different name) - Lock pick and Escape Artist
Handle Animal - add Ride to its original use
Heal - keep the same
Knowledges (see below)
Linguistics - Speak language/read script
Perception - (make passive, aka, make a stat like initiative)
Profession - Appraise, Craft, and Perform, along with original use
Stealth - Move Silently, Hide, etc.
Survival - Add knowledge nature/geography

That's 14 skills, 13 if we remove Perception and make it a stat.

Now the Knowledges, for those you have:
- Arcane - Keep it, add the UMD to it
- Dungeoneering - Eh ... combine with engineering or survival
- Engineering - Add Dungeoneering to it
- Geography - Survival
- History - Add nobility to it
- Local - I like it, let's keep it
- Nature - Survival
- Nobility - Give to History
- Planes - We don't have them, this is gone
- Religion - add UMD to it

So Knowledges we now have are:
- Arcane
- Engineering
- History
- Local
- Religion

Cool, let's change the names of them a little so we're not directly copying, and hell, let's not call them knowledges, here's what we have:

- Magic (arcane)
- Science (engineering)
- History
- Connections
- Religion

Maybe edit the names out a little bit, but now we essentially have the 14 base skills, plus the 5 knowledges for a total of 19 skills (18 if we cut out Perception).  So what does that mean to us?  Well, my suggestion is that when choosing a class (if we have it) each class comes with 6-8 skills, and players choose 3-4 to be trained in (depending on class), this will force them to have a nice mix of skills and even in a 4 person party, they will not have a character with all the skills, making it more realistic as they will run into some roadblocks every once in a while.

Let me know what you think.