D&D 3E/3.5 ISO Sources: New Uses For Old Skills

_Michael_ said:

I love that, and was going to do that, anyway, I just hadn't put it to paper yet, as it were. That is neater than anything I would have likely come up with--love it. Thank you!

I might actually base it on that skill, but I think I'm going to keep the bonus tied to the number of ranks possessed so that way, it's more a reflection of what you truly know versus depending on a roll that can vary wildly from one check to the next in terms of DCs based on situational variables.

Click to expand...

IMHO, the KD mechanism works best for skills that have multiple subcategories, like Profession or Craft. That said, while I like KD (and other oddball feats) and use them frequently, I can also see that basing expanded use of skills based on feats could be poorly viewed by players, given the 3.X Feat economy.

With that noted, using a Feat to expand the uses of skills would require either doing a little work and expanding the umbrellas of the more focused skills, OR design the Skill-enhancing Feats cover multiple skills. An obvious candidate for the latter approach would be the “thiefly”/“roguish” skills. There might also be some overlap between such Feats.

This is why I think just expanding the uses of skills without necessarily tying them to feats gives the players greater choices when it comes to niche skills and customization. Plus, in a low-magic setting, such expansion offers greater choices in combat without having to use magic. Higher DCs for the more extreme uses of the skills mean necessarily that the character must have a lot more skill ranks to pull such cinematic stunts off. And if I combine that with using skill tiers at every 5 ranks (Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert and Master), I can offer further talents for those willing to invest so many skill ranks to achieve truly epic-level exploits, again, further steering the characters away from relying solely upon magic users to save the day. Yeah, it will likely be a much more nitty-gritty system requiring more record-keeping (especially for classes like Alchemists and those that dabble in magic or witchcraft without being a full-fledged magic user), but to me, those details are what make players more invested and involved in world-building.

Boating, Navigation, and Research are the only non-Craft/Knowledge/Profession skills I added. The others are all in those aforementioned categories, and are really to provide simple structural framework that will offer quick resolution for when a player wants to pull a rabbit out of his hat with some stylish stunt. Much of the expansion in those three skills is also for NPC detail to offer better and more diverse shops and tradesmen available to the characters or to serve as background props. That's why I love the idea of specializing in those skills in niches that are often sought out by adventurers.