Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

metaquad4 wrote:Honestly, as the number of skills are increased, increasing the skill points available is a fairly good idea.

Nope. You know what I'll do if I get more skillpoints as, say, a tiefling sneak? I"ll put them into sneak skills. Because even with 18 int, it is hard if not impossible to max them all.

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What WOULD make sense, however is to make a secondary set of skill points for knowledge only. Those could be used for knowledge skills, but not for any standard skills.

That's very far from traditional D&D, and I only saw one server that implemented something like that. (They had separate set of skillpoints for crafting system. Also they had completely custom crafting system).

If the system is kept, each PRC should be given an increase in skill points.
That's all I am saying.

Not a fan of the new system, simply because it is confusing.

Example A:

Wizard X has high Spellcraft and the ability to cast 8th level spells but is relatively weak in Arcana Lore. Furthermore, let's say this character might be proficient in Arcana lore but not Planes Lore and therefore when he casts a spell pulling elementals from another plane.......he will be frowned upon by peers and the DM of the event?

Exampe B:

Ranger Y has high Survival Skill and high Geography Skill but not high Nature Skill. So, he is now in a deep forest setting.....is he proficient in hunting his prey/enemy, or is he suddenly confused and lost?

I love the idea of the lore split, I think it has the chance to really create a sense of emmersion. I do believe it needs to be streamlined a bit more. The game wasn't designed to have this many skill options.

Solutions:

A.) Give more skill points to each PRC class, 2+ should now be 4+, 4+ should now be 6+ etc...
B.) Streamline and combine some of the new Lore Skills, Arcana & Planes, Geography & Nature, etc.....

Bad Omens wrote:The game wasn't designed to have this many skill options.

Actually, it was designed to have this much and more. In PnP, along with all the skills we have right now, you also have Handle Animal, Profession (divided up like Knowledge), Craft (divided up like Knowledge), Speak Language, Climb, Swim, Balance, Jump... and more.

You are not meant to be able to maximize a wide variety of skills. Or even a couple skills. If you do maximize, you are in turn not supposed to have a broad range of skills. Be the best sneak-thief in the world, sure, but you better be content with that being about the only thing you can do.

There is already an avenue for people who want more skill points than they have: Put more points into Intelligence. For every two more points in Int, you gain an extra point at each level. This adds up.

Rhifox wrote:Be the best sneak-thief in the world, sure, but you better be content with that being about the only thing you can do.

"I can remove traps. I wish I knew how to set them."

*Random Tiefling Rogue

i have one like that... however when traps suck there is no reason to set them, only to get them out of the way

either way yea there are a crap load of skills and even if they were added people would probably start ignoring them bc it means there is little you can actually do, especially when most skills are for things that hardly matter, like swimming

You are not meant to be able to maximize a wide variety of skills. Or even a couple skills. If you do maximize, you are in turn not supposed to have a broad range of skills. Be the best sneak-thief in the world, sure, but you better be content with that being about the only thing you can do.

This, You cant be an expert at everything. Also for knowledge skills 1 - 10 is basic knowledge, 10 - 20 is uncommon knowledge and 20 - 30 is rare knowledge that's including the d20 you roll. So a character with no knowledge and no int still has a chance to recall uncommon bits of information.

Mhm. And you can take ten with knowledge rolls, which means 1 rank is all you need to answer questions on most basic things in your field.

Ariella wrote:

You are not meant to be able to maximize a wide variety of skills. Or even a couple skills. If you do maximize, you are in turn not supposed to have a broad range of skills. Be the best sneak-thief in the world, sure, but you better be content with that being about the only thing you can do.

This, You cant be an expert at everything. Also for knowledge skills 1 - 10 is basic knowledge, 10 - 20 is uncommon knowledge and 20 - 30 is rare knowledge that's including the d20 you roll. So a character with no knowledge and no int still has a chance to recall uncommon bits of information.

Alright, so what does Knowledge roll of 50 represent? Or Perform roll of 70? Or lock with DC 40?

Basically, it would be nice to have some sort of official (DM-written) guidelines on that....

Also, a lot of people subscribe to belief (I don't support that idea...) that "we're half our level", which would imply double DCs. Which makes things more confusing.

NegInfinity wrote:Alright, so what does Knowledge roll of 50 represent? Or Perform roll of 70? Or lock with DC 40?

A Knowledge roll of 50 would be essentially learning the existence of something that all of history has forgotten and of which no sources of info exists anywhere in the world. The knowledge essentially springs into your mind without the need for a Divination spell.

A Perform roll of 70 would allow you to take someone who literally wants to kill you, and make them your best friend with one performance. At rolls of that amount you are essentially performing Charm/Dominate spells without using magic.

A lock DC of 40 is considered an Amazing Lock and is essentially the highest possible lock. Rolls above this amount typically dictate the speed of the unlock, with +50 over the DC meaning you literally touch the lock and it opens. Locks with actual DCs higher than that aren't just amazing, it'd be the equivalent of unlocking a "door" straight through a wall, or getting through a repulsion effect specifically tailored against you, or similar miraculous feats.

Epic skill rolls are essentially magical effects. Which is why adding 10 to the DC of most rolls to account for the level 30 cap is not necessarily a terrible idea. More than +10 to the DC though would be bad and just lead to skill inflation and forcing people to maximize, discouraging spreading out points.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/usingSkills.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm


Obviously, local DM decisions overrule this, but DnD already does provide a fairly good amount of examples for what skill rank is needed to do what, and it's typically lower than people think it is.

Rhifox wrote:

NegInfinity wrote:Alright, so what does Knowledge roll of 50 represent? Or Perform roll of 70? Or lock with DC 40?

A Knowledge roll of 50 would be essentially learning the existence of something that all of history has forgotten and of which no sources of info exists anywhere in the world. The knowledge essentially springs into your mind without the need for a Divination spell.

A Perform roll of 70 would allow you to take someone who literally wants to kill you, and make them your best friend with one performance. At rolls of that amount you are essentially performing Charm/Dominate spells without using magic.

A lock DC of 40 is considered an Amazing Lock and is essentially the highest possible lock. Rolls above this amount typically dictate the speed of the unlock, with +50 over the DC meaning you literally touch the lock and it opens. Locks with actual DCs higher than that aren't just amazing, it'd be the equivalent of unlocking a "door" straight through a wall, or getting through a repulsion effect specifically tailored against you, or similar miraculous feats.

Epic skill rolls are essentially magical effects. Which is why adding 10 to the DC of most rolls to account for the level 30 cap is not necessarily a terrible idea. More than +10 to the DC though would be bad and just lead to skill inflation and forcing people to maximize, discouraging spreading out points.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/usingSkills.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm


Obviously, local DM decisions overrule this, but DnD already does provide a fairly good amount of examples for what skill rank is needed to do what, and it's typically lower than people think it is.

You wrote a good explanation but after reading it I for some reason felt sorry for my character that wandered into old dungeon full of rats, found a locked door, rolled 48 on open lock and couldn't open the door (because door DC was 50). Said character then found alternate route, got into locked room, in the room there was nothing, but two empty chests, however both of them trapped. I also remember DC45 traps on chests with broken bottles in them.

...

I think that in this kind of event a character could consider that someone or something is messing with them.

In my case I think char just felt a deep regret - because it was not possible to to steal and sell that door with such amazing lock on it....

That is what is meant by skill inflation, yeah. Arbitrary raising of DCs to stupidly high levels in areas and DM events because people on NWN servers so frequently maximize skills instead of spreading out. It's the Skill equivalent of designing areas solely with powerbuilds in mind and is something that should be stopped IMO.

If this means that people start 'capping out' their skills, discovering the threshold at which they get max use and then not putting points above that (such as 20 ranks in open lock since you can take 20 to open any lock encountered), then that's good. People should be incentivized to broaden their talents. In PnP, legitimately epic characters like Elminster and Szass Tam have their highest knowledge skill at roughly 20. That doesn't mean they have low knowledge, it means they have very high knowledge as it means they can take 10 on answering the hardest questions in their fields.

There should be points at which putting further points into a single skill is a waste. Obviously, "pvp" skills will never really have a cap (because everyone always wants to beat the people with the opposing skill), but things like knowledges/lores or open lock or so on should not have DCs made higher just to limit the amount of people who can pass the check to skill minmaxers.

Ariella wrote:

You are not meant to be able to maximize a wide variety of skills. Or even a couple skills. If you do maximize, you are in turn not supposed to have a broad range of skills. Be the best sneak-thief in the world, sure, but you better be content with that being about the only thing you can do.

This, You cant be an expert at everything. Also for knowledge skills 1 - 10 is basic knowledge, 10 - 20 is uncommon knowledge and 20 - 30 is rare knowledge that's including the d20 you roll. So a character with no knowledge and no int still has a chance to recall uncommon bits of information.

Actually, you can't know more than common knowledge (dc10) if your skill is untrained.

An untrained Knowledge check is simply an Intelligence check. Without actual training, you know only common knowledge (DC 10 or lower).

First, this new Lore system will not be going away.

Second, it is very much a work-in-progress. We will be adding building blocks one at a time. Synergy, items with bonus', etc. will be added.

One point of this was to get more-like PnP. Another is to remove remove incentive/support for supposed know-it-all PCs... "My Lore is 40+, I know everything!" Well, no your PC doesn't. Others already pointed out the DCs in PnP. Those are what we are aiming towards and what I believe the DMs will use in their events, and we will eventually code-for in dialog-based NPC interactions.

For those playing Bards, you maybe noticed, or not until now, that your Bardic Knowledge is no longer boosting your Lore. This is a spin-off of the Lore-split. Re-working BK is also a work-in-progress.

Rhifox wrote:That is what is meant by skill inflation, yeah. Arbitrary raising of DCs to stupidly high levels in areas and DM events because people on NWN servers so frequently maximize skills instead of spreading out. It's the Skill equivalent of designing areas solely with powerbuilds in mind and is something that should be stopped IMO.

If this means that people start 'capping out' their skills, discovering the threshold at which they get max use and then not putting points above that (such as 20 ranks in open lock since you can take 20 to open any lock encountered), then that's good. People should be incentivized to broaden their talents. In PnP, legitimately epic characters like Elminster and Szass Tam have their highest knowledge skill at roughly 20. That doesn't mean they have low knowledge, it means they have very high knowledge as it means they can take 10 on answering the hardest questions in their fields.

There should be points at which putting further points into a single skill is a waste. Obviously, "pvp" skills will never really have a cap (because everyone always wants to beat the people with the opposing skill), but things like knowledges/lores or open lock or so on should not have DCs made higher just to limit the amount of people who can pass the check to skill minmaxers.

Good in theory, but I think you are forgetting a lot of builds in your comment about how people shouldn't worry about 'maxing' skills... Mechanically builds go from 'somewhat viable, but still really a pita to play' to 'yeah, no' without maxed skills. Here are a few case studies to think about:

1. Rogues without max hide, max MS, 30 points in tumble...without these a Rogue type would go from just really being annoying to play (and survive) to being unplayable. Can they give up the AC from tumble? sure, but items that grant bonuses to stealth grant lesser bonuses to AC... Apparently it's ok to have +4 AC, +3 (or 4!!!) stat boots, but boots that grant +6 MS (or +3/+3 H/MS) can only grant +1 AC... Same for amulets of natural armor and deflection hoods. So you really need your AC from any source you can find, especially when your assassin spells or wands/potions are easily dispelled.

2. Casters that want any epic spells must max spell craft, spell casters also aren't going to do really well without max concentration... Wizards and Bards should be ok to still put max/nearly max in one of the lore skills and maybe get 10-15 in a few more, but Sorcs, Clerics, FS's, Druids and Spirit Shaman's are going to have a tough time of it.

I love the new lore system, but advocating that folks should just not max any skills is ridiculous. Stuff like open lock most people know you can get away with a very small amount, but if you want to open every lock you need a LOT more, so it is not really feasible to go to 20... You pretty much stop between 1-10 depending on the build or you go up to 25-33, no real middle ground. Disable Device, kind of need to max, search, maybe can be ok at around 20. Point being a lot of changes would be required to the server to allow for skills like disable device, spellcraft, hide/movesilently (and of course listen/spot), concentration, tumble and others to be 'ok' at lower than max value.

chad878262 wrote:1. Rogues without max hide, max MS, 30 points in tumble...without these a Rogue type would go from just really being annoying to play (and survive) to being unplayable. Can they give up the AC from tumble? sure, but items that grant bonuses to stealth grant lesser bonuses to AC... Apparently it's ok to have +4 AC, +3 (or 4!!!) stat boots, but boots that grant +6 MS (or +3/+3 H/MS) can only grant +1 AC... Same for amulets of natural armor and deflection hoods. So you really need your AC from any source you can find, especially when your assassin spells or wands/potions are easily dispelled.

Rogues maximizing certain skills is fine and expected. It's why they get lots of skill points per level. Maximizing hide, MS, and Tumble should still leave you with plenty of points for other things. I mean, on Tarina I can keep maxed listen/spot with only 12 int and much lower skill points per level, while still having enough points left over to get several lore skills up to 5-15 each, several other skills around 10, and some ranks in a few cross-class skills.

I do sacrifice Spellcraft and Tumble, which saves me about 45 points in total. High Spellcraft/Tumble don't make much IC sense for the character regardless of their benefits so they're an acceptable sacrifice.

2. Casters that want any epic spells must max spell craft

Epic Spells are an effect of epic skill. Ergo they absolutely should require epic levels of Spellcraft. Epic Spells are the Spellcraft equivalent to Balancing on a cloud or Swimming up a waterfall and so should require significant investment and possibly having to sacrifice other skills to achieve.

spell casters also aren't going to do really well without max concentration...

You only really "need" 23 concentration to be able to leave Defensive Casting on permanently, and even that isn't a requirement. Higher concentration than that is nice but the best defense to spell disruption is to avoid getting hit at all through sufficient buffs/summons/party members, not casting through damage. Tarina is the first caster where I've actually even put that many points into concentration. On my wizards I normally don't even bother with it because if I'm taking any damage I am doing something wrong.

Wizards and Bards should be ok to still put max/nearly max in one of the lore skills and maybe get 10-15 in a few more, but Sorcs, Clerics, FS's, Druids and Spirit Shaman's are going to have a tough time of it.

"Max/nearly max in one of the lore skills"

You should not be needing to max any lore skill. You shouldn't need more than around 20 in any one lore skill. If any DMs are asking for DC checks of 40-50+ in lore then they are contributing to the problem of over-inflated DCs.

I love the new lore system, but advocating that folks should just not max any skills is ridiculous. Stuff like open lock most people know you can get away with a very small amount, but if you want to open every lock you need a LOT more

There should be no lock DC that goes above 40, was my point.

Point being a lot of changes would be required to the server to allow for skills like disable device, spellcraft, hide/movesilently (and of course listen/spot), concentration, tumble and others to be 'ok' at lower than max value.

No reason for spellcraft, concentration, or tumble to be changed at all. I did not say that every skill is okay at low values, but where DnD already has recommend DCs for certain tasks those DCs shouldn't be getting inflated arbitrarily.

As I said, some skills, in particular opposing skills (Social vs Countersocial (IE Bluff vs Sense Motive) or Sense vs Countersense (IE Spot vs Hide)) do benefit from being maxed and it's fine to expect them to be maximized. But people should not feel like they have to maximize every single skill for it to be useful, and we should avoid encouraging that by not inflating DCs on things where DnD already has set values. People should feel that having 5 points in certain skills, like lore, is still a worthwhile investment, not a waste of points.