Since we can now add PRC's using just overrides, I was wondering if we could finally fix some base classes that really do deserve a certain skill to become a class skill.
For instance, If I want to create a really influential fighter that is big and scary, or is really good at talking people down. My first idea and no doubt others will be "I guess I'll take one rogue level for social skills", which is great but you also get a feat you might not think will fit with your character (Unless he can sneak attack in full plate >_>)
A sorcerer is meant to be treated with suspicion and caution, rumours say that he does deals with demons to get his powers. People would be scared of him, not when his intimidate skill is a lowly 4 because of limited progression due to cross classing.
Theres plenty of other arguable cases for what classes should gain skills as a class skills, but at 2AM I cant really think of them at the minute. What I will say though that if such a thing was implemented, after consulting the good ScottyB [DM], it would take a few seconds to download since the overrides are just textfiles.
I'm not sure how much work it'll take to implement such a thing though. So thoughts, comments, additions and the usual Trolling is welcomed.
Not sure if it's possible. The addition of new PRCs is entirely different, I believe. Why not take SF: Skill in whatever you want, and stack items with the relevant effect?
Was brought up at great length earlier today by yours truly. >_>
A fine idea though, Scotty said it may be possible.
I think social skills would be a good way to diversify characters, and perhaps the DMs could take them into account more often. If it's a class skill, there's less of an excuse for playing politics with 0 Persuade.
Barbarian: Bluff
Cleric: Intimidate
Bard: Intimidate
Druid: Intimidate
Fighter: Bluff, Intimidate, Persuade
Monk: Bluff, Intimidate
Ranger: Bluff, Intimidate
Sorceror: Bluff, Intimidate, Persuade
Wizard: Bluff, Intimidate, Persuade
Some explanations:
Barbarians (thinking Conan here) can be crafty, but they usually aren't very good with the whole diplomacy thing.
Clerics in general aren't very deceptive, with the exceptions being specific to certain deities.
Bards can sing scary songs, or garotte you with a mandolin string.
Druids want you offa the land; being all wise and balance-oriented, they probably wouldn't be deliberately deceptive, though their persuasion may be convoluted.
Fighter: The Class of Opportunity
Monks can be so messed up with zen riddles and being better than you. Or just scare you by killing your friend with their pinky.
Paladin: if you want Bluff and Intimidate, go Gray Guard
Rangers walk the wilderness and are more a part of the untamed world than most classes, other than Druid and maybe Monk. They tend to distrustingly come across other people more than druids though, hence the bluff, but no persuade.
Sor/Wiz, making the universe bend a knee since -3200 DR.
ScottyB can chime in, but the problem with this suggestion is it would -require- a .2da file since you wouldn't be able to play a base class without it. It's okay for the prestige classes because those are special enough that we expect you to get the extra content to get the most out of your application.
No thanks, then. We're no longer hakfree if we require 2da to login.
You would not require the 2DA to play. You just won't have Bluff/Intimidate/Persuade as a class skill (it'll still be available as cross-class if you don't download it).
Obviously, classes with Bluff/Intimidate/Persuade as class skills will still have them as class skills.
How would we validate characters, some who have had to use two skill points to raise a non-class skill, and others who have had to use just one?
??
:(
Since EFU doesn't use the standard ELC, I don't think this will be a problem strife. It will require some tweaking to the ELC system almost definately, but this should be possible.
As long as it stays in overrides, this is do-able without required downloads.
It shouldn't require any tweaking and would be compatible with standard BioWare ELC.
Enforce Legal Characters only cares about whether or not a character has something they shouldn't have. It will overlook the lack of an expected feat (because multiclassed characters do not gain double entries of proficiency feats, for example).
Example: You can take the Purple Dragon Knight PrC without having our custom override. You will require 2 Ride and Mounted Combat. Mounted Combat is required by the client's version, and it's an acceptable feat (on the list of options) for meeting the server's Knight PrC req. The client cares about having the 2 Ride, but the server doesn't even check for that.
How this works with skills: If you have, on the client, something that is a class skill and invest in it, but the server expects it to be cross-class for you, you will end up with too many skill points. HOWEVER, this is the reverse situation. If you have it as cross class and you invest 2 skill points for 1 rank, then the server doesn't care - you don't have more skill points that it calculates you can use. It doesn't care where they went, because they didn't make you better than you should be. And if the client and the server share class skills, then the calculations will add up properly; you'll still be "below the radar" so to speak.
So, for example, we would have some fighters able to take intimidate and persuade without cross classing, and others that would have to use twice as many skill points for the same effect.
I like the general idea, but unless it can be done equally for everyone without haks, I don't think it is for the best. Some of us, namely me, can't even get the current overrides to work, purely out of my own computer ignorance, nothing wrong with the overrides, I believe. The more we add to the game for some, the more we are taking away, for others.
My three cents worth.
It's not that much of an imbalance. It just lets more diplomatic or threatening chars have the points to back it up and make checks.
The current Domain overrides are far more of an advantage to have than that.
Also, Clerics really should get Bluff IMO, as the Trickery domain power was changed to give Bluff not Persuade bonus points when active, but a Trickery cleric can't take it.
I'm definitely in favour, I have a Wizard who maxes out Persuade cross-class, has 14 CH and it would have been really nice to have had him straight class it from the beginning.
Seems we're reaching the limits of ADD class system...
I'd love to see Fighters with Intimidate and Taunt, and Clerics with Bluff and Intimidate. If this is easy to hook up, it'd be rad.
If this is possible I would be completely for it.
It's already been said by your resident .2da pros (me and scottyB, imo) that it's 100% possible. The only issue was character validation, and apparently that is a nonissue!
Why not left the standart classes alone and implement new ones from prc and DnD ?
Because, Tooh, the problem is that if you want to play a character with any sort of social skills, you can't do it with a fighter, ranger, sorc or wizard well without cross-classing or multiclassing, and other classes are limited in what they can choose. Yet, all classes get crafting skills.
Unless Forgotten Realms is a world of socially inept engineers, that seems kind of odd that to pick an example, my 14 Charisma Wizard who relies on diplomacy and persuasion to try and create a better reputation for Necromancy can't take any more skills in Persuade than in, say, Open Lock.
Again, Toril isn't Nemedia.
Why not buy/craft stuff with feats or skills (like evasion, +10 persuade, etc) ?
If want play a char with social skills, multiclass or choice better.
Do new 'clones' of classes with open skills and feats, but leave the originals as is.
Eh?
Tooh, you're a little confusing. Yes, it's possible to get DM loot to help you with cross-class skills, I know, because I've had chars who have received such stuff.
The point is that cross-classing shouldn't be required to gain *social* skills that anyone can really learn. Why would my fighter need to train as a scout or musician in order to be persuasive when his background was of a refined noble duelist? Why should a l4 Rogue be more Intimidating than a level 8 Wizard who's holding up the spell component for Phantasmal Killer and growling "I just have to say the last three words of this spell and you die... screaming"
This would be really sweet if it could be added.
Search for wizards or bust imo
>_>
<_<
Kiaring, you're wack. I could elaborate but - I won't.
Quote from: Caddies;106248I'd love to see Fighters with Intimidate and Taunt, and Clerics with Bluff and Intimidate. If this is easy to hook up, it'd be rad.
Caddies! You're wack too. TAUNT?
Everyone should have access to Persuade/Intimidate/Bluff. Fighters should definitely get access to Taunt.
Nah, Taunt is a combat ability, and a balancing point between Fighters and other melee classes. Bards can use taunt to make up for the lower AB and use their high CH well. Paladins and Barbs get it, but not all the Fighter feats.
Pure Fighters are already powerful, the last thing they need is Taunt. You may as well give Rogues Discipline so they can do better in melee.
vatos better cc.
Social skills is one thing.
There is a reason fighters don't get taunt.
And that is to balance them with Barbarians.
Since they get a lot more feats and can use heavy armor.
Taunt for fighters would be a no.. NO!
I do agree with social skills though.
Do it.
Edit: September 2006? Christ.
I think all classes should have access to all social skills. Aldrick cross-classes bluff, because it makes sense for the character. However, due to lack of skill points, I can't also invest in persuade, which also makes sense for him.
Dont think classes have limits, think that are containers.
In normal game mechanics, ever will need high INT to spare points in social skills or we will get social bonus points too ?
Maybe a new class with any skills and feats free for choice ?
Quote from: Aldrick Tanith;106392I think all classes should have access to all social skills.
Agreed. Adding certain base social skills to some classes and not others because of stereotypes defeats the purpose of the suggestion (I agree that Taunt shouldn't be considered a social skill).
I also want to point out the obvious: giving social skills to all classes gives no combat benefit. They are perhaps the least useful skills you can have on EfU, outside of perhaps Appraise, Craft Armor and Craft Weapon.
Anyone taking -any- social skill or the previous three mentioned are doing so for RP reasons. Not for mechanical benefits.
i think its mechanically beneficial to have enough charisma and persuade to convince a dm controlled npc to not eat you
I am not entirely sold on this, as it sort of seems unnessecary. Making the effort to cross class a skill is already reflected. The only time these rolls matter are for DM events. There is, to my knowledge, one scripted social skill check in all of EFU:A. A DM can on the fly adjust the check/correct NPC reactions to you based on the points you've put into the skills if they see fit to do that.
Derflaro / Gippy-
Why can't a Wizard or a Fighter be persuasive? What is it about their class that somehow inherently makes being persuasive more difficult than say the following classes: druid, monk, pale master and shifter? What about these classes is more persuasive than a wizard?
That is the crux of my argument in favor of social skills for all. It makes no more or less sense than giving crafting skills to all classes, and it does not inherently create a problem for balance. They simply are not generally useful skills. I can count on one hand the number of times a DM has even allowed me to use a social related skill. (And one of those times the DM would only allow me to intimidate, and not persuade - even though my PC only had points in persuade.)
Almost every DM skill check I've done was for: listen, spot, lore and craft trap. Those are the big "DM skills" - which are also each highly useful for non-DM related activities, with the exception of craft trap.
Wizards are probably the opposite of social creatures considering the usual lot are old nerds who studied all their life.
Being a druid/shifter that can change into an animal/anything and spitting acid or whatever is a pretty cool party trick. So is having a arm full of dead or being able to do teh splits as a monk or throwing toothpicks impaling flies or something.
Most wizards have are wrinkles and magic tricks for the most part. Fighters are probably people who suck at trade skills and need to use a sword to make a living. So they are social losers unless they start hitting it up in the CHA stats, imo.
I mean this can lead to like having taunt being for all classes because any class can insult people. Which could lead to uh, issues.
You can still be /good/ in social situations as any class. You can cross class them. It's not like wizards CANNOT take social skills. Yet it makes sense for say, a rogue, to be able to rock the social skills when that's what he does - he's a smooth talker. Some classes do inherently focus on social skills more. For the rest, there's cross classing, and that's okay too.
I'm anti this. I know, I know, I've been calling for druids to have H/MS forever, but in the end I think that the game balances itself quite nicely. Be a man, suck it up and cross-class those points.
For the record, I fully support Gippy on the cross-classing argument. Specifically with the social skills I don't mind all that much, since they are mechanically inconsequential and never used much by us, but I am indeed against changing other skills. Except Ride, I guess, because we don't use that at all.
As a counter argument to Aldrick's, however, instead of asking why most classes do not get these skills as class skills, ask why some classes do. The reason everyone gets the Craft set as class skills is because Craft is one skill in PnP (same with Lore vs. Knowledge).
Taunt is not strictly a social skill, and only one of my high-Taunt characters has ever used insults for taunting. The rest have used combat manuevers to draw the attention of a target, provocative movement rather than words. This is why it can work on all enemies.
Also. I often use classes (most often Fighters and Rogues) to be things that no class covers. Country doctors, lawyers, barmaids, and so on. They often ended up with things they didn't need - especially fighters, because I ran out of Skill Focus social skills to invest in and had to take, like, Disarm - and they often couldn't be as good at what they were supposed to be good at.
I also think we're giving DMs too much credit about recognizing an investment in a cross-class skill. First of all, a DC is a DC and if you can't beat it, you can't beat it; or that'll be someone's thinking, somewhere. Second, DMs are busy, especially in a situation where dice rolls were just made, so trying to make sure that your investment considered, since you made it to the detriment of your mechanical usefulness, may be construed as whining (or there'll be a fear of that, anyways). Third, that INT-based rogue invested in social skills at level 1 because they had extra points lying around, not because they were interested in being a diplomatic character, but they will still be more influential than your well-bred, diligently-trained magocrat.
me ragequits until this suggestion is implemented
Necromancy, but-
I was thinking-
Nobody uses Craft Armor/Weapon/Traps, right?
How about going into the game files and renaming these skills (in an optional download) into Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate, and grey out the default skills? Now everyone could have them as a class skill easily!
(No idea how viable or possible this is! But it'd take a lot of time going through the module and changing every check to the "new" skills.)
That is a really creative idea, although unfortunately I think that it would just be too confusing for new players.
I say DO IT!
With the EFUSS secondary skills, I don't it's all that useful anymore.