[d20house]

Skill Changes

A few tweaks to try to make skill costs match their utility in most of my games.

• Appraise (1/2 price skill)
• Balance (1/2 price skill)
• Climb (1/2 price skill)
• Craft (1/2 price skill).
  Craft is actually 10 separate skills based on the medium:
  • Alchemy (poison/venoms; drugs/antitoxins; marvelous substances)
  • Disguises (makeup, prosthetics, clothing)
  • Leather (armorsmithing(leather); cobbling; leatherworking)
  • Mechanical (clockwork; firing mechanisms; locksmithing; trapmaking)
  • Metal (armorsmithing(metal); blacksmithing; weaponsmithing(metal))
  • Paper (bookbinding; calligraphy; document forgery; papermaking; painting; printing)
  • Precious (fine statuary; gemcutting; jewelry)
  • Stone (inscribing; pottery; sculpting; stonemasonry)
  • Textile (basketweaving; rope-making; sewing; weaving)
  • Wood (bowmaking; carpentry; carving; shipmaking)
  Very simple items are DC10 and take a couple hours. Simple items are DC15 and generally take a day. Most complex or masterwork items are DC20 and take a week. Spend 1/3 the cost in materials. Good success shortens the item; on failure half the time is lost; on a bad failure, half the materials are also lost.
• Decipher Script → Speak Language
• Disguise
  Instead, use Craft(Disguise) (vs Spot), or Perform(Acting) or Bluff (vs Sense Motive) to act in character.
• Escape Artist (1/2 price skill)
• Forgery.
  Instead, use Craft(Paper) to create forged documents or Appraise to detect.
• Jump (1/2 price skill)
• Knowledge(Architecture & Engineering).
  Instead, use Craft(Stone) to appraise quality or Knowledge(History) to date or determine style.
• Knowledge(Local)
  Instead, use Knowledge(Society) for living persons and social details or Knowledge(Geography) for physical details.
• Knowledge(Nobility)
  Instead, use Knowledge(Society) for current nobility or Knowledge(History) for past lineages.
• Knowledge(Society) (new skill)
  This is essentially the old Knowledge(local) skill: legends, personalities, celebrity, nobility, inhabitants, laws, customs, etiquette, traditions, humanoids.
• (Open Lock) → Disable Device
  Mark the ranks field of the Open Lock skill with "D.D.". You cannot buy ranks of Open Lock directly; instead, calculate your bonus from your Disable Device ranks. Open Lock is based on DEX, as normal. Open Lock counts as a separate skill for things like Skill Focus feats, etc.
• Perform (1/2 price skill)
  
• Profession (1/2 price skill)
  
• (Ride) → Handle Animal
  Mark the ranks field of the Ride skill with "H.A.". You cannot buy ranks of Ride; instead, calculate your bonus from your Handle Animal ranks. Ride is based on DEX, as normal. Ride counts as a separate skill for things like Skill Focus feats, etc.
• Search
  is frequently made as a passive check by the DM now, especially with regards to traps and secret doors: Take 5 if moving normal speed or Take 10 if 5' per round.
• (Speak Language)
  This skill technically covers reading and writing as much as speaking (but name kept for backwards compatiblity). Use this skill when attempting to identify a language or script you do not know, or when trying to decode/translate such a message (provided you have sufficient context to even attempt to do so). See Adventuring: Language.
• Swim (1/2 price skill)
• Use Magic Device → Spellcraft.
  Rogues and Bards (and now others) can use this skill for the same UMD purposes. Those without magic, such as rogues, may not be able to Spellcraft for much else.
• Use Rope.
  Instead, use Escape Artist if binding a foe, or Climb if part of climbing, or Profession if part of some mundane task.

Class Skills

Since the skill list changed a bit (7 crossed off the character sheet; 9 made 1/2 price; 2 dependent on another skill's ranks) and a few tweaks (Craft and Knowledge, mostly), here's how the class skills work out. Those marked ^½ are half priced.

• Clerics: +Sense Motive.
• Druids: +Climb, +Knowledge: Geography.
• Fighter: +Profession, +Survival.
• Monks: -Knowledge: Arcana, +Intimidate, +Knowledge: History.
• Paladins: +Knowledge: History.
• Sorcerers: +Intimidate.

Buying Skills

Only Disable Device/Open Lock and Spellcraft are "Trained Only" skills. For all others, anyone can try anything.

½-price skills: Each point spent in class skill gives you 2 ranks rather than 1. If bought cross-class, each point gives 1 rank rather than ½. However, like cross-class skills, you may only buy 1/2 the number of ranks for each of these.

Skill synergies: Ignore those for skills that no longer exist or for skills that are based on each other's ranks. Also:

• Bluff does NOT help Craft(Disguise).
• Spellcraft and Use Magic Device help each other universally (not just for scrolls).
• Know(local) = Know(society), so +2 to Gather Info

Skill Checks

The rules (especially for skills) should be viewed as guidelines for offline reading. Rather than getting out an imaginary ruler to decided just how wide the chasm is, just estimate the DC difficulty: "yeah, pretty wide... worse than your normal little chasm... DC20." (See DM Fiat.)

Think of DCs in steps of 5. If there's some external circumstances, use +/-2 modifiers (+/-5 if they're significant): "The chasm edges are pretty crumbly though (+2), so DC 22." If you're not sure, call it DC15 and move on. If there's damage taken or spell levels involved, maybe add them to the DC.

Here are some sample DCs and how difficult they are for your average peasant (someone with a +0 modifier on the roll).

Skill Help

Situational synergy:: For skills that don't already grant a static synergy, 5 or ranks in a related skill may give a +2 to a given skill check in a particular situation or offset a -2 penalty.

Last resort: If all else fails, and none of the skills quite seem to cover the task, call for an ability check.