Anybody else think there are too many skills and/or too few skill points?

 

Some active skills, like Athletics seem too useful to pass right now, while others, especially passive ones, feel like they should be gathered under one skill, like:

Arcana+Metaphysics+History+Religion=Lore.

Streetwise can be combined with Survival as well.

Also, I never liked systems where various ways of silver tonguing through conversations to make people do what you want is divided into all sorts of subs like we see here:

Intimidation+Persuasion+Bluff=Silver tongue.

 

All in all skills are too spread out with too few points to spend them on and because of that some classes, like rogue for example, will have a hard time role-playing all this stuff (I mean come on, every rogue will want Stealth, Sleight of Hand, Mechanics and not be clumsy as an oaf without Athletics!). Companions putting points in the same skills help somewhat, sure, but that deprives them of role-playing their own distinct classes. Spreading out skills among the party is also not a good idea because skill checks, in the beta at least, are quite high and you simply won't be able to win any of them.

 

Here are my solutions for this:

-Give more points on level up

-Lower down skill checks

-Combine similar skills into one

-Make some classes and/or single classes have more skill points on level up. This one is nothing new, AD&D had classes that had something similar, but interesting in a way that it could perhaps give an incentive to stay as a single class and/or give an incentive for players to multiclass into something other than a fighter with his super useful ex-universal combat abilities.

Edited November 18, 20178 yr by Aramintai

I'm finding it hard to make a character with well-rounded skills as well; it feels like I have to specialise to be competitive. Possibly because of the party assistance mechanic.

Yeah, I kind of do.  However, it really will depend on the requirement levels in the core game.  I definitely get that feeling, but it's hard to see if it is an issue just within the beta' scope. 

I see both sides, I don't see the point of checks if there is a way to never fail any of them and not at least suffer in some other way for it but there are a lot of them and I do think there could be like double the points per level and you would still not be able to cover everything to the extent of passing every check. So I dunno, it's not really bothered me much though anyway because there are usually a couple of different checks to pick from in a convo anyway. 

I think they should keep the amount of skills they have. Diplomacy is not the same thing as intimidating or bluffing people and I'm always annoyed when games make a single persuasion skills that everyone cap. Might as well not put any in the game, the end result is going to be the same.

 

Also, I I think they should define level caps, like in D&D 3.xe, so you know that for your level that skill is currently at max and you can spread into another skill. Also, right now you get a share of the rest of the party skills, but it doesn't seems to be used in all cases so it makes it hard to know when to spread and not spread the rest of the party.

 

I wouldn't say no to getting 2 points at level up too, but it all depends on the "level cap" for skills.

Also, right now you get a share of the rest of the party skills, but it doesn't seems to be used in all cases so it makes it hard to know when to spread and not spread the rest of the party.

Yea, it seems that scripted interactions don't take party members skills into account.

I love the large number of skills. It gives me a lot of freedom to make different types of characters.

I also love that there are good reasons to pick active skills other than athletics.

Don't forget party member add points to global value.

 

But i am agree with you. 1 pt is not enough.

 

2 pts for active skills seems to be a good way.

 

3 pts for active skills is too much because we have 5 party members.

 

Or, eventually a system like Original sin with abilities. +1 the fifth first level, +2 until level 10, +3 until level 15, and finally +4 until level 20.

Edited November 18, 20178 yr by theBalthazar