Enabling non-class skills with items

[Raona]

Several Talonians have very reasonably suggested that all Talonians should have access to the poison weapon skill, even when it is not a class skill for them. I was wondering if they might be granted that skill by virtue of their holy symbol, as some of them have suggested. Further, how hard would it be to have their level in that skill tied to their faith level and/or favour?

I know that there is a Watch item that grants a non-class skill (sap), but that the level is static and you can't improve on it with practice. Is it readily codeable to grant a skill with a worn object, and if so, how readily can that skill's level be made to vary with the attributes of the user?

Thanks, I'm out of my league on this one!

[Lirith]

There are a pair of boots in game given as a quest reward that give sneak/hide to the wearer, even if it's ouside of their class. The skill is set at inept and is never improved (as far as I can tell).

I don't know if you can tie the skill level to favour/faith level.

[Harroghty]

Raona: The item that you mentioned just uses an intercept program. That would be very easy to apply to poison if desired, but would it make sense for something as easily gotten as the holy symbol to have such a power? I would suggest something like a supplicated item instead.

[Khelebhzed]

Would it not be simpler to add it as an additional skill as a result of a quest for members of the faith only, similar to trades or appraising?

[Mask]

I don't agree with giving skills unique to a class to other classes. If followers of Talona want poisoned weapons, they should find a thief capable of poisoning those weapons.

[Atraos]

Probably agree with Mask. If Talona's faithfull get the skill, should Drow not? They are renowned for their use of poisoned crossbow quarrels?

Could be a bit of hornets nest.

Just my opinion from a purely selfish drow point.

[Zorinar]

I think Talona followers should get, for free, the resist poison feat. In D&D, they are, in fact, immune to poison. They are employed as poison testers and sell antivenoms as a source of income. It is a result of their lifelong use of poison and their developed immunity to it along with the assistance of blessings from their goddess.

Such little things are what make the classes unique, allow for realistic RP of the faithful and are built into the system of D&D that allows for its overall balance.

[Athglor]

And then gondar wizards would be on their right to claim detrap, maskarran fighters hide, bards of mielikki track and so on.

If Talonites are resistant to poison is because "OOCly" have spent feats in that, just as maskarran rogues may have invested their feats in stealth-related feats in detriment of something else.

One could think, that in order to make it far in that church would have to build some resistance to it and disease, paying the feat.

[Raona]

Oy, maybe the suggestion is not so reasonable. Poison weapon does give one a marked advantage in combat.

I'm liking Harroghty's idea on this front - how about granting the ability through a supplicated item, with a limited number of uses per day?

[Kallias]

Marty is correct. It's a religion. You're faith doesn't dictate what you are good at...just what you believe in.

[Kregor]

In real D&D, or NWN, the Maskarran fighter could actually still -train- hide, and just pay more skill points to learn it. Also anyone short of those with an ethical opposition could put poison on a weapon, regardless of being a rogue or not. The skill system on FK, as much D&D code is being shoehorned into it, is not the same, so I see nothing wrong with adding an item, quest, etc here and there to add a special touch to someone based on their faith/race/et al, as a distinguishing touch, much as I added a quest for non-thief Maskarran to learn Cant, as it's used as a faith language as well, and priests of Lolth can learn it because it approximates the drow sign language.

[Kallias]

You'd have to take a feat to get the skill at 100%. I'd be alright with that. But items granting things doesn't make sense. If you want to shield bash, should have picked a fighter.

[Nysan]

You'd have to take a feat to get the skill at 100%. I'd be alright with that. But items granting things doesn't make sense. If you want to shield bash, should have picked a fighter.

To be fair, there are examples of items granting skills already in-game. One that comes to mind grants haggle to the wearer.

[Dapher]

From experience, there are also other items in game that offer non class skills to the wearer. Named above hide/sneak due to boots, and other items. The ones I refer to at the moment do offer hide/sneak and they were garnered from a quest. The quest was quite a pain to do, an required much thought, and time dedicated to planning and setting up the surroundings to the quester's desires. I actually had to wait an OOC week before I could find the correct circumstances to do the quest. I think the items should not be a problem, but the quests, or how you get the items should be hard to find, and very hard to do. I see no issue with it because the skills are set at inept and with the new hide/sneak system there is no way you are going to sneak by someone unseen with only being inept at it.

[Brar]

My two cents (euro cents so it worth a little more :p)

For a skill like poison, I would more see it be given by an item (like a poisoned sheat or something like that) that makes it easier to poison a weapon and that can be refill/recharge by someone with the poison skill. Reward of a faith quest for example. The problem I see with poison is that it is a "class abilities" which mean in DnD no way how you put it, you have to be a rogue to be able to do it. On the other hand, sneak/hide are skills which mean anybody can try to use it (some easier, some harder) and everybody would benefit from boot of elvenkind or cloak of elvenkind or any magical object that helps do less noise, blend more easily in your surrounding.

For poisonning a weapon, it is in my eyes a more mechanical process involved, but you can even make the item refillable by poison skill, poison spell. Heck you can even imagine a system where you have to put a spider in it and it squezze it for the venom... There are plenty of ways to do it and yet keep it limited and not impart "technical" knowledge to someone by wearing an item.

Yet I fail to see why Talonian should have poison weapon, the fact is that they use poisons, but poisonning someone food and coating a weapon is completly different league. If you want to apply the poison to your weapon then find someone who can do it for you, there is no reason it became innate knowledge upon joining a faith...
Or then every Mystrans become mages, every followers of Tempus become fighters, ect ect...

Now what would be really nice would be to have a skill profiency feat that let you access a skill outside your class at the cost of a feat.
Or even better, disociate class skills and class abilities like they are in DnD.
or even better better, do both of the above

Brar

[Keltorn]

The problem I see with poison is that it is a "class abilities" which mean in DnD no way how you put it, you have to be a rogue to be able to do it.

Actually, in D&D, not even rogues get that class feature. Poison Use is tricky to get ahold of, though the Assassin prestige class gets it as well as the Ninja base class. The closest thing you'll find in the Player's Handbook is druids getting immunity to poison.

Now what would be really nice would be to have a skill profiency feat that let you access a skill outside your class at the cost of a feat.
Or even better, disociate class skills and class abilities like they are in DnD.
or even better better, do both of the above

The problem with letting everyone have all the skills in this game is that there's no skill points. In D&D, you're welcome to pursue any skill in the game so long as you've got skill points to spend. If you try to get them all, you're going to run out real fast. But with FK, anyone that feels like working on it long enough could have every skill trained to grandmaster. At that point, why even bother playing a thief? Anyone else can do your job plus use spellcasting.

A Skill Proficiency feat, however, sounds like a great idea. Feats are a bit of a commodity, so there'd be a very real cost to getting skills outside your class. That being said, I can hardly find anything that I feel like spending feat points on right now. I'm pretty sure I'd go and buy up loads of skills if the option were available. Maybe limit the number of times you can train that feat?

[Dapher]

The problem I am finding with the idea of being able to spend a feat point on a skill is still the fact that a fighter can go train say gouge, and eventually grandmaster it with an insane amount of training. He can go get hide and sneak and grandmaster them. I think the idea of a really thought stressing, and chracter stressing quest is good because it gives you RP, and it limits how good you can get at the skill

[Lathander]

I don't agree with giving skills unique to a class to other classes. If followers of Talona want poisoned weapons, they should find a thief capable of poisoning those weapons.

My opinion as well.

[Kregor]

You'd have to take a feat to get the skill at 100%. I'd be alright with that. But items granting things doesn't make sense. If you want to shield bash, should have picked a fighter.

Or a ranger. Dual wielding rangers are so... cliche

[Kregor]

I don't agree with giving skills unique to a class to other classes. If followers of Talona want poisoned weapons, they should find a thief capable of poisoning those weapons.

My opinion as well.

Conceded. But aside from Poison Weapon, there are other, more mundane skills that could be done, theoretically, by people of any class, at least in a mediocre fashion.

On FK, rogues are the only class that gets Hide and Sneak. Are we saying that anyone besides a rogue lacks the ability to duck behind a large pile of crates and chance not being seen? Using the same quote above, fixed,

"If followers of Talona want to hide from someone, they should find a thief capable of hiding them."

Doesn't work, you can't share a hide, it's a personal affect.

In the period that FK is set in, even the lowest commoner often hunted for their sustenance. Are they all rangers or clerics of Mielikki with Slice as a skill? (For that matter, why do Clerics of Mielikki get to skin things and Druids of Chauntea not? According to D&D, all Druids get Survival as a class skill, but that's a digression). The answer is no, they use their own skill, but they aren't necessarily the best at it. What about spotting someone who is hiding, or hearing someone who is sneaking, do only classes with those skills as class skills have the ability to spot and hear someone? No, that doesn't even make sense to logic. And to shoehorn the ability into a binary "yes" or "no" damages both the balance and immersion of the imaginary world.

The benefit of item granted skills is that they grant the skill, but at a novice, or at best, mediocre ability that can't improve. Anyone in D&D can take 10 to hide, or skin a cat, or move silently, or a number of things that are defined as "skills". The balance is, you have made a 50/50 roll, modified only by the ability that modifies the skill (which could be good, or bad, depending on your stat score) and there's pretty good odds you didn't get it right.

There are some skills, that should be at the least, doable by attempt - those of basic survival, and those of basic logic.

Now then, as far as a Skill Proficiency feat, I would wholeheartedly agree with it in concept. It just has to have the balances in place to both keep people from being the best at everything (since FK does not model after D&D's skill system). We already have limits in place on spells granted by domains, and based on school specialization. The same system could be applied to skills to allow those untrained, or those with a Skill Proficiency feat in a skill, to hit a ceiling on how good they could possibly get with training. Everyman skills (which I would presume to include the senses [spot, listen, search, etc] and other such abilities that even an untrained commoner could do) could have a hard set level, and that's it, unless you have a class skill to train it up. For a Skill Proficiency feat in a cross-class skill (for something like Tracking, or Survival [slicing & skinning], or Stealth [hiding and sneaking], etc) you have a threshold that it will improve to, and no better.

I could see poison weapon as a possibility for such a proficiency feat, the balance being that if you hard set the max training to apprentice/journeyman, you're going to be poisoning yourself a good part of the time, and wasting a lot of poison the other.

My suggestions, however, are taking this well into another topic, that being the discussion of "everyman" skills and Skill Proficiency feats. That becomes a hard-code issue, not a builder topic