Sunday Stats | Skills

[wynn]

SUNDAY STATS || SKILLS

So, now that you've theoretically got your ability scores set and classes chosen, and figured out your saving throws, attack bonuses, defense, hit points, and initiative, let's move on to the giant column on the right side of the character sheet, that dictates how well your character does at attempting specific skills.

Up until now, I've asked people to just make ability score based rolls when attempting something skill based. For example, trying to lie to someone is influenced by your charisma, so when you roll a d20 to see how convincing a lie is, you get to reflect your character's natural charisma or lack thereof by adding your charisma modifier to the roll. However, with skill points, you can also show that your character has specifically perfected the ability to lie, and create a higher modifier to add to your roll to reflect this. As you advance in levels, your character can improve upon the skills they have by spending skill points.

Step One: Add ability mods


As I said, everyone immediately gets the opportunity to add their appropriate ability modifier to a skill check (for better or worse). So the first thing you should do is go to the skills column and find the second column that says "ability modifier". Next to each skill is a "Skill ability" - Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, or Cha. Write in the relevant modifier (-1, +0, +3 etc) on this line for each skill. It should look like this.

Step Two: Determine your class skills & profession

In order to keep anyone from pouring all of their skill points into one thing so they end up as godmods at one skill and not diversifying, the amount of skill "ranks" you can buy at each level is limited.

Depending on what your class is, certain skills will cost your character less, and certain will cost more. You also have a higher cap available for how many ranks you can buy in your class skills.

To discover your class skills, go back to the page with your character's BAB, saving throws charts, etc. For example, for Gar, the Smart hero, her class skills would be Computer Use (Int), Craft (chemical, electronic, mechanical, pharmaceutical, structural, visual art, writing) (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Demolitions (Int), Disable Device (Int), Forgery (Int), Investigate (Int), Knowledge (arcane lore, art, behavioral sciences, business, civics, current events, earth and life sciences, history, physical sciences, popular culture, streetwise, tactics, technology, theology and philosophy) (Int), Navigate (Int), Profession (Wis), Read/Write Language (none), Repair (Int), Research (Int), Search (Int), and Speak Language (none).

To indicate which of your skills are class skills, fill in the checkmark box next to the skill. It should look like this.

Any boxes that aren't blacked in are considered your cross-class skills.

Every character can also start out with a starting occupation that gives them access to other class skills, or bonuses to add to existing class skills. You can choose from these occupations (D20 Modern) or these occupations (D20 Urban Arcana) and follow the directions there for selecting additional class skills.

Step Three: Determine the maximum ranks you may purchase in skills


Use the following chart to check how many class skills and non cross-class skills you are able to purchase a maximum of at your level.

For example, at 1st level, Gar can purchase a maximum of FOUR ranks in any of the class skills she has blacked in. She can only purchase TWO ranks in any other skills.

Step Four: Buy ranks in skills

Now that you know the maximum amount of ranks you can purchase with your skill points, it's time to figure out how many skill points you have to spend and choose what you'd like to spend them on!

Once again, consult the page with your class information to see how many skill points your character gets at each level. Just like hit points, at every level, you get more points to spend. Once points are allocated, you cannot change them around, so think carefully about where you are spending them at each level.

At first level, characters get four times as many points as they would at any other level, to get them a nice array of skills to start with. Characters with a higher Intelligence score get more skill points as well, because they're better at picking up new skills.

The Smart Hero page says the following:

Skill Points at 1st Level: (9 + Int modifier) x4.

Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 9 + Int modifier.

Gar's Intelligence modifier is +4, which means she gets a total of 52 skill points at first level. For every subsequent level of Smart hero that she takes, she will get 13 skill points to spend.

Ranks in class skills cost 1 skill point.
Ranks in cross-class skills cost 2 skill points.

So if Gar spends all her points on class skills, except for spending 4 points to buy 2 ranks in bluff, her sheet will look like this.

For information on what specific skills are and how they function, check out the page here.

Step Five: Add across to total your skill modifier!

You might want to wait on this step because when we select feats for your character, it may give them extra bonuses into their total for a certain skill, but otherwise, feel free to add together your ability mod + ranks to determine what your overall skill modifier is! This number goes on the far left dash in the skills column.

P.S. Don't worry about trained/untrained stuff, I really DO NOT CURR about those rules.

Questions, let me know here!