Thursday, January 28, 2016

A Few Skill Points for Everyone

Are you sad that only Specialists get to distribute skill points? Want to get the other classes in on the action without totally diluting the one thing that makes Specialists, well, special? Here's an idea: on even-numbered levels (starting at Level 2, of course), all PCs of all classes get 1 skill point to spend. Specialists get this 1 extra skill point in addition to the 2 they usually get. Only Specialists can put any points into Sneak Attack.

This only gets weird if you allow demihuman PCs in your campaign. I would suggest not letting demihumans spend these bonus skill points on their "main" skills (Search for the Elf, Architecture for the Dwarf, Bushcraft and Stealth for the Halfling), since they progress in unique ways. Or you could allow them to use their points to increase these skills at lower levels, with the caveat that this will give them less skill points in the long run and is arguably a waste.

Somehow, it seems easier and less intimidating to house-rule older versions of D&D and their various spin-offs and similar games than it is to do so with a lot of other games, like, say, D&D 3.5.* I guess with LotFP I'm slightly less worries about upsetting some preconceived notion of gameplay balance, since the system is meant to be somewhat swingy and unpredictable anyway. I don't know, this could be something I'm projecting psychologically, but I just really like house rules for old-school D&D and OSR stuff.

*I actually don't have much of anything against D&D Third, Fourth, or Fifth Edition, or Pathfinder and similar games. I actually really like D&D 3.5, and I've had many great experiences with it as a player and as a DM. It's just that I love Lamentations of the Flame Princess and the OSR, and I've always had some interest in older versions of D&D because of old D&D video games I liked. I probably prefer old-school D&D to the newer versions overall, but I'm not really into edition warring. At the end of the day, I like any kind of D&D.

No comments:

Post a Comment