Add more class skills to base classes

[tooh]

Dont think classes have limits, think that are containers.
In normal game mechanics, ever will need high INT to spare points in social skills or we will get social bonus points too ?
Maybe a new class with any skills and feats free for choice ?

[Unhurried]

I think all classes should have access to all social skills.

Agreed. Adding certain base social skills to some classes and not others because of stereotypes defeats the purpose of the suggestion (I agree that Taunt shouldn't be considered a social skill).

[Aldrick Tanith]

I also want to point out the obvious:  giving social skills to all classes gives no combat benefit.  They are perhaps the least useful skills you can have on EfU, outside of perhaps Appraise, Craft Armor and Craft Weapon.

Anyone taking -any- social skill or the previous three mentioned are doing so for RP reasons.  Not for mechanical benefits.

[derfo]

i think its mechanically beneficial to have enough charisma and persuade to convince a dm controlled npc to not eat you

[Gippy]

I am not entirely sold on this, as it sort of seems unnessecary. Making the effort to cross class a skill is already reflected. The only time these rolls matter are for DM events. There is, to my knowledge, one scripted social skill check in all of EFU:A. A DM can on the fly adjust the check/correct NPC reactions to you based on the points you've put into the skills if they see fit to do that.

[Aldrick Tanith]

Derflaro / Gippy-

Why can't a Wizard or a Fighter be persuasive?  What is it about their class that somehow inherently makes being persuasive more difficult than say the following classes:  druid, monk, pale master and shifter?  What about these classes is more persuasive than a wizard?

That is the crux of my argument in favor of social skills for all.  It makes no more or less sense than giving crafting skills to all classes, and it does not inherently create a problem for balance.  They simply are not generally useful skills.  I can count on one hand the number of times a DM has even allowed me to use a social related skill.  (And one of those times the DM would only allow me to intimidate, and not persuade - even though my PC only had points in persuade.)

Almost every DM skill check I've done was for:  listen, spot, lore and craft trap.  Those are the big "DM skills" - which are also each highly useful for non-DM related activities, with the exception of craft trap.

[MisterPAIN]

Wizards are probably the opposite of social creatures considering the usual lot are old nerds who studied all their life.

Being a druid/shifter that can change into an animal/anything and spitting acid or whatever is a pretty cool party trick.  So is having a arm full of dead or being able to do teh splits as a monk or throwing toothpicks impaling flies or something.

Most wizards have are wrinkles and magic tricks for the most part.  Fighters are probably people who suck at trade skills and need to use a sword to make a living.  So they are social losers unless they start hitting it up in the CHA stats, imo.

I mean this can lead to like having taunt being for all classes because any class can insult people.  Which could lead to uh, issues.

[Gippy]

You can still be /good/ in social situations as any class. You can cross class them. It's not like wizards CANNOT take social skills. Yet it makes sense for say, a rogue, to be able to rock the social skills when that's what he does - he's a smooth talker. Some classes do inherently focus on social skills more. For the rest, there's cross classing, and that's okay too.

[PanamaLane]

I'm anti this. I know, I know, I've been calling for druids to have H/MS forever, but in the end I think that the game balances itself quite nicely. Be a man, suck it up and cross-class those points.

[Snoteye]

For the record, I fully support Gippy on the cross-classing argument. Specifically with the social skills I don't mind all that much, since they are mechanically inconsequential and never used much by us, but I am indeed against changing other skills. Except Ride, I guess, because we don't use that at all.

As a counter argument to Aldrick's, however, instead of asking why most classes do not get these skills as class skills, ask why some classes do. The reason everyone gets the Craft set as class skills is because Craft is one skill in PnP (same with Lore vs. Knowledge).

[ScottyB]

Taunt is not strictly a social skill, and only one of my high-Taunt characters has ever used insults for taunting. The rest have used combat manuevers to draw the attention of a target, provocative movement rather than words. This is why it can work on all enemies.

Also. I often use classes (most often Fighters and Rogues) to be things that no class covers. Country doctors, lawyers, barmaids, and so on. They often ended up with things they didn't need - especially fighters, because I ran out of Skill Focus social skills to invest in and had to take, like, Disarm - and they often couldn't be as good at what they were supposed to be good at.

I also think we're giving DMs too much credit about recognizing an investment in a cross-class skill. First of all, a DC is a DC and if you can't beat it, you can't beat it; or that'll be someone's thinking, somewhere. Second, DMs are busy, especially in a situation where dice rolls were just made, so trying to make sure that your investment considered, since you made it to the detriment of your mechanical usefulness, may be construed as whining (or there'll be a fear of that, anyways). Third, that INT-based rogue invested in social skills at level 1 because they had extra points lying around, not because they were interested in being a diplomatic character, but they will still be more influential than your well-bred, diligently-trained magocrat.

me ragequits until this suggestion is implemented

[Jasede]

Necromancy, but-

I was thinking-

Nobody uses Craft Armor/Weapon/Traps, right?

How about going into the game files and renaming these skills (in an optional download) into Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate, and grey out the default skills? Now everyone could have them as a class skill easily!

(No idea how viable or possible this is! But it'd take a lot of time going through the module and changing every check to the "new" skills.)

[Johannes]

That is a really creative idea, although unfortunately I think that it would just be too confusing for new players.

[Dr Dragon]

I say DO  IT!

[Staring Death]

With the EFUSS secondary skills, I don't it's all that useful anymore.