Tome of Prowess (3.5e Sourcebook)/Rules

Rules

You need substantial changes to fit the skill system into the scaling challenge system that D&D attempts to model. These changes are explained in this chapter, and it also includes conversions for the core base classes to make adoption more convenient.

General Rules

While most of the rules for skills presented here are extremely similar to the SRD skill rules, there are a few changes and updates. This section is intended to be used on its own, you should not need to reference the SRD for skill rules.

For those who are familiar with the SRD rules and just want to know what has changed, you can find it in this spoiler box.

Changes and Updates

Characters no longer gain or lose skill points based on their intelligence modifier. Cross class skill ranks are purchased at the cost of 1 skill point, not 2. The cross class maximum skill rank is equal to your (character level + 3), divided by 2. This is rounded up. Retraining is a core part of this revision, not an optional rule. All skill bonuses other than attribute bonuses are now of the competence type, and capped at +3 (minor exceptions are made for Jump). Synergy bonuses no longer exist. Skill items are drastically different. Spells that grant skill bonuses or ranks do not exist. They have been removed or rewritten. Assorted subsystems have been updated to better interact with skills. These are detailed in a later chapter.

Acquiring Skill Points

No More Intelligence Bonus

Because of the greatly increased power of these skills, you no longer gain your intelligence modifier as a bonus to your skill points per level. This is very important, because getting a bonus skill from high intelligence with this variant is akin to getting bonus feats for a stat. And that would be bad.

Every class comes with a number of skill points that are granted per level. At first level, these skill points are multiplied by 4. You no longer add your intelligence modifier as a bonus to skill points received. Your skill points are used to purchase ranks in skills, where each rank corresponds to a +1 bonus on checks made with that skill as well as allowing you to use new and more impressive skill abilities.

This still leaves the problem where you get more or less skill points in a multi-class setup depending on which class you take first, but that is an issue with the multi-classing system in general and not really something that can be resolved without removing the 4x multiplier at first level (which does not have any particularly good alternatives) or radically altering the way multi-classing works. The incentive is to take skilled classes first and move into spellcasters later, however, and that seems genre appropriate (as people don't go the other way), so it's at least a minor improvement even if the problem still exists.

Purchasing Ranks

Cross Class Purchasing

Unlike in the SRD, you gain cross class skill ranks at the cost of 1 skill point each. With this change you can sacrifice one of your main skills for two cross-class skills at half rank. And if you ever multi-class into a class where those are class skills, you haven't permanently given up a pile of skill points. Additionally, you round the cross class maximum up instead of down so that we can avoid people being unable to spend skill points on cross-class skills at even levels (and thus having unused skill points). It also sets the level 20 cap at 12 ranks instead of 11 and grants additional powers at the top end, which is a nice thing for cross class skills to get.

When you gain a level in a class, you are granted skill points. These skill points are used to purchase ranks in a skill on a 1-for-1 basis. You can think of skill points as unassigned ranks if you like. The maximum number of ranks you can put in a skill depends on your character level, and which skills are considered class skills for your class.

Class Skills Maximum

Your class skill rank maximum is still your character level + 3.

Cross-Class Skills Maximum

Your cross-class skill rank maximum remains half of your class skill rank maximum, or (character level + 3) / 2, but this number is rounded up instead of down.

Multiclass Characters

If a skill appears as a class skill for a class that a character possesses, the maximum ranks for the character in that skill is equal to their character level +3. Effectively, if a skill is a class skill for one of your classes it is a class skill for all of your classes.

Additionally, if a character takes a level in a base class that offers more skill points per level than any of his other current base classes, he gains an additional number of skill points equal to 3 times the difference between the number of skill points granted by his new class and the highest number of skill points granted by one of his current classes.

Using Tome of Prowess with a Maximum Ranks Point Assignment System

Because of the incentives to reach the next level of skill abilities and the diminishing returns associated with spreading out your skill ranks, it is somewhat expected that characters will try to maximize their skill ranks in a few key areas. This behavior makes the Tome of Prowess skill system a natural fit with a maximum ranks skill point assignment variant for many players. We actually recommend such systems for all but the most experienced players. The Tome of Prowess rules work well with the maximum ranks skill point assignment variant presented in Unearthed Arcana, but need one minor adjustment. You still select 1 class skill per granted skill point, but you may instead select 2 cross-class skills in place of a class skill. These cross-class skills have a rank equal to your (character level + 3) / 2, rounded up. Some DMs may even allow the trade of 1 full-ranked class skill for any 2 skills at the cross-class maximum. Under this system you will have slightly more skill points than those who do not select cross-class skills at even levels, but given the reduced power of cross-class skills that's a completely reasonable tradeoff for the added simplicity.

Skill Checks

Where did the penalties for trying to do better go?

There used to be penalties in the skills that you could take if you were trying to do better than the default success rate. These have been eliminated entirely, and generally subsumed into the degrees of success check results. The reason is straightforward: you are always assumed to be trying to do as well as you possibly can with your skill, without taking unnecessary risks. If you need to push yourself for some reason, roll the die instead of taking 10. The chances of failure or underperforming are roughly equal to the chances of you performing better, and that’s much better for these purposes than sticking a negative modifier on your roll.

To make a skill check, you roll 1d20 and add your skill check modifier to your roll. Your check modifier includes your skill ranks, your attribute bonus from the related attribute, and miscellaneous modifiers for circumstances related to the ability ranging from racial bonuses to equipment bonuses or armor check penalties.

This is unchanged from the old skill system, so if you already knew how to make a skill check you already know the basics of this system. We’re just going to give you a lot more options to make those checks against.

Checks without Rolls

Making a roll for a skill ability includes the potential for both great success and great failure, and there are times when you might rather just get by without worrying about it. These times are generally those when you are not under pressure to perform, like in combat, and when you have time to focus.

You may "take X" with any skill ability whenever you are not actively threatened or distracted. Additionally you may "take X" with any skill ability even when you are actively threatened or distracted as long as you have 4 more ranks in the skill than the minimum required to use the skill ability. Gaining four levels means you get the task under hand, and it’s just not that big of a deal anymore.

Taking 10

Taking 10 represents putting in an average amount of effort, and not attempting to reach for a greater result. It can be thought of as doing "just enough to get by". For the purposes of your skill check, you treat your 1d20 roll as if it had come up 10. Taking this option takes the same amount of time as a normal use of the skill ability does.

Taking 15

Taking 15 represents spending time and effort to do a good job, but without spending time to make it perfect. It can be thought of as "taking the time to do it right". For the purposes of your skill check, you treat your 1d20 roll as if it had come up 15. Taking this option takes four times as long as a normal use of the skill ability does.

Taking 20

Taking 20 represents putting in a great deal of effort in an attempt to make the check as "perfect as you can get". It means doing it over, and over, and over until you get it right... even if you get it wrong once or twice along the way. If you would fail the check in a way that would not allow you to retry it had you rolled a 1, you treat your 1d20 roll as if it had come up 1. Otherwise you treat your 1d20 roll as if it had come up 20. Taking this option takes 20 times as long as a normal use of the skill ability does.

Make Your Own Checks

Checks that the DM used to make for you for secrecy reasons have been rewritten into checks that players should make themselves. While it wasn’t bad for the DM to make these checks, it only served to make players feel disconnected from their success or failure and to keep information from them that might make them not continue ahead. It’s easy enough to write these checks in such a way that you either know you failed, know you succeeded, or believe you’ve succeeded (but be wrong about it), and in those cases there’s no reason to keep that from you. As part of this trade off though, once you say you do something and you roll the die for the check, you’re bound by its results and you’re bound to carry through the action. The DM doesn't need to tell you the DC of the task though, so it's generally best to not worry about your a

Skill Abilities

Each of the new skill abilities include a rank minimum (even if that rank is Untrained), and characters with at least this many ranks may attempt that use of the skill without penalty. This adjustment allows us to ignore the trained / untrained distinction previously present in skills. There are simply abilities that you can use at your current skill level, and abilities you can not because you lack sufficient ranks. Characters who are one rank short may attempt the ability with a -5 penalty. Characters who are two ranks short may attempt the ability with a -15 penalty.

Your check result is compared against the task DC. This DC is either determined by the DM based on the obstacle or set by someone else making an opposed check. Your degree of success or failure against the DC is used to determine the degree of your success or failure with the skill ability. These results are listed in the skill abilities, which use this format:

Base DC: The basic DC required to use the ability. This entry also includes an indication of applicable modifiers.
Check Result:

• DC+10 and above: This entry indicates how the ability changes if you roll better than the DC by 10 or more. It may not be present in all abilities.
• DC+5 to DC+9: This entry indicates how the ability changes if you roll better than the DC by 5 or more, or it may be written as “DC+5 and above” if there is no greater success possible. It may not be present in all abilities.
• DC+0 to DC+4: This entry indicates the default level of success for the ability by meeting or exceeding the DC. It is present for all abilities, and may be written as “DC+0 and above” if there is no greater success possible.
• DC-1 to DC-5: This entry indicates the default level of failure for the ability if you do not meet or exceed the DC. It is present for all abilities, and may be written as “DC-1 and below” if there is no greater failure possible.
• DC-6 and below: If there is a more substantial failure possible than the default level, it is listed in this entry. It may not be present in all abilities.

Almost every skill ability includes a penalty for failing by more than a certain amount. This was done to discourage repeated attempts when the abilities are first acquired, since a number of these abilities mimic spells in effect. The abilities also include benefits for successes over a certain amount. This was done to provide characters improving benefits from their abilities and to reduce ability obsolescence, as well as to make characters choose between playing things safe by taking 10 or risking failure by rolling for a stronger result.

Retraining

Why is retraining a core rule?

Retraining is a core rule for two reasons. The first is that it vastly increases the flexibility of the skilled classes. As mentioned in the rules section, the skilled classes simply have no recourse if the adventure shifts to an area where a skill they could have been investing in, but were not, suddenly becomes relevant. Retraining allows them to gain a bit of the flexibility that spellcasters all have with their ability to simply memorize different spells each day. As reworking the skill system to allow the skilled classes to better keep up with spellcasters is the whole point of this revision, anything that helps in that regard is included in the core rules. The second reason has to do with defaulting. People are simply less likely to use an optional rule they have concerns about than they are to remove a core rule they have concerns about, so setting it as the default rule means that more people will use it. While retraining has historically been frowned upon for various reasons, from narrative to realism concerns, we feel that these are generally overstated. And since the benefits outweigh the minor drawbacks from these concerns, we include it by default to get as much of that benefit as possible. Still, if you just can't swallow it, you have a few options. You can increase the time it takes to retrain to something you think more realistic. Doing so limits some of the flexibility to greater periods of downtime, but doesn't eliminate it entirely. It's a nerf, but a minor one. Actually removing the ability to retrain is on the table as well, as it's ultimately your game and you will use or exclude rules as you see fit. While there's nothing we can do to stop you from making that decision, we do not believe it to be a good one for the game in general. We hope we've presented reasons here for you to keep it in your games, at least to try it out, and that when you see it in play you find it's not a problem after all.

Retraining is a core part of the Tome of Prowess revision, not an optional rule that only some games take advantage of. The concept has been around in hourerules for ages, but was officially introduced in the Player's Handbook II. The version in that book does not work well for our purposes and we do not use there here. So if you have read those rules, please forget them now.

There will be situations where you’ll want a skill ready that you haven’t been investing in. You may need to learn how to climb to scale the Frostfell Mountains, or you may decide that you don’t ever use the acrobatics and something else would serve you better. Casters deal with these situations the same way they deal with anything else; they just rememorize or supplement their spell selection with scrolls, and then they go back to ignoring the skill system entirely. Since skilled characters can’t do that, it’s really quite necessary that they get to retrain their skills instead. It’s not a big deal; real people do it all of the time. It just takes some time, dedication, and (because this is a game) a training montage.

To retrain, you simply dedicate some time to the process and, at the end of that time, move a number of skill points from the skills which had them at the beginning to the other skills that you wish to raise. The time required depends on what you wish to train your new skills up to, as indicated in the table below. The days spent must be consecutive, but after you have spent the required time you may raise one skill up to any rank equal to or less than the maximum rank indicated. If you wish to retrain any other skills during the same period, you may do so; simply increase the time spent by 2 days for each additional skill. If you wish to train several skills up to different levels, you must spend the time required for the highest skill rank you wish to achieve, plus 2 additional days for each additional skill.

For example, if you have a level 8 character with 6 skill points per level who wished to consolidate all of their skill points into 6 skills at max rank, you would need to spend a total of 17 days to accomplish this: 7 days for the first skill to achieve maximum rank plus 2 additional days for each of the 5 extra skills. If you wanted to train 4 skills up max rank and 4 others up to a cross-class maximum, you would need to spend a total of 21 days retraining: 7 days for the first and 14 additional days for each additional skill. Seriously, your character is an adventurer and they can prepare for just about anything in less than a month.

Maximum Retrained Skill Rank by Level

Time Required	Level
	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th	10th	11th	12th	13th	14th	15th	16th	17th	18th	19th	20th
2 Days	2	3	3	4	4	5	5	6	6	7	7	8	8	9	9	10	10	11	11	12
4 Days	3	4	5	6	6	7	8	9	9	10	11	12	12	13	14	15	15	16	17	18
7 Days	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23

Adventurer's Knack

If you had been adventuring for a while, you would pick up and remember all sorts of useful things. Unfortunately, the skill system is really bad about representing this. You can never make checks to see if you recall anything about a creature type you've faced dozens of times before, you can never try your hand at opening a lock like you've seen your companions do, and you never improve even a little bit at the untrained things that you could attempt if you wanted. To rectify this, characters gain the option to spend additional time on an otherwise untrained, or under-trained, skill check in exchange for temporary ranks in the skill.

You may use a skill as if you had a number of ranks in it based on your level, as indicated in the table below, but you must spend 4 times as long as the normal action required for the skill check. If the action would normally be performed as a free action, you must spend a standard action on it instead. If it would be performed as a swift or immediate action, you must spend a full-round action on it instead.

You may not take 10 or 15 on this skill check, even if you would normally be able to if you had invested in the skill. This is because you lack sufficient practice with the skill and are making a best guess based on things you have seen in your journeys or been told by companions. You may take 20 if circumstances would normally permit you to do so, but it takes 80 times as long as the normal action required for the skill check. In this case, you are simply 'winging it' over and over and over again until you get your 20. You otherwise act as if you had the ranks in the skill for the purposes of the check.

Adventurer's Knack Temporary Ranks

	Level
	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th	10th	11th	12th	13th	14th	15th	16th	17th	18th	19th	20th
Ranks	0	0	0	0	1	1	1	2	2	2	3	3	3	4	4	4	5	5	5	6

Skill Bonus Changes

In the old system, you needed huge bonuses to get meaningful effects out of your skills. It wasn't uncommon for characters to gain as large a bonus from an item as they did from ranks. In this system your ranks are very important, but equally important is your total bonus to these ability checks. Each skill ability is designed to be usable but not necessarily reliable when you first acquire them in order to offset the fact that you can basically use them all of the time. Old style items, with their large numeric boosts, are a problem in such a setup. If we account for them and expect them, then you need a skill item for all of the skills that you care about or you won't be able to meet the DCs that we would need to set to maintain the same usability requirements. And if we don't account for them, then a single large item bonus destroys the balance we've put in place for these unlimited use abilities. Since neither of these options is actually workable or interesting, we just aren't going to use old style skill items and old style skill bonus types that used to stack to the heavens.

In this setup, the only bonus type that can be added to a skill is a competence bonus, and these do not stack with any other competence bonuses granted. This means that all racial bonuses are now competence bonuses. Likewise, all masterwork item bonuses are now competence bonuses, and so don't do anything for the racially gifted. Feat bonuses are competence bonuses. If it's a bonus for a skill, it's going to be a competence bonus and it's not going to stack with any other competence bonus.

Having limited the options for raising your skill modifiers, we're also going to limit the size of these bonuses. No item, feat, or ability may grant larger than a +3 competence on any skill, no matter what your actual modifier would be in the old skill system (an exception is made for the jump skill, and is discussed in the skill itself). This leads us to some rather substantial changes to the skill bonus system, which are discussed in more detail below.

Skill Items

Even though we're not using old style skill items, there is still a place for a type of skill items. They just need to work within this altered system and not allow people who use them to gain extraordinary benefits or perform well above the expected mark for their level. These items need to be useful for characters who don't substantially invest in a particular skill, and this can be done by giving ranks with the items instead of bonuses. They also need to provide some utility to characters who have already invested heavily in a skill, and this can be done with competence bonuses, take X abilities, or rerolls. Example skill items that offer benefits to those who have the skill as well as those who don't appear in the Running a Skilled Game section.

Skill Feats

Skill feats remain largely unchanged. Skill focus is still in the game and still works as indicated, as are the various feats that boost two skills by +2 each or boost a skill by +2 and offer some other benefit. In keeping with the bonus type changes, these feats no longer stack. If you take skill focus and a second feat that offers a +2 bonus to the same skill that you took skill focus for, you gain no additional benefit to that skill from that feat. If you want to be very skilled in one thing, you should take skill focus in it. If you want to be rather skilled in multiple things, you should take the feat that offers a +2 bonus to each of those things. You should never take both for the same skill, because that's a big waste of your rather limited feats.

There may be some published or homebrew feats that provide larger bonuses than the core feats referenced here. You're welcome to continue to use these feats, but they should only provide a non-stacking +3 competence bonus just like everything else.

Feats that provide actual skill points are another matter. If you are not using scaling feats (like the Tome series of feats) in your games, a feat that provides a small static number of extra skill points is fine. Five skill points is recommended, and you should be able to select the feat multiple times. If you are using scaling feats in your game, you can use a non-scaling feat that offers a single retroactive skill point per level; the scaling of the skills themselves will make sure that the character receives a scaling benefit from the feat. You should not be able to acquire this feat multiple times.

Bonuses from Class Features

Some class features offer bonuses to skills outright. With the exception of class abilities related to the jump skill (which are discussed in it's entry), these suffer the same issues as skill items and need to be dropped entirely or rewritten into a form similar to the new skill items. Granting free ranks in a skill is not reasonable, but a competence bonus, reroll ability, or similar minor adjustment is perfectly fine.

Bonuses from Spells

Why no skill spells?

The main problem with these sorts of spells is a thematic one. Spells are supposed to just do things that the truly skilled can attempt with a lot of practice. The revised skills don't even do anything that spells don't already generally do anyway, though we have tried to make them go about it in a different fashion. There already is substantial overlap between skill abilities and spells, so making a spell that grants skill abilities just dilutes the feel of the individual systems for no benefit. The secondary issue is a value one. It is extremely difficult to cost both variable and fixed skill bonus spells appropriately because of their effects, and that makes it hard to place in the right spell level. If you place it too low, you have a low level spell that turns low level actions into high level actions. If you place it too high, you have a high level spell that no one casts because it doesn't do anything they can't do with other spells already. Deciding what spell level these sorts of things belong at is generally not worth the effort. For these reasons, any spell that allows you to attempt to do something with a skill should be rewritten as a spell that just does the thing or removed from the game. If it helps you to justify it in game, you can consider it an inefficient use of magic to emulate a skill, which it is.

With the revised skills here, there is no place for spells that provide temporary ranks in a skill, or that provide a static bonus to a skill. While there is actually room for spells that function as temporary skill items, you probably shouldn't do that for thematic reasons as well as to avoid putting every tool in the game in spellcasters' pockets. To avoid the magic vs. skill thematic issues, value concerns, and omnitasking possibilities we have just removed spells that directly affect your skill modifier from the game or rewritten them into a spell that just does something appropriate for it's spell level. Updated and removed spells appear in the Running a Skilled Game section.

Attribute Boosts and Enhancements

The above topics cover the most common direct skill bonuses and at least offer suggestions on dealing with the more unusual cases. But it doesn't talk about indirect bonuses at all, like the bonuses you get from the attributes that you will be increasing as you level. Between +6 enhancement bonuses from items and +5 inherent bonuses from wishes or books and +5 more from simple levels, you can get an extra +8 bonus on an attribute modifier (or more) fairly easily in some games. And in other games, you never see even half of that. This isn't as large a modifier as you used to get from skill boost items, but suffers all the same problems of deciding whether to expect it in the base DC or not.

Unfortunately, because of large variances in when these stat jumps hit and by how much they grow, this isn't really something we can plan around. And removing these stat jumps from the game entirely isn't a particularly workable solution for a large number of play styles. The best that can be done is to point out that we do not assume any attribute boosts in our base DCs, because we don't want attribute boosters to be necessary to get reasonable use out of your skills at higher levels. Since that still leaves holes out there for some play styles, we have included several suggested solutions to the potential problem for use in your own games.

Scale DCs

If you expect large attribute boosts and want to keep the skill abilities balanced such that characters are not overly successful with them when they acquire them, you can just scale up the DCs. In general, you should add 1 to every non-opposed DC for every 2 ranks greater than 4 are required to access the ability. You may need to adjust this rate if there are large jumps at level 9 or 10 (when players can chain-bind for wishes and boost all of their attributes by +5 at once), though the fact that there are fewer abilities gained after this point means you will probably be fine if you do not. As was mentioned before, there's a lot of variance in trying to account for these.

Cap Attributes

If you don't want to scale the DCs but you also don't want to worry about players using higher level skill abilities more reliably than expected, you can simply put a cap on their attributes or the attribute bonuses that can be applied to skills. We recommend setting the limit at 20 + their racial attribute modifier for each attribute, and just using whatever that modifier is if you're going to cap skill adjustments and not attributes entirely. For races in the SRD, this gives a maximum range of 18 to 22 on attributes, or a +4 to +6 bonus. This gives players some room for growth, but since these numbers are within expected ranges they will work with the skill ability DCs over all levels of the game. It also pushes players to grow multiple attributes, as they begin to see diminishing returns after a point and would get a larger benefit out of raising a different attribute.

Do Nothing

If your games don't involve large, universal attribute boosts or you don't care if higher level attribute focused characters get better results more reliably on their shiny new high level abilities than they did when they got their lower level skill abilities, then you don't need to do anything at all. The DCs listed in the skills chapter should serve you just fine; you probably won't see major divergence from the expected success rates until higher levels anyway.

Hey, what about synergy bonuses?

Synergy bonuses exist to give characters a reason to take similar sets of skills and only work to provide larger bonuses. Since there's no reason in this work to push people into taking similar sets of skills and we are really concerned about stopping people from stacking bonuses up where they cause problems, we left them out.

Converting to the Tome of Prowess

This work also includes a fair bit of skill consolidation or re-characterization, so that the skills themselves remain relatively close to each other in terms of value and power. Unfortunately that means you will need to do some conversion on existing characters to bring them into line. The core SRD class conversions are listed here, advice on converting other classes can be found below.

Core Class Skill List

Skill Name	Key Attrib	Barbarian	Bard	Cleric	Druid	Fighter	Monk	Paladin	Ranger	Rogue	Sorcerer	Wizard
Acrobatics	Dex	X	X	X	X	Class	Class	X	Class	Class	X	X
Affability	Cha	X	Class	Class	X	X	X	Class	X	X	Class	X
Appraisal	Int	X	Class	X	X	X	Class	X	X	Class	X	Class
Arcana	Int	X	Class	X	X	X	X	X	X	Class	Class	Class
Athletics	Con	Class	X	X	Class	X	Class	X	Class	Class	X	X
Bluff	Int	Class	Class	Class	X	X	X	X	X	Class	Class	X
Ciphers	Int	X	Class	X	X	Class	X	X	X	Class	X	Class
Concentration	Wis	X	X	Class	Class	X	Class	X	X	X	Class	Class
Cultures	Cha	Class	Class	X	X	X	X	Class	Class	X	X	X
Creature Handling	Wis	Class	X	X	X	Class	X	Class	Class	X	X	X
Devices	Int	X	X	X	X	Class	X	X	X	Class	X	Class
Disguise	Cha	X	Class	X	X	Class	X	X	X	Class	Class	X
Dowsing	Wis	Class	X	X	Class	X	Class	Class	X	X	X	X
Endurance	Con	Class	X	X	X	Class	Class	Class	Class	X	X	X
Escape Artistry	Dex	Class	Class	X	X	Class	Class	X	X	Class	X	X
Geomancy	Wis	Class	X	X	Class	X	X	X	Class	X	Class	X
Healing	Cha	Class	X	X	Class	Class	Class	X	Class	X	X	X
Intimidation	Cha	Class	X	Class	X	X	X	Class	X	Class	X	X
Jump	Str	Class	X	X	X	Class	Class	Class	X	X	X	X
Legerdemain	Dex	X	Class	X	X	X	Class	X	X	Class	X	Class
Perception	Wis	Class	X	X	X	Class	Class	X	Class	Class	X	X
Psychology	Int	X	Class	Class	X	X	Class	Class	X	X	X	X
Stealth	Dex	X	X	X	X	Class	Class	X	Class	Class	X	X
Survival	Wis	Class	X	X	Class	Class	X	X	Class	X	X	X
Thaumaturgy	Cha	X	X	Class	X	Class	X	Class	X	X	Class	X
Skill Points		10	6	4	4	10	10	6	6	10	4	4

Updated Class Skill Points

The point of these skills is to supplement class features to grant utility to characters, so classes with the most broad options from their class features get the fewest skill points. Classes with few options or extremely narrow focus get substantially more to broaden their ability sets. In general, classes with full casting progressions and broad spell selections should have around 4 skill points per level. Classes with half casting abilities, like the Bard or Ranger, or very narrow spell selections, like the War Mage, should have around 6 skill points per level. Classes that lack broad spells or special class features, often referred to as non-casters like the Rogue or Fighter (yes, the Fighter), should have 8–10 skill points per level.

These suggested numbers work fairly well for most WotC classes, but may not work so well for classes from the Tome series of homebrew work or other material intended for a similar level of balance. These class groupings are already substantial improvements over their core versions. You may need to reduce the suggested number of skill points and class skills given to these classes to avoid giving them too much utility.

Updated Class Skill Lists

When converting a class, the easiest way to assign them new class skills is to simply convert their original skills into the revised skills in this work. That will give you a base to work from, but probably won't leave the class skill list complete. Each class should get slightly more class skills to select from than they have skill points to spend. A good target is approximately 30-50% more class skills than they have skill points to spend them on. They need enough that not every member of that class has the exact same set of skills, but not so many that they can just take whatever they want.

So after you have completed the initial skill conversion, you may need to remove some skills or add a few new ones. Remember that you should try to avoid assigning skills to a class if they have access to magic that already does the same things. The cleric no longer has access to the Healing skill in the core conversion above, because the cleric has magic that is more consistent and generally relegates the skill to second place. The flip side of this assignment step is that some classes may need to gain access to class skills that might not fit with their common interpretation. If this comes up, it is generally because the class was a relatively mundane one with very limited utility abilities. More often than not, the best way forward in these circumstances is to embrace the chance to expand their repertoire and utility. The fighter above has gained access to a large number of utility abilities, and is a more valued party contributor as a result.

If you feel that a class needs more or less than this amount of class skills, remember that additional skills increase utility when given time to retrain as well as dilute the core of what the class is capable of. The opposite is also true, since fewer class skills reduces utility and tends to restrict character options. So it's generally a bad idea to do those things unless you're working with classes from the Tome series of homebrew work or other material intended for a similar level of balance. With that series, a few extra class skills in conjunction with the more limited skill points (as indicated above) works fairly well.

Skill Updates

To assist with determining which skills a converted class would have access to if converted directly, each of the old skills is listed below along with a brief explanation of where you can find it now. It should help you determine a starting class skill list, which you can then modify as indicated above.

Old Skill	New Skill	Notes
Appraise	Appraisal	Appraise has been expanded to include analysis of situations as well as objects. It has also taken in forgery, since characters who know what to look for make more effective forgeries (and forgery was a poor skill on its own).
Balance	Acrobatics	Balance has been combined with tumble into a new Acrobatics skill. The two are thematically similar, and together the two can be boosted into relevance.
Bluff	Bluff	Bluff remains the skill of liars. It has acquired the acting portion of the Disguise skill, as that always had more to do with lying than looking like someone or something else.
Climb	Athletics	Climb has been combined with swim in a new Athletics skill. This skill interacts with a revised overland movement and running system to allow for cross-country runners and tri-athletes.
Concentration	Concentration	Concentration has taken uses from the Auto-Hypnosis skill, and several uses have been forked into a new Endurance skill. Casting defensively has been moved into each of the relevant magic skills. Concentration now holds a position similar to Escape Artist with respect to spells; you may use it to override failed Will saves for a time.
Craft	—	Craft scales so abysmally that it has not been carried over. It is not possible to write a worthwhile craft skill without giving people the Craft Arms and Armor and similar feats for free when they begin to exceed 8 ranks in the skill, and that change was left out for now. The ability to craft things should be thought of in the same terms of a character knowing something, and you should see the Knowledge page for additional information on this adjustment.
Decipher Script	Ciphers	Decipher script has been expanded upon and combined with Speak Language in the new Ciphers skill. Understanding the various language patters required to decipher dead script lends itself to a study of languages in general, hence the merger.
Diplomacy	Affability	Diplomacy has been reworked from a skill that allows you to get people to agree to things, to a skill that gets people to like you called Affability. That you can then use that liking to get people to agree to things is somewhat beside the point, as it works quite differently.
Disable Device	Devices	Disable device has been renamed Devices. It no longer requires the Trapfinding class feature, as it was entirely useless without it. That class feature has been rewritten, and traps been more clearly defined. Open Lock has also been subsumed by this skill, as locks are devices by definition.
Disguise	Disguise	Disguise has lost the portions of the skill that dealt with acting, but has gained a much larger repertoire of physical modifications.
Escape Artist	Escape Artistry	This skill retains its original focus, though it has been expanded upon. It has been renamed Escape Artistry.
Forgery	Appraisal	Forgery has been expanded upon to allow item forgeries as well as written ones, and subsumed into Appraisal.
Gather Information	—	Gather information has been removed from the game, as it was largely redundant with playing the game.
Handle Animal	Animal Handling	Handle Animal retains its original focus and has been expanded upon significantly, gaining pieces of the Animal Empathy class feature. It has been expanded to include handling of additional types of creatures.
Heal	Healing	Heal retains its original focus and has been expanded upon significantly. It has been renamed Healing.
Hide	Stealth	The original hide rules relied upon physical conditions that would make a person hidden even without ranks in the skill. This was compounded by the lack of facing rules in the game, which conspired to make the skill absolutely useless without the Move Silently skill unless your target was deaf. This skill has been combined with the Move Silently skill into a new Stealth skill which has seen substantial adjustments.
Intimidate	Intimidation	Intimidate retains its original focus, making people afraid of you, and has been expanded upon significantly.
Jump	Jump	Jump functions differently enough from the Climb skill in helping a character achieve distance or height to allow it to remain its own skill. It has been expanded upon significantly, and now allows substantial distance at moderate levels.
Knowledge	Various	The Knowledge skills are a special case, and have an entire section devoted to explaining the changes made to them. They have been compressed and altered significantly, and some have been removed entirely.
Listen	Perception	Listen was a significantly useful skill on its own, but generally only showed up in the game to notice something that the DM wanted players to know, or to oppose a Move Silently check. Because Move Silently has been merged with Hide, and boosting Listen on its own proves to be extremely challenging, it has been merged into a new Perception skill with Spot.
Move Silently	Stealth	Though Move Silently was a better skill than Hide because it did not require specific physical conditions, it has been merged with hide into the new Stealth skill.
Open Lock	Devices	Open Lock was a specialized case of disabling or bypassing a specialized device. It has been wholly subsumed by the Devices skill.
Perform	—	Perform scales so abysmally that it has not been carried over. The ability to play an instrument or tell a poem or dance should be thought of in the same terms of a character knowing something, and you should see the Knowledge page for additional information on this adjustment. As this skill is required for Bards, simply give them their class level + 3 ‘ranks’ in the ‘skill’ for free.
Profession	—	Profession doesn’t scale at all, can’t be made to scale, and has not been carried over. The ability to tend a bar or run a shop is not useful for an adventurer, and should be thought of in the same terms of a character knowing something, and you should see the Knowledge page for additional information on this adjustment.
Ride	Animal Handling	Ride scales poorly, and has been subsumed into the Animal Handling skill. The Riding subsystem has also been rewritten to be more consistent with the rest of the skills and features.
Search	Dungeoneering	Search was generally most useful in conjunction with the Trapfinding ability, which has been appropriated by the skill. Search itself has been merged into the new Dungeoneering skill.
Sense Motive	Psychology	Sense motive had some interesting uses, and these have been expanded upon. It has been renamed Psychology.
Sleight of Hand	Legerdemain	Sleight of Hand has been expanded upon significantly, and includes updated rules for theft that work in conjunction with the remainder of the system. The skill has been renamed Legerdemain.
Speak Language	Ciphers	The ability to recognize patterns and sounds in language can be applied to languages both living and dead. Because it is easy to characterize this way and lacks value on its own, this skill has been expanded upon with the Decipher Script skill in the new Ciphers skill.
Spellcraft	Various	Spellcraft has been forked into three different skills (which have also merged with the remnants of some knowledge skills) for three different styles of caster. It retains most of its uses, and has not been generally expanded upon as casters don’t need the assistance.
Spot	Perception	Spot was a significantly useful skill on its own, but generally only showed up in the game to notice something that the DM wanted players to know, or to oppose a Hide check. Because Hide has been merged with Move Silently, and boosting Spot on its own proves to be extremely challenging, it has been merged into a new Perception skill with Listen and Sense Motive.
Survival	Survival	Survival retains its original focus and has been expended upon. It has also subsumed the Use Rope skill.
Swim	Athletics	Swim has been combined with climb in a new Athletics skill. This skill interacts with a revised overland movement and running system to allow for cross-country runners and tri-athletes.
Tumble	Acrobatics	Balance has been combined with tumble into a new Acrobatics skill. The two are thematically similar, and together the two can be boosted into relevance.
Use Magic Device	Various	Aside from being poorly designed, this was one of the most powerful skills in the old system. It has been redesigned, but it has also been eliminated. The functions it used to include have been merged into other skills; it is more difficult to be a master of every magical item now, though easier to use level appropriate items of types related to your field.
Use Rope	Survival	Use Rope did little before, and it is not possible to provide it sufficiently scaling options. It has been subsumed into the Survival skill.

Converting an Existing Character

The retraining rules mean that the easiest path to full conversion is to just redo your skill points from scratch during your time off, but that may not be an option in all games. If you would prefer to take a more direct conversion route, you can with these steps.

1. Determine your new class and cross class skills. A table listing the core base classes appears above. Other class conversions are left as an exercise for the reader, but advice to help your DM with this conversion is also above.
2. Replace your current skills with the new versions. If you have skill points in skills that have been merged, go ahead and combine them as long as you don't exceed the rank limit. Any skill points that don't have a place to go can remain unassigned for now. Determine how many skill points you have allocated to your skills at this point.
3. Determine how many skill points you should have based on your classes and level, and remember to remove any bonus skill points from intelligence. If your class is not among those listed here, you can find advice about the number of skill points they should have above. If you have assigned more skill points than you should have for your level and class, you will need to reduce your skill points. If you spent fewer skill points than you have you will need to allocate to new skills, but you should confirm with your DM that you have time in game to allocate them before you do so.
4. Remove any synergy bonuses from your character sheet. They don't exist anymore.
5. Replace your bonus granting gear if you like. Since it doesn't stack with ranks in most cases, it's not going to help you in the same way it used to. Similarly, if you have both racial bonuses and masterwork item bonuses, you may want to drop the items.
6. Write down your new, likely smaller, bonuses to your new skills. You need to know what to add to the die when you roll or take X on an ability after all.
7. Write down the abilities you gain from your skills based on your ranks. It's important to know what your new options are.

When that's complete, you're all set to storm some dungeons and fight some dragons.

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