Gentlemen!!!

Last night, Paladin, Ontrix, and I sat down and discussed skills in D&D. It was brought to our attentin that some people felt that there was a problem with not being able to do what you want to do in D&D because the few skill points you had were being spread too thin. We came up with 3 possible solutions:

1) Add 2 to each classes skills/level. This woud bump the Fighter to 4+, Monk to 6+, Rogue to 10+, etc. This change would not effect the Tome of Battle classes, as they already get 2 more than their 'parent' class.

2) Give each character 2 Background Skills. These are rolled at random, and maintain max ranks without spending any ranks in them as the character levels. This allows the character to have some misc. skills without having to put points into them. This also leads to interesting RP.

3) Minimize the total number of skills. This would do things such as combine Search/Spot/Listen into one 'Detection Skill', Move Silently/Hide into 'Stealth' and changes like that.

After much debate, we decided that we liked the first two options the most, and unable to decide between them, decided to use both of them. For our campaigns henseforth, we will be using the first two options (explained in more detail on the Rules Changes page). If any DM likes/dislikes what we have done here, please say something below and we shall discuss.

The document you have posted with the details of the listing doesn't work

Classes should get more skills on an "as needed" basis.  For example, Barbarian has few enough class skills and 4 skill points already.  More skills are really not required or essential.  I'd also recommend that this only work for base classes (as PrC's add plenty of power already).

Barbarian: 4 ==> 4
Bard: 6 ==> 8
Cleric: 2 ==> 4
Druid: 4 ==> 6
Fighter: 2 ==> 4
Monk: 4 ==> 6
Paladin 2 ==> 4
Ranger: 6 ==> 8
Rogue: 8 ==> 10
Sorc: 2 ==> 4
Wizard: 2 ==> 4

More to come later.

"Need" in this context is subjective. None of the classes "need" more skills. This is a suggested change to add versatility, which is a luxury in RPGs. My whole point of suggesting this change is to give more skill points to the martial classes so they can be more useful outside of combat. If the casters get more skill points, too, then that's fine--but it's the casters who don't "need" more points.

You're basically arguing that the Wizard and Cleric have an "essential" "need" for more skill points, but the Barbarian is fine as written. I find that difficult to believe. We agreed over the phone that casters need some skills to be effective. But that does not imply that casters need more skill points than they currently have.

Suggestion: Give the Barb +2 skills like everyone else, or scrap the +skills idea.

I like them both. I will be implementing the +2 to skills in all my campaigns henseforth, and the Background Skills are just fun and flavorful, so I will probably be adding them as well. As to not for prc's and barbs, I agree with Opal on this one. We are trying to add flexibility to everyone, and need is so hard to determine I would rather not try.

AND HERPA DERP!

I have fixed the file with the proposition of changeing the skills