[RedSlayer]

Appraise any exotic item with no chance of failure

Balance on a severely obstructed, severely slippery, sloped surface less than 2" wide

Easily bluff someone into believing something almost too incredible to consider

Climb an uneven surface with some narrow handholds and footholds at full base movement

Maintain concentration while grappling on the deck of a storm-tossed ship in driving sleet

Easily translate intricate, exotic, or very old writing

Shift someone from hostile to indifferent as a full-round action

Examine, and bypass without disarming, along with your cohorts, a symbol of pain

Disguise yourself as someone of a different gender, race, and age category well enough to fool somone who is intimately familiar with the subject

Escape from masterwork manacles without touching the dice

I'm not even going to approach forgery, suffice it to say that you can totally own dudes.

Gather information on a specific subject without arousing suspicion

Raise a tyrannosaurus as your faithful pet

Easily treat any wound, poison, or disease

Hide while sniping and moving

Initimidate pretty much anyone

Dunk a basketball with a running start -- as a small creature with a 20' move

Recall 6 useful powers/vulnerabilities of a 5HD monster

Hear a cat stalking over the din of battle, through a door, while distracted

Sneak while running

Open an amazing lock

Sway an audience from hostile to indifferent with a performance

Stand on your mount's back during movement or combat with no penalties

Find a footprint on hard ground on a moonless night -- 2 weeks after the print was made

Easily sense enchantment

Lift a small object from a person as a free action

Easily understand a strange or unique magical effect

Read lips from 250'

Forage for food and water for 15 other people while moving at half your overland speed

Swim in storm water with no chance of failure

Tumble at full speed through a foe on a severly slippery surface

Activate just about any magic item

Bind someone such that they will need to make a DC 50 escape artist check


OR:

Craft an ordinary breastplate in just 2 weeks.

Hooray for craft skills. Not bitter, honest.

[jack(tim)]

"Read Lips from 250'" Nice...

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Well, at least you can't steal your own pants from yourself without noticing. That requires a slightly higher bonus to Sleight of Hand.

[RedSlayer]

Well, at +110:
a skilled acrobat can balance on clouds.

Or a skilled blacksmith could complete an ordinary set of fullplate in 2 weeks.



I was just curious as to whether anyone else had a houserule or something to "improve" the lackluster craft skills.

As of right now, a wizard with "fabricate" with 0 ranks can create any sort of non-magical item faster and easier than anybody else with a +200 mod.

I mean, I understand that a higher level crafter should be able to get "gloves of fabricate", but I put up for example all of these crazy non-magical effects that you can do with a base +30. So why is it craft skills get the shaft?

[Dthclaw]

Well, you could use the rules from Epic that allow voluntary increase in Craft DC in exchange for getting it done faster. Let's you put a huge Craft mod to use.

[jack(tim)]

W00t I can widdle a cute ducky in 3.5 seconds... and it still looks good!

[RedSlayer]

Actually Dth, thats including the epic rules.

[Dthclaw]

If you hate it so much, change the ratio. Or make a feat that adds an additional multiplier. Or change the timeframe. It's not like epic skill checks were ever balanced to begin with; if you want someone to be able to pull a fully-formed suit of full-plate out of their [CHAIR] in a day or so without using magic to get around those pesky things like metalurgy and the laws of physics, it's fully in the spirit of epic rules as-written to make it possible.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Personally, I'd go the other direction. Leave Craft alone. It seems the least screwed up of all of the skills. The line, "You can't break our legs because they are already broken. So there's nothing for you to break," should never be an acceptable line when bluffing someone you just walked up to. But under these rules, there's a good chance you can pull it off.

Don't get me wrong, I like my fantasy. I even like kung fu dudes flying through the air and cutting swords in half, but there has to be a line somewhere. In game, I prefer to use fudged rolls or fake rolls to cover up the insertion of common sense into the world. But balancing on clouds? I mean I might as well throw myself at the ground and purposely hope I roll a critical failure so I can fly. It makes as much sense as anything else.

[jack(tim)]

Hey... Arthur Dent did it. (LOL)

[Axel]

I agree some things just shouldn't be possible, no matter the skill mod. The issue is that a lot of these come down to the DM saying "no."

[Cuilean]

/agree Axel

And don't forget there are detriments for failure for several of these, meaning that a "1" is still a failure... and for example...

"The guard looks at the near-perfect forged letter of writ from the neighboring kingdom of Idunno including the detailed illumination and ornate calligraphy. He agrees to bring you into the evil tyrant's presence immediately. As you enter the room with the tyrant, the doors boom closed behind you, and the guard says, 'Your majesty, this man signed your name.' "

[Lyinginbedmon]

Cuilean, on Apr 22 2007, 09:11 PM, said:

"The guard looks at the near-perfect forged letter of writ from the neighboring kingdom of Idunno including the detailed illumination and ornate calligraphy. He agrees to bring you into the evil tyrant's presence immediately. As you enter the room with the tyrant, the doors boom closed behind you, and the guard says, 'Your majesty, this man signed your name.' "

Natural ones, the natural selection of D&D Chaos Theory

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Welcome back, Lying!

[Lyinginbedmon]

In one instance, a player decided to pray to a god (Specifically Olidamarra) for some help and decided to make a "prayer check". Well, he got a natural 20, and was suddenly enveloped in divine light, so he decided to play the messiah and convince two fighting groups of clerics to stop.


Then the light went off.

Natural 20s, the Inverse Darwin rule in action