Long term characters...

[Arkanis]

I've got a Microlite campaign going and everyone is loving it. I have a couple of things that bug me though....

Why would anyone ever put more than one level in rogue? You gain all its mechanics first level and they never improve.

Personally I have no rogue in my party so I'm not too concerned, but I'm thinking of adding extra sneak attack damage every 5th level.

Secondly I find +1 to all skills rather odd on level up. I feel a level 15 fighter with 19 physical, 15 subterfuge, 15 communication, and 15 knowledge rather Jack of all trades. Especially if he happens to have 8 intelligence.

I'm thinking I'll solve this by instead granting 2 points to whichever ones the player wants every 2nd level. I'm also considering imposing caps based on stats.

What are other people's thoughts on this?

[M-Type]

Well, I happen to play the lovable Rogue in Crose's game, any currently being level 5, is that there is always room for improvement.  Every session I seem to be finding more and more traps...in my rib cage.  While my Subterfuge has leveled up, I'm getting much better at finding traps (and bluffing people).  Since you don't have a rogue don't worry, and I don't think I've actually sneak attacked anyone now that I think about it.

[Crose87420]

I've got a Microlite campaign going and everyone is loving it. I have a couple of things that bug me though....

Why would anyone ever put more than one level in rogue? You gain all its mechanics first level and they never improve.

Personally I have no rogue in my party so I'm not too concerned, but I'm thinking of adding extra sneak attack damage every 5th level.

Secondly I find +1 to all skills rather odd on level up. I feel a level 15 fighter with 19 physical, 15 subterfuge, 15 communication, and 15 knowledge rather Jack of all trades. Especially if he happens to have 8 intelligence.

I'm thinking I'll solve this by instead granting 2 points to whichever ones the player wants every 2nd level. I'm also considering imposing caps based on stats.

What are other people's thoughts on this?

Hey, I'm glad you started this thread because I've had a few issues myself as the characters in my group gain levels.

For your first question I don't have any info, we don't have any multi-class characters.

Your second question has been one on my mind. The characters in my group seem pretty strong compared to what should be equal encounters. This is partly to do with their +1 skill bump each level, they are getting to the point where they can find any trap and pass most every saving throw (though they have had a run of unsually bad rolls lately).

I was thinking myself of something along the lines of one skill is equal to the characters level +3, a primary skill, another skill is equal to the character's level, a secondary skill, and all the others are equal to half the character's level. This would leave characters with particular strengths and weaknesses, not jack-of-all-trades.

This doesn't really solve the passing all saves situation but it would allow for more variation among characters and their skills.

Another thing that is causing me to have problems with supposed equal combats is that everyone has multiple attacks already at 4th level. The party can literally rip through creatures (not counting the impossibly bad rolls in the last couple of sessions). I think allowing just fighters to gain multiple attacks would help out (and save time in combat in the long run)

[Arkanis]

Those actually both sound like good ideas to me. If fighters are the only ones to get extra attacks that also makes up for the missing cleave.

are we talking plus three in addition to class modifiers? 7 is a might high skill level for level one characters. Perhaps simply 2 at level 2 at half.

With further thinking I feel the simplest way to keep rogues rogue might be this. For each extra class a rogue takes their sneak damage bonus is halved.

[M-Type]

I'm fine with not having a bonus attack, but I can definitely see letting a fighter go with it.

[SethDrebitko]

I use my own re-written base classes (which I can throw up in a word doc when I get home), and don't allow multi-classing so I don't run into your first issue.

As for skills players get a class bonus and then 2 points to spend as they desire. Every level they get another 2 points. On top of that I just use common sense to keep inmind what characters are and are not good at and impose negatives. For example, rogues are the only class I don't apply a negative to when dealing with traps and such. Equally, based on a characters background (or class stereo-types in place of a background) I either don't allow characters to make checks regarding knowledge they wouldn't have or apply a negative.

With less and more broad rules you have to personally take into account a characters actual area of expertise, and situation.

[weeot]

Crossclassing:
Disallow it
OR distinguish between a character's total level and their Class Levle (the number of times they have leveld as a particular class. Then only calculate the cross-class benefits based on Class Level and make them round down when dividing (say for class level).  Then change sneak attack to do Rouge Class Levle + the +3 if they were rogue first. so if take first level rogue then do 7 levels of fighter you have sneak attack +3, and only +1 to attack and damage rolls.

Skills:
Common solutions include:
GM just says NO to out of character attempts. (dont forget that SRD DCs are too low to use with M20).
one skill adds +Level, and others add +1/2 level. 
let them increase 2 skills by +1 each level.

[SethDrebitko]

Also you could just drop in the d6 progression from the srd.

[Arkanis]

So in my group we have now imposed 2 primary skills (level) and the rest half. I like it because its simple and its working well

[Crose87420]

So in my group we have now imposed 2 primary skills (level) and the rest half. I like it because its simple and its working well

I like that, I think it was one of Weeot's suggestions as well, +1 to two skills actually, which is pretty close.

What this means is basically everyone will have Physical (because it plays into Fortitude saves and not taking it would be suicide at higher levels) and another skill at an equal to level rank.

[Arkanis]

So I have come up with an elegant cross classing solution. basically you get two scores for each skill. One for each class. Most of the time you use the highest but any class ability that refers to a skill score uses its particular score.

Basically its what   weeot said.