Starwolf
June 10th, 2026, 22:38
Version 1.1
Store Link: https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/3310/view
Introduction
This extension is intended to give GMs a different approach to character skill development.
In 4E as it stands today, skill progression is fairly static. After a dozen or so levels, the gap between someone who is skilled and someone who is unskilled shrinks relative to level. I also never really liked the idea that difficulty scales with level. At the extreme, this means that a lock that has one difficulty at level 1 somehow becomes more difficult as the character grows in power, simply to maintain the same challenge.
While this may be an easy way to handle difficulty progression, players do not really experience growth in their skills if the challenge remains the same. Eventually, the wizard can become nearly as capable as the rogue in some skill situations.
This extension was created to allow skill advancement to become a meaningful character choice rather than an automatic consequence of leveling. Characters can specialize in the skills that matter to them, creating experts, craftsmen, scholars, diplomats, scouts, and explorers whose abilities reflect the choices made throughout their adventures.
How This Extension Works
Before you start using this extension, you should think through a few things as a GM. One of them is how difficulty progression should work in your campaign. In addition, you should decide when skill points are earned and how many are awarded each time.
This extension only provides the framework for a skill-based advancement system. You still need to do the actual GM work of setting DCs and determining the consequences of success and failure.
First, in the Campaign Options, you will find four settings:
1. Skill Advance Rule
There are two options:
Use Skill Advances enables the house rule provided by this extension.
Normal uses the standard 4E rules, where all skills gain +1 every second level.
2. Gain Method
There are two options:
Per Level grants skill points whenever a character gains a level.
Ability Levels grants skill points whenever characters receive an ability score increase.
Skill points are awarded beginning at level 2. The assumption is that a 1st-level character has already received their basic training and starts play with the skills granted by their class, background, race, and abilities.
3. Points Awarded
This determines how many skill points characters receive whenever skill points are awarded.
The value can be set between 1 and 5.
4. Non-Class Cost
This determines how many skill points it costs to increase a non-class skill by one rank.
If you have marked which skills are class skills on the character sheet, the extension can automatically track the correct cost when purchasing skill ranks.
The Skills tab gains a new column called Adv. This column is displayed in green when the house rule is active, while the normal Lvl column becomes greyed out. If you switch back to standard rules, the opposite occurs.
To increase or decrease a skill, hold down the CTRL key and use the mouse wheel while hovering over the skill's advancement field.
Skill advancement is capped at 30 ranks. This still allows highly specialized characters to achieve skill bonuses well into the 40s when training bonuses, ability modifiers, feats, and other bonuses are included, while preventing skill values from increasing without limit.
At the bottom of the Skills tab, the extension displays:
Skill Points Earned
Skill Points Spent
Skill Points Remaining
There is no hard restriction against overspending skill points. If a character spends more points than they have available, the totals turn red as a warning.
I deliberately chose not to prevent overspending, as there may be situations where a GM has valid reasons for allowing it.
Difficulty Guidelines
This extension does not provide a difficulty system. The GM is expected to decide how difficult various tasks should be within their campaign.
As a starting point, a campaign using this extension could consider something similar to the following:
DifficultyDC
Simple10
Easy15
Average20
Difficult25
Formidable30
Heroic35
Legendary45
These values assume that a trained 1st-level character begins with approximately a +9 bonus in their primary skills.
Treat these numbers only as examples. Depending on how many skill points you award, how often they are gained, and how specialized your characters become, you may need to adjust these values to better fit your campaign.
As a general guideline, characters should gradually find tasks that were once challenging becoming routine, while new and more demanding tasks continue to test their abilities. The exact balance between character growth and challenge is left to the GM.
Store Link: https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/3310/view
Introduction
This extension is intended to give GMs a different approach to character skill development.
In 4E as it stands today, skill progression is fairly static. After a dozen or so levels, the gap between someone who is skilled and someone who is unskilled shrinks relative to level. I also never really liked the idea that difficulty scales with level. At the extreme, this means that a lock that has one difficulty at level 1 somehow becomes more difficult as the character grows in power, simply to maintain the same challenge.
While this may be an easy way to handle difficulty progression, players do not really experience growth in their skills if the challenge remains the same. Eventually, the wizard can become nearly as capable as the rogue in some skill situations.
This extension was created to allow skill advancement to become a meaningful character choice rather than an automatic consequence of leveling. Characters can specialize in the skills that matter to them, creating experts, craftsmen, scholars, diplomats, scouts, and explorers whose abilities reflect the choices made throughout their adventures.
How This Extension Works
Before you start using this extension, you should think through a few things as a GM. One of them is how difficulty progression should work in your campaign. In addition, you should decide when skill points are earned and how many are awarded each time.
This extension only provides the framework for a skill-based advancement system. You still need to do the actual GM work of setting DCs and determining the consequences of success and failure.
First, in the Campaign Options, you will find four settings:
1. Skill Advance Rule
There are two options:
Use Skill Advances enables the house rule provided by this extension.
Normal uses the standard 4E rules, where all skills gain +1 every second level.
2. Gain Method
There are two options:
Per Level grants skill points whenever a character gains a level.
Ability Levels grants skill points whenever characters receive an ability score increase.
Skill points are awarded beginning at level 2. The assumption is that a 1st-level character has already received their basic training and starts play with the skills granted by their class, background, race, and abilities.
3. Points Awarded
This determines how many skill points characters receive whenever skill points are awarded.
The value can be set between 1 and 5.
4. Non-Class Cost
This determines how many skill points it costs to increase a non-class skill by one rank.
If you have marked which skills are class skills on the character sheet, the extension can automatically track the correct cost when purchasing skill ranks.
The Skills tab gains a new column called Adv. This column is displayed in green when the house rule is active, while the normal Lvl column becomes greyed out. If you switch back to standard rules, the opposite occurs.
To increase or decrease a skill, hold down the CTRL key and use the mouse wheel while hovering over the skill's advancement field.
Skill advancement is capped at 30 ranks. This still allows highly specialized characters to achieve skill bonuses well into the 40s when training bonuses, ability modifiers, feats, and other bonuses are included, while preventing skill values from increasing without limit.
At the bottom of the Skills tab, the extension displays:
Skill Points Earned
Skill Points Spent
Skill Points Remaining
There is no hard restriction against overspending skill points. If a character spends more points than they have available, the totals turn red as a warning.
I deliberately chose not to prevent overspending, as there may be situations where a GM has valid reasons for allowing it.
Difficulty Guidelines
This extension does not provide a difficulty system. The GM is expected to decide how difficult various tasks should be within their campaign.
As a starting point, a campaign using this extension could consider something similar to the following:
DifficultyDC
Simple10
Easy15
Average20
Difficult25
Formidable30
Heroic35
Legendary45
These values assume that a trained 1st-level character begins with approximately a +9 bonus in their primary skills.
Treat these numbers only as examples. Depending on how many skill points you award, how often they are gained, and how specialized your characters become, you may need to adjust these values to better fit your campaign.
As a general guideline, characters should gradually find tasks that were once challenging becoming routine, while new and more demanding tasks continue to test their abilities. The exact balance between character growth and challenge is left to the GM.