Character sheet: skill points are weird

Ok, why are there two editable fields for "total skill ranks" and "skill ranks spent"? And why do these fields accept negative values at all? Shouldn't this be a single editable field for skill ranks per level with a computed total skill ranks value?
The spent ranks field is doubly useless because the skills tab already computes that value.

Additionally while there is a checkbox for favored class, there's no where to actually track how you spent your favored class bonuses...like additional skill points. How is anyone supposed to double check their skill rank total when looking over their sheet? "Gee, looks like I over spent on skill points last level. Oh wait, did I use a favored class bonus for that?"

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Draco18s

Ok, why are there two editable fields for "total skill ranks" and "skill ranks spent"? And why do these fields accept negative values at all? Shouldn't this be a single editable field for skill ranks per level with a computed total skill ranks value?
The spent ranks field is doubly useless because the skills tab already computes that value.

Additionally while there is a checkbox for favored class, there's no where to actually track how you spent your favored class bonuses...like additional skill points. How is anyone supposed to double check their skill rank total when looking over their sheet? "Gee, looks like I over spent on skill points last level. Oh wait, did I use a favored class bonus for that?"

---

Hi Draco18s,

Welcome to the FG forum.

Do keep in mind that the Pathfinder 1e system is quite old and much of the work of the developers has been to create universal tools that are common to all rulesets, such as Line of Sight, dynamic lighting, performance improvement, setting up the architecture for other big future changes, etc. The overall goal of the SmiteWorks developers is to create a system that can be used for all gaming systems. Is it 100% perfect for one particular ruleset? No... nothing can be.

Often times, the community developers will create free extensions to make a ruleset (especially an old one like Pathfinder 1e) better because those games are still played often. That gives improved features for specific rulesets while the official devs work on overall system improvements that help everyone.

As far as the tracking of favored classes, if that is important for the group, I would suggest putting it into the description part of character sheet. That's what my players often do.

Cheers,
Danny

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Draco18s

Ok, why are there two editable fields for "total skill ranks" and "skill ranks spent"? And why do these fields accept negative values at all? Shouldn't this be a single editable field for skill ranks per level with a computed total skill ranks value?
The spent ranks field is doubly useless because the skills tab already computes that value.

Additionally while there is a checkbox for favored class, there's no where to actually track how you spent your favored class bonuses...like additional skill points. How is anyone supposed to double check their skill rank total when looking over their sheet? "Gee, looks like I over spent on skill points last level. Oh wait, did I use a favored class bonus for that?"

---

the skill rank stuff there is mostly a tool a player can use to track their skill point distribution. Yes, the Skill tab also shows something similar, but this is always the total, while the other one shows the distribution among all classes (especially think about the use for multiclassing characters) :) Moreover, the skill tab fails to calculate skill ranks etc. for multiclassing characters due to different costs in the skill ranks depending on which class you currently are levelling up, so, the skill rank distribution of the class window can then help keeping track of the skill ranks manually :)
So, one may say that the skill tab is for single-class characters, and the other window is the "emergency" tool for multiclassing characters which players can use to manually track their points :)

The favourite class option is needed in PF1 since it automates something. Each time you level up that class you get a pop-up asking whether you want 1HP or 1 Skill point :)

And welcome to FG :D

Remember that in FG, Pathfinder and 3.5e share most basic systems.... while Pathfinder does not have different costs for skills, 3.5E does and I think that most of these windows are just hold overs from being based on that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Phixation

Remember that in FG, Pathfinder and 3.5e share most basic systems.... while Pathfinder does not have different costs for skills, 3.5E does and I think that most of these windows are just hold overs from being based on that.

---

ah, thanks, didn't know that there is a difference :) Yes, what I described above was for 3.5E, and the PF1 ruleset uses the same sheets as 3.5E (with some small differences), hence, as Phixation says, this separate skill window is carried over from 3.5E :) (so, you can ignore this for PF1 :) )

There's really only workarounds that I can offer, but here they are. Others have already answered your "why" question so I'll leave that out.

First: Get the live hitpoints extension or something like it. Since the bonus hitpoints for favored classes are added into that automatically and tracked, you know how many have been spent on that bonus in particular if you look at the "Misc modifiers" to a PC's hitpoints.

Second: Ensure that your charsheets are up-to-date and accurate. In that way, if you see that you have a higher skill ranks spent in the Skills tab than your Points Spent on the Main tab, you know that difference is from favored classes.

With this and the other tracking features I don't have a lot of trouble finding where my PC's stats are from.