JamesonCourage
Adventurer
I'm glad you want stellar non-combat support as well. I, too, don't consider the "same schedule" necessary for it, but I think it's a very easy and intuitive way to set it up if you plan on allowing people to trade combat and non-combat stuff. Which, again, I'd like to see.
Yeah, I agree. Like I said, it's a harder design space. But again, my Skills chapter ended up being 54 pages, and my Combat chapter ended up being 32 pages. There are a couple combat-focused skills (Evasion, Tactics), but they allow other uses. The only completely combat skill is Martial Prowess. The rest, though, play towards other aspects of the game, whether it's social interaction, or stealing, or whatever.
But, people seem to really dig the "light skill" thing right now. It's not my cup of tea, but I doubt they'll get nearly as defined as I want them. I still want them open-ended enough to say "shove in what doesn't fit", but I think they're going to do that with ability scores (which I also have a problem with, but whatever...).
Anyways, yeah, we'll see how they work to support non-combat. Whatever they do, though, I hope it has strong mechanical weight that doesn't dictate the flavor of the setting. That is, I'm not a fan of "knighted" when the setting may not support that, or the thought of forcing organizations for things like Rangers, etc. I understand that it's impossible for the mechanics to not inform the setting, but there's a different between "preparations against monsters" and "all Rangers are part of an organization."
At any rate, I keep hitting other topics in this post, so I'll wrap it up. As always, play what you like
