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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3951268" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>One of my problems with skill consolidation is that it creates problems when you want to describe especial skill. For an aquatic creature, '+8 racial bonus to swim' turns into '+8 racial bonus to atheletics when making an atheletics skill check to swim'. Add to this minor problem that it also means you have an extra lookup when trying to look up the swim check. This isn't an uncommon situation when handling creatures that depart in some way from human norms.</p><p></p><p>For example, I could easily envision a PC race with +4 to climb and jump, but -4 to swim (say an intelligent chimpanzee-like race). Consider how much more complicated keeping track of this would be if the unlike skills are consolidated into something more abstract?</p><p></p><p>Even more problimatic AFAIC, by consolidating the unlike skills in this way you have to be careful that you make clear that the above design is even still possible because it becomes unintuitive in a way that it would be with distinct skills. You have to watch that your 'rules light' doesn't become a synonym for 'bland and undistinctive', or that in an attempt to correct that you don't create a rules light ruleset that isn't rules light but functionally equivalent to what you tried to replace.</p><p></p><p>There are other problems. When you fold in skills, be careful you don't create uberskills. One of the biggest problems in the existing system is that the skills aren't particularly well balanced. But you seem to have made that somewhat worse. In particular, 'Ingenuity' (Use Magic Device!!) and 'Acrobatics' are just insanely good, and I can see just about every single character I played that didn't have them class going cross class into at least one of them and perhaps both. 'Survival' is really borderline too, but is a better example of an even bigger problem - baggage.</p><p></p><p>One of the immediate problems that you have is that you can't take ranks in something without baggage coming along with it. Under your system, every simple backwoodsman that knows the lay of the land is not only good at hunting, but has intimate knowledge of the ways of the outer planes. Most players simply won't look this gift horse in the mouth dispite the silliness of it, but others are going to complain about it and it will necessitate metagaming by any DM that doesn't want ordinary woodcutters and bandits knowing the layout of the City of Brass or the name of the ruler of the 65th layer of the Abyss. One of the problems with this is that you have to know to metagame in the first place. New referees may assume its your intention based on the rules that every desert nomad be intimately familiar with the geography and nature of the Elemental Plane of Water, or that every fop and courtesan familiar with the treachery of the imperial court also be equally able to pass themselves off successfully as a gutterborn member of the underclass, or that every peasant than can handle a plow oxen is equally comfortable on the back of a raging battle trained charger.</p><p></p><p>In short, it seems like you are trying to create a system which has a priori assumed that skill checks are neither common nor particularly meaningful (and never attempted by NPCs), and so can be safely brushed aside without much loss to the game experience.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 3951268, member: 4937"] One of my problems with skill consolidation is that it creates problems when you want to describe especial skill. For an aquatic creature, '+8 racial bonus to swim' turns into '+8 racial bonus to atheletics when making an atheletics skill check to swim'. Add to this minor problem that it also means you have an extra lookup when trying to look up the swim check. This isn't an uncommon situation when handling creatures that depart in some way from human norms. For example, I could easily envision a PC race with +4 to climb and jump, but -4 to swim (say an intelligent chimpanzee-like race). Consider how much more complicated keeping track of this would be if the unlike skills are consolidated into something more abstract? Even more problimatic AFAIC, by consolidating the unlike skills in this way you have to be careful that you make clear that the above design is even still possible because it becomes unintuitive in a way that it would be with distinct skills. You have to watch that your 'rules light' doesn't become a synonym for 'bland and undistinctive', or that in an attempt to correct that you don't create a rules light ruleset that isn't rules light but functionally equivalent to what you tried to replace. There are other problems. When you fold in skills, be careful you don't create uberskills. One of the biggest problems in the existing system is that the skills aren't particularly well balanced. But you seem to have made that somewhat worse. In particular, 'Ingenuity' (Use Magic Device!!) and 'Acrobatics' are just insanely good, and I can see just about every single character I played that didn't have them class going cross class into at least one of them and perhaps both. 'Survival' is really borderline too, but is a better example of an even bigger problem - baggage. One of the immediate problems that you have is that you can't take ranks in something without baggage coming along with it. Under your system, every simple backwoodsman that knows the lay of the land is not only good at hunting, but has intimate knowledge of the ways of the outer planes. Most players simply won't look this gift horse in the mouth dispite the silliness of it, but others are going to complain about it and it will necessitate metagaming by any DM that doesn't want ordinary woodcutters and bandits knowing the layout of the City of Brass or the name of the ruler of the 65th layer of the Abyss. One of the problems with this is that you have to know to metagame in the first place. New referees may assume its your intention based on the rules that every desert nomad be intimately familiar with the geography and nature of the Elemental Plane of Water, or that every fop and courtesan familiar with the treachery of the imperial court also be equally able to pass themselves off successfully as a gutterborn member of the underclass, or that every peasant than can handle a plow oxen is equally comfortable on the back of a raging battle trained charger. In short, it seems like you are trying to create a system which has a priori assumed that skill checks are neither common nor particularly meaningful (and never attempted by NPCs), and so can be safely brushed aside without much loss to the game experience. [/QUOTE]
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