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<blockquote data-quote="evilbob" data-source="post: 3951914" data-attributes="member: 9789"><p>Hooray for lots of good thoughts and suggestions! <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /> Thank you all very much. I'll see if I can address them all...</p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>Celebrim</strong>: You are completely right. Skill consolidation can certainly impeed both flavor and realism. But, it's really all a balancing act: litterally every skill could be divided and subdivided dozens of times, and you could end up having thousands of skills. I've even seen games where there are no pre-defined skills; you just make up what you want. "Skills" as a measure of one's ability are virtually limitless; therefore some consolidation has to occur just to keep bookkeeping reasonable and a game playable. You might have thousands of choices, but players won't touch the vast majority of them: you should keep it simpler so that it becomes more accessable (and I am NOT suggestions kowtowing to the LCD, which is a rebuttal I occationally see on these boards - NO ONE is going to pour over a hundred choices for anything; they'll learn which 3 are the best and just use those). Barring letting players come up with skills on their own, some sort of order must happen. Once this is a given, it only becomes a matter of deciding how much consolidation must occur.</p><p></p><p>3.5 went with a semi-broad approach that has some perks and some obvious flaws. One thing that will likely -always- be consistent is that there will -always- be a small number of skills that are MORE useful than all other skills. Spellcraft, Spot, and Tumble were ALWAYS much better skill choices than Knowledge(history), Appraise, and the king of crap: Forgery. This is just the nature of the beast: depending on your campaign, certain skills are worthless and others are no-brainers. My goal, which I should have stated at the outset, was to create a smaller, easier to manage skill set that made -each skill useful.- I was happen to sacrifice wide swaths of flavor and realism in order to gain the benefit of having every single skill point be a useful investment. Combining things like Spot and Listen made things much, much simpler, and I do not believe I lost that much flavor. Yes, some concessions will be made and some detail will be lost (your poor chimp race, for example), but I view those as acceptable in order to get things moving faster and easier. As many already have said: life is already too complicated. This is a game.</p><p></p><p>However, your point about baggage is also legit. Honestly, yes: I do envision that the guy who spends all of his life out in the woods -would- have a better chance to survive on the Plane of Water than someone else; those things seem related to me. However, your point and others' seem to really stick on the Knowledge(Planes) question, and so it might require a revision.</p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>Claudius Gaius</strong>: I think I just repeated what you said... <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="evilbob, post: 3951914, member: 9789"] Hooray for lots of good thoughts and suggestions! :) Thank you all very much. I'll see if I can address them all... [B]Celebrim[/B]: You are completely right. Skill consolidation can certainly impeed both flavor and realism. But, it's really all a balancing act: litterally every skill could be divided and subdivided dozens of times, and you could end up having thousands of skills. I've even seen games where there are no pre-defined skills; you just make up what you want. "Skills" as a measure of one's ability are virtually limitless; therefore some consolidation has to occur just to keep bookkeeping reasonable and a game playable. You might have thousands of choices, but players won't touch the vast majority of them: you should keep it simpler so that it becomes more accessable (and I am NOT suggestions kowtowing to the LCD, which is a rebuttal I occationally see on these boards - NO ONE is going to pour over a hundred choices for anything; they'll learn which 3 are the best and just use those). Barring letting players come up with skills on their own, some sort of order must happen. Once this is a given, it only becomes a matter of deciding how much consolidation must occur. 3.5 went with a semi-broad approach that has some perks and some obvious flaws. One thing that will likely -always- be consistent is that there will -always- be a small number of skills that are MORE useful than all other skills. Spellcraft, Spot, and Tumble were ALWAYS much better skill choices than Knowledge(history), Appraise, and the king of crap: Forgery. This is just the nature of the beast: depending on your campaign, certain skills are worthless and others are no-brainers. My goal, which I should have stated at the outset, was to create a smaller, easier to manage skill set that made -each skill useful.- I was happen to sacrifice wide swaths of flavor and realism in order to gain the benefit of having every single skill point be a useful investment. Combining things like Spot and Listen made things much, much simpler, and I do not believe I lost that much flavor. Yes, some concessions will be made and some detail will be lost (your poor chimp race, for example), but I view those as acceptable in order to get things moving faster and easier. As many already have said: life is already too complicated. This is a game. However, your point about baggage is also legit. Honestly, yes: I do envision that the guy who spends all of his life out in the woods -would- have a better chance to survive on the Plane of Water than someone else; those things seem related to me. However, your point and others' seem to really stick on the Knowledge(Planes) question, and so it might require a revision. [B]Claudius Gaius[/B]: I think I just repeated what you said... :) [/QUOTE]
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