This is pretty fantastic, although I'd probably use the term "Academics" instead of "Social".
First, thanks! I wish I could claim complete originality, but this change was inspired by some of the discussion surrounding the development of Iron Heroes 2nd Edition.
As for Social versus Academics, I didn't want my party rogue to go from having Knowledge Local to suddenly having Knowledge Academics. Social kept the jist of it (people, places, and rules in society) well enough.
I do wonder if it would limit the skill options for wizards and other scholary types though. You figure those characters would always have all those skills max'ed out (which might not be a bad thing per se).
... One of the reasons I made the change was that I was tired of seeing Wizards with only
one knowledge skill (Arcana), and that at 5 ranks for the synergy bonuses. (2 + Int does not go very far, especially when you need Concentration and Spellcraft, and Spot is too good to pass up; that leaves maybe 1 skill at first level to assign to something useful, of which you have about 50 choices.)
Even TB doesn't do much for them, since they still only have 4+Int (max of 9 starting skills) to cover the
ten knowledge skills. You absolutely cannot play the "know everything" wizard; or bard, for that matter, which is why they got it as a class feature (bardic knowledge).
Happily, it's been much fun. Plenty of utility to make it worth picking them up, but not so much that any of them are must-haves. All the PCs picked up one Knowledge (Natural for the Barbarian and Fighter/Ranger, Social for the Rogue), and the human Cleric picked up two (Social and Supernatural).
They've been about as useful as Jump, or Acrobatics. Which is where they should be.
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