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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hautamaki" data-source="post: 5896906" data-attributes="member: 42219">I've only read the first page of replies so far, but has anyone mentioned that the key difference between using a 'skill' and an 'ability' in D&D is that skills are something that is meant to be learned and improved upon with every level up, while abilities are much more hard-coded into the character and do not regularly improve with every level.In practice, the question you have to ask yourself is: Ought a 10th level rogue to be about a 10x better liar than a 1st level rogue?  Ought a 10th level fighter to be about a 10x better climber or swimmer than a 1st level fighter?The answer I have come up with for myself is to drastically pare down the skills selection into things that I believe an adventurer would likely improve upon in the course of adventuring (thus removing most craft and knowledge skills), and also into sets of things that are obviously related (for example bluff, diplomacy, sense motive, intimidate, etc, are all lumped together into a 'social skills' category, while all acrobatics, jump, climb, swim, balance, etc, are all lumped together into an 'athletics skills' category); and then to change the skills advancement into a curve.  To get the first rank in a skill only costs 1 point; to get the second rank costs 2 points (so 1 for first rank plus 2 for second rank = 3 points total) and so on.  Adventurers begin with 6 skill points at first level and gain 3 per level after that.  At first, they'll acquire skills quickly, but that will soon level off around 3rd or 4th level as they have to start making hard choices about whether to specialize or generalize; and either way the difference between a 5th and a 10th level character is not nearly as dramatic as that between a 1st and 5th level.</blockquote>

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