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<blockquote data-quote="Wulf Ratbane" data-source="post: 4997375" data-attributes="member: 94">We didn't go quite that far but we did, in fact, greatly reduce the utility of skills in combat-- while at the same time giving almost everyone more skill points and making it easier to contribute in interesting ways out-of-combat. No class gets fewer than 4 skill points per level, there are no cross-class skills, and the skill list is consolidated so your skill points go farther.I like Celebrim's list. No major quibbles-- though again, we changed quite a few, and the list of really useful skill uses in combat is a bit shorter.Agreed that all of these things matter; my point isn't that they don't matter, just that they don't matter nearly as much as combat. If you are running the kind of game where four or five &quot;catastrophically bad&quot; skill checks are as bad as those four or five rounds of combat-- as in, you'll be rolling up a new character-- then I think you're playing outside the norm.And that's a sliding scale. Which is fine.I'm just saying that if you're playing in such a game, then the value of skill points is greatly amplified compared to the typical campaign, and therefore skill points have a different set of balance considerations.It's not just the amount of out of combat stuff that your DM throws at you, but also the relative consequences of those skill checks. You may very well find yourself in a campaign where the term &quot;Save or Die&quot; is meaningless and instead the players sit around dreading &quot;Sense Motive or Die.&quot;And if you're playing a campaign where the ability to speak with burrowing mammals is absolutely crucial to your survival, the gnome is king.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Wulf Ratbane, post: 4997375, member: 94"] We didn't go quite that far but we did, in fact, greatly reduce the utility of skills in combat-- while at the same time giving almost everyone more skill points and making it easier to contribute in interesting ways out-of-combat. No class gets fewer than 4 skill points per level, there are no cross-class skills, and the skill list is consolidated so your skill points go farther. I like Celebrim's list. No major quibbles-- though again, we changed quite a few, and the list of really useful skill uses in combat is a bit shorter. Agreed that all of these things matter; my point isn't that they don't matter, just that they don't matter [I]nearly as much [/I]as combat. If you are running the kind of game where four or five "catastrophically bad" skill checks are as bad as those four or five rounds of combat-- as in, you'll be rolling up a new character-- then I think you're playing outside the norm. And that's a sliding scale. Which is fine. I'm just saying that if you're playing in such a game, then the value of skill points is greatly [I][B]amplified [/B][/I]compared to the typical campaign, and therefore skill points have a different set of balance considerations. It's not just the amount of out of combat stuff that your DM throws at you, but also the relative consequences of those skill checks. You may very well find yourself in a campaign where the term "Save or Die" is meaningless and instead the players sit around dreading "Sense Motive or Die." And if you're playing a campaign where the ability to speak with burrowing mammals is [I]absolutely crucial [/I]to your survival, the gnome is king. [/QUOTE]

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