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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Anax" data-source="post: 2619769" data-attributes="member: 19868">You can also think about having the Profession skill give a synergy bonus to certain other skills.  For example, I'm currently plotting over a character who has ranks in Profession (constable).  Having five ranks in this skill might give a synergy bonus to social skills in specific circumstances.  (For example: synergy bonus to Diplomacy with law officers, perhaps to Gather Information checks in places where the law has a strong presence, perhaps even Intimidate to petty criminals--stoolpigeon sorts, anyway.)Other things that could come from this might be the ability to make a Profession check as a sort of ghetto Knowledge check for the area of expertise.  For example, I might make a check to have some idea where officers of the law are likely to be found, or to identify the rank of such an officer.For other professions, well--there are similar things.  Profession (sailor) can give social bonuses with sailors and other people involved with the sea.  It could also give you the skill needed to sail an ocean-going vessel, and perhaps a bonus to Survival on the open sea.  A more stay at home thing like Profession (baker) might give bonuses to Survival to determine whether food is edible or tainted.  Profession (merchant) might give bonuses to Appraise.  Some of these ideas I've mentioned are clearly more useful to an adventurer than others--but they're all pretty restrictive in scope.None of these sorts of benefits will be useful in every campaign.  But that's really true of all but a small handful of the skills.  Still, because they're so very restricted in their utility, I'm inclined to be liberal about where synergy bonuses might apply, and what knowledge-like checks might be available.  This keeps you in the realm of "not useful in direct combat, not useful for making things", but makes them less pointless on a mechanics scale than they otherwise might be.  On the character development scale, of course, they're quite high up. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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