Do you fold multiple skills into one?

[Aaron L]

The only skill I've really considered folding into another is Rope Use, which is just waaaaaay overly specific to be a separate skill. Maybe as part of Survival and Profession (Sailor) or something, but by itself it's just ridiculously over-specified.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I folded skills into one, but have sub-skills. For example, you buy ranks of Sneak. Your hide and move silently are equal to your sneak, but with individual mods (ie, size for hide). A check is most often a generic sneak check, but in some circumstances hide/move silently are instead used.

Acrobatics - Balance and Tumble
Athletics - Climb, Jump, Ride, and Swim
Notice - Listen, Search, and Spot. Your Spot and Listen ranks are 1/2 your Notice ranks, unless you take the Alertness feat.
Sneak - Hide in Shadows and Move Silently

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

The only skill I've really considered folding into another is Rope Use, which is just waaaaaay overly specific to be a separate skill. Maybe as part of Survival and Profession (Sailor) or something, but by itself it's just ridiculously over-specified.

It is, however you need VERY few ranks of it to be useful. With a silk rope and a modest 14 dex, you only need 1 rank to be able to take 10 on a check and succeed on all listed checks except tying someone up. Even then, you get a +10 bonus on your check. And if you are tying someone up, you are better off using manacles (DC 30 excape artist or 35 for MW manacles) until your use rope is rediculously high (+20 on average for mundane manacles).

Your idea about folding it into survival isnt bad, as the skill is largely useless to put more points into.

 

[airwalkrr]

See my sig for my variant skill system. Still in development, but nearing completion very soon.

 

[William drake]

Like, for instance, the more famous Spot + Listen and Move Silently + Hide skills. I know quite a few people fold them together into one single skill.

But how about other skills? Do you all fold, for instance, Open Lock + Disable Device + Sleight of Hand into one skill, Use Magic Device + Use Psionic Device, Spellcraft + Psicraft + Martial Lore, Bluff + Diplomacy + Intimidate, Ride + Handle Animal, Decipher Script + Forgery, and so on?

How are the results?

Some yes and some no. Open lock is not disable device: one opens it, one breaks it or shuts it down so it doesn't work. Use magic and psiconic device could be one in the same, if your game makes Magic and Psion powers the same. Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate are close, but they arn't the same. And Bluff isn't exactly lying either, its lying without detail, its lying without much thought in the hopes that someon just buys it and moves on. Diplomacy may use Bluff and Intimidate, but its also bargaining, and reasoning. Compramize. Handle animal could better your riding, but your ability to ride wouldn't work on calming a wild horse down. Decipher script doesnt make your able to forge it, to forge it you need to beable to coppy and recreate the writing so that it looks like the original.

so, like I said, some yes, but some no. The reason you have skills is that so you can specify what your charcter can do, and what he cant. And while some walk the gray, they really dont once you look close enough, and only then, based on the DM can they be put into the same meaning or mold.

 

[isoChron]

Since we made all skills class skills for everyone, there isn't any strong tendency to merge some skills. It made the life easier for both players and DM. Low-skill classes like fighter or cleric had more options, while high skill classes like rogue didn't suffer in our experience. We play it this way a long time. DM's spend less time spending skillpoints and have more options.

In one group we made perform have just 5 subskills, not 9. (Well first we made 3.0 Perform a group of 5 skills rather than 1. It stayed the same with 3.5)