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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chris_Nightwing" data-source="post: 6084090" data-attributes="member: 882">Reiterating what I said on the other thread..Ability modifiers do act as a proxy for skills, and so fighters are inherently strong and inherently better at strength-related skills. Wizards are trained in obscure lore because they have a higher intelligence score. The idea behind backgrounds is to give you better odds of succeeding at things you're not already naturally good at (with the side-effect of also making you better at things you're good at). They are supposed to represent the many years you spend doing.. something.. before you became an adventurer. Classes are also supposed to represent years of training, especially because 1st level is 'significant' - picking up a level in a 2nd class later in your career apparently won't give the same benefits as if you had started in that class to begin with. Thus, there is a tendency to think that if you study magic for years, you pick up some specialist knowledge relating to magic, hence give the Wizard a skill.They don't have a coherent vision for how they would like checks, other than those in combat to see whether you hit or miss, to work. Thus, it's unclear what a skill really represents. It's also unclear what an ability really represents - were you intelligent, so you became a wizard, or did you become intelligent because you trained as a wizard? If the former, then presumably you are better at all Int-based knowledge skills because you absorb information easily. If the latter, then presumably your training as a Wizard included learning different knowledge skills, hence your intelligence is higher and you are better at them.Personally, my coherent vision would be as follows:- Your ability scores are not inherent, though your potential to achieve them may have been. You are strong because you did strength-related things, you are intelligent because you did intelligence-related things. These things include your background and your training in your class.- As such, I see skills as a way to train yourself in what is really a tiny subset of all the strength- or intelligence-related things you could do, such that you perform beyond what your ability modifier would otherwise suggest. I don't believe they should be as overwhelming as they are right now, +3 each, but instead be more granular. A return to skill points in a sense, where you get +1 for each point you invest.- We limit mortal abilities to 20, which means you can never get more than +5 to all strength-related things. However, just as a weaker mortal could specialise in Climbing, say, to achieve the equivalent of your Strength, so can you specialise in Climbing to achieve the equivalent of a giant's Strength. Hence, you add ability modifiers to skills, but can never specialise beyond a certain point. A handy limit is +5 again.- A background tells you which skills you can add +1 to - there should be a few of these, more than four. Your class does not do this - your class trains you broadly in things already represented by your abilities (Rogue excepted).- As you increase in level, you can specialise further or gain new skills. Keeping it very simple, you gain +1 every level. To prevent over specialisation, your highest skill can only be 1 higher than your next highest, and so on, pyramid style. Rogues get double.- In the advanced version, your background would tell you which skills you get, but not +1 to each, instead you invest as you choose, bearing in mind the pyramid rule. Here is where a class could offer you additional skill choices.- In the basic version, you don't get +1 every level, but every, say, 5 levels you get +1 to your existing skills. Something simple like that.</blockquote>

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