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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 9538491" data-attributes="member: 2067">There's a family similarity, for sure, especially in 2024's revision, but "action" is a much broader and less strictly defined group of verbs in practice.Actions and powers aren't the things that a skill system is really meant to support, anyway- they're combat language. And skills have primarily been "what your character does instead of combat" since 2e's proficiency system. Rolling a skill back into combat kind of misses the point of a skill system.Like, I've got no real problem with skill powers, they're just not actually a better skill system, since they are only really concerned with being useful in a fight. Compare 5e's feats, for instance, which usually have at least some combat boost (an ability score increase at least, in 2024), but also can be more than just a combat boost. I could be sold on the idea that feats are a better skill system than skills! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />I don't think Intimidate needs a combat use in order to not be weak or useless or too strong.When I'm building a character, I pick Intimidate as a skill as a characterization. Not a gameplay strategy. I'm saying, "My character is good at intimidating people!" The failure of the skill system, in all editions, 4e included, is then that it is not actually fun or usefeul in gameplay to intimidate people, unless your DM is going to fix it. It's ABOUT the social gameplay. I don't need to be able to use a combat action to intimidate someone by applying the Frightened condition as part of a 3 or 10 round fight in order to satisfy that characterization. It doesn't hurt, but it's not why I'm choosing the option at chargen. It's not really the fantasy that I have for that characterization. I need a combat ability like I need to be able to use my Longsword proficiency to make a Nature check. I need to be able to have that intimidation be useful in a social context, as part of roleplaying. And no edition of D&D has been able to really solve that problem. Weirdly, 2e NWPs were better at solving that problem than anything since 2000 (and it was not a great system). 5e feats get a little closer, but the skill system itself still has those flaws. Where I have a fantasy I want to realize (My character is very intimidating!) and the gameplay fails to realize it (I guess I can bully some captives? Maybe spend my action to apply Frightened to someone for 6 seconds?)</blockquote>

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