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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 6278930" data-attributes="member: 8461">I had a much more elegant reply written earlier this afternoon; the website ate it. So, trying this again...There's a difference between feat bloat and rules bloat. The latter is an instance of how many rules you need to know in order to play the game. Feat bloat, by contrast, carried with it an escalating opportunity cost, as there are more and more feats competing for the same few slots.Likewise, the third-party option I outlined above actually does avoid rules bloat, because it hinges on removing the standard use of Knowledge (local) in favor of that variant. When you've subtracted one thing and replaced it with another, the overall net result is the same.There are a number of things here that need to be cleared up. First is that this use of a skill is "non-standard and unique," that's not the case. Speak Language, in v.3.5, operates under a similar principle in that each skill point spent grants a unique result, rather than adding to a single escalating bonus.Second, while I'm not sure what precisely you mean by "skill stunts," it's worthwhile to note that the actual use of Knowledge (local) checks, under this rule, are exactly the same as they normally would be. You still make a particular check at a particular DC when Knowledge (local) is called for.Finally, there's nothing to suggest that you use this version of Knowledge (local) where any other skill would come into play. As noted above, it still covers the exact same niche, save for the fact that it's no longer universal in its applicability.It's also worth noting that the "very high chance of success" is fairly relative. Skill bonuses are one of the easiest things to increase in d20 System-based games. It's easily conceivable that a character can hit a +15 bonus in a Knowledge skill well before their levels hit the double digits, for instance, which means that they'll eventually reach the same level of knowledge that they would under this variant, save that it'll apply to all localities everywhere.  I imagine that "bloat" will be very little. There's not much different between a line that says "Knowledge (local) +5" and one that says "Knowledge (local; Evereska, Shadowdale, Tantras, Waterdeep) +16". It'd add a line, two at most; we're not talking about paragraphs - more importantly, it's not adding new mechanics that need to be memorized and taken into account throughout the rest of the stat block or, for that matter, encounter. Insofar as the mechanics go, I agree that they're not conflated if you make one a feat and the other a skill. But that's not what I was trying to convey (though I admittedly didn't make this clear enough). Rather, I was speaking to the idea of Gather Information and Knowledge (local) being concerned with the same thematic area, rather than similar-but-different areas, which is how I see them.Not particularly, no. It's worth noting that I'm using "jumbled" here to refer to several unrelated areas of task resolution being kludged under the same mechanics. Knowledge (local) and Gather Information both occupy distinctly different areas in my view, and deal with those areas and no others. The only instance of jumbling is having Knowledge (local) refer to both information about a place and having it define what you know about certain categories of monsters.I think that this speaks to a larger divide about how to approach skill checks. Some people prefer that each skill be distinct in what it can handle with no area of overlap, so that you can't use skill X to solve a problem that requires skill Y, even if they deal with related areas. Others prefer to look at skills with related areas as "different ways to solve the same problem," and allow for skills X, Y, and Z to be used (albeit sometimes with different DCs).Moreover, the two aren't mutually exclusive, as I've seen examples where people move back and forth between the two ideas, depending on the circumstance.Insofar as the terminology as concerned, I don't see expanded uses for the existing skills as "skill bloat" - that's a term that I'd use only for adding new skills to the game altogether. While I do think that allowing uses for skills to overlap with other skills is something best avoided, that's not an instance of bloat, to me - it's more of a dilution.Here I disagree. The opportunity cost that comes with choosing feats means that a poor choice about feat selection can haunt you far worse than a poor choice for a few skill points. Skill bonuses occupy a fairly high range; having a bonus that's too high or too low is a relatively minor concern (in fact, a good or a poor d20 roll can bridge that concern entirely for a given check), and so there's little regret to be found in spending or not spending a skill point or two here or there.Feats, by contrast, are not only far rarer - one slot every two or three levels, rather than a pool of points every level - but they're also more binary. Having a feat, as often as not, opens up a few possibility that you simply couldn't do before. For skills, that only goes for some skills, and only for the first point spent. Not having taken the right feat can follow you past leveling and into the course of the game fairly easily because of that.I'm sympathetic to what you're trying to do here - I just think that the system if working against you. You're trying to input a level of variability that's non-class/level-based into a class/level-based system. It's not surprising that you went with feats to do that, as they're the primary place where the game rules allow for that level of variability to exist.The consequence of that, however, is that feats have had to absorb that variability so totally that they're now oversaturated with it to a degree that's outstripped their capacity to handle, in terms of how prevalent they are in the process of character creation/representation. Feats are now not only competing with each other for a limited amount of feat slots, but also competing with each other for the degree of non-class-based representation you want to imbue into your character (actual role-playing notwithstanding). If you want to take a feat that indicates you have contacts in every port, for example, you have to weigh that against needing to wait a few levels before you get to pick another feat (and so it better be useful for those levels), but also against the other feats that help to define your character, such as a feat that lets him tell lies so slick that even magic can miss them, or being able to disarm a character at range with his whip, etc.I'm suggesting that skills, which are already viewed as having little comparative value compared to feats (and spells, magic items, etc.) have enough room to absorb some of that representative ability, and ease the burden on feats.</blockquote>

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