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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WayneLigon" data-source="post: 3892925" data-attributes="member: 3649">Someone can indeed tell the work of a real master from the work of a talented but lesser-trained person. Unfortunately for the purposes of that, the game isn't (and probably shouldn't be) sufficiently 'fine grained' enough to make that distinction. Otherwise, we'd have rules for actual strength and quality of weapons on a sliding scale determined by the quality of materials, quality of workshop, quality of the help, etc -- all of that would be really realistic but add very little to actual play). It means nothing in the same way the qualifying for a prestige class depends on ranks and not bonuses. The game doesn't - and should - distinguish between them for die rolls but there needs to be some form of saying 'I have sufficient training and grounding in a skill, not just raw talent and luck on my side'. There's a great deal of difference between the two. Again, it's something the game system needs on a 'meta' level while at the same time it makes not a hill of beans worth of difference to gameplay.I'm just saying that using the ranks is about as good a means as we have for a good rule-of-thumb measurement of a craftsman's or professional's actual worth.</blockquote>