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Message: <blockquote data-quote="greywulf" data-source="post: 4058265" data-attributes="member: 4285">The short answer is "probably". The longer answer is "it depends on your style of play". Hmmm.... that's not much longer. I'll ellaborate.The +3 at 1st level gives quite a boost to your chosen skill area to start with. Remember that Skills in M20 cover a whole lot of ground; there's only the four (Physical, Subterfuge, Knowledge and Communication - I'm recapping for the benefit of new readers, please bear with me here <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> ), so in effect that means your character has a +3 head start with the things their class is most likely to use frequently, and is adding another skill point at each level advancement. That's kinda like D&D/d20 where a Rogue, say, will start with +4 on all his roguely skills, then adds +1 skill point to them as they increase level - it's just the mechanics boiled down. Except (don't you love sentences that start with "Except"? I do.) Im M20, they get a +1 to all skills, as that's simpler still and in keeping with the M20 ethos. That means your 20th level Rogue will be at +20 Phys, Comm and Know too and able to do other heroic things your average 20th level D&D Rogue couldn't do. To my mind, that's a Good Thing. Remember that M20 has No Feats, so no skill boosting Feat tricks up its sleeves. Heck, M20 doesn't even have sleeves. But anyway.If you want to create a character in D&D that's got a skill out of the ordinary, you need a Feat of some kind - Educated, Cosmopolitan or something from the Forgotten Realms book, say. In M20, you just use it. If you want an Intimidating Magi, just play one, and roll Com+STR a lot of times. If you want an Educated Fighter, make Know+INT rolls. Your roll will be lower than choosing the "right" class for the skill, but this is about Fun, not Balance. If I wanted a game all about balance I'd have taken up tight-rope walking, not role-playing. I just hope Wizards don't hunt me down for that last sentence. Oops.Anyhow, giving the characters only a +1 to any one skill at level advancement takes away that flexibility - either the character will choose to put in on their core skill (Sub for Rogue, etc) and stay Two Dimensional (not that that's a bad thing), or choose to put it on a different skill and become More Interesting But Weaker In The Important Stuff. That's up to you, but for my money I'd say flexibility during play trumps it. When it comes to customization of the rules, anything goes. How I play is unlikely to be how you play, so please do make any and all changes you want; if it doesn't suit, make it fit how you play the game. All I can do is explain my rationale; if it's not for you, that's cool <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Phew. Another explanation that's longer than the rules themselves. Sorry about that!Back to Magical Attack. If you hadn't guessed, we play a loose game where the rules intentionally take a back seat, so what the SRD says ain't necessarily what we do. Magical Attack is used whenever there's.....uhhhh.... a magical attack - a direct physical manifestation against an opponent. So that means Fireball, Lightning Bolt, etc are all Magical Attacks. Magic Missile would be, but that's auto-hit anyhow. Touch spells are physical attacks though.We explain it that Magi focus on the opponent's Chi/Spirit/Soul/whatever at range and target that, not the physical presence. It helps explain why low DEX Magi can hit a womp-rat at 400 paces but couldn't hit their foot with a crossbow bolt while kneeling <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Hope that helps <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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