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<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6063277" data-attributes="member: 2067">I'm with&nbsp; [MENTION=7006]DEFCON 1[/MENTION]If you want a consolidated skill list, why not just drop skills altogether and go with raw ability score checks?There needs to be some extra clarity on the scope of each skill (is a PC expected to roll for this once per encounter? per day? per session? per level?), just so they can be comparable in power, so that we don't end up picking something super-narrow that rarely comes up just because we weren't thinking broad enough. Like, Swim. A swim check is a pretty infrequent kind of thing to make in a lot of games (assuming most games don't take place on the high seas), you could go several levels between Swim checks.But, Spot. A Spot check is gonna happen almost every encounter, and is especially useful whenever anything tries to hide from you. Right now, someone who picks Spot is going to get a lot more mileage out of their skill than someone who picks up Swim. Does that mean Swim needs to be expanded so that it covers more? Or does that mean Spot needs to be broken up so that it comes up less? At what point is it a meaningful character option? &quot;Keen eyesight&quot; is pretty clearly an archetypal feature of a lot of characters in fantasy, but &quot;Swims well?&quot; Usually that distinction is more binary than that (You fall in the water, can you swim? Yes/No)I've always been a bit partial to secondary skills a la 2e/1e myself...all of them pretty broad, but still providing some meaningful character distinction. &quot;Swims well&quot; doesn't tell you much about a character, but &quot;Profession: David Hasselhoff&quot; gives you a lot to work with. &quot;Keen eyesight&quot; is relevant, but more limiting might be &quot;Profession: Meditative Monk&quot; might mean that you can be perceptive...if you're able to center yourself, and might compare to &quot;Profession: Woodsdude&quot; where you can definitely notice something wrong in the forest, but in a dungeon you might not be that clever.At any rate, the skills absolutely need to be comparable in scale, regardless of what scale that is.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 6063277, member: 2067"] I'm with [MENTION=7006]DEFCON 1[/MENTION] If you want a consolidated skill list, why not just drop skills altogether and go with raw ability score checks? There needs to be some extra clarity on the scope of each skill (is a PC expected to roll for this once per encounter? per day? per session? per level?), just so they can be comparable in power, so that we don't end up picking something super-narrow that rarely comes up just because we weren't thinking broad enough. Like, Swim. A swim check is a pretty infrequent kind of thing to make in a lot of games (assuming most games don't take place on the high seas), you could go several levels between Swim checks. But, Spot. A Spot check is gonna happen almost every encounter, and is especially useful whenever anything tries to hide from you. Right now, someone who picks Spot is going to get a lot more mileage out of their skill than someone who picks up Swim. Does that mean Swim needs to be expanded so that it covers more? Or does that mean Spot needs to be broken up so that it comes up less? At what point is it a meaningful character option? "Keen eyesight" is pretty clearly an archetypal feature of a lot of characters in fantasy, but "Swims well?" Usually that distinction is more binary than that (You fall in the water, can you swim? Yes/No) I've always been a bit partial to secondary skills a la 2e/1e myself...all of them pretty broad, but still providing some meaningful character distinction. "Swims well" doesn't tell you much about a character, but "Profession: David Hasselhoff" gives you a lot to work with. "Keen eyesight" is relevant, but more limiting might be "Profession: Meditative Monk" might mean that you can be perceptive...if you're able to center yourself, and might compare to "Profession: Woodsdude" where you can definitely notice something wrong in the forest, but in a dungeon you might not be that clever. At any rate, the skills absolutely need to be comparable in scale, regardless of what scale that is. [/QUOTE]

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