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<blockquote data-quote="77IM" data-source="post: 6570378" data-attributes="member: 12377">I often allow either skill to work. I used to be adamantly against &quot;skill overlap&quot; on the grounds of niche protection, but now I am in favor of overlapping skill functions. It turns out that allowing players to do stuff encourages them to do stuff and keeps the game moving, and allowing different skills to produce the same outcome lets each PC seem a little bit different. E.g., in my current group the default &quot;scouting party&quot; is a very stealthy monk and very very stealthy rogue. They can both spot traps -- the monk using Wisdom (Perception), the rogue using Intelligence (Investigation). But the monk is much better at spotting a hidden ambush, and the rogue is much better at actually disarming the trap.I have similar policies in place for Athletics vs. Acrobatics (for climbing and jumping), Nature vs. Survival (for identifying edible plants, predicting the weather, that sort of thing), Arcana vs. History vs. Religion (for different sorts of monster lore and other lore -- often these skills will generate slightly different information), and all the social skills (my players typically use a multi-pronged approach of combining threats with promises of aid and a few lies thrown in for good measure; the difference between the three skills is mostly in how NPCs react on a failure).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="77IM, post: 6570378, member: 12377"] I often allow either skill to work. I used to be adamantly against "skill overlap" on the grounds of niche protection, but now I am in favor of overlapping skill functions. It turns out that allowing players to do stuff encourages them to do stuff and keeps the game moving, and allowing different skills to produce the same outcome lets each PC seem a little bit different. E.g., in my current group the default "scouting party" is a very stealthy monk and very very stealthy rogue. They can both spot traps -- the monk using Wisdom (Perception), the rogue using Intelligence (Investigation). But the monk is much better at spotting a hidden ambush, and the rogue is much better at actually disarming the trap. I have similar policies in place for Athletics vs. Acrobatics (for climbing and jumping), Nature vs. Survival (for identifying edible plants, predicting the weather, that sort of thing), Arcana vs. History vs. Religion (for different sorts of monster lore and other lore -- often these skills will generate slightly different information), and all the social skills (my players typically use a multi-pronged approach of combining threats with promises of aid and a few lies thrown in for good measure; the difference between the three skills is mostly in how NPCs react on a failure). [/QUOTE]

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