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<blockquote data-quote="Lackhand" data-source="post: 3854264" data-attributes="member: 36160">I think some skills are clearly more double-hooped than others.Something like Knowledge skills clearly deserve to be measured in two ways: raw talent and specific study; a character of very high intelligence (and a little bit of practice) shouldn't be as good as a character of very high intelligence and a lot of practice.I think that Open Locks and Disable Device belong here, too. Maybe so does Climb; I don't climb enough to know.On the other side is something like Balance or Diplomacy, which are almost part of the definition of the stats that they use as key attributes; being especially good at convincing people (to the exclusion of intimidating them), or of excellent kinesthetic memory (to the exclusion of tumbling, moving cautiously, or dancing), is not a &quot;skill&quot; in the same way that the knowledges are, because naturally studying any of them should lead to improvements in linked areas.I think things like Spot and Listen, Diplomacy and Intimidate, Tumble and Move Silently belong here. Sure, there might be someone who's better at moving silently than they are at tumbling, but if I picture a tumbler, it's the same picture as a pretty sneaky person.So it's not a crime against humanity to unify them, but one could use different systems for things like Spot and Balance (class features, maybe, and bread + butter of adventurers!) and Knowledges and Tracking (skills which not everyone is trained in!).Ideally? Anything in that second category is improved as a class feature, like the second edition thief, or a saving throw. Anything in the first category has to be improved via character-building tools like feats or something.Some feats modify things in the second category too -- why not?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lackhand, post: 3854264, member: 36160"] I think some skills are clearly more double-hooped than others. Something like Knowledge skills clearly deserve to be measured in two ways: raw talent and specific study; a character of very high intelligence (and a little bit of practice) shouldn't be as good as a character of very high intelligence and a lot of practice. I think that Open Locks and Disable Device belong here, too. Maybe so does Climb; I don't climb enough to know. On the other side is something like Balance or Diplomacy, which are almost part of the definition of the stats that they use as key attributes; being especially good at convincing people (to the exclusion of intimidating them), or of excellent kinesthetic memory (to the exclusion of tumbling, moving cautiously, or dancing), is not a "skill" in the same way that the knowledges are, because naturally studying any of them should lead to improvements in linked areas. I think things like Spot and Listen, Diplomacy and Intimidate, Tumble and Move Silently belong here. Sure, there might be someone who's better at moving silently than they are at tumbling, but if I picture a tumbler, it's the same picture as a pretty sneaky person. So it's not a crime against humanity to unify them, but one could use different systems for things like Spot and Balance (class features, maybe, and bread + butter of adventurers!) and Knowledges and Tracking (skills which not everyone is trained in!). Ideally? Anything in that second category is improved as a class feature, like the second edition thief, or a saving throw. Anything in the first category has to be improved via character-building tools like feats or something. Some feats modify things in the second category too -- why not? [/QUOTE]

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