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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 4500320" data-attributes="member: 2067">This, as far as I can tell, was pretty much 3e's philosophy on it.That does put kind of a burden on the DM, though. They have to pay close attention to the PC abilities and actively work to include them.And when the DM didn't do that, it lead to "accidental suck." Because the DM was playing to what the DM wanted to play, not to what the players designed their characters for.There's also the "sandbox style" reason of some skills are some times going to be more useful than others. If you took ranks in Profession (sailor) but are in a desert, it won't do you any good, and if you're at sea in a boat, it'll help you a lot. The DM doesn't take your ability into account (though you have the ability to go wherever your ability might be more useful, in general). Personally, I prefer a system that is divorced from that, since it allows me as a DM to have confidence in whatever I think of throwing at my players, and it allows me as a player to not have to second-guess what my DM has planned or accidentally suck.Not all DMs pay very close attention to exactly where their players spend their skill points -- many assume the system will keep them "powerful enough." But spending combat resources on social skills means that they might not be, given the same total resources.</blockquote>