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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FourthBear" data-source="post: 4215594" data-attributes="member: 55846">I think that in this case, you should consider simply creating a new skill: Sailing.  I believe that this and several other skills were removed from the core list because it was felt that in the average campaign, they would not be used to overcome the challenges facing the adventurers often enough to justify keeping them on the list.  So in a standard campaign, you could have a PC with the background of being a sailor and this would come into play in the presumably infrequent occasions when this would be useful (presumably you would use the appropriate attribute check with a +5 for training and a DC set on the fly by the DM).  Otherwise, you are asking a PC to spend character resources on a skill that you know is likely to only come up infrequently.However, if you are planning a campaign that is centered around sailing and sailing challenges will be regular (at least once every other session, I would say), then I think it's appropriate to create a new skill.  You may want to define what being trained as a sailor means for game mechanical purposes and what standard challenges are worth setting target numbers for in the text of the skill.The same thing would apply to a campaign where poetry contests are integral to many of the challenges in the game.  In that case, I think it would be worth creating a specific Poetry skill.  I feel quite certain that the Sailing skill will be one of the most commonly added skills to the list.  I would caution over skill list bloat, as every time you define a skill you are implicitly claiming that a character should devote resources to that skill in order to be competent.  I found this to be a significant problem with the non-weapon proficiencies in 2e, where abilities I always thought were more appropriate tracked "off the sheet" were added over time, thus implying that characters weren't actually able without those proficiencies.  I just ignored them, but I think DMs and writers should be careful at just creating large lists of every skill imaginable.</blockquote>

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