I've brought this topic up before, but I'm a glutton for punishment
I dislike the current skills system. There are many reasons, but my main grief with it is crossclass skills. I understand why WOTC did it, certain skills (like spot and listen) are innately superior to many others in most campaigns. By making these crossclass skills, you give certain classes an advantage with certain areas.
But in doing so you create an innate problem, a lack of variety. A fighter NEVER has as good a spot as an equal level rogue unless the rogue completely ignores that skill. Nor can a wizard be as good a rider as a paladin. A rogue can never be as knowledgeable as a wizard, even if his background is a researcher.
So my solution to this problem is to eliminate the crossclass system all together. Every skill is a class skill with the exception of the restricted skills, those remain restricted (and a few additional ones may become restricted). While I think for most skills every class should have an equal oppurtunity at taking it, I recognize that there are certain skills that should be kept just for certain class (ie disable device for rogues).
Now the counterbalance to this radical change, is to change the cost of skills themselves. Right now I'm working on a 3 tier system. There are cheap skills, medium, and expensive. Cheap skills are those skills that are not taken that often in the game, or that are easily replaced by magic. Example, climb, jump, and swim. For those skills, one skill point would buy you 2 ranks.
Expensive skills are the extremely useful skills like spot and listen. Those would cost 2 points per rank, or maybe 2 ranks per 3 skills (don't want to get it too complicated). Medium ones are of course those in the middle and cost a one to one ratio.
Notice that while the cost of skills has changed, the number of ranks you can possess has not. So while for a fighter, it would cost him nearly all of his skill points to get spot or listen compared to a rogue, he can maintain an equal footing with the rogue if he choose to do that.
The final change would be to adjust the skill points of each class. Obviously, since a lot of the typical rogue and ranger skills are now more expensive, the rogue and ranger should get more skills. Other skills numbers would have to be playtested
This system presents a few advantages:
1) Every class now has more variety in what they can choose, but specialization can be costly. For example, a fighter can now choose to become a good rider, and would cost him skill points as normal. However, that fighter could also decide he wants to gain perceptions, so he focuses on spot and listen instead. However, since these skills are so expensive, his limited skill points would quickly run out, and he may only be able to afford one rank. Still, if that's what the character wants he can.
On the other hand, a character could gain a lot of milege out of picking up the lesser used skills. Even though climb and jump are quickly replaced by spider climb and fly, they are cheap enough now to pick up- and can come in handy when magic is unavailable.
2) It gives the DM more options. Now, that fighter near the wall, could surprise the party with his expert vision, after all that's all he trains for. The local cleric could become quite a store of knowledges. The evil wizard suddenly jumps on a horse, ducks behind it for cover, and runs past the party whose jaws are on the floor.
3) It makes picking skills easier for classes. For many of us vetereans at the game, we instantly know which skills are class and crossclass for which classes. But for newer players, this can take some getting used to, and can be confusing. But its relatively easy to learn "spot is 2 skill points-always. Climb is 1/2 skill point per rank-always."
I'm thinking of instituting this in my campaign. What do you guys think? IT needs a fair amount of playtesting to get it tweaked properly but I think it could work and work well.

I dislike the current skills system. There are many reasons, but my main grief with it is crossclass skills. I understand why WOTC did it, certain skills (like spot and listen) are innately superior to many others in most campaigns. By making these crossclass skills, you give certain classes an advantage with certain areas.
But in doing so you create an innate problem, a lack of variety. A fighter NEVER has as good a spot as an equal level rogue unless the rogue completely ignores that skill. Nor can a wizard be as good a rider as a paladin. A rogue can never be as knowledgeable as a wizard, even if his background is a researcher.
So my solution to this problem is to eliminate the crossclass system all together. Every skill is a class skill with the exception of the restricted skills, those remain restricted (and a few additional ones may become restricted). While I think for most skills every class should have an equal oppurtunity at taking it, I recognize that there are certain skills that should be kept just for certain class (ie disable device for rogues).
Now the counterbalance to this radical change, is to change the cost of skills themselves. Right now I'm working on a 3 tier system. There are cheap skills, medium, and expensive. Cheap skills are those skills that are not taken that often in the game, or that are easily replaced by magic. Example, climb, jump, and swim. For those skills, one skill point would buy you 2 ranks.
Expensive skills are the extremely useful skills like spot and listen. Those would cost 2 points per rank, or maybe 2 ranks per 3 skills (don't want to get it too complicated). Medium ones are of course those in the middle and cost a one to one ratio.
Notice that while the cost of skills has changed, the number of ranks you can possess has not. So while for a fighter, it would cost him nearly all of his skill points to get spot or listen compared to a rogue, he can maintain an equal footing with the rogue if he choose to do that.
The final change would be to adjust the skill points of each class. Obviously, since a lot of the typical rogue and ranger skills are now more expensive, the rogue and ranger should get more skills. Other skills numbers would have to be playtested
This system presents a few advantages:
1) Every class now has more variety in what they can choose, but specialization can be costly. For example, a fighter can now choose to become a good rider, and would cost him skill points as normal. However, that fighter could also decide he wants to gain perceptions, so he focuses on spot and listen instead. However, since these skills are so expensive, his limited skill points would quickly run out, and he may only be able to afford one rank. Still, if that's what the character wants he can.
On the other hand, a character could gain a lot of milege out of picking up the lesser used skills. Even though climb and jump are quickly replaced by spider climb and fly, they are cheap enough now to pick up- and can come in handy when magic is unavailable.
2) It gives the DM more options. Now, that fighter near the wall, could surprise the party with his expert vision, after all that's all he trains for. The local cleric could become quite a store of knowledges. The evil wizard suddenly jumps on a horse, ducks behind it for cover, and runs past the party whose jaws are on the floor.
3) It makes picking skills easier for classes. For many of us vetereans at the game, we instantly know which skills are class and crossclass for which classes. But for newer players, this can take some getting used to, and can be confusing. But its relatively easy to learn "spot is 2 skill points-always. Climb is 1/2 skill point per rank-always."
I'm thinking of instituting this in my campaign. What do you guys think? IT needs a fair amount of playtesting to get it tweaked properly but I think it could work and work well.