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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mneme" data-source="post: 5715328" data-attributes="member: 59248">[MENTION=88663]Gizella[/MENTION]: I have to disagree about the primary ability of acrobatics.  The primary ability is to stunt--Acrobatics and Athletics are by far the primary stunt skills, letting you make up and pull off death defying feats in and out of combat.But while I'm fine with things as they are, I have to admit that the "everything gets better, yes, even that" effect of the half level bonus is really a solution in search of a problem.  Because of the half level, everything you want to be a factor at higher levels has to be harder, stronger, more difficult, even when it doesn't make much sense.  Sure, you can come up with an explanation for why the 30th level wizard is able to jump 2 squares without breathing hard; why the 30th level Barbarian is hugely knowledgable about history, nature, and arcana (which admitedly made sense for Conan, but I'd argue that ti's not true of -all- larger than life heroes), and so on.But really, the reason is so that the difficulty tables will make sense.  It should be possible for a wizard to make a level appropriate Stealth check that's simple enough or with enough help; it should be possible for the group to pass a difficult group Endurance check without everyone being trained in Endurance; it should be possible for any character to have a chance at passing a level appropriate moderate check.  Remember the difficulty tables--the ones that were revised with the Essentials book so they'd be grouped around expected character difficulty, not the over-simplistic assumptions that there would never be greater than a 10 point skill gap?  -That- is the best place to make sure that characters can succeed on level appropriate challenges.  You don't -have- to have the half level bonus to all skills; you can just make sure the system scales character appropriate challenges.  And you don't have to give everyone half level to make sure they can succeed on group checks and appropriate assisted checks; you just need rules that allow aids to grant a bigger bonus when it's a trained person assisting an untrained person (because that really makes sense).Sure, higher level characters will be able to do otherwise impossible things.  But that doesn't mean they all have to be able to do the -same- impossible things.  If you preserve some levels of incapability from low levels; rather than having everyone going from being good at some things and terrible at others to being great at some things and only good at others, you end up with more character differentiation and a world that makes a little more sense.  And the thing is, the nature of feats and powers is that the characters -will- be a lot more capable at 30th level than they were at 1st.  The wizard will be able to charm people using suggestion and glib tongue; the warlock will be able to teleport, some characters will even be able to fly!  But that doesn't mean they can't be bad at at least -some- things.</blockquote>

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