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Message: <blockquote data-quote="giant.robot" data-source="post: 5273861" data-attributes="member: 93119">I didn't want to quote your entire post but I'll respond to bits of it. In the 4E system skills work very differently than they did in 3E. Training only gets you an additional +5 to a check and you're likely to have only a handful of trained skills. Your class grants you some and it takes a feat to get more. Your can get a higher skill check bonus by taking the Skill Focus feat but even then you're probably only to do that once in the heroic tier. This system doesn't have room for specific skill training like underwater basket weaving. If you need to build a boat that's something better left to a skill challenge than a whole new set of skills. That's why skill challenges were introduced, they can take the place of overly specific skills. 2E's non-weapon proficiencies got a little out of hand as did 3E's long list of skills. It didn't make sense to make a difficult skill check if you didn't have pips in that skill. In 4E you at least get a level bonus to checks (and a sliding DC scale) so you've got some impetus to make skill checks even if you don't have training. My Wizard with Skill Focus in Arcana might figure out what a magic item is more often than your Fighter with a lower INT score and no training in Arcana but you're still encouraged to make the check.I think 4E's skill system works pretty well most of the time. The general framework for doing off-the-wall things are skill challenges. Doing an important dance might be Acrobatics, History, and Stamina checks while building a boat could be Knowledge, Strength, and Wisdom checks. Once you start adding codified rules for all sorts of secondary and tertiary skills players are going to focus on those and request instances where they get to use them. The campaign might be taking place in a dormant volcano but they'll really want to use Profession: Shipwright because they wasted two feats to get it.I think 4E really needs to bring back the Sage/Hireling rules. They would solve a lot of your complaints and make a simple system for getting non-combat chores done. Players don't want to play Cobbler: The Roleplaying Game, they want to kill monsters and take their stuff. Instead of letting them waste a feat getting Profession: Cobbler they can just go to a cobbler's shop and get their boots mended. If they need to know the history of the local lich they could hit up a Sage in his reclusive study rather than go through a boring hunt in a library. The Sage might require something other than gold for his services and voilà you've got the recipe for adventure. A character making a History check in a library is boring.As an aside, I've posted maybe ten times on this forum yet you were more than happy to make all kinds of assumptions about my opinions and motivations and best of all my history with 4E. You created some sort of 4E loving straw man you felt comfortable arguing with rather than ask me what I actually thought about the various rules. Don't do this in the future. If you want to contradict something I actually said feel free but don't decide to attack your personal boogeymen through me.</blockquote>

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