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<blockquote data-quote="Woas" data-source="post: 3960774" data-attributes="member: 16317">This is rhetorical, but how would you differentiate between an elite Mongolian horseman an a country-bumpkin?It would be that you would just dump a bunch of skill points into ride for the horseman and put those skill points into profession: bumpkin for the other. But really both have the same potential. If two characters both have 10 ranks in ride and you say &quot;this guy is an elite Mongolian horse archer. And this one is a knight. Who happen to dump all his skill points into ride last level cause he finally got a horse.&quot; then the difference is really just dressing. They both can do the same &quot;stuff&quot; with the horse.Going with an ability check route (not that I'm a huge fan of straight ability checks...) you could do several things to ensure that the elite Mongolian horse archer is really really good on horseback and other characters just won't be on the same level, ever, and really define the character on his &quot;elite Mongolian horseman-ness&quot;.For example, say Dex was the ability you would normally use for a horse riding check one could use feats or even 'character background' traits during character creation to ensure that anytime that character had to make a dex check for horse riding they were granted a) extra/unique abilities b) a bonus to the check c) a free &quot;take 10 even when rushed or threatened&quot; deal or d) all of some of the above.So I can see the merits of just ditching the skills. Not that it'll happen but skill points straight out as they are now don't really make characters that much different. You could take those ideas I exampled and just apply them to skills as they are now as ability checks are not particularly any better than skills or vice versa.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Woas, post: 3960774, member: 16317"] This is rhetorical, but how would you differentiate between an elite Mongolian horseman an a country-bumpkin? It would be that you would just dump a bunch of skill points into ride for the horseman and put those skill points into profession: bumpkin for the other. But really both have the same potential. If two characters both have 10 ranks in ride and you say "this guy is an elite Mongolian horse archer. And this one is a knight. Who happen to dump all his skill points into ride last level cause he finally got a horse." then the difference is really just dressing. They both can do the same "stuff" with the horse. Going with an ability check route (not that I'm a huge fan of straight ability checks...) you could do several things to ensure that the elite Mongolian horse archer is really really good on horseback and other characters just won't be on the same level, ever, and really define the character on his "elite Mongolian horseman-ness". For example, say Dex was the ability you would normally use for a horse riding check one could use feats or even 'character background' traits during character creation to ensure that anytime that character had to make a dex check for horse riding they were granted a) extra/unique abilities b) a bonus to the check c) a free "take 10 even when rushed or threatened" deal or d) all of some of the above. So I can see the merits of just ditching the skills. Not that it'll happen but skill points straight out as they are now don't really make characters that much different. You could take those ideas I exampled and just apply them to skills as they are now as ability checks are not particularly any better than skills or vice versa. [/QUOTE]

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