Skill Rationalisation

[Malin Genie]

I feel that there are too many skills at the moment - or at least that many of the existing skills overlap.

Suggestions:

Balance and Tumble could be combined into Acrobatics. Characters in medium or heavy armour could still use the 'Balance' aspects of the skill, but couldn't use the 'Tumble' aspects.

Innuendo and Read Lips could go together ('Covert Communications' - too tired to think of a better name at the moment.) Neither is taken much, but together they provide IMHO a reasonable reward for the allocation of skill points. SHould be Wis-based rather than Int-based.

Use Rope could be removed entirely. Characters with Profession(Sailor), Profession (Gaoler), Profession (Spelunker) etc could have specific ability with respect to tying ropes, but to make it a skill in and of itself is overkill IMHO.

Intimidate could probably be removed. 'Frightening people' is better represented IMHO by raw presence (Cha) than a learnt skill. I haven't really seen Intimidate used effectively in any of my campaigns.

Animal Empathy should be combined with Handle Animal. To be a good handler automatically involves being able to read the mood of animals, communicate nonverbally with them etc. Having a separate skill is not required. The 'new' skill would be class for Rangers and Druids, CC (not exclusive) to everyone else.

Any thoughts?

 

[DreamChaser]

I can see where you're coming from but I don't agree. While the skills your combining a related, they are not necessarily connected.

A person can have great balance without being able to do flips.

Many deaf people learn to read lips without ever learning to pass secret messages imbedded in words.

When I was a cub scout, I learned to tie knots and use rope but I did not learn a whole profession (I didn't stick around that long). I think it would be lame to have to take Profession (sailor) for any rogue who wanted to know how to use ropes without sucking at it.

I'm not sure how I feel about intimidate...I could go either way on this one. There are particular techniques of intimidation (drill sergents are masters of them) so I've always been fine with it as a skill.

Animal Empathy and Animal Handling are not related at all IMO. My best friend is great with animals. They seem to automatically like her, she can seem to sense what they want. But she could not for the life of her handle a pack animal or figure out how to manage a saddle harness and even how much to feed animals it a bit of a challenge for her. I'm the opposite.

I see the idea of what you're trying to do but I don't think the skill list can be pared down much more. The designers have always said that the more skills there are, the less valuabe each rank is. With that already in mind, I always assumed they pared the list down as far as they could think of doing.

Just my thoughts.

 

[Crothian]

I can see where you are coming from, but I'm not sure those make sense. What I would get rid of is Diplomancy and Gather Information. Both of these should be role played and not just rolled. Hide and Move silently should be one skill. How often to you actually do one with out the other? Same with Listen and Spot. Wilderness Lore should be part of Knowledge Nature and Track should be based off of Search.

Those are just a few suggestions, but I'd never do anything like this in the game. I'm happy with the skill system. I think it's the strongest part of that game.

 

[Al]

Crothian- I sympathise with Diplomacy. Yet there are two problems with just roleplaying Diplomacy. For one, what about the player that wishes to play a suave diplomatic character but is not in real life? The logical extension of your argument means that many Charisma based skills would cease to exist, and it seems unfair that people are willing to put valuable skill points into them and be clamped down for not roleplaying. I advocate good RP, but to essentially advocate that better RPers should get better results sounds like RP elitism.

With regard to Hide/Mv Silent and Listen/Spot: whilst it would be logical to combine them, they are not strictly the same thing. There are many scenarios where one could be used and not the other- for example, tiptoeing past a sleeping guard would require MS, but not Hide. You would have to hear a spectre creeping up on you as they always Move Silently (incorporeality). Furthermore, there is the game balance issue. Combining two very powerful skills (compared to e.g. Handle Animal) which are frequently used makes them uberskills- ones which any self-respecting adventurer would be foolish to ignore.