Skills - what is your preference

[Gronin]

I like skills -- that is the simple truth of the matter.

To be perfectly honest D & D could go even further down the skills road than it ever has and I would be happy.

For me it is the addition and variety of skill that give a class based system the ability to make characters more unique. I am not really interested in a system where a fighter with a 16 strength is a fighter with a 16 strength and not significantly different from any other. If I want that I'm pretty sure I can dig out a copy of OD&D and just back to play them as you roll them (although being OD&D I am more lilely to be playing a fighter with a 12 or 13 stength).

 

[Sammael]

Who's to say the DM can't go "Ya know, your fighter's killed a crapton of monsters. He get's a +xx bonus on monster knowledge checks."

DM can boost the bonus or say it only applies to certain areas of monster knowledge. If your fighter has killed and skinned a ton of orcs, bonus applies. Bonus doesn't apply when he's dealing with a remorhaz though, cause he knows nothing about them. (Unless he's done his research, in which case, maybe the bonus does apply after all.) And, perhaps said bonus isn't just +2. Maybe your guy knows a ton about orcs now, so he adds his class level to the check instead of +2.

Probably lots of other ways to make sure a not-so-smart fighter can soak up knowledge about a specific area he's dealt with a lot.

Two problems with that:

1. It makes DM fiat a requirement rather than an option, and as a full-time DM I know I don't want to have to make decisions like that one all the time. I have much more important stuff to do, like, oh, running the game. Players should handle their characters.

2. Fiddly minor bonuses. Nobody wants them. They suck. Players keep forgetting them unless their characters are in mortal peril, in which case they will spend hours scouring their character sheets and trying to scrounge up enough miscellaneous bonuses to survive. Slows gameplay down to a crawl, and for no good reason.