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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mmadsen" data-source="post: 179521" data-attributes="member: 1645">Actually, I only own Call of Cthulhu; the others I perused in Barnes & Noble and read about here.Why do they give characters more Skill Points?  For all the reasons we've discussed, I'd say.  D&D has a history of no skills for anyone except the Thief/Rogue, and lots of dungeon-applicable non-skills (large Hit Dice, high BAB, Spells, whatever) for the other classes.If you're designing the third edition of D&D, do you suddenly give Fighters lots of Skills?  Aren't they just supposed to fight?Similarly, do you give them lots of Feats?  They didn't have any Special Abilities before; why give 'em a bunch now?I have an easier solution: a typical elf isn't 1st level.  Or even 2nd or 3rd.  This unfortunately breaks down if you stick to D&D's notion of one Hit Die per Level and no base Hit Points.If I may make an aside (that I hinted at earlier):Currently characters start with zero Hit Points, and each level they take adds one Hit Die, from d4 through d12, analogous to a +2 through +6 bonus per level.  What if we give everyone a healthy starting number of Hit Points (10 or Con or whatever) and then give no bonus (d0 or +0) for noncombatant classes?  A 5th-level Scribe would still have 10 Hit Points, and our knowledgeable elves could just have extra levels of Expert without becoming combat monsters.  (We'd probably also want to reduce the BAB and Poor Save progressions to no progression as well.)Yes and no.  Should a young Ranger, fresh out of Ranger ROTC, have much applied skill in Sense Motive, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Bluff, Appraise, etc.?  Those sound like exactly the things a young Ranger shouldn't quite know, but an old dog might've picked up along the way.Also, I think it's perfectly reasonable that some Rangers focus on certain skills while their comrades focus on others.  Sure, every Ranger needs Wilderness Lore and the Tracking Feat, but they don't all specialize in everything.That said, yes, the character concept should have a lot more Skill Points.SHARK, SHARK, SHARK, you wouldn't have this problem if you just went "back to the dungeon"!  You and your crazy notions... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />One problem with most skill systems is that there's no differentiation between combat-oriented min-maxer skills and rounded social/background skills.  Older versions of D&D basically had this right: you had no rules for noncombat skills.  That way you assumed the Cleric could lead his flock, the Wizard could read ancient manuscripts, the Fighter could fletch his arrows, etc.  If Aragorn the Ranger needs to recount the lineage of the kings of Gondor, he just does.Once you broaden the skill mechanics to cover all skills, you leave your players min-maxing their skills (quite naturally), and they have to choose between "useful" skills like Hide and background skills like "Hearth Wisdom".  Perhaps the Class mechanics should include a list of "flavor" skills to choose from (for free) in addition to the more obviously applicable skills.  That way, a Cleric might actually have Knowledge: Religion.</blockquote>

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