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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Norfleet" data-source="post: 1075372" data-attributes="member: 11581">Personally, I think that the entire Craft/Knowledge/Profession skillset is a misfit when considered in the light of the way 3E works.Consider: Humans are the race which gets an extra skill (+4, +1/lvl). Humans also have relatively short lifespans compared to the typical player (Only HalfOrc is shorter).The interesting thing is that an Elf character begins life at age 100. Now, this brings up an interesting quandary that comes to mind: An elf begins play with more than a typical human's lifespan already under his belt. In literature, they're typically perceived as knowledgeable and wise as a result. Yet he knows less than the human does. Are elves retarded or mentally deficient? The character SHOULD have a LOT of background skills, most of which are probably totally useless from an adventuring perspective, and would be things such as craft, knowledge, profession, and perform....but the character isn't actually given points to spend like that. He COULD choose to spend his skillpoints this way, but that would hurt even *MORE*, since he doesn't *HAVE* as many points to spend in the first place!Personally, having done a career as a soldier and a mercenary, an "adventurer", so to speak, and since become retired, I'd say I've picked up a few random things here and there that had little or no relevance to my work in the field, both in childhood, at work, and after retirement. I don't really feel that these things came at some sort of expense to my ability in the field, as it clearly would if a character "spent points" on them: Rather, they were simply things that I became unavoidably exposed to, and simply picked up early in life. You'd have to intentionally blind yourself to the world NOT to learn a thing or two simply from exposure.As a result, I'm forced to conclude that the D&D skillsystem really only adequately covers work-related skills, the points being designed to balance it out so you can't have everything. They really don't adequately account at all for the random "background" things that somebody might have learned. The idea that the gnome's background as a farmer has so significantly hampered his ability as a mage simply doesn't make much sense: His ability as a farmer shouldn't have come at the expense of his ability to concentrate, the fact that he knows more than the typical non-farmer about farming, reflected in the 1-4 point category, simply came about from exposure to farming. A soldier who comes from a farming background isn't any less of a soldier because of it. In fact, everyone should have some sort of background, and should be penalized for NOT having one: People don't spend their childhood delving into dungeons for monsters to slay, or else they'd have a very short one.As much as this is poking into house rules territory, I'd say I'd give a player 1 bonus skillpoint per significant portion of a decade of being alive, both prior to the start of the game, and during time elapsed, to be spent on a background-related craft/knowledge/profession/perform, bounded by the standard level restriction, and that particular skill will then permanently treated as a class skill should the character later choose to continue its pursuit at the expense of his work.Anyone who tries to abuse this will have his character sheet set on fire, and be pelted with dice.</blockquote>

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