Current thoughts on Player Skills

[LordYabo]

In another post someone made reference to player skills like this:

- Investigate ( for a discreet entrance to a civil settlement) Smuggler/Thieve skill
- Search ( for weaknesses of fortifications or camps/lairs) Military skill for Enemy numbers/Equipment or even Architect skill for actual structure weaknesses...

That made me realize we've never actually said the list of skills the player can have anywhere. Well here is the list as of right now.

1. Stealth
   
2. Weapons
   
3. Perception
   
4. Persuasion
   
5. Athletics
   
6. Strength
   
7. Scholarship
   
8. Craft
   
9. Enchanting
   
10. Handle Animal
    
11. Perform
    
12. Survival

I'm the kind of guy that would love to see 95 different skills, each one doing one specific thing. I remember seeing some 90's rpgs that had 35+ skills on the character sheet. It's unweildly.

Nic is all about streamlining and made a strong argument for "less skills that mean more" rather than "lots of skills that mean less". It's a good point. Remember in D&D 3.5 putting skill points into Fly? Ya, no one else did either because it was so rarely useful vs, say, Intimidate or Diplomacy or Use Magic Item.

Archmage Rises doesn't have a separate character stat block and then skills, it just has "skills". We currently have sub-skills like "Jump" and "Run" which are based on Athletics but a buff to Jump doesn't help you in Run situations. At the end of the day i'm not sure if the sub skills are worth it. Though i don't like a single Craft skill with improvements in making potions suddenly making you better at making fireworks or armor.

[willsama974]

That's a tough call but your list can cover any action you could think of imho.
The most important thing imho is that each skill brings gameplay changes and opens up possibilities.
Oh and...having a 10 pages character sheet was never more exciting than having to pick 5 out of...12 skills on a napkin ^^

[LordYabo]

I tried to be comprehensive by reviewing several RPG systems and see why/how they conslidated and where they didn't.