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I'm curious. What does everyone expect of non-combat roles? Will they be purely skill-based, or will we have statistics to raise/determine our ability with certain skills? Will they overlap with combat skills? Let's say PE uses 5 main attirbutes for combat: STR - +dmg with melee weps, increase maximum equipment weight AGI - +dmg with ranged weps, +evasion CON - max life, stamina regen rate INT - +dmg with spells, +accuracy with weapons WIS - +max mana Lets say these are all the planned non-combat abilities for PE Sense traps / Awareness Disarm Traps Lockpicking Pickpocket Persuader/Intimidator Sneak/Stealth Alchemy Metalsmithing Leatherworking Research - required to utilize certain books in the game to acquire skills or knowledge, allows you to decipher ancient texts/languages in dungeons, or something Haggling Instruction - able to teach things you know to your companions or NPCs Seduction - differs from persuader/intimidator in that you can be a very ugly but persuasive person (Hitler) Cooking First Aid Should these things scale off your primary stats? I can think of one good reason for this - simplcity. It would be easier to balance a game where there are five core stats and they determine everything. It's also easier for people to pick up and it gives all stats meaning even if you're not particuarly interested in them for class X. However, I can't help but think it's too simple. The problem with a system like this I think, is skills like intelligence and agility (or dex, whatever the final system will be) end up being necessarily to advance/take-up 80% of the skills available. To me, it seems like these skills either need to be independent and be purely feat-based (you have level 5 feat of first aid, which maybe only requires an intelligence of 8 or 10 at most to take, so long as you character level is 15 or something [where first aid 5 is max rank and level 15 is close to max level]) or they need to scale off a second set of tertiary attributes: Charisma Appearance Dexterity Academics Kinesthetics These five attribtues govern nothing about your combat-related abilities and are raised independently (but perhaps they should sometimes interact with the core attributes; ie, when you level up, maybe you can choose between having one extra core attribute point or one extra non-combat attribute point; or maybe you can sacrifice certain combat stats at character generation for more non-combat skills). The idea behind this would be that there would be some overlap. If you get a high Kinesthetics attribute, you can become adept at Metalworking, First Aid, Sneak, and Awareness. If you get a high Academics attribute, you could become adept at Metalsmithing, Alchemy, Research, and Instruction. A single non-combat attribute might also have second-tier effects, ie, if you have a very high Academics score, you can't become a master at pickpocketing, but maybe you can read a book about pickpocketing you find in a store somewhere, and acquire a low level skill for it. Maybe a dextrous person can still become very good a cooking, but not reach master level. Having a mix of mediocre dex/academics might combine to allow you to master cooking, while dex/charisma do not. What are everyone's thoughts on these ideas?