The “Defaulting to Other Skills\ and “Improving Skills with Defaults\ rules are changed?
A. Those rules are optional. They were optional in Third Edition and remain so in Fourth Edition. So they don’t make anything harder for anyone who chooses to ignore them. But the rules do remain, more or less. I tried to clean up the explanations some, but those who want to do the math to save 3 points out of 60 points in skills get to keep their 3 points in return for doing the work. Those who choose to ignore it . . . well, 3 points won’t kill them. And nice GMs can always just let newbies have the points, or do the math for the newbies, or . . .But lots and lots of writers and gamers really like those rules, because they’re fairly realistic and let people who are really good at important key skills actually get a bit more bang for the buck. Q. Will Fourth Edition encourage hundreds of new skills added in things like worldbooks and Pyramid articles, or will virtually all the skills be in Basic? A. It will be hard for a writer to justify a new skill. Basic Set Fourth Edition has all
