Energy Weapons: Adds damage and accuracy to energy weapons
Small Guns: Adds damage and accuracy to small guns
Big Guns: Adds damage and accuracy to big guns
Unarmed: Adds damage to unarmed weapons
Melee: Adds damage to melee weapons
Speech: Adds precentages to speech checks
Barter: Reduces buying priced and increases selling prices
Lockpick: Adds access to higher leveled locks and adds precentages to force lock
Science: Adds access to higher leveled terminals
Repair: Adds precentages to self repair and makes custome weapons come in better condition

So far the skills from Fallout 3 stays the same, but the rest will change:

First Aid: Stimpacks add more HP
Doctor: Your libms take less damage (also, all the Medicin checks in the game would be Doctor checks instead)
Traps: Adds damage to mines, makes mines easier to disarm and adds access to higher leveled traps
Throwing: Adds damage and accuracy to grenades
Steal: Makes stealing infront of witnesses easier. Also makes pickpocketing easier
Sneak: Makes sneaking past people easier. Also make sneak attacks easier
Outdoorsman: Improves the chance of getting good random encounters
Gambling: Every 10 point of gambling adds 0.1% to the critical multiplier of your weapons (For example: Sniper Rifle's critical multiplier is x2.5% but if you have 100 gambling it would be x3.5%). Also Improves the chance of succesfully passing many checks (sneak checks, steal checks, speech checks and force lock)

Not only this would've enusred you couldn't be 100 at everything, it will also be HEAVEN for role players.
What do you think? Would you have liked the skills in Fallout 3 to be like these?

Oh, come on, no replies? Realy?

I Think Skill system is ok,just SPECIAL that is [censored]y.

A system where you can max out everything and be more powerful than god is NOT ok.

I don't think the number of skills is the problem, so much as how many points you get to place into those skills.

For myself, I actually like their idea of streamlining the skill set - focusing on being a good thief character no longer takes you three times the skill points than other archetypal character builds. (And throwing was always a pretty under-implemented skill, too.) If we wanted to add more skills instead of changing your skill points/ level or raising the skill cap back to 300; then they also don't necessarily have to be the old skills - we could just add completely new ones as well.

It's the streamlining of the Attributes that I have more of a gripe with.

Wow, I don't believe I'm actually saying this, but I'm in favor of Beth's decision to streamline the skills. :mellow:

I remember feeling ecstatic when I first heard that First Aid and Doctor would be combined (of course, at the time I was still hoping that it'd remain be turn-based ). It was frustrating at times (especially in Tactics when every squad needed a dedicated medic) that my Doctor could set broken limbs but couldn't heal paper cuts.

I agree that the bigger problem lies in the attributes and the small amount of derived statistics. The problem with the skills all maxing out can easily be resolved by removing the skill cap.

But hey, I'd love to see Outdoorsman and Gambling make a comeback. If Beth feels up to bringing back some of the old skills, then I'll be all for it as well.

But come on, having so many skills is a paradise for role players. Want to play as a scientist? tag first aid, doctor and science. Want to play as a thief? tag steal, sneak and lockpick. Want to play a demolition expert? tag throwing, traps and big guns. Want to play a wasteland explorer? tag small guns, repair and outdoorsman. Want to play a gambler that gets into trouble? tag gambling, unarmed and steal. The possibilites are endless.

Well, yeah. But you can still do all of those (and actually, I'd posit that this streamlining opens things up a bit more - had the skills been able to go to 300 or if you had less points per level to spend.)
I can easily play a scientist, doctor, or thief in Fallout 3 - just as much as I could in the old system.

Variety is nice, but it doesn't have to mean just bringing back the old skills. The argument could just as easily be made for bringing in entirely new ones if what you're looking for is more variety. I don't see why if we're going the route of bringing more skills into the mix - why there would be any particular need for the original skills.

What I had a bit of a problem in the old games was things like how a Thief had 3 different skills to focus on, while a Scientist only had to worry about 1 (and could spend those extra tags to make a more well-rounded character.) The points it took for each type of archetypal build was widely different depending on the character you were going to be playing.

I think a few of your suggestions are fair enough, except I think keeping the medicine skills seperate is a bad idea, and Gambling should instead have been coupled with in game opportunities to gamble.

Hey man. I'm not disagreeing with you. If I had my way: cakes would grow on trees, the sun would be made of raspberry jam, and Fallout 3 would have kept everything from the old SPECIAL. I do appreciate having more skills to spread your points around in. I feel that it fleshes out your characters more. Want to be a Sniper? Tag Small Guns, Outdoorsman, and Sneak. Want to be a Thief? Tag Sneak, Lockpick, and Steal. Want to be a Con Artist? Tag Speech, Sneak and Gambling. As you've noticed, all three characters make use of Sneak, but because of the other two Tags, they've become totally unique characters. What if I want my Sniper to be Sneaky, but not necessarily a good Thief. Separating Sneak and Steal allows that. Fallout 1 & 2's 18 skills allowed for more character permutations than FO3's 13.

EDIT: Wow, I only read your first line before posting. I didn't realize my example sounds like yours. I need it to make a point, so I'll just keep it that way. Forgive the redundancy.

Yes, it would be a roleplayers paradise. But it's a new day and age (for better or for worse) so Beth has to think of a new audience who wouldn't appreciate having to choose between too many skills. :shrug:

I'm right up there with you man. And for the record, your ideas are really good. They're close to what I would have imagined the old SPECIAL's skillset to have applied in an FPS setting. I'd choose having more skills in a heartbeat. But I do feel that Attributes (the SPECIAL itself) should be the priority if they're going to make improvements to their system. Because the skillset is pretty decent enough as it is.

But I guess I've conditioned myself to not expect too much from Beth, RPG-wise. Maybe when cakes grow on trees.

This is exactly how I feel! More skills+deeper SPECIAL system+importancy on the tag skills you choose+birth signs would've made this game ten times deeper and more satisfying to play, not to mention ten times more replayable.

Bethesda's decision to "water down" the SPECIAL system, skills etc. is kind of a mixed bag.

Leveling and building a specific character in FO3 is much more intuitive than say Oblivion where leveling is directly tied to the use of your skills and not "experience" from kills. You have to carefully level 2 to 3 skills at a time, being careful not to over-level any one skill and in some cases stop character leveling altogether once you hit a certain point, because the game world gets increasingly difficult while your character's level of power increasing only slightly.

Compared to FO1, FO2 and to a lesser extent FO Tactics however, the SPECIAL had a much greater impact on how your character was going to turn out. Intelligence, or lack thereof significantly improved or impacted your dialog choices, Perception actually affected your to-hit percentages, not just some "alert" points on your compass. Strength affected your Melee and Unarmed damage.

There were also "Traits" that had both positive and negative effects. The "Tag" skills were much more significant as they increased the rate that your tagged skills increased, not just giving you a one-time bonus like FO3, which encouraged you to stick to leveling up your tagged skills. FO1 and 2 felt much more like a classic RPG than Fallout 3, not that it's bad, it a great game in it's own respect, it just doesn't feel as much of a hardcoe RPG as the original titles.