Perception

Had a productive conversation with Tim Jensen.  I mentioned that the one skill that seems to be used more often than any other is perception, and he came up with the simple solution of scraping the perception skill all together.  It makes a lot of sense to me, it's more interesting when the the character does pick up on all those details that you may have carefully written.

Now, I'm not saying that all the characters will automatically see everything in front of them, if the character isn't looking carefully he won't find it; but if the character is meticulously searching a room for evidence, he'll find it.  However, I may ask for a Intelligence/Logic check for the character to understand the importance of what he has found.

For example:

GM: You are now in the living room of the Count, the furniture is lavish and there are large family portraits on the wall.
Bob: I examine the walls closely for any hidden panels
GM:  You find what you think is a secret door.  Roll Intelligence/Mechanics to figure out how to open it
Bob: (rolls a total of 7)
GM: This door seems very sophisticated, you can't figure out how to open it without breaking it
Bob:  I take out my axe and hit the panel
GM:  The noise of cracking open the panel alerts the guard upstairs, he rushes down the main set of stairs, sees you and attacks Combat start.




Another advantage is that since I want an equal number of skills in each category in the core rules anyway, it frees up a space in the mental category so that we can have a medicine skill instead of lumping medicine in with the already large science skill.

So, Thank you Tim, I appreciate your help!