I had two questions, if you're kind enough to answer them:
1- What is the new role of the abilities, if they don't serve anymore as gates in the skill learning process? Honestly I liked the way they worked in the EE edtion.
2- Are you 100% sure that in a game like DOS - where immunities and resistances play a huge role, and where cooldowns last for several turns - it's wise to limit the number of skills available at any given moment?
Keep in mind that we are still in Pre-Alpha, and all the usual caveats apply.
1. Skill abilities now improve corresponding skills, but there's a twist to it that I can't talk about yet.
2. We are testing a few tweaks to the rules of skill activation that make it unnecessary to reload after every ambush (including some inspired by backer comments).