I don't get your issue with civil abilities. Most people don't like sacrificing power for roleplay bonuses. Maybe a few don't mind, or even like having a weak char or non-combatant but overwhelmingly it's not something people find satisfying. With civil and combat abilities as one, people invariably find it difficult to justify spending points on roleplay skills unless they actually ultimately provide a combat bonus (like bartering granting extra items, or charisma granting extra XP or items for quest rewards, and the like.) Splitting civil and combat abilities gets rid of this dilemma and need to balance roleplay skills against civil ones. I actually wish there were more civil skills that were mostly roleplay focus, or at least the current ones given more roleplay usage, like making loremaster give you more dialogs and specific item interactions (with an ancient sculpture, for example) and the like.
I think they could add a couple talents that let you focus more on civil skills at the cost of combat prowess to appeal to people who want to play characters like that. For example, a talent that lets switch the rate of gaining civil and combat abilities (and grants an extra civil point on the spot), so you gain a civil point every 1 or 2 levels, and a combat one every 3-4. Or a talent that grants 3 civil points at the cost of 5 constitution, to symbolize a weak tradesman.
As far as your attributes, I don't think attributes per level needs to be toned down to 1 again, and fitting in civil skills into them. I wouldn't mind if they gave a slight bonus to skills, like if wits increased the gold/weight amount you can pickpocket by 1-2% per point or something, but not as the primary way. No initiative on wits is weird. Wisdom would suck with 1 skill slot per 1 point. I like the idea of Fortitude increasing all melee damage, even melee spells.
If the game was being rebuilt, I'd probably find your abilities trees thematically more compelling than the elemental distinction we have now, which is a bit cliche, but nonetheless works fairly well. Like there isn't necessarily a "rogue" skilltree, but you'd probably pick between assassination, tactics, and cruelty. Skills requiring different multiple abilities would be cool too and open up lots of freedom for developing skills. Still something they could do of course. I'd add Telekinesis to your list, which would grant skills that let you manipulate enemy and ally positioning.
Edit: Beat you by 4 seconds Stabbey :P
Last edited by Baardvark; 21/12/16 10:21 PM.
