I like the skillchecks, generally, as long as they do not lock me out of content and just make a new solution to an issue possible or give me a small piece of extra information. For example I found the hunter near the hag hut and there is quite a difficult skillcheck asking him about his prey. I just wanted to know what it is, since I figured this might be a sidequest that opens up that I might otherwise not find. Well it turns out it updates one of my quests, and I do not know if I would otherwise could have updated and solved that questline.
Something else I thought was strange are multiple skill checks for the same outcome. Nettie is an example for that. I am fine with doing an athletics skillcheck, for evasion and a persuasion skillcheck for convincing her to stop. That makes sense. However there is another persuasion skillcheck attached, for the same thing, which makes little sense, apart from making the total skillchecks needed to pass rather hard.
Another thing that I noticed is that while my bonuses for my checks are shown when mousing over it, the maluses are not ( I assume there are some, because I rolled a 4 on a persuasion check that I had +4 with). I would like to know my chances beforehand, so I can always just disengage and explore another topic. Also I think passing them should give XP.
Otherwise I like skillchecks, also how they are implemented in this game. As long as the "reward" is something similar or the resolution to the story is just another aspect I think it adds replay value. Like say you can convince a villain to not harass anyone instead of fighting him, so you do not get his loot, but get a different reward, because you chose another route. In that way it all evens out in the end.
