BRW wrote: ↑Tue Apr 03, 2018 2:24 pm
So let me just write that I am absolutely pleased with the idea of skill use for talent knacks. Actually, for some time I was considering asking on this forum whether "Skill Knacks" are valid homebrew option.
I'm so happy to hear that! Thank you very much.
This notable change was part of an early design shift to address a few different topics at once, but there are two major facets. First, it allowed some abilities which were a little too narrow as talents to live on in another form (knacks), but also still be available to everyone. If there's a talent missing in the 4E Player's Guide which seems curious, that's probably its fate.
By virtue of the nature of things, the world expands and there are cool new ideas. Which means new skills and previously new talents. However, this leaves older material in the dust because it was written before these things existed in the rules, but surely they existed in the setting. This was a notable problem because altering talent lists was in the realm of specializations and things quickly got messy. By introducing the new ability as a knack accessible as a skill, the appropriate Disciplines can get access to it and it exists in the setting. Tying this back to the first point, this means some skills can be introduced which aren't really worth being talents, but certainly have value as an easily accessible knack.
A comparatively minor, but still important point to this is it also means entire subsystems can be generated without fundamentally changing the structure of a Discipline. For example, this would be an easy way to introduce abilities necessary for mass combat which don't currently exist.
Hopefully this has been at least an interesting peek behind the curtain regarding one of the new frameworks we're putting in place to make introducing new material easier.
Best regards,
Morgan
