Legendary Lives used a large but finite list of skills, all fitting on the front of the character sheet and all rated. There was not, as I recall, much desire to limit the scope so that only certain characters were capable of using certain skills; they would simply have different chances.

Just how a given skill (or even which skill) applied to a given situation might depend on character-specific background.

Encounter Critical works in a similar way.

Quote from: Archangel Fascist;717273Elaborate?

Well, there's "background skills" by caste, and then there's class skills (based on class, obviously).  By default they're generated randomly, though you can choose to have them by selection.

A lot of the class skills aren't really "Skills" in the traditional sense, they're things like the equivalent of weapon-proficiencies and special maneuvers or lower-level spells for the priest and siddhis.

In any case, the way the skills themselves work is that they're generally done on a d20 + ability bonus + skill bonus. If someone actually has at least one point of skill bonus he can "take 10".  
Someone without the skill bonus can still attempt any skill that requires checks, but they can't "take 10" and the difficulty number goes up one rank.

Anyways, in actual play, its very simple, just a list of bonuses you get to doing things, rather than an elaborate point-buy system or a definitive list of activities that are often prohibitive (in the sense of "you must have the skill to even try to do this thing").  

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