hadn't played in a long time... my god, what is with this stuff?

[screeg]

Skill check to open a vent? Tailor skill required to make a... Molotov cocktail? For real? Mechanical 25 to recycle an item? Maybe that one was there before but it's still ridiculous. You don't have to gate everything behind a skill.

PS I'd like to be able to open regular, mechanically locked doors/containers with my sledgehammer.

[Elhazzared]

The reason to gate things behind skills isto make the skill selection important. Much the same reason as why you can't break things open, it basicly is the same as giving you free skills if you can ignore some mechanics entirely.

[Nokum]

Me personally it just looks like they borrowed a mechanic from dungeons and dragons since you have to do skill or action roll checks to do anything...just keeps it interesting by forcing the player to try new strategies.

[LightningMonk]

 You can force open vents with a crowbar if you want ( I don't think it has any requirements).

I do think it's weird that you need that much tailoring if a all just to make an incendiary grenade. I'm not a fan of that honestly.The skill requirement for recycle is dependent on the kind of item and 25 isn't such a steep cost considering you would need at least that much to make your own repair kits anyway, otherwise you wouldn't be recycling anything.

 In any case, you might want to be a bit more specific about what doesn't/does need to be gated behind a skill that bothers you so much. Skills in this game are an important part of character creation in this game as it determines the limits of what you can do and how you interact with the world.It means if you want to opens those pesky doors and containers you need to divert your points to lockpicking/hacking or crafting skills if you want to rock those stylish unique items etc.You can make case for the point distribution or requirement being oo high or unreasonable ,but I don't think they're going away anytime soon.

[warp9]

The reason to gate things behind skills isto make the skill selection important. Much the same reason as why you can't break things open, it basicly is the same as giving you free skills if you can ignore some mechanics entirely.

Agreed. Getting the ability to open locks, without paying for the skill, somewhat defeats the purpose of carefully choosing your character's abilities. It would be like asking to have a lot of free carrying capacity, without having to put a lot of extra points into strength. The choices you make while building and advancing your character should have consequences. As you say above, you shouldn't be able to ignore some mechanics entirely.

Although I suppose that there is some ground to argue for breaking things open on the basis of Verisimilitude. It just makes sense that you could blast open doors (as well as other types of barriers), if you have enough brute force. But then there is likely to be some tension between the goals of simulationism, and creating challenging game mechanics.

[screeg]

In any case, you might want to be a bit more specific about what doesn't/does need to be gated behind a skill that bothers you so much.

The vent opening thing bothers me because it makes no sense, even for "game logic". You have vents that you don't want random people climbing into, so there's a special tool to open them, fine. Now you have to know lockpicking to use this tool..? I don't like that, but all right. But wait! These vents over here are more important vents. The same tool opens them, but you have to be more skilled with this tool now. And although this is identical to lockpicking, you don't get any xp..? I won't get started about disposable lockpicks again, just more examples of goofy game logic.

The Tailoring requirement for the Molotov Cocktail, same thing. I need to be skilled as a tailor to put an existing rag in a bottle? It was arbitrarily added to nerf grenade crafting. I already spent points in Mechanics, Chemistry, Electronics and Throwing, can I have an incendiary grenade please? No. This isn't a sensible way to balance crafting.