Some people dislike the emphasis on 'combat balance' added to the skill system in 4e. Under this house rule, there are two sets of skill costs; one for combat skills, and one for non-combat skills.

Combat Skills

Combat skills are those with obvious martial or esoteric function. Combat skills cannot be learned halfway; a full point must be put into them, or not at all.

Combat Skill Table

Skill Level	E	A	H	VH
Attribute-3	-	-	-	1
Attribute-2	-	-	1	2
Attribute-1	-	1	2	4
Attribute	1	2	4	8
Attribute+1	2	4	8	12
Attribute+2	4	8	12	16
Attribute+3	8	12	16	20
Attribute+4	12	16	20	24
Further +1s	+4	+4	+4	+4

List of Combat Skills

All Artillery skills
All Beam Weapon skills
All Combat Art skills
All Combat Sport skills
All Enthrallment skills
All Gunner skills
All Guns skills
All Innate Attack skills
All Liquid Projector skills
All Melee Weapon skills
Blind Fighting
Body Control
Boxing
Breaking Blow
Breath Control
Cloak
Crossbow
Esoeric Medicine
Exorcism
Fast-Draw
Flying Leap
Forced Entry
Holdout
Immovable Stance
Invisibility Art
Judo
Karate
Kiai
Lance
Lasso
Light Walk
Mental Strength
Mind Block
Musical Influence
Net
Parry Missile Weapons
Poisons
Power Blow
Pressure Points
Pressure Secrets
Ritual Magic
Shield
Spear Thrower
Sumo Wrestling
Tactics
Weird Science
Wrestling
Zen Archery

Note that Brawling is explicitly not a Combat skill.

At the GM's option, certain other skills can be added to the Combat category if genre-appropriate (e.g., Occultism in a horror game, or Weird Science in a lootem postapoc game).

Noncombat Skills

Noncombat skills are scholastic, professional, or character flavor in nature, they can be learned at the half-point level.

Noncombat Skill Table

Skill Level	E	A	H	VH
Attribute-4	-	-	-	0.5
Attribute-3	-	-	0.5	1
Attribute-2	-	0.5	1	2
Attribute-1	0.5	1	2	4
Attribute	1	2	4	6
Attribute+1	2	4	6	8
Attribute+2	4	6	8	10
Attribute+3	6	8	10	12
Attribute+4	8	10	12	14
Further +1s	+2	+2	+2	+2

List of Noncombat Skills

All other skills are Noncombat.

Question At what level would you set Spells under this system? I could see arguments for either table...

Comment I don't see how medicine, music, etc. would classify as combat skills.

Comment THONA: This is an intereresting approach. An alternative would be to give weapons skill penalties. This would allow a more granular tuning (for specific weapons), basically treating every weapon as a separate technique to the skill. Certain weapons may just have low damage but be easy to use.