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

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

List of Noncombat Skills

All other skills are Noncombat.