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Originally Posted by carllarson
Actually, I think 4E will open this up a bit, and have more use of modifiers to skills, as well as skills using other Attributes. I honestly hadn't thought about using skills at default with modifiers until I was working on a game of 12 year olds, where they wouldn't have skill points invested.
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I use modifiers all the time. Defaults still suck,though. Consider the DX 12 guy driving a car. Driving is DX/AVE, defaulting to DX-5. So he's got a skill of 7. Plus 4 for routine stuff gives 11. That's 62.5% chance of success; put the other way around, a 37.5% chance of failure. He's only got a 40% chance of making two rolls in a row. That's pretty slim odds, for something your life depends on.
And, of course, we're talking about adventurers! Many of the things that adventurers will do (or at least, the things I'll roll dice for) are not routine. Consider trying to drive a car while people are shooting at you. There's no way that's a routine, no pressure situation. That skill level of 7 is now only a 16% chance of success A failure may not send you to a fiery doom, but getting stuck in the mud may be just as bad. One point in the skill gives DX-1, or 11. That gives a 62.5% chance, plus a reasonable chance of getting to retry the roll.