Actually, I've had a few thoughts since I last posted.
In the V4 discussion, Mickey is talking about starting all skills off as already trained, just at level 0. If all skills were made to cost the same number of skill points and made mandatory, with just enough points to have it all, with all attributes forced to start at 10... Sure, a player would have to start training anew for the guns when they reach there, but the daggers and swords at that point wouldn't continue any further until you reach "Future". The way I've worded this, it can be done without V4.
That said, I still like the progressive skill packets. Every five points, perhaps, is enough for a packet, and you start with ten points. In order to 'use' the <device> to learn later things you simply need to have the previous skill packet.
- Gathering
- Earthworks (Smithing, Masonry)
- Foodworks (Cooking, Fishing)
- Houseworks (Carpentry, Tailoring)
- Hunting
- Tracking (Sneak, Scan)
- Trapping (Traps; Earthworker has to make them)
- Taming1 (Tame, Charm2)
- Scholary3 (Writing)
- Arcane (Read ancient, Mana conversion)
- Restoration (White Magic4, First Aid)
- Archeology (Blue Magic4,5)
- Destruction (Black Magic4, Yellow Magic4,6)
(Sorry about the extra dot under Hunting and Gathering, list wouldn't work without that)
1Taming would work better on V2, due to shared exp.
2Charm would either cause an enemy to stop attacking, or act as a temporary tame. Might work passively to avoid agros automatically attacking.
3Scholary would NOT be something to get right off the bat, so it's probably best to exclude it until players have started characters up. Once you've got other characters to back it up, a new character can start with it to be an efficient scholar (Can't defend themselves, but good support).
4Magic would have limited range. Instead of using runes, magic can use readied resources. Rulers, levels, etc. Rather than a particular item being "Self" and another "Other,"
5Blue magic would be purely for the purpose of reinforcing objects, not for making golems; for example, cast on stone wall for Reinforced Stone Wall (tearing it down turns it into Stone Wall). Higher levels have to be cast on lower-level reinforced walls.
6Yellow Magic would be timed area-effect. In essense, this is stuff like explosives. Run up to an area, cast the spell to conjure a TNT, run away before it blows up. This would damage walls that don't have a certain level of reinforcement.
"Magic" could easily have alternate names.