Just an idea, but it seems like there are a lot of feats out there that basically muscle in on the skills' territory, requiring extra feats to be spent but providing no real advantage. There's already a precedent for this, given the proposed folding of the Track feat into the Survival skill.
As another example, if you're really good at riding, it seems logical you'd be able to emulate the Mounted Combat feat without having to spend a feat on it. With that one feat eliminated, the rest of the Mounted Combat chain becomes much more accessible to paladins and the like, who don't get enough feats to be able to afford to waste one.
I'm open for suggestions here, but it seems like folding some feats into skills would have two important ramifications:
(1) Reduce the near-endless list of feats, allowing players to focus on things they might actually use (as opposed to ones that "kind of look neat, but I can't afford them"); and
(2) Bolster minor skills like Ride so that they're the equal of something like Perception.
Ideas?
Not that this is something Paizo can easily use due to copyright reasons, but I have for some time now used Track (along with the Eberron Campaign Setting's Research and Investigate feats and a few other feats) as Skill Tricks. That way they still have a cost, but not as great a cost as a feat slot... which I agree is way too much for Track & co.
I agree that's a more elegant solution in 3.5e, but with skill tricks not being OGL, and with Pathfinder's emphasis on bigger skills, I thought I'd just roll them in.
List of suggestions:
1. Track feat becomes part of Survival skill (per Alpha)
2. Hover, Wingover, etc. become part of Fly skill (per Alpha)
2. Quick Draw feat becomes part of Sleight of Hand skill
3. Stonecunning ability becomes part of Profession (mining) skill
4. Endurance feat becomes a skill also encompassing Diehard feat (at higher check DCs) and parts of the old Autohypnosis skill
5. Versatile Peformer feat becomes an integral part of Perform skill
My only problem with this is the fighter. You take away feats and make them part of skills, how is he supposed to keep up with those? Quick Draw, for example.
Yeah, I though of that, too, but the fighter is still the master of combat feats, very few of which are "impinging" on skill usage in the RAW. He therefore retains his combat prowess, and if he picks up Quick Draw by snagging a few ranks (or a cross-class choice) of Sleight of Hand, well, that frees up a feat he can now spend on Cleave or something -- so he can be even better in combat. Instead of spending two of his feats on Endurance and Diehard, he takes Endurance as one of his skill choices, and since it's a class skill for him, he's a lot better at it than any of the non-martial classes.
This would be a problem if the fighter were limited to two maxed-out skills, but in a skill point system he can pick up a few ranks here and there as needed, and in the Alpha system he gets a bunch of additional skill choices as he advances in level.