Those people who want to include Run in an Athletics-type skill (or simply have it as a separate skill) I have a few things I want you to consider.
Running any length of time in the game is currently a factor of Constitution. How would a Run/Athletics-based skill that uses Strength as it prime ability score handle this conundrum?
What would be the DC for running triple your speed? What would be the DC for running quadruple your speed in armor? Would your armor check penalty affect your running speed? What would the Athletics/Run DC be for running 10 times your speed for 3 rounds?
There are so many questions.
Now its up to all those people advocating change to provide some answers.
The floor is yours.
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I don't mind rolling stuff together into one skill, but is it absolutely necessary? Is your game being ruined because it isn't being done?
Ruined? No. But inconvenienced or cumbersome? Sure. The issue is - what to condense and what not to condense. I really like rolling move silently and hide together, because they go together. The same applies for spot and listen. Disable device and open lock, too.
But do balance, jump, and tumble need to be rolled into one? That's when we start moving from one level of condensing skills to another. I would argue that you don't normally have to roll a balance and tumble at the same time. Same would apply for Spellcraft and Concentration. No. This second level of condensing skills is simply to simplify the roster of skills. Is it a bad thing? No. I actually like have a shorter list of skills . . . and more so - no need for synergies or +2/+2 feats.
However, it all boils down to once you start condensing skills that normally aren't rolled together, where do you stop. It becomes arbitrary.
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Running any length of time in the game is currently a factor of Constitution. How would a Run/Athletics-based skill that uses Strength as it prime ability score handle this conundrum?
Run can fall into a Dex-, Str-, or Con- based check. Are you zigzagging while racing up to a battlement? Are you racing in a straight line - leg muscles rippling with every leaping stride? Or are you a distance runner racing from one field of war to another to convey a message?
It's really arbitrary because run actually requires all three abilities.
Maybe the point there is to avoid a skill location or a feat and just focus on the respective roll that would address the kind of running you are attempting - be it zigzagging, racing up hill, or going the distance.
The game system as it is is based on the existence of three extra types of movement (i.e. in addition to the regular "walk"): flying, swimming, climbing.
Some creatures have fly speed, other swim speed, other climb speeds. And appropriate boni or "take 10" abilities for the mode of movement they best master.
Since the game is human-centred, it simulates creatures that are better or worse than humans at these activities. But humans can "learn" via skills to emulate these mode of movements.
I find the division between these type of movements not only realistic, but also much flavourful. If I create a sea-based character who learns to swim like a dolphin, I don't see why the skill points he invested there should also make him a great climber or agile flyer.
In my opinion, it is abusive to merge them.
If there is ONE skills that SHOULD BE rolled into another then that's SWIM!
Seriously. If you don't play a seafaring/pirate campaign, who often do you need swim?!
As somebody else said once: Skill merging should be used to merge a rather rarely used skill into a common used skill to minimize the number of rather useless/never-token skills.
(free quote)
Swim and Use Rope are just parade examples.
Currently my group uses the "Athletics" skill in our 3.5 games, and I introduced the following skill mergers before 4E even announced anything of the sort - tell me how similar you think it is.
Athletics = Climb, Jump, Swim
Acrobatics = Balance, Tumble
Perception = Spot / Listen
Stealth = Hide / Move Silently.
So far these have worked beautifully for us, and it allows me to more comfortably add interesting dynamics to my adventures, including more things which involve using the athletic skills (climb, jump, and swim).
And yes, I personally don't find a problem with using an athletics skill for everything, including swimming. For those of you who have issues with the idea that an "athletics" skill will suddenly lead to spelunking dolphins, tell me how many sharks in D&D have a "water breathing" ability? Or perhaps I should mention there's nothing to prevent the dolphin from attempting to climb using its natural strength bonus (hey, Flipper climbs better than the average human)!
When talking movement forms, I think of a SPEED score (like leopards have a climb 20 speed, IIRC) which provides solid, assured movement and usually makes the need for the actual skill pointless in most situations.
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In short, my group has been using the Athletics skill since before 4E, and even during our playtests with Pathfinder Alpha, switched back to Athletics because we just liked it more than the Pathfinder skill set, and if it's not in the final pathfinder product, I'm pretty sure we'll end up house-ruling it again, because it's just that good to us.
(And we DO think it's dumb that our heroic warriors had to spread all their skills really thin to be able to do anything that was warrior-like as far as skills go, and swim was indeed useless unless you're dealing with water constantly).
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Contributor
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You know, combining or not combining skills into sets really doesn't bother me one way or another.
However since the bulk of the complaints on this thread seem geared towards the compaint the warrior cannot do acrobatic things he's supposed to do, (and I'm sure other classes have a similar skills groupings best suited for their needs). I'd propose a combination of the two rules and give each class an ability called a skill pool or something.
For example warriors, might have a bunch of skills that all use the same pool of skill points (like an Athletics pool), but a wizard actually needs to take the skills individually.
Heck if you did that, you could probably get rid of the cross class minimums because you couldn't pool the points.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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If there is ONE skills that SHOULD BE rolled into another then that's SWIM!
Seriously. If you don't play a seafaring/pirate campaign, who often do you need swim?!
Actually, I think that's the point: a desert dwelling dervish would probably sink in comparison to a scurrilous seafaring sailor, yet both would be athletic and acrobatic.
I combined Climb, Jump, and Swim into Athletics in my campaign and it has worked great. My players love it and it makes my life easier as a DM.
The main reason that having Athletics and Acrobatics combine the str and dex skills is great for me as a DM is that I don't have to worry about terrain challenges that are impossible for the players to overcome because they're good at one type of movement and bad at another. I can design my combats with a much wider variety of physical challenges and I don't have to keep thinking 'oh, wait the fighter could jump this chasm, but he can't climb this cliff'. I'm able to just say Athletics DC X, Acrobatics DC Y for any obstacles/ challenges put on the map. So the Athletic/Acrobatic characters get to show off and use their physicality more frequently and more impressively and in a greater variety of situations, which makes it more fun.
As far as the Athletic dervish not being able to swim goes. I had a similar situation with an urban theif who had never been in the water in his life, but had a huge Athletics bonus (for climb and jump). I simply didn't let him apply his skill modifier to swim checks until he had an in-game chance to train up. His athletic focus meant that once he learned to swim he was very, very good at it.