I'm currently working on revising the consolidated skills from Pathfinder Unchained to better facilitate more campaigns. Particularly I wanted to revise them to a current series of scifi one-shots I'm running but wanted them to fill in for more campaigns too.
The first issue I had decided on was that classes would get their full class skill ranks per level but not their bonus from INT. For example a fighter would get 2 ranks per level and a Bard would get 6. It was somewhat diffucult to keep track of and was very uneven when it came to odd INT bonuses. Other problems started going away as well so I kept on with it.
One problem that I'm having trouble with is how to apply class skills. The lists in PFU don't exactly have a real logic to them so, so far I've been letting people retain class skills equal to their class ranks per level chosen among the skills that their original class skills fold into, but I feel like I could have come up with a more elegant way to deal with it. Its particularly important to me because I allow a ton of third party classes.
Speaking of third party classes I added in the skill Psionics to cover Autohypnosis, Knowledge(psionics) and Use Psionic Device. With the release of Occult Adventures it's becoming less and less thematically appropriate to rule Psionics as magic.
The second problem I'm running into is exactly what to list under another new skill 'Expertise'. Expertise is meant to consolidate Appraise, Craft, Knowledge(engineering), and Profession. Like Craft and Profession it is a multi-skill. When you choose a subject of expertise you can make craft, appraise and profession checks within that subject. I also wanted to side-load a lot of third party skills that may arise due to genre. So far my list includes Food & Drink, Sailing, War, Electronics, Mechanical, Seafaring, Alchemy, Metalworking, Apparel, Farming, Hospitality, Construction.
War was added to facilitate the Path of War skill Knowledge(martial) It can now be used to make profession soldier checks, estimating the power and capabilities of military assets. Mechanical covers devices like traps and pulley systems but also extends to technological machines with the Technologist feat. Electronics only becomes available when there are electronics present and also covers computer use skills.
One thing taken out of the Consolidated Skills is gaining a new language from putting a rank in Society. Instead, new languages are a favored class bonus. This was partially decided because languages seemed too easy to get but also because language started to become a tricky thing when introducing other language concepts, such as multiple types of runic feats and Computer OSs. It also opened up the concept of basic proficiency. In spacefaring games the concept of knowledge(local) started becoming silly, and in normal traveling games it still is. So much like languages it local aptitude became a favored class bonus. Other things fell in line too such as weapon proficiencies. Of course this meant new feats that grant more of these types of favored class bonuses at a rate of 3 per feat. These can be taken multiple times so this does mean that someone could potentially gain up to 30 bonus, Skill Ranks, Language, communities, exotic weapons. Since these are pretty valuable and the bonus skill rank per level is doubly valuable, favored class bonuses grant 2 bonus HP instead of 1. This is partially because with so much third party a lot of PC options are incredibly deadly. so a feat would grant +6 HP.
So, any suggestions for my problems or advice on how to further deal with consolidate skills?
How has anyone else dealt with consolidated skills if not as they are written?