Bump for the finish line being in sight!
I've gotten around to working on this again, and here's the revised skill groups with modifiers, and more:
Art
Athletics - rolls receive +2/-2 per point of Fitness
Computers - rolls receive +1/-1 per point of Intelligence
Construction - rolls receive +1/-1 per point of Intelligence
Crafts
Guns
Knowledge - rolls receive +1/-1 per point of Intelligence
Language - rolls receive +1/-1 per point of Intelligence
Melee Combat - rolls receive +1/-1 per point of Fitness
Music
Social - rolls receive +1/-1 per point of Intelligence
Stealth - rolls receive +1/-1 per point of Fitness
Vehicles
Skill Levels
Each skill has 4(5) skill levels: [none], amateur, competent, experienced and expert(master?). Each level gives +5 to all rolls for that skill.
Difficulty Rating
The GM decides the difficulty rating of an action on the fly. Here's a chart to determine how difficult an action should be:
Challenging for an untrained person: +5
Difficult for an untrained person: 0
Unlikely for an untrained person: -5
Virtually impossible for an untrained person: -10
Only possible for an expert: -20
Virtually impossible for a human(oid) being: -30
Fear
Every character has a set of fears ranging from significant to great to terrible. You have to roll a fear roll with a DR of +5, 0 or -5 whenever you face it, and you also need a reason to do it past curiosity and lulz. However, if you're running away from a great or terrible fear, you receive a +5/+10 bonus if you have to face any fears along the way. Your extra/missing Willpower is also added to the roll.
And that should cover the bare bones of a skill-based RPG system. I won't fiddle around too much with balancing(though if any of the bonuses are off I'll fix them, of course); rather, it'll be the GM and players' job not to make themselves overpowered. I want the system to put more emphasis on the RolePlay rather than the Game.
Any suggestions for adjustments? Change? Additional stuff?