Under 2nd Edition rules, a Fighter requires 2000 Experience Points to reach 2nd Level. A Kobold slain in one-on-one combat is worth 7 Experience Points, meaning that a 1st Level Fighter acting alone would have to slay 285.7 Kobolds to level up.

Compare those figures to Dungeons & Dragons 3.5: our Kobold-killing Fighter needs 1000 Experience Points to reach 2nd Level, and his tiny, reptilian prey of choice is worth 300 XP if slain in one-on-one combat. That’s 3.3 dead Kobolds to reach 2nd Level, or 282.4 less Kobolds than it would have taken him to level up in AD&D 2nd Edition.

I’ll always have a soft spot for AD&D, but the insane amount of effort that goes into gaining levels under that system is just one of many game elements that I’m glad WotC has fixed in the later editions. Those who played any PC games in the Baldur’s Gate or Icewind Dale series were given a clinic on the slow pace of 2nd Edition level advancement: arbitrary story-related experience awards were the only means of making those games–and our 2nd Edition campaigns–playable.

4th Edition D&D boasts a finely tuned system. Wizards of the Coast must have tapped some MIT-level talent during the development of this latest edition because the numbers don’t crunch so much as they click. The downside to such a finely-tuned tabletop engine is that it makes it hard to work under the hood without screwing something up (although plenty of third party publishers are putting out fine 4E rules supplements).

I like the cohesive, clockwork nature of 4th Edition mechanics. It helps me focus more on the game setting and the action at hand. Characters in my 2nd Edition campaigns didn’t level up the hard way–there were no 285+ Kobold body counts–but the players probably would have enjoyed themselves more had their characters leveled up with greater regularity. 3rd Edition fixed that problem, along with many others, and 4th Edition has built the entire game system around a model of mathematical consistency.

Gaining levels still isn’t easy, but at least it’s no longer needlessly hard.

In short, Skill Powers will be Utility Powers available to characters who are trained in certain skills: for example, your 2nd Level character who is trained in Diplomacy could, instead of taking a class-based Utility Power, take the 2nd Level Diplomacy Skill Power, which allows you to increase the hit points your allies recover during a short rest.

Aside from the “crunchy” implications discussed below, I love the idea because it brings a little extra character depth in the form of a mechanic. I love the 4th Edition Skills system in general, and these powers give Skills the potential for more “screen time.” They’ll make Skill-oriented characters more fun and they’re perfect as “finishing touches” for players who like to make very detailed characters.

Effects-wise, I’m not sure that these will stand up next to class-based Utility Powers, especially for very combat-oriented characters: my melee Rogue really relies on Adaptable Flanker to keep my Sneak Attack dice on the table. While any number of the 2nd Level Skill Powers available to him would be nice to have, I just see too much combat in my home campaign and in RPGA adventures to justify the trade-off.

Mine is a niche concern, however, and even melee-centric characters will find some value in the higher level Skill Powers. I’ll leave it to the character optimization specialists to decide how many of these powers qualify as “best options” for a highly-tuned killing machine, but I would be surprised if the potential were there.

In related news, my “obscenely skill-oriented 2nd Edition-style Bard” concept is finally starting to crystallize…

UPDATE: Today’s patch to Character Builder includes Skill Powers, so even those who don’t subscribe to D&D Insider can check out the Level 2 Skill Powers.