Stolen from the Apocalypse (Beta 4)

Continuing on the topic of how to group skills, if bonuses are to be doled out based on thematic groupings, then it seems like borrowing the idea of class-specific moves vs. "basic moves" might be a direction to explore.

General rules for using Combat skills might prescribe a Basic Ability and/or Skillset to use when taking a particular Combat action, such as Grappling, for example:

"When you attempt to bodily restrain an opponent, roll FORT"

"When you attempt to escape a grapple, roll AGIL" 

"When you attempt to initiate, reverse, or escape a grapple, roll Athletics" 

Likewise, so-called "Background Skills" could be made into class-specific moves:

Paladin: When you attempt to recall a piece of lore pertaining to Religion, Royalty, or Nobility, roll CHA

Cleric: When you attempt to recall a piece of lore pertaining to Religion, roll INT or WIS

Ranger: When you attempt to recall a piece of lore pertaining to Nature or Geography, roll WIS

Bard: When you attempt to recall a piece of lore pertaining to Geography or History, roll INT or Knowledge

Wizard: When you attempt to recall a piece of lore pertaining to Arcana or History, roll INT 

And so on, in that fashion.
Since we're using d20 math, I've decided to go with the following skill bonuses:

• Trained: roll 2d20 and use the higher result (i.e Advantage)
• Proficient: add 1d6 to the roll
• Expertise: (whether combined with either of the above, or not) treat any 1s rolled as maximum value on the die

Whether you are Trained or Proficient in a skill would be mutually exclusive; in the end, this all works out to give us some values that fall roughly in line with the established baselines, coming out of the Apocalypse. The use of a Proficiency die breaks from the idea of using Class Die + d20 for all of the mechanics, but it makes the math easier to keep consistent.

The ranges established in previous iterations of The Next Project are going to be used, and also follow from the d20 combat math:

• <10: bad
• 10-19: good
• 20+: very good

Most likely, in-combat skill usage will have 'bad' rolls and 'good' rolls just be normal 'miss'  or 'hit' (respectively) rather than have complications; outside of combat, skills can be made more involved. 

The next step is to add a bunch of words to all of these skills/moves.