I'm new to this gme (been playing a grand total of 5 days) so bare with me if any comments regarding the current game sound a bit... ignorant.

One thing I think that needs to be decided upon before anything regarding a new character system can be decided on is, what you want it to accomplish. The current system seems geared to solo adventuring; I've seen little in the way of grouping, and the way the system is setup right now, there is almost no reason to do it (short of RP/social reasons).

The current system is great if your goal is to make combat a completely separate thing from RP/social activities, as the only time a group is needed is when combating a particularly nasty creature, and for the most part, there is no reason to do that; if you can't solo it, just fight something weaker.

A system that allows characters to favor one skill at the cost of others encourages grouping, at least to an extent, because it hinders a single characters ability to handle all aspects of combat/exploration on his own. However, since I believe I've gotten my point across, I'll add my two cents on what this thread is actually about, so as not to be a complete derailer

I think perhaps the best and simplest way to accomplish what this thread proposed, with the minimum of work as far as re-coding the system, would be this: instead of tying an aptitude to each skill, tie to each skill a "key stat" that most associates with that skill (the different magic schools already do this to a certain extent, their power being based off an associated mental stst) and use that to determine aptitude.

Have a high strength? Odds are you'll be pretty quick to pickup some of the more "finesse-light" weapons, such as axe. Agility would be good for daggers and certain types of swords (which may mean a splitting of sword types is required, but not a necessity). Obviously magics would go off one/all of the mental stats, and so on... you get the idea. This would likely require there to be a different system for advancing stats; perhaps some races have caps on certain stats, or simply have a harder/more expensive time raising them.

From there, skills would have their advancement speed (and possibly score cap) determined by their associated stat.