Our GM has converted BC skills to DH2e and so far everyone loves it.

Here's the list of skills and alignments:

Acrobatics (contortionist, jump, maneuver) Slaanesh

Athletics (lift, push, climb, endurance, swimming) Khorne

Charm (brag, captivate,) Slaanesh

Command (coordinate, inspire, terrify) Khorne

Commerce (acquisition, barter, evaluate) Unaligned

Deceive (blather, lie) Tzeentch

Evade (deny, dodge, parry) Unaligned

Investigate (inquiry, study) Unaligned

Intimidate (coerce, threaten) Nurgle

Linguistics (communicate, translate) Unaligned

Logic (deduction, gambling) Tzeentch

Medicae (diagnose, extended care, first aid) Nurgle

Navigate (plan/map, stay on course) Unaligned

Observe (awareness, scrutiny) Unaligned

Pilot (aeronautica, surface, void) Unaligned

Psyniscience (warp nature, warp positioning) Tzeentch

Remembrance (common lore, forbidden lore, scholastic lore) Unaligned

Stealth (shadowing, sneaking) Unaligned

Subterfuge (disguise, security, sleight of hand) Unaligned

Survival (scrounging, tracking, wrangling) Nurgle

Tech-Use (commune, demolition, overhaul, patch breach, repair) Unaligned

+

Trade (All those trades from BC book) Unaligned

We have also added Navigate (Warp) with a prerequisite of being a Navigator or having a Psy Rating to keep it close to fluff (Sorcerer in Night Lords novels navigating a ship).

We decided to give Deceive to Tzeentch, as it fits him better and gives every God an interaction skill.

For Remembrance we use Specialist talent mechanics. It costs 500Xp (usually we get 500 per session) for a new one and it counts as Unaligned.

Can't wait to see a new system and hope this helps.

So... what does this change?

Well.....a lot for our group.

1) players got back XP, based on their purchases => a huge motivation boost.

2) less skills => less XP to get trained in them => more game choices for the party in general. CSMs are good for something other than fighting now and can help human specialists in some tasks. Humans are more important to the party now and can spend extra XP on stats.

3) sub-skills are broken the nice way, that makes more sense to me. Alternative usage of the skill was mentioned in previous books but rarely was put out with examples. Now this looks beautiful to me: Intimidate: Coerce (Wp), Threaten (S). Simple and clear. Another good example: Intelligence characteristic is useful now for no-tech characters - Deceive-Lie is an Int test.

4) remaking Lores mechanics is a huge step towards better system. Mark of Tzeentch in 20 Forbidden Lores? Min/Maxers were abusing this, other players were mildly annoyed by this fact. Now Remembrance: Common Lore (Per), Forbidden Lore (Wp), Scholastic Lore (Int) makes total sense to me and I admire the person who invented this.
Same with Operate and Navigate skills.

5) psykers got more flexible. How often psyker would get Sleight of Hand before? Now Subterfuge gives him disguise + security (priceless for roleplaying) and Sleight of Hand as a bonus for Precision Telekinesis.

We have a fillable PDF sheet, remade for this system and I can share it if needed.

Tzeentch and Nurgle get three skills, while Slaanesh and Khorne only get two. Is this balanced?

Originally Khorne had 3 skills, Nurgle had 3, Slaanesh had 4, Tzeentch had 3+14 Forbidden Lores. New list looks pretty balanced to me.

If I had a problem with Mark of Tzeentch, I think I'd change the Mark of Tzeentch rather than the entire skill system.

But that's just me.

If I had a problem with Mark of Tzeentch, I think I'd change the Mark of Tzeentch rather than the entire skill system.

But that's just me.

Good point.

We went this way to get rid of legacy skill bloat and to simplify the system as some people new to roleplaying had problems grasping it. Not to fix the balance holes.

If I had a problem with Mark of Tzeentch, I think I'd change the Mark of Tzeentch rather than the entire skill system.

But that's just me.

Good point.

We went this way to get rid of legacy skill bloat and to simplify the system as some people new to roleplaying had problems grasping it. Not to fix the balance holes.

The answer to the first part of your question is a phenomenon, only observed by me in western hemisphere - people refusing to read the books. BC skills are fine and absolutely playable. It was the wetware factor. When we started, two guys (new to RPGs) in the party simply refused to read the Core book for different reasons (excuses, mostly). We were playing once-twice per month and these guys were forgetting the most basic rules. Creating helpers and printouts helped to a degree. Now this simplification to DH2e skills helped even further. Now, a year later, the most problematic player left the group and the other one started to read.

As for legacy skill bloat, I find the early 40K system was trying to create a skill for every, pardon me, fart (mostly Dark Heresy). Not trying to start a discussion here, it's a system preference - how general/generic you want it to be (Numenera would be the opposite here and I love that system). There was a bit of a shift in Rogue Trader and Deathwatch. A serious change in BC/OW, but still a lot of cr*p there - 3 different types of Lore, Trade skill, as example. Legacy skills that had to be in the system for whatever reason (compatibility?), that look outdated, stand out and take book space, that could've been used for something better. I'm glad FFG thought of dropping these relicts.

I wholeheartedly agree. I have enjoyed my current campaign with the DH2 skill and characteristic mix-and-match and the reduction in spreading xp across so many skills. I do feel like there is a lot of tech use and intelligence based rolls so far after 20,000 xp into this system, but that could be me as GM and also our having a tech-priest playing a central role in the party. if anything the one characteristic that gets left out the most is strength, but if we had more sword junkies they would be all about it, so whatever.

In general though, I am pleased. The Specialty feat being necessary for forbidden lore is better than it was before, but I am not 100% happy with that solution and I am not sure what the best fix is. None of the suggestions made on this forum have grabbed me yet.