D&DNext - more thoughts

I've been thinking a bit more about skills as presented in the D&DNext playtest package. A character will have a background which will include a package of skills. For example, the dwarf fighter pre-generated character has the Soldier background, providing a +3 bonus on Intimidate, Perception and Survival. That same character has a Wisdom bonus of +2 for a total modifier of +5 on perception checks. Therefore, on a natural 20, the character in question would get a 25, two points below the threshold of "Immortal". However, in D&D 3.x/Pathfinder, there are other ways to bump up the modifiers besides ranks. How about an eyes of the eagle, a potion of heroism and a headband of inspired wisdom +6 combined with the Alertness feat? Together, these give an additional +12. Now our dwarven axewielder only need roll a 10 to achieve "Immortal" perception. I guess this means we're going to see a radical redesign of magic items. I would guess this will be a case of drawing inspiration from past editions of D&D that didn't have skills. For example, the "old-school" version of eyes of the eagle allowed one to see 100 times further than would otherwise be the case. What that even means is open to DM's interpretation since vision is limited not be distance, but by line of sight. Still, I'm guessing magic items that currently give direct numerical bonuses to skill and ability checks will have to be either discarded completely or redesigned to grant some sort of ability that doesn't directly improve skill checks.

-Rognar-