The current debate over whether or not paladins will still have a big piece of the forging pie after the re-write has gotten me thinking... where in the description of our guild does it say "you are destined to one-day be a great forger, once you have gained much battle experience".
I've also always thought that it was a little odd that we had lore secondary, since it is probably the one skillset that I don't really use in my day-to-day life as a paladin. Heck, I was REALLY confused back when I needed 3 ranks of first aid a circle.
Most other guilds have a special skill that no one gets to use but them, why not make Leadership a lore skill? It would certainly answer the question of "why am I lore secondary?"
Paladins have lots of abilities (like spells and glyphs) which draw on their soulstate and supernatural forces to take affect. I would think that leadership could reasonably be a mundane skill, where the action of actually LEADing a group is what improves skill.
One drawback of a system like this that made me hesitate at first...
It relies on other players to learn the skill. Ssra has also mentioned that he doesn't like ideas like this..
However, if LEAD were set up similarly to teaching (bear with me here a second!) I think it could really work well. Leadership skill would allow you to lead more and more people effectively, and convey increasing bonuses in each type of LEAD. Joining a paladain's group in battle while he LEADS will periodically give pulses of experience to the leading paladin, though due to the hectic nature of combat it would be a bit easier to learn than teaching (i.e. it would get to mind lock quicker).
It would also make for a neat way to expand on the personalities and history behind each of the guildleaders, and at the appropriate skill level and circle you could ask them for their insights into leading others in battle.
Your ability to LEAD could be limited by concentration... leading people wouldn't constantly drain concentration but hold it at a lower than max level. So in this way you could only lead a certain amount of people at first, but with skill and charisma you could lead more people and still be able to concentrate on spells etc.
We'd still eventually be able to "put our soul into it", and this would be in the form of glyphs that ENHANCE our ability to lead. But again, the point I'm trying to make is that LEAD should be just a skill that a paladin learns as he goes and not entirely divinely inspired.
kinda long winded I know, but I figured it was time to kick off some LEAD discussion.
(and I was getting bored of reading the OMG we're losing forging discussion)
~Caneghem Urathi
