by ira212
From a game balance perspective, you incur a slight penalty for taking one of the skills on offer (a larger selection pool) instead of from the pool of your 2 drawn skills.Another way of thinking of it:
a) Pick from 2 skills, and pick from 3 action cards
b) Pick from 2+X skills, and get 1 action card without picking
Since you know what all the skills and actions cards in advance, though, I find that this rarely a painful choice.