Sure...but this is why I said "most likely". Chances are that Rangers are very likely and Rogues almost certainly built around DEX.
So, what you're saying is that fighters are 'most likely' bad at stealth so can't contribute in scouting and similar aspects of exploration requiring good DEX?
Fighters can go STR or DEX in 5e - so can rangers (rogues, barbarians, and paladins, for instance, not s'much) - it's a bit of versatility the 5e fighter finally got without undue strings (feat taxes) attached. It's nice. But, it's at-chargen versatility, and it goes one way or the other for any given fighter.
There are always exceptions. If we're going to speak about how a Fighter can contribute outside of combat then we should probably discuss choices that the player makes that allow him to do so, and not choices he makes that don't allow it.
And when those choices can be made, and whether they exclude other choices. At chargen, if you're gong to use weapons, you generally make a STR or DEX choice. If you went with DEX you're probably not going to play a paladin or barbarian. If you go with STR, it's probably not a rogue nor an archer of any kind. So, sure, the STR fighter is probably going to be stronger than the rogue and the DEX fighter stealthier than the Paladin or even lighter-armored Barbarian.
The supposition, 'well, a fighter can sneak better than the paladin/barb because he's more likely to have high DEX (since the other classes are more deeply committed to STR),' is just as true as a fighter likely being stronger than the rogue or ranger... but no fighter is both those things. And, the DEX fighter is unlikely to be as stealthy as the rogue (a prime thing for the rogue to use Expertise in), nor the STR fighter stronger than the raging barbarian.
Anyone can build a character of any class who is not good at anything.
Might be harder than it sounds, in good faith, anyway. You gotta put your stat points &c somewhere...
Sorry, I wasn't clearer....I meant the Jumping Distance aspect of Remarkable Athlete more so than the boost for non-proficient skills. The non-proficiency boost is helpful, but not as meaningful as Expertise, I agree.
Ah, that makes more sense.
As for boats and ropes....kind of irrelevant. I don't think that most adventurers keep boats in their backpacks. Ropes, for sure....
I said raft rather than boat because I figured they'd be the kind of thing to get improvised in the exploration pillar, when there's more time for finding such solutions than when, say, swimming a moat in the midst of battle.
rather than looking at the actual class details and then deciding based on those if the class is indeed "useless" outside of combat or not.
BA makes it impossible for anyone to be /useless/ outside of (or in) the combat pillar. Just nowhere near as good as the next guy.
I wouldn't have minded if Remarkable Athlete worked along the lines of Expertise. But the fact that they didn't doesn't render the Fighter useless outside of combat.
/Useless/ is impossible. CR 1/8 Kobold with straight 8 stats? Not useless. RA is pretty useless as far as making the Champion, the only fighter that gets it, more competitive outside of combat (inside it can help with a few things, too, there's some no-proficiency-possible checks that can come up in combat), and merely making it stack with proficiency would change that.
Yes, all those skills all fall under the Athletics umbrella, that is my point. Chances are more likely that a Fighter will be proficient, and also have a high STR.
And also wearing heavy armor...
Yes, it is possible for a Rogue to devote his Expertise to Athletics, but it seems less likely than devoting it to Stealth, Perception, Thieves Tools, Deception, Acrobatics, Investigation, and so on. Certainly possible, but less likely.
Nod. That gets into what we're comparing, IMHO, it should be comparing two characters trying to be good at the same thing: Do we want the DEX fighter, the ranger or the rogue as our party scout? Do we want the STR fighter or the Barbarian kicking in doors & carrying stuff for us?
The impression I get is that you're on the point about the fighter contributing somewhere that everyone else happens to have neglected. In the party with STR in the 8-12 range, the STR fighter is /the/ lift'n & break'n stuff guy. In the party with DEX in the 10-14 range, the DEX fighter is the stealthy one. In the party with otherwise universally dumped CHA, the Noble Fighter with 14 CHA is the face.
If a party doesn't have a Ranger, then the Fighter may very well be their best bet for Tracking and Foraging and the like. If the party does have a Ranger, then the Fighter will still most likely excel at STR based skill checks.
Yes, the one-eyed fighter in the land of the blind is king. So is the two-eyed anything else.
As for previous editions, I don't think it's all that useful of a comparison to compare proficiency to in-class skills or trained skills of prior editions.
I think it's important for those of us who have been through prior editions not to judge the current ed by things that no longer apply. Training was nice in 4e (& there was room to optimize skill checks on top of that), and in-class was huge in 3e especially at high level. Proficiency is nice in 5e, but so is a high stat, and it takes both proficiency and a high stat (or better yet Expertise) to excel in 5e to anything like the degree you might have in 3e with max ranks in an in-class skill (never mind optimized, which got insane).
So 'skill on the class list' doesn't mean what it used to.
