D&D 5E Thoughts on 5e skills.

[FrogReaver]

I guess all you need to do is invent a time machine, go back in time, and change the D&D 5e books before they were sent off to the printer. Do me a favor while you're at it and throw in some more examples of play so that people aren't mimicking the popular podcasts and then running into trouble over the same issues.



I think we should evaluate the skills that are appropriate for a particular game.



Please don't presume that there are "sides" or, even if there are "sides," that I'm on anyone's "side" but my own. Or that I'm trying to "defeat" your argument. You claim that some D&D 5e skills are "next to pointless." I would say that's because of how you run your game and is not a reflection that some sort of design change is in order.

I assume and presume all the time. I don't mind being proven wrong. I find it's usually the best way to learn Sorry I misjudged the point of your post. Can I ask how do you make animal handling not be a pointless skill?

Oh and I would love to go get more examples of things in the book for 5e. That's to late. But some day there will be a 6e and if things are hashed out well by then maybe we can see an even better 6e

 

[FrogReaver]

A skill-less take on 5e wouldn't be all that bad, nor all that much harder on the DM. Players would take a class & background, and the DM would judge, from that, whether they got proficiency on any given check. It wouldn't be particularly harder than judging which skill applies (or whether no skill applies), which only comes up if you decide to call for a check, in the first place...

I just wanted to add, I second what you say if it's with the right group!

 

[iserith]

I assume and presume all the time. I don't mind being proven wrong. I find it's usually the best way to learn Sorry I misjudged the point of your post. Can I ask how do you make animal handling not be a pointless skill?

Just including beasts in the game is going to set the stage in my view. I mentioned a couple of examples upthread where dealing with NPC pets was part of a social interaction challenge.

Mounts are another way. For players to find mounts attractive, I find there needs to be overland travel and time pressure such that the players will want to trade wealth for speed. Then you can get into exploration or combat challenges where risky maneuvers have a payoff. Chases, for example.

When I'm a player and take Animal Handling (usually because a background has it e.g. Folk Hero), then I will try to perform tasks that may involve the skill because I'll probably be better at such tasks than, say, figuring out that magic circle or whatever. It's smart play to primarily do tasks in which you're trained, so I think the players have some influence on the utility of the skill in a given game.

 

[Ninja-radish]

As a DM I absolutely despise two things about 5E: saving throws and skills. Skills is what's relevant here, so I'll only discuss that. Uses for each skill in 5E are described either vaguely or not at all. Assigning DCs is also extremely vague. I often don't have the slightest clue what skill should be used for what my players want to do, and that's a problem I never had in Pathfinder.

I hate the skill system so much I basically bypass it entirely. When one of my players wants to do something, I ask if he has a certain skill and if he says yes, then I just say he succeeds. Saves me alot of aggravation. Although, now that this thread has pointed out the Ability Proficiency variant rule from the DMG, I think I might use that instead.

 

[iserith]

As a DM I absolutely despise two things about 5E: saving throws and skills. Skills is what's relevant here, so I'll only discuss that. Uses for each skill in 5E are described either vaguely or not at all. Assigning DCs is also extremely vague. I often don't have the slightest clue what skill should be used for what my players want to do, and that's a problem I never had in Pathfinder.

I hate the skill system so much I basically bypass it entirely. When one of my players wants to do something, I ask if he has a certain skill and if he says yes, then I just say he succeeds. Saves me alot of aggravation. Although, now that this thread has pointed out the Ability Proficiency variant rule from the DMG, I think I might use that instead.

You only need to call for ability checks which is just 6 broad categories. The players can then ask if they can apply a skill or tool proficiency. Or, as I prefer, the players instead just say what proficiency applies under the assumption that they're playing in good faith. This saves the question and inevitable "Yeah, sure."

 

[FrogReaver]

As a DM I absolutely despise two things about 5E: saving throws and skills. Skills is what's relevant here, so I'll only discuss that. Uses for each skill in 5E are described either vaguely or not at all. Assigning DCs is also extremely vague. I often don't have the slightest clue what skill should be used for what my players want to do, and that's a problem I never had in Pathfinder.

I hate the skill system so much I basically bypass it entirely. When one of my players wants to do something, I ask if he has a certain skill and if he says yes, then I just say he succeeds. Saves me alot of aggravation. Although, now that this thread has pointed out the Ability Proficiency variant rule from the DMG, I think I might use that instead.

I never played PathFinder. I assume its skill system is similar to 3.5e d&d?

 

[Ninja-radish]

I never played PathFinder. I assume its skill system is similar to 3.5e d&d?

Pathfinder has a few less skills, but yes pretty similar.

 

[Ninja-radish]

You only need to call for ability checks which is just 6 broad categories. The players can then ask if they can apply a skill or tool proficiency. Or, as I prefer, the players instead just say what proficiency applies under the assumption that they're playing in good faith. This saves the question and inevitable "Yeah, sure."

Sounds good, but how do I know which skill is appropriate since the PHB barely says anything about skills? I'll give an example: one player wants to use Perception to look for something at a crime scene and the other player wants to use Investigation. Which one is correct?

 

[iserith]

Sounds good, but how do I know which skill is appropriate since the PHB barely says anything about skills? I give an example: one player wants to use Perception to look for something at a crime scene and the other player wants to use Investigation. Which one is correct?

It says quite a bit about what the skills cover. The key difference between Perception and Investigation in my view is that Perception is used if the player wants to detect the presence of something and the DM is not sure whether the character can do that or not. Investigation is when the player wants to have the character make a deduction based on available clues but, again, the DM is not sure whether the character can do that or not.

One thing you want to do is make sure your players are stating a GOAL (what they hope to accomplish) and an APPROACH (what they do to achieve the goal). If they are clear about this, then it should be pretty easy to decide whether they succeed, fail, or whether they need to make an ability check and which skill or tool proficiency may apply.

Also, your players shouldn't want to "use Perception" or any other skill for that matter. Players shouldn't want to roll - it's better to succeed outright. Rolling is better than outright failure, but it's still not as good as outright success!

 

[Ninja-radish]

It says quite a bit about what the skills cover. The key difference between Perception and Investigation in my view is that Perception is used if the player wants to detect the presence of something and the DM is not sure whether the character can do that or not. Investigation is when the player wants to have the character make a deduction based on available clues but, again, the DM is not sure whether the character can do that or not.

One thing you want to do is make sure your players are stating a GOAL (what they hope to accomplish) and an APPROACH (what they do to achieve the goal). If they are clear about this, then it should be pretty easy to decide whether they succeed, fail, or whether they need to make an ability check and which skill or tool proficiency may apply.

Also, your players shouldn't want to "use Perception" or any other skill for that matter. Players shouldn't want to roll - it's better to succeed outright. Rolling is better than outright failure, but it's still not as good as outright success!

Huh. So my approach of just handwaving everything and assuming they succeed at skill checks was correct? How strange. I only did that because after reading the PHB I still had no idea how skill checks were supposed to work.