Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Get Better At Skills With These Feats

The latest Unearthed Arcana from Jeremy Crawford and again featuring guest writer Robert J. Schwalb introduces a number of feats which make you better at skills. Each increases the skill's primary ability score, doubles your proficiency bonus, and gives you a little bonus ability. "This week we introduce new feats to playtest. Each of these feats makes you better at one of the game’s eighteen skills. We invite you to read them, give them a try in play, and let us know what you think in the survey we release in the next installment of Unearthed Arcana."

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[cbwjm]

"Player B - in order not to screw you over, I'm going to make sure that player A can always succeed at doing a task you've invested in. I hope that makes you feel empowered."

Well your way sounds like "Player B, because Player A has invested in doing a task, you will never be able to succeed at it. Just give up now."

I think I like my way better since Player B is still going to be able to make an attempt whereas you inflating skill DCs just gives a big FU to your other players that haven't picked up the feat.

 

[epithet]

Don't forget the Sentinel Shield.

A level 13 human Cleric has 20 Wisdom and 2 feat slots.

10 is the base for a passive skill
+5 Wisdom modifier
+5 Proficiency bonus
+5 Perceptive (UA feat)
+5 Observant (PHB feat)

= 30 passive Perception.

Don't forget the Sentinel Shield.

 

[Blue]

Well your way sounds like "Player B, because Player A has invested in doing a task, you will never be able to succeed at it. Just give up now."

I think I like my way better since Player B is still going to be able to make an attempt whereas you inflating skill DCs just gives a big FU to your other players that haven't picked up the feat.

No, my way is "don't introduce a feat that makes it so easy to have such a wide skill difference". Especially when you have mis-alignments between skills for classes and who has the ability scores, like clerics being best at noticing things, or wizard best at knowledge (religion).

It's only when that goes away is the choice either "make it no challenge at all for the party, so the person in second can have a chance at extraneously exceeding" vs. "make it a challenge for the party with one person who may or may not and someone who invested being able to aid but not able to do it themselves". Well, once we're down to the bad choices, I'll take the one I see as less bad of the two. Which results in DC inflation.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Why would DCs increase? Isn't part of the point of bounded accuracy meant to be that the PCs are getting better at skills while the DCs stay the same? A difficult DC 20 climb shouldn't become more difficult just because a player has invested in improving their athletics skill.

On the other hand, skill bonuses that are high lead to trivial challenges. A DC 20 may not change, but it's importance as a factor does. If you can beat a DC 20 on a 1 (not out of the realm of possibility with expertise, high stat, and magic*), why bother having those DCs?

Here's the rub, if a player has a very high skill, one that is only challenged by very high DCs, it starts to fade into the background. The player, perversely, loses spotlight time due to their specialization. If, as a DM, I know the player can autosucceed at DC 15s, and is unlikely to fail at DC20s, then I start glossing them in play. "The door is locked." "I attempt to pick the lock." "(no roll needed, autosucceed at the DC)Sure, you pick it, what now?" This removes that tension of picking up the dice to answer the question 'can I pick the lock?' and replaces it with rote narration. I'd rather a mechanic that let my player, the renowned thief, still have a bit of a thrill at picking a lock without the lock being an unreasonable and unsupported by fictional positioning super high DC.

Heck, replacing the double skill bonus with advantage would be better. Then it's still a risk.

 

[Hussar]

Starting with a 16 Wisdom, spending 3 ASIs on +2 wisdom, Perceptive Feat (+1 wisdom), Observant Feat (+1 wisdom)

At level 13, he'd have 10 (base) + 10 (double proficiency) + 5 (wisdom) +5 (alert feat) = 30. Before he could have had it at 25 which was probably high enough to spot anything anyway. An extra +5 I don't think really does anything.

Yeah, a character that blew that many resources on being able to see stuff? More power to him or her. Hrm, character has a 16 starting Wis, meaning the character has dump statted something - probably Int, in all likelihood. So, while Father Genericus sees traps a mile away, he absolutely sucks at any information gathering.

Do people really worry about this stuff? Seriously? I LOVE it when players hyperfocus like this. It makes it so much easier to challenge the PC. Oh, you dump statted Str so your Dex monkey is fantastic? Cool. Good luck swimming in this dungeon that's half filled with water.

I get the feeling that DM's really don't like to design their adventures with equal focus on all three pillars.
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Back to the UA article. Me LIKIES. I'm running a very low caster game right now. NO full casters at all. Which makes things like the Medicine Feat a REALLY nice addition. Schweet!

 

[cbwjm]

On the other hand, skill bonuses that are high lead to trivial challenges. A DC 20 may not change, but it's importance as a factor does. If you can beat a DC 20 on a 1 (not out of the realm of possibility with expertise, high stat, and magic*), why bother having those DCs?

Here's the rub, if a player has a very high skill, one that is only challenged by very high DCs, it starts to fade into the background. The player, perversely, loses spotlight time due to their specialization. If, as a DM, I know the player can autosucceed at DC 15s, and is unlikely to fail at DC20s, then I start glossing them in play. "The door is locked." "I attempt to pick the lock." "(no roll needed, autosucceed at the DC)Sure, you pick it, what now?" This removes that tension of picking up the dice to answer the question 'can I pick the lock?' and replaces it with rote narration. I'd rather a mechanic that let my player, the renowned thief, still have a bit of a thrill at picking a lock without the lock being an unreasonable and unsupported by fictional positioning super high DC.

Heck, replacing the double skill bonus with advantage would be better. Then it's still a risk.

I think that's a difference playstyle. If a player has invested in his skill to pick locks so that he can routinely pick a DC 20 lock then I will happily allow him to automatically pick it without rolling. I would want to player to feel that he is such a superb thief that the routine locks they come across just don't challenge him. It makes it more memorable when they come across that one lock that just seems to be greater than their skill allows them to easily pick. They'll still likely be able to pick the superbly made dwarven lock but the fact that they had to roll will make it memorable.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think that's a difference playstyle. If a player has invested in his skill to pick locks so that he can routinely pick a DC 20 lock then I will happily allow him to automatically pick it without rolling. I would want to player to feel that he is such a superb thief that the routine locks they come across just don't challenge him. It makes it more memorable when they come across that one lock that just seems to be greater than their skill allows them to easily pick. They'll still likely be able to pick the superbly made dwarven lock but the fact that they had to roll will make it memorable.

Yes, and that player has to wait until he hits that lock to even roll the dice at his speciality. I've actually seen this at the table, where a player becomes bored by their ability always succeeding, and then, at the big moment where they actually get to roll, they bomb it with a 2. That's not fun.

Further, I like to spice things up with actual consequences on a failure, or at least an increase in the risk. A recent example on a DC 15 lock described as very rusted, when the rogue failed her first check to pick the lock, I described the result as the lockpick becoming stuck and offered a choice: you can try to force the lock, but if you fail you break your lockpick, or you can recover your lockpick intact, but, on a fail, you break the lock. This kind of interesting choice is denied if the player can autosucceed at DC 15 rolls. (The player chose the latter, and failed the check, breaking the lock. The barbarian got a chance to SMASH, but with the uncertainty of setting off a possible trap within the chest by doing so. The chest was untrapped, but the moment was fun.)

 

[Ashkelon]

I wish these had been the feats we received in the PHB instead of the ones we got. I really dislike how much more powerful combat feats are in most games and think combat feats do very little to make the game more enjoyable. At least the combat feats that don't accomplish anything other than numbers porn such as great weapon master and sharpshooter. These feats provide a variety of interesting and fairly balanced options instead of giving us cookie cutter "builds" that polearm master, great weapon master, crossbow expert, and sharpshooter lead to.

These feats do show us the flaws of 5e's lack of clear language keywords or typed bonuses. The game would be much easier to balance if they brought back just a few keywords to prevent bonus stacking. Right now it is unclear if these feats stack with expertise and if so, to what degree.

 

[Prakriti]

Yes, and that player has to wait until he hits that lock to even roll the dice at his speciality. I've actually seen this at the table, where a player becomes bored by their ability always succeeding,

I ran into this issue with a high-level Rogue. Reliable Talent turns almost every skill check into a natural 10 minimum, which means that every skill with expertise is always a 20 or higher. Whenever it came time to roll Stealth, Sleight of Hand, Thieves' Tools, etc... "Yeah, you do it. Don't bother rolling." Eventually, the player insisted on rolling anyways, because it wasn't as fun without rolling dice. It was, as you said, as though Reliable Talent had stolen their spotlight.

 

[Geeknamese]

These feats do show us the flaws of 5e's lack of clear language keywords or typed bonuses. The game would be much easier to balance if they brought back just a few keywords to prevent bonus stacking. Right now it is unclear if these feats stack with expertise and if so, to what degree.

It's pretty clear from the PHB that these feat proficiency bonuses do not stack with the Expertise feature at all.



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