D&D 5E duplicate proficiency

[Kobold Stew]

Believe it or not, but yours was the only EN thread that I could find discussing this rather surprising point.

I believe it -- it's an excellent question!

Or at least I think so, even though I really don't care much for the narrow vs broad discussion. Of course, I'm looking for discussion on the starting proficiencies from class and background. To me, the rules can only be interpreted one way, and that is for duplicate proficiencies to blow away the class restrictions, and I would like to know how this rule came about and what playtesters had against the alternative rule that if your background duplicates your choice of class skill, you simply get to remake that choice (i.e. make another choice from your class skill list) assuming all class lists contain at least five skills (so there's an actual choice involved still).

Ah, I see what you are saying. When you look at ch 1, the order for choosing things is race-class-background. That is, even though (from the character's view) the background is "prior" to the class, it is chosen after the class. That avoids your specific issue -- you've already chosen your class skills by the time you choose your background skills.

That doesn't eliminate all starting duplications, of course, but it does answer your specific concern.

Similarly, racial proficiencies are prior to class ones, which doesn't mean that you get free choice in your class skills, but that (for example) all elf rangers have Perception and three of the others from the list.

Once you've chosen them you choose a background, where the exception to the rule exists, and where there's a mechanism for substituting other skills in a custom background. So yes, in a way there is free choice, but it comes at the level of customizing backgrounds, not from class skills.

And all that falls under the "narrow" reading. The problem comes later, when (e.g.) you multi class into rogue and already have proficiency in thieves' tools. Does that grant a "free" tool proficiency? It doesn't with weapons or armours, but many (with the "broad" reading) want it to for tools.

 

[CapnZapp]

The full freedom to pick overlapping choices allows you to avoid having to bother messing about with this

Thank you. Yes, that could be the case.

You are allowed to make up backgrounds & skills relevant to them. I already think the idea is you get a couple of class skills & another couple of skills.

Only the effective result is that you get a couple of background skills and a couple of free skills.

Only time your class skill list comes into play is if you pick a background with skills outside your class list!

Let me add this is something I can live with. I just wish they made a more straightforward implementation.

Such as "you get skills from your class skill list and then you get your background skills. But if you don't like your background skills, you're free to choose any two skills instead."

This way, the background selection becomes easygoing and carefree, and you still end up with at least some class skills. Only difference is that it is the background you can dismiss instead of your class!

 

[Pickles JG]

Only the effective result is that you get a couple of background skills and a couple of free skills.

But aren't those skills also on your class list, or the other picks would not be free?

So you similarly get a couple of class skills & a couple of free picks.

 

[pming]

Hiya.

I don't think that the "double up" skill thing would count after character creation. It doesn't make sense. I also firmly believe that the whole "two skills duplicate, choose another" is for when you are creating your character. You can't choose a different background later on (like, say after you've gained 3 levels). Background is just that...background. As for choice, I have no problem with allowing any skill choice. It's one of the only ways to actually gain a skill you would otherwise not be able to take. Ever. I was disappointed that there weren't different rules in the DMG for Skills and how they work. I (and at least one player in my group) were hoping for something that allows skills to be treated as something more modular; where skills and skill proficiency wasn't tied to level.

Anyway....BG skills are for character creation. After that, you never "get" anything from your background, obviously as it is what you learned in your past. So gaining some levels or getting a new class (multi-class, if allowed) isn't going to change that. If a class would teach you Skill A, and you learned Skill A when you were a teen growing up in the streets of a big city, you don't get to "pick something else", because your class doesn't teach or otherwise offer the opportunity to do so. During character creation, however, I see no reason in disallowing a Fighter (Soldier) from saying "My character was more or less required to join the militia...he is more of a lover, not a fighter....so his captain saw this and allowed him to side train as a medic. Can I take Medicine in stead of Intimidate?". IMHO, backgrounds and initial character class choice are meant to be organic in 5e. I believe the player and the DM are intended to work side by side in creating an interesting and fleshed-out character...not just some cold, soulless, numbers and list oriented "character build".

In my game, I allow players to (almost) choose any skill they want for their character, up to 4 or 5...as long as it makes sense, and they try to use the ones in the book for their class/background as "highly suggested". That Fighter (Soldier) character wouldn't get away with Arcana, Medicine, Religion and Stealth...for example. Not without a damn interesting character concept and history.

Creating a character in 5e is like everything else in 5e; it's meant to be "think of what you want first....and then find the rules to support it....if you can't/don't find a rule to do so...make it up". (short form: think first, rule second)

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Fanaelialae]

But I already know I'm allowed to change any rule I want.

What I want to hear is if you (and others) like the current rule, and if so, what you would have disliked about the alternative where if you want diverse skills you would choose a non-stereotypical background for your class?

I have no problem with the broad interpretation.

This is what I dislike about the narrow interpretation. The player comes up with a concept, such as an assassin who's a master of disguise. So he takes rogue and the charlatan background, because those are appropriate to his concept. At 3rd level, he chooses Assassin as his archetype (also concept appropriate). Under the narrow interpretation, he loses out on a proficiency. He wouldn't have lost out on it if he had taken a background that didn't match his concept, nor would he lose out on it if he convinces the DM to let him substitute another tool proficiency for disguise kit. But then he doesn't really start with his concept.

IMO, you shouldn't have to undermine a concept just so you don't get undercut by the mechanics. It's not like it would be game-breaking to let the player take a musical instrument proficiency (so he can impersonate a minstrel) when he gains the Assassin specialty. It's an extension of his concept - because he's already mastered disguising himself, he instead has been spending his time learning another proficiency to make that disguise even more foolproof.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

It, IMO, is intended as a general rule.

Also, since we are early in the edition and most people haven't caught on to it yet: customizing a background (taking any 2 skills and any 2 languages/tools you wish) is a core default rule--it is not an optional rule. You are, of course, free to ask or require your players to select from specific backgrounds, but recognize that if you do so you are house-ruling requirements that the game as designed does not include, and being even more restrictive than you would be by not allowing multiclassing or not allowing feats.

 

[Henry]

I'm of the "really don't see it making a big difference" camp. Rogues are no longer known for being "broad skill monkeys" the way they've been in in 3.x and Pathfinder. You're not "protecting their niche" by denying players the chance to customize past a background -- that niche protection (currently, at least) is handled by their class features. You're basically talking about denying someone an extra +2 to the die roll, or really, +6 over the course of their entire careers. That's not really giving away the farm the way, say, letting them pick up sneak attack or double proficiency would be.

Matter of fact, I think I remember something or someone (Mearls?) saying something about players designing their own backgrounds? Just picking two or three skills, one special role-playing related benefit, and running with it.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Also I should add that I think the spirit of the game is to restrict two skills to your class skill list, and then apply the RAW of allowing you to pick any two skills you want for the other ones. Otherwise the class skill lists are meaningless, since backgrounds are merely suggestions in a character component you (the player, not the DM) are explicitly given permission to customize. (Any argument that doesn't take into account the RAW permission to the player to customize their background is inherently unsound.)

Doing it the other way around seems to contradict the apparent intent.

While not as obvious, argument by inference implies an apparent intent not to make you waste proficiencies. You are supposed to get the benefit of a certain number of skills (in particular). When something gives you more, you get more. This isn't clearly spelled out by the rules, but I'd be pretty surprised if the designers didn't agree with it.

 

[Kobold Stew]

While not as obvious, argument by inference implies an apparent intent not to make you waste proficiencies. You are supposed to get the benefit of a certain number of skills (in particular). When something gives you more, you get more. This isn't clearly spelled out by the rules, but I'd be pretty surprised if the designers didn't agree with it.

Actually, as has been discussed, what's spelled out in the rules is the exact reverse of this.

I think we're all fine that at level 1, that everyone gets what they get and proficiencies are spread as efficiently as they can be.

After that, however, is not the case. Let's take an example with proficiencies:

When a trickster cleric multiclasses into fighter, no one argues that because the cleric already has proficiency in light and medium armour, they get to take the armour proficiencies gained from becoming a fighter (also light and medium) and can "trade them in" and get heavy armour proficiency. No -- the armour proficiencies overlap, and the cleric multi classing into fighter gets less than the wizard multiclassing into fighter.

Another example: a rogue multiclasses into warlock, and so gets proficiency in all simple weapons. Though the character already is proficient in simple weapons, there is no sense that the warlock can now choose to be proficient in martial weapons instead.

That seems straightforward. Another example, this time with a spell (to show that the principle is not restricted to proficiencies): A wizard with the light cantrip multiclasses into cleric, and becomes a light cleric. That person does not gain a free cantrip: though the class gives proficiency in the light cantrip, it does not default to another choice.

Given examples like these (that could be multiplied), the burden, I suggest, is to explain why tool and skill proficiencies work differently than armour proficiencies, weapon proficiencies, and other class abilities including spells. The situation won't happen very often, and I agree that most tables will probably let it roll. But the consistent answer is (I suggest) the narrow reading in the OP.

Here are some examples to think with:
1. An orphan fighter 5 (who is proficient in thieves' tools) multiclasses into rogue. Does he get to reassign the tool proficiency to navigator's tools (or some other tool proficiency), and if so, why?

2. A charlatan rogue hits level 3 and becomes an assassin. Does she get to choose a free tool proficiency since she already has proficiency with the disguise kit?

My sense is no in both cases, and that's based on analogy with the way other proficiencies work after first level.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

That seems straightforward. Another example, this time with a spell (to show that the principle is not restricted to proficiencies): A wizard with the light cantrip multiclasses into cleric, and becomes a light cleric. That person does not gain a free cantrip: though the class gives proficiency in the light cantrip, it does not default to another choice.

Yes, but I'd absolutely house rule that they get another cantrip. It's absurd to have isolated situations where it matters what order you take something in, simply because they didn't specify that it doesn't. It seems to violate design philosophy by penalizing a choice that provides no benefit (ie, you aren't making a trade off, you simply lose out on something because you took it in the wrong order). Even when multiclassing weapon, armor, and skill proficiencies--the rules where they actually say that order matters and how it matters--you get something for the choices that seem weaker. For instance, if might be overall superior to take fighter and then wizard (better starting hit points and heavy armor). But if you really want the saving throws from wizard, you can sacrifice the hit points and armor and get the saves you want. (Even that I don't like, but at least it's something.)

Class based weapons, armor, and skill proficiencies are spelled out as dependent on the order in which you take them on one hand, and skill and tool proficiency choices are generally spelled out as not dependent on order on the other hand. Then we have scenarios that could fall into either category and they neglect to tell us which. It seems to me that the multiclass rules are intended to address a balance issue that doesn't apply to the other situations, therefore it makes the most sense to take the more generous interpretation in the unspecified situations.

Given examples like these (that could be multiplied), the burden, I suggest, is to explain why tool and skill proficiencies work differently than armour proficiencies, weapon proficiencies, and other class abilities including spells. The situation won't happen very often, and I agree that most tables will probably let it roll. But the consistent answer is (I suggest) the narrow reading in the OP.

Here are some examples to think with:
1. An orphan fighter 5 (who is proficient in thieves' tools) multiclasses into rogue. Does he get to reassign the tool proficiency to navigator's tools (or some other tool proficiency), and if so, why?

2. A charlatan rogue hosts level 3 and becomes an assassin. Does she get to choose a free tool proficiency since she already has proficiency with the disguise kit?

My sense is no in both cases, and that's based on analogy with the way other proficiencies work after first level.

I'd take the opposite position simply because I think the multiclass rules work best as the exception rather than the rule.

Practical effects:

In 3e, unless I was playing a wizard, I would always take the highest Intelligence score I ever intended to have when I created a character. The fact that extra skill points for Int are not retroactive was offensive to my sense of gaming (hit points from Con are retroactive, but Intelligence gets the shaft?) and I refused to deal with it as a player by always avoiding the issue.

If a 5e DM was ruling that I didn't get the skill proficiencies or cantrip from gaining levels in another class (not counting the 1st level proficiencies) I would create the character in such a way as to not suffer a penalty, or I'd shelf the concept and play a completely different character. I wouldn't interact with that rule. The thing is, I think 5e's philosophy of PCs is to let character be cool and not weigh them down with stupid, and I will interpret anything from perspective.

To clarify my overall position: Because the rules are not crystal clear in these areas, I'll interpret everything according to my understanding of overall 5e design philosophy as represented in the rest of the game--which is very generous towards players and leans more often on the side of "yes, you get cool" than "no, you can't do that."