D&D 5E Skills that you u are not proficient with

[EzekielRaiden]

I totally understand you and I agree with you, but in our game players where adding half of their levels to the skill check, it was not a pure ability score check, when we got level 2, we could add half of our level to our ability score check. Is this the way it should be when you are not trained?

Cuz I found your saying totally logical.

At least in the default game, no. Back in 4e D&D, all ability checks got a half-level bonus. 5e uses Proficiency instead of a half-level bonus--and it scales at, very roughly, one-quarter your level (the actual formula is P=2+(level-1)/2, round down, or equivalently (level+7)/2 round down). This reduction was intentional (though, barring one meaningful feature, it's really just "scale half as fast as 4e did")--part of the overall design philosophy referred to as "Bounded Accuracy."

It's possible--not likely, IMO, but possible--that your DM mistakenly thought the half-level bonus was retained in 5e when it wasn't. You might want to have a conversation asking about it. Take care to be as polite and open-minded as you can--it sounds like this situation really bothers you, but venting at the DM almost surely will not accomplish your goals. Remain focused on the idea that the DM did not do this to you, but either chose it to evoke a specific feel, or chose it without realizing that it is not actually a rule in 5e. Don't hide that you're upset, but be as fair and open-minded as you can be about it.

Thank you for your time, writing me about Jack of All Trades, yes I think I was furious with the way things was in our game and my mind was shut down :|

No worries. It happens. Addressing a deep emotional reaction with respect, rather than with a sycophantic or preachy tone, isn't easy. Hope I did so!

About Medicine roll ... YES ! Thats what I am talking about ! Why should a warrior or a sorcerer who does have anything to do with healing has a chance to try it? They must face a penalty even if DM let them to try it out. This way the game will be really fair.

In this case, you're running into one of the deeply-imbedded...questions, I guess, of the D&D ruleset as a whole. A thing that's been wrestled with since the earliest editions. Some frame it as a territory debate over what is "allowed," e.g. "everything which is not forbidden is allowed" vs. "everything which is not allowed is forbidden." 3rd edition was probably the height of the latter philosophy, and it's the one that (IMO) most clearly reflects your perceptions. No edition (IMO) has ever been 100% "everything not forbidden is allowed," but the idea has been waxing again since the start of 4e.

As for the "really fair" thing, I'm not sure I understand what you mean. A Wisdom(Medicine) roll to stabilize an ally is, essentially, "can you keep this person from dying of shock." Technically, it can be viewed as "staunching the blood flow" or whatever else you like if you really have to have 0 HP = mortally wounded,

Skills, and ability checks in general, are meant to be something that everyone can participate in. Almost all of them have "basic" or "general" uses that the "untrained" can perform. For example, kicking open a door with an Athletics check--you don't need to be a trained athlete to do it, but your odds of succeeding are better if you are; or, say, a Nature check to try to follow tracks in muddy ground doesn't require that you've had an overt (formal or informal) education in zoology/botany/tracking, but it'll really help if you do. Other times, though, you really do need to be "trained," and it's just straight-up impossible to do a thing without such training. Swimming against the current of a swift river is a sufficiently difficult task that someone who doesn't know how to ply their advantages (swimming in a zig-zag rather than trying to directly fight the current) will almost surely fail, so a DM might rule that someone without Athletics proficiency simply can't do it. Similarly, if you don't actually know the lore of the wilderness, you'll probably have no idea whether a particular berry or mushroom is lethal poison or tasty treat.

As for your question--"Why would a warrior or sorcerer know how to heal?"--the answer lies more in the nature of the specific action (keeping an ally from slipping away in the next 30-60 seconds) than in the general principle (totally random dude knows how to heal dying people). "Stabilizing" a person simply means they're not in imminent threat of death, and thus fits alright with basic ideas of first aid. Given that the people doing this are adventurers, and thus need to give a thought to things like surviving "a nasty man with a sword just tried to kill me," a handful of simple first-aid ideas like "don't let people fall into shock" and "stick a bit of cloth into a bleeding wound to staunch the flow" don't seem out-of-place. Specific, knowledge-based actions though--stuff like identifying a disease, creating a treatment, or extracting the medically-valuable parts of a plant? Those things simply flat-out cannot be done by someone who doesn't have the training.

But, again, it sounds like you have this idea that the only way for these things to be "fair" is for run-of-the-mill, "untrained" people to have a substantial negative, and "trained" people to be (essentially) at +0 or slightly positive. That is not, mathematically, true--it is possible to have exactly the same system, except that the minimum state is not "you have a -5 penalty and must reach a target number of 10," and instead "you have a +0 bonus, and must reach a target number of 15." In 5th edition D&D, the target numbers for skill rolls have been selected so that the latter is how things work: people with no bonus are not very likely to achieve success, because the target numbers are too high; people with a high bonus not only have much better chances of success, but can also meet target numbers that would be completely impossible for the person with no bonus.

I'll give you a similar example. In 3rd edition D&D, if you try to use a weapon you aren't proficient with, you take a penalty (something like -2 or -3, I don't recall). This means that Fighters, for example, can use a greater variety of weapons with no problems--they're proficient in nearly everything, so it's rare for them to find a weapon that would give them a penalty. By comparison, in 4e and 5e D&D, there really aren't any penalties for using a weapon you aren't proficient with...however, being proficient with a weapon gives you a bonus. In 4e, that bonus was either +2 or +3 (the latter being given to weapons that were meant to be 'high-accuracy'); in 5e, that bonus is your Proficiency score. Notice...in both cases, the non-proficient person is (at least) 2 points below the proficient person. Thus, mathematically, the two systems are equivalent: they result in (more or less, given scaling differences) exactly the same "gap" between those who are proficient, and those who aren't. The 4e and 5e Fighter is still very good at using pretty much any (non-"exotic") weapon...it's just represented as "you do well with most any weapon!" instead of "you never do poorly with most any weapon!"

But the "bonus for being proficient" side is purely addition, while the "penalty for being non-proficient" side involves both addition and subtraction. Subtraction is well-documented, by psychologists and education researchers, as a more-difficult mental math process than addition; this is just a quirk of the human brain, we spend ever-so-slightly less time adding than subtracting, on average (and for some people the difference is very significant). Thus, although "you aren't proficient with that weapon, take a -2 to attack" accomplishes *precisely* the same goals, mathematically (and thus I would hope it is equally "fair"...) as "you aren't proficient with that weapon, so you cannot add your +2 proficiency bonus," the latter has some small benefits that the former lacks, so it is slightly preferable from a design standpoint.

Another way of saying this: If absolutely everyone starts out at a substantial negative (say -6), and must "claw their way up" to being merely +0...is that really any different than adding 6 to all numbers...including the difficulty values...and having the "you must claw your way up from here" point be at 0? Because, compared to the systems you've played before, that's exactly what 5e has done: ALL numbers, both player-side and DM-side, have gone up slightly, so that (most of the time) there are no negative values. There are still a few--usually from spells or magical effects--but they are relatively rare, the only "common" example being a person who has stats less than 10 (because the modifier becomes negative for stats 9 and lower).

Edit:
This is not to say that the DM cannot make (or apply) negative effects, nor that negative effects are missing from the game. One simple example: Small characters cannot use Heavy weapons very well, and get a serious minus (Disadvantage) for trying to do so. Disadvantage is, in fact, often the go-to choice for applying situational negative effects to something. E.g. you're just put in a position where, while it is still possible for you to succeed at everything you could normally succeed at, the situation conspires against you. Another example: Trying to hit a target with a ranged weapon, when that target is outside your range, applies Disadvantage to the attack roll.

 

[aramis erak]

Yesterday was my 1st day of D&D

As a bard I was feeling good that with Jack of All Trades, I can roll almost on every ability checks. I thought that was one of the delights of Bard, as a Draconic Sorcerer can get Wings.But I was soooo wrong ! Everyone was allowed to roll on everything, on skills that they dont had proficiency with .... It was really lame ! They just did not have proficiency bonus on those skills.

It is this way in D&D with skills u dont know? Because in Rolemaster, you had huge minus over things u were not trained with.
I cant remember anything about this on PHB.

I am kinda disappointed .....Does not matter what you have decided to pick. I spent my last few days to customize my character too like a real Noble Bard, seems it was not necessary .....And also Jack of All Trades is kinda meaningless :S

I am so pissed of that I got Bard, now its the most weakest class when it comes to feats that every classes gain at their levels.

Forget Rolemaster when playing D&D. It's a different subgenere, D&D is almost it's own genre. RM presumes incompetence is the default position; D&D doesn't in most editions (OE, AD&D 1E before Oriental Adventures, B/X, BECMI before companion, 3e, 3.5e, 4.x, 5e).

According to Arneson, D&D characters were presumed competent at almost anything, except fighting and magic, from the beginning. Late original edition migrated thieving skills out of general competence, but nothing else. It was only with late 1st ed AD&D, specifically OA, DSG, and WSG, that that began to change (with Non-Weapon Proficiencies). 3E returned to that root presumption of competence (everyone gets a base competence from their attributes, and no unskilled penalty).

With the Bounded Accuracy concept, the difference between proficient and non does grow over time, but not quickly, and 2-3 points difference really does matter. (True competence, however, is having a way to always have advantage.)

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

haha no I am here to get confirmation over my nags, I am not nagging in fact

I am here to talk about it, cuz I was thinking maybe our DM is not doing it right. I really had no clue its really like that :S

And it really is not a good idea at lower level, we have a Draw player in disguise, she wanted to deceive my mother the Queen of Moon Elves.
The Drow was not trained with deception, she rolled 9, and DM rolled 9 for the Queen's perception which is level 20.
And the level 1 Drow deceived the level 20 Queen with the same roll : |

Well, I personally wouldnt have told you all the NPC's skills, modifiers or rolls. Unless your mother is trained in insight, it's a straight Wisdom check for her (or passive Insight). And depending on what the deception was, there is also disadvantage or advantage to consider.

I do put more weight on being trained vs being untrained. I often give information out with no roll based simply on having proficiency. Or for example, if the party is trying to find out what they know about a famous necromancer, I let someone trained in both Arcana and History to make 2 rolls, while those not proficient or proficient in only one make a single roll. But that's a personal preference, and designed to allow skills to have a spotlight.

 

[pukunui]

The Drow was not trained with deception, she rolled 9, and DM rolled 9 for the Queen's perception which is level 20.
And the level 1 Drow deceived the level 20 Queen with the same roll : |

If I'd been the DM, I would've had the drow roll against the queen's passive Insight score (10 + Insight modifier). I might have even given her advantage on that (which equates to +5 for a passive score), given that she's the queen of the moon elves and would most likely be well-acquainted with how devious the dark elves tend to be. In that case, a 9 would not have nearly been enough to deceive her.

I totally understand you and I agree with you, but in our game players where adding half of their levels to the skill check, it was not a pure ability score check, when we got level 2, we could add half of our level to our ability score check. Is this the way it should be when you are not trained?

As others have pointed out, that was the standard rule in D&D 4e, but that is no longer the case with 5e. I'll second the suggestions that you talk to your DM, politely, about it. Perhaps it is a house rule he has knowingly adopted and just forgot to mention to you at the start of the campaign. Or perhaps, as others have suggested, he is used to D&D 4e and just assumed that rule was still in place in 5e.

 

[IgnatiusJ.Reilly]

I'd try to find a DM that's more reasonable. It makes little sense that all skills can used without training. Some skills, sure. All skills, definitely not. The DM should consider the character backstory and what not though, maybe there is something there that would allow them to make an untrained check.

 

[fuindordm]

This version of D&D is very different from previous versions with respect to skill checks.

In 2nd and 3rd edition (and rolemaster), skills were RESTRICTIVE: you needed a proficiency and decent bonus to have a chance of succeeding. This seems natural to simulationists, but can have an undesirable effect on the game, in that players don't bother trying to do things if they don't have the skill. For example, Blog the fighter doesn't even try to sneak past the guard, even though it makes sense in the story to do so, because Blog's player knows that he's only rolling d20+0 against a likely DC of 15.

In 5th edition, skills are PERMISSIVE: any PC is assumed to be broadly competent. They've been adventuring a while, they know the basics of sneaking, and bandaging a bleeding wound, and how to recognize drinkable water in the wilderness. They've heard rumors of fantastic beasts and swapped stories with other adventurers about magic spells and traps. So the system does not penalize anyone for attempting any skill. And at first level, the difference between a skilled PC and an unskilled PC is not huge (but it is noticeable). In the game, players are also more likely to try actions that don't match their formal training.

Personally, after years of laboring under 3E and its DC escalation, I prefer the second approach. I want my players to try things that make sense in the story, without looking at their character sheets and thinking "I have ranks in Survival and Bluff. These don't really apply, so I guess I'll let someone else take the lead."

As for Jack of All Trades, you're right that it's a minor benefit at low levels. But if you want 5th edition to lean more towards the restrictive skills, I would suggest a small house rule that only PCs trained in a skill can attempt DCs greater than 15, and that Jack of All Trades counts as training for this purpose.

Cheers,
Ben

 

[Psikerlord#]

There are no skill checks in 5e. There are only 3 kinds of rolls: attack rolls, saves and ability checks.

If you try to do something like read magic demon runes, the DM might call for an Int or Wis check. If you have Arcana, you will probably get to add proficiency bonus. Or roll with Adv. If you don't have Arcana, maybe you have Religion and can get half prof bonus. If you don't have either skill, maybe your DM still allows a check if you are a warlock or whatever, but doesn't permit a check for a barbarian.

Personally, I also allow backgrounds to sometimes add prof to ability checks (in above scenario for example a demon hunter background or sage background). And I also still use +/1 - 3 modifiers too (in addition to adv/disad).

I consider the 5e approach to "skills" a HUGE improvement on the last two editions. Everyone can attempt most things, but if you have the right skill/background, you're going to have a better chance.

 

[Zorku]

Any DM that's run with a six player group (or more,) starts to realize that with everybody rolling the same check groups of adventurers succeed at almost everything. If they don't want to do the three pillars thing and are basically just trying to get into the next fight maybe that works for them, but for actually putting some emphasis on the exploration and social interaction parts of the game, a DM will usually only let one player make a roll for a particular check.

As such you want the guy that knows what he's doing to track the dangerous beasty back to its lair or try to get the diplomat to add a corrupt little side clause to the legislation that's being voted on today. As a Jack of all Trades you become the natural fit for whatever skills don't happen to have a more experienced person around for.

D&D gets run a little differently by every DM that puts their hand to it, but I don't think I could stand a group that had everyone hurling their dice on every task, except maybe some custom scenario where we're actually adding them all up for the unusual scenario, and didn't think the help action adequately covered what was going on.

 

[Inoeex]

This is really sad now, I am thinking about leaving the game

We have two house rules, one will give you -5 in skills you are not trained. The other gives adds half your level to your trained skills.

With books' rules at level 2, your maximum prof is 2 and your min is 0, As a Bard you gained +1 in all skills tnx to Jack of All Trades which means you are 1 step behind trained skills.
In our game at level 2, maximum prof is 3 and minimum is -5, as a Bard you gained +1 for JoAT and will be 8 steps behind trained skills.
Totally unfair !

JoAT does has not designed to prevent Bard to be less dafter as others who are not trained, its designed to makes Bard be good even on non trained skills .....

As it says in PHB page 53, as it describes the class " Many Bards Prefer to stick to sidelines in combat, using their magic to inspire their allies and hinder their foes ( which refers to Bardic Inspiration ) blah blah blah They have a wide ranging knowledge of many subjects and natural aptitude that lets them do almost anything well ( refers to Jack of All Trades ).



Our DM does not accept my reasons and refused my request , I asked him to make Jack of All Trades fill half of the new gap :S

Its unfair, beyond words.

 

[ad_hoc]

This is really sad now, I am thinking about leaving the game

We have two house rules, one will give you -5 in skills you are not trained. The other gives adds half your level to your trained skills.

With books' rules at level 2, your maximum prof is 2 and your min is 0, As a Bard you gained +1 in all skills tnx to Jack of All Trades which means you are 1 step behind trained skills.
In our game at level 2, maximum prof is 3 and minimum is -5, as a Bard you gained +1 for JoAT and will be 8 steps behind trained skills.
Totally unfair !

JoAT does has not designed to prevent Bard to be less dafter as others who are not trained, its designed to makes Bard be good even on non trained skills .....

As it says in PHB page 53, as it describes the class " Many Bards Prefer to stick to sidelines in combat, using their magic to inspire their allies and hinder their foes ( which refers to Bardic Inspiration ) blah blah blah They have a wide ranging knowledge of many subjects and natural aptitude that lets them do almost anything well ( refers to Jack of All Trades ).



Our DM does not accept my reasons and I refused my request , I asked him to make Jack of All Trades fill half of the new gap :S

Its unfair, beyond words.

Those house rules are bonkers to me. I would leave too.