D&D 5E Are there actions not covered under a skill?

[Fenris-77]

Even the drug dealer is mostly not going to get rolled for in my games. If you have a rogue in the party, or anyone with an appropriate background, you'll find a guy. Those dudes are much like merchants in that they sort need to be available and findable to some degree. Now if you want to find an assassin, that might be trickier.

Another option for a completely urban campaign, is to change how those seemingly worthless skills work to reflect the setting. Survival in an urban setting tracks pretty flawlessly onto what might in another system be called Streetwise and Area Knowledge, for example. Nature is a little tougher, but I'm sure you can think of something in a pinch. I'd probably call it something to do with factions and politics and reading the political currents, maybe even knowing who's who. I know that doesn't sound much like 'Nature' but it is, given a level of abstraction, the Nature of a city, the beating heart that drives it's growth and decay. Anyway, the point is that there are lots of cool options.

 

[Flamestrike]

Conan needs no direction!

Seriously, I agree with you on the silversmith in town: merchants aren't trying to be hard to reach. They even try to be CONSPICUOUS. The streetwise skills could have some use, though, perhaps to find a recreational drug dealer? The skill lists is designed to accomodate the more common character focus. Hence, not Tax Optimization skill, because your characters aren't supposed to devote a lot of time to set up trust funds in the neighbouring countries to mitigate the income tax over that dragon hoard. In some case you'd need to adjudicate actions without any appropriate skill in the list, for example if you find a merchant's ledger and identify any forgery. If your characters don't have the skill AND it's in the list, it's reasonable IMHO to consider that they are not proficient, but if NO skill in the list feels appropriate, I wouldn't necessarily conclude that the PC should make a "raw" ability check. If a task is rare enough it's not covered by the skill list, then it doesn't matter much from a game balance perspective to grant "extra" proficiency to some characters depending on their background if it fits.

If your game usually revolves around skills not found in the skill list, especially the lore skills (not everything can be reduced to History, Religion, Arcana and Nature), you'll need to adjudicate things more often than not, but in this case I'd deal with it during session 0 : if you're, say, planning an urban campaign where the PC won't ever leave the walls of Waterdeep, tell them beforehand that Nature and Survival skills won't be as necessary as proficiency in some professional tools and offer them example of tools that would provide proficiency in fields that might be put to good use in your campaign. I am not immediately imagining what Fencer's tools could be, but it could be useful.

You could use background proficiency variant, but you can't learn new background, while you can become proficient in tools.

But take something like Streetwise. Does it need its own skill? Its basically talking to people (persuasion/ deception/ intimidation/ insight) and noticing things (perception/ investigation) and knowing where to go and who to see (which is pretty specific from town to town, and all but impossible to replicate with a skill that is not super specific to one particular town or city).

All of which is covered by the Criminal background. They're described as '...an experienced criminal with a history of breaking the law. You have spent a lot of time among other criminals and still have contacts within the criminal underworld.' They also expressly gain a contact who can interface them with the criminal underworld, no roll required.

Dont get me wrong; I wouldnt have been opposed to a Streetwise skill. I guess I just see it as more of a combination of several skills rather than just the one.

 

[Flamestrike]

Even the drug dealer is mostly not going to get rolled for in my games. If you have a rogue in the party, or anyone with an appropriate background, you'll find a guy.

It's not exactly hard in a lot of places. I've personally just come back from backpacking Central America for several months, and within 5 minutes of arriving at any Hostel, bar or club and I could locate the guy holding, and score if I wanted to. I was the go to to guy for people half my age. Ditto in SE Asia, or pretty much any dance party or nightclub the world over.

Even though it wasnt hard to do, it always surprised me when others (who were also looking) couldn't identify who the 'guy' was and had no idea how to approach or score.

I had a very rough background growing up so it's just kind of ingrained in me to notice those things I guess. I can spot a dealer from a mile away, make the approach, talk the talk when I get there, and know what I'm talking about. Same deal spotting pickpockets, or hustlers or knowing a scam when you see one.

Not saying I actually engaged in any illicit activities by the way. Just saying it was noticeable how totally clueless some people were to basic hustles, or who to avoid (or approach) or where to go (or avoid).

We just had very different backgrounds growing up.

 

[iserith]

I wrote a one-shot called "6 to 8 Hours of Shopping," and in that scenario your goal is to acquire 5 strange items before your expedition ship leaves for the Land of Adventure. The PCs are in an exotic, ever-shifting market.

Part of the challenge is finding the merchant that sells the specific thing you want. There were two main ways the PCs approached this: by drawing on deductive reasoning based on clues they find which was resolved via an Intelligence (Investigation) check or by observing signs and banners while listening to the calls of merchants and their criers which was resolved by a Wisdom (Perception) check.

If the PC succeeded, it takes 30 minutes to get to the merchant. If the PC failed, it instead takes an hour. A character with the City Secrets background feature gets advantage on the check.

 

[Fenris-77]

<snip> Flamestrike auditions for a walk-on role in an urban crime drama

We just had very different backgrounds growing up

Are you a Criminal or an Urchin? More seriously, I know from personal experience exactly what you mean. If you didn't grow up like that, you aren't that guy. Backgrounds ftw. I'll make the standard disclaimer here that I am not, and never have been, a member of a Mexican Drug cartel.

 

[Flamestrike]

I'll make the standard disclaimer here that I am not, and never have been, a member of a Mexican Drug cartel.

I was briefly employed by them for a week. And I'm a lawyer IRL. I still get whatsapp messages from them in Spanish every now and then. The few words I can understand... lets just say I'm happy to be home on the other side of the world

But I agree, criminal background. I basically have the background trait (find a guy to hook you up). Whether that's in Sao Paulo, Cancun, Bangkok, Melbourne, London or NYC, a dance club or a hostel, I can manage it in minutes. I can spot a pickpocket or a hustle a mile away, know when to stand my ground to someone standing me over (and when to fight), know where to go what to avoid and so forth. It was all 20 years ago, but you dont forget that naughty word.

Comes in handy even now that I'm reformed with my dealings with my clientele (again; Lawyer).

I dont know if it's a skill or not, any more than seduction, singing or court advocacy is. You've either got it can you can do it, or you haven't and you cant. I mean you can learn some basic techniques, and improve a bit, but if you're not good at it, you almost certainly never will be no matter how hard you try.

 

[Flamestrike]

I wrote a one-shot called "6 to 8 Hours of Shopping,"

Whats next? 'Housework of Doom?' A thrilling adventure where PC's race against time to scrub the toilets and wash dishes before an inspection by their grumpy landlord.

 

[jmucchiello]

I've never really known why 'Finding a silversmith in town' would even require a check.

If there is one to be found, you would assume a person would find one in a matter of minutes of asking at most.

Is it a matter of minutes or a matter of hours? A fantasy city is large and sprawling. It probably takes an hour to walk (assuming not in a rush) from the west gate to the east gate. To circle the city could take three hours (3.141...). So "finding a silversmith in town" is not necessary fast.

I always assume the check is made to determine how much time is wasted.

 

[iserith]

Whats next? 'Housework of Doom?' A thrilling adventure where PC's race against time to scrub the toilets and wash dishes before an inspection by their grumpy landlord.

My next one is called "The Most Important Meal" wherein the PCs spend the whole adventure ordering breakfast.

I was inspired to write "6 to 8 Hours of Shopping" because no matter which Twitch stream I would tune into, the majority of them seemed to have the PCs shopping. Nobody I play with enjoys this gameplay and many people in the streams didn't seem to be enjoying it so I was thinking, "How is it that people get trapped in this so frequently when clearly it isn't very fun?" Then decided to write a scenario involving shopping that was actually exciting.

 

[akr71]

Like many others in this thread, I'll only call for a roll if the outcome of what a player describes is uncertain.

However, I have asked for an Investigation roll when the party is searching for a particular location or type of shop. Usually in a large city setting. Not so much to determine their success or failure but to give an indication of how long it takes to find the shop (or whatever) they are looking for. If they roll badly, perhaps they did not follow the instructions of the first person they asked and wandered aimlessly, perhaps the person they asked gave poor instructions based on how to get there, etc. My players tend to enjoy this because it adds an air of randomness to urban exploration that feels more real.