At least according to the poll I put up recently, Skills are the single most agreed upon mechanic for D&D. Thinking about the way 5E uses skills, I would like to propose some ideas for how I think they could be better utilized in the game.
1) Skills need to be defined as a specific thing, not treated as an afterthought of an ability check.
2) Skills need to be disconnected from ability scores. there is already a rule that makes this possible, but it needs to be explicit.
3) there should be a penalty (disadvantage? -2?) for using any skill untrained.
4) Skills need to inherently outweigh ability scores on the d20 roll.
5) the skill list needs to be expanded and more skill points need to be provided to all characters.
6) Backgrounds should determine how many base skill points you get, modified by class.
7) Tool proficiencies need to go away and having or not having the right tools should modify skill checks.
In addition, this is a more general rule, but I think advantage and disadvantage should stack from different sources and cancel each other out on a one for one basis, AND if more than 1 "level" of advantage or disadvantage remains, you roll multiple additional dice and take the bester/worst of all of them.
EDIT: For clarity, I am "liking" posts because I am glad people are engaged in the topic, not necessarily becaaue I agree with you lot.
1) Skills need to be defined as a specific thing, not treated as an afterthought of an ability check.
2) Skills need to be disconnected from ability scores. there is already a rule that makes this possible, but it needs to be explicit.
3) there should be a penalty (disadvantage? -2?) for using any skill untrained.
4) Skills need to inherently outweigh ability scores on the d20 roll.
5) the skill list needs to be expanded and more skill points need to be provided to all characters.
6) Backgrounds should determine how many base skill points you get, modified by class.
7) Tool proficiencies need to go away and having or not having the right tools should modify skill checks.
In addition, this is a more general rule, but I think advantage and disadvantage should stack from different sources and cancel each other out on a one for one basis, AND if more than 1 "level" of advantage or disadvantage remains, you roll multiple additional dice and take the bester/worst of all of them.
EDIT: For clarity, I am "liking" posts because I am glad people are engaged in the topic, not necessarily becaaue I agree with you lot.
Last edited: