D&D 5E Skill Ranking

[TheHand]

In my games, I use dynamic abilities with skills, so an Athletics check could be Athletics + Str or Athletics + Dex, depending on what you’re trying to do. So right there that invalidates Acrobatics as a distinct skill.

I voted for History, but I think it’s a weird skill. I wish it had been named “Lore” and used as a general catch-all knowing background info skill.

I also voted Animal Handling because it rarely comes into play in our games, and I feel like it could have been folded into Nature. Even Survival could be combined.

And then I voted Medicine for all the reasons people have mentioned.

 

[Hriston]

Inspired by the "Is Intimidate the worst skill in the game thread," let's see what people on this forum think. Pick your bottom FOUR skills for D&D5e.

I think this is highly group dependent. The DM and players are empowered to make any skill relevant and valuable.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Surprised Animal Handling has such a large portion of the votes at this point. I mean, sure, it’s only useful when interacting with animals, but it’s also functionally all Charisma-based skills combined in that specific context. So, narrow application, but pretty useful within its niche. I certainly wouldn’t call it worse than Performance, which has fewer votes at the moment.

The problem with Animal Handling is that is overlaps substantially with Survival and Nature. A character runs into a bear in the woods and wants to chase it away without provoking it. Unfortunately, they don’t have Animal Handling. No problem. Seems like this use also be covered by both Nature and Survival.

There is a related problem with Animal Handling. If you are a nature-themed character, you generally don’t have enough skills to choose all the nature-themed skills.

So of Nature, Survival or Animal-Handling, which do you drop? Animal-Handling is the most niche, so it tends to get the drop more often than not.

The only character for which I would see Animal-Handling as a common choice would be a noble-coded character that takes it because they ride horses but don’t particularly care about nature.

 

[Guest 7037866]

Easy: History and Religion suck. They hardly ever get used. Performance even less so it is pretty much pointless.

Deception is part of Persuasion--- you are trying to persuade someone you are telling them the truth. It's redunant.

There are others if I could vote for more than 4 that suck...

As to the "current leaders", you all are crazy if you think Animal Handling and Medicine are in the top 4 worse skills!

 

[FrozenNorth]

I think this is highly group dependent. The DM and players are empowered to make any skill relevant and valuable.

I kind of disagree with this. Yes, different groups can stretch the bounds of certain skills, but this ignores that certain skills just naturally have much larger bounds than others.

If you are a magical themed class, you basically only need the Arcana skill. It covers knowledge of magic, knowledge of magical items, knowledge of constructs and magical creatures, knowledge of magical spells, knowledge of the planes of existence and their inhabitants.

If you are a nature themed class, the Nature skill only gets you one third of the way there. You also need Survival, to actually survive in nature and Animal-Handling, to interact with animals.

Likewise, running, jumping, swimming, climbing, grappling all use Athletics, but if you are lying to someone, you need a different skill than to persuade them.

 

[Guest 7037866]

The problem with Animal Handling is that is overlaps substantially with Survival and Nature. A character runs into a bear in the woods and wants to chase it away without provoking it. Unfortunately, they don’t have Animal Handling. No problem. Seems like this use also be covered by both Nature and Survival.

Which would be WRONG. Neither of those skills deal with trying to handle an animal. Capture one, track it, sure... Identify the breed? Ok. But "handle" it to allow you to not provoke it? Nope.

IF (big "if") you allowed it, at best you should have disadvantage on the check... in which case you'd likely be better off rolling without proficiency.

People need to understand also that if you want a PC who is good with "wilderness skills", the skills are only part of the equation. High Wisdom does a lot to cover Animal Handling and Survival (not to mention Perception and Insight!), if it works well with your class choice. High Intelligence is often enough to cover Nature. Which leaves you with Athletics and Stealth primarily. The former for moving around in the wilderness, the later for being unnoticed.

 

[Guest 7037866]

Likewise, running, jumping, swimming, climbing, grappling all use Athletics, but if you are lying to someone, you need a different skill than to persuade them.

This has been hashed over before of course, but Intimidation, Deception, and Persuasion should all just be "Influence".

Which is what you are actually doing in all three cases---only the deliver method is different.

If Athletics covers so much, so should Influence. Skills would be easier to work with if they were more distinct.

 

[TiQuinn]

I can’t stand the arcana, history, religion triad for the simple reason that most DMs I’ve seen make any kind of knowledge check one where having any one of those three is acceptable for attempting the check, therefore watering down their value. Better to simply have Knowledge as a check then.

I’d argue that most of the time Acrobatics is in the same boat as the Knowledge triad. It’s allowed to be substituted for Athletics almost all the time.

In terms of how often it comes up, my bottom four are: Animal Handling, Medicine, Performance, and Sleight of Hand.

 

[Guest 7037866]

I can’t stand the arcana, history, religion triad for the simple reason that most DMs I’ve seen make any kind of knowledge check one where having any one of those three is acceptable for attempting the check, therefore watering down their value. Better to simply have Knowledge as a check then.

Yeah, the four Intelligence "lore" skills cover differ areas of knowledge, but people often fail to realize just which ones cover what. But a general "Lore" (or Knowledge) skill would be too broad IMO.

Just having a high INT score is better than wasting multiple proficiencies on these different skills IMO.

It’s allowed to be substituted for Athletics almost all the time.

Oi! That is just awful! That is something I would never do or allow. I'd be pissed at a DM who allowed it unless they just merged the two skills into one.

 

[DEFCON 1]

This has been hashed over before of course, but Intimidation, Deception, and Persuasion should all just be "Influence".

Which is what you are actually doing in all three cases---only the deliver method is different.

If Athletics covers so much, so should Influence. Skills would be easier to work with if they were more distinct.

Heh heh... so you believe three different influencing skills (Deception, Intimidation, Persuasion) should all be combined into a single skill, but yet the three wilderness-based skills (Animal Handling, Nature, Survival) all should remain separate? That is certainly one way (and a valid way) to look at it for yourself... but it doesn't then follow that other people are wrong for believing in the opposite combinations.