D&D (2024) 5e 2024 Skills

[Corinnguard]

Generally, I treat the skill proficiency as 'wide knowledge' as part of a wider area of knowledgeability. The tool proficency is 'deep knowledge' being ultra specialized and knowing all kinds of almost random stuff that happens to relate to that very specific kind of tool, such as where it is made, what mines its metal comes from, which cultures use it.

Level Up has Skill Specialties, areas within a given skill that a character can especially be good at. Whenever a skill check is being performed that involves one of these Skill Specialties, you get to roll an Expertise die (d4) to determine its' outcome.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Maybe it is better to remove Intimidation. Currently, I am trying to make it work by making it responsible for keeping morale in ones group, when facing danger. Essentially, Intimidate is the 'courage' and 'confidence' skill. I am still trying to finetune the morale mechanics, generally a Wisdom save when a team member gets bloodied or downed. It occurred to me, in the sense of saves versus Fear and Insanity, give Intimidation, morale, and fearlessness in general to Wisdom.

For my recent Theros campaign I did something along these lines... I renamed the 'Persuasion' and 'Intimidation' skills to 'Rhetoric' and 'Presence' as they had more meaning in the Ancient Greek-ish setting. So 'Rhetoric' was specifically about discussion and argument-- leaning very much in the direction of philosophical debate... whereas 'Presence' was more as you mentioned-- your bearing, your confidence, how powerful your demeanor was and whether it could garner people's respect and following.

It turned out that unfortunately with the specific group of players and their PCs I had for the game... 'Presence' was used wonderfully and quite often, but none of them were of the "talking things out with people" type and thus 'Rhetoric' never got used to the extent I was hoping a Greek setting would encourage. I do think the distinction between these two skills is better this way... one for negotiation (that oftentimes could use Intelligence instead), and the other for out-and-out charismatic influence... but for me it will end up being determined by the next setting I run a game in.

 

[Yaarel]

Level Up has Skill Specialties, areas within a given skill that a character can especially be good at. Whenever a skill check is being performed that involves one of these Skill Specialties, you get to roll an Expertise die (d4) to determine its' outcome.

I like this approach. I find myself using Toolset proficiencies in this sense of specialty.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Having proficiencies in both Medicine skill and Herbalism toolset grants Advantage to the skill checks. This skill-tool reinforcement is a great way to describe a character specializing in a field.

I use Thieves toolset and Sleight for the profiency Advantage.

Yeah, I know that's how WotC tried to patch their original mistake with the Tool system, but for my money it shouldn't have gotten to that point in the first place. And honestly the "solution" is merely a kludge in my opinion to deal with overlapping skills and tools... plus I think it greatly dilutes the use of the Advantage / Disadvantage system in this case.

The whole point of using the Adv/Disad system was to give an easy bonus to hand out when the players did something interesting and meaningful or came up with a really good idea. The DM would grant them Advantage for their creativity. But when a DM now hands out Advantage for free just to plaster over the Tool system doubling-up screw-up... we lose that "good idea" bennie. Now it doesn't matter what the idea is the player comes up with for their character to do when they need to make a herbalism-related check... they already get their Advantage bonus just because the designers created both the Survival skill and the Herbalism Kit tool proficiency in the first place and did not think about what that doubling up was ultimately going to mean.

Gaining Advantage should be because you or your character DID something to gain it... not because the game gives it to you for free.

 

[Yaarel]

Yeah, I know that's how WotC tried to patch their original mistake with the Tool system, but for my money it shouldn't have gotten to that point in the first place. And honestly the "solution" is merely a kludge in my opinion to deal with overlapping skills and tools... plus I think it greatly dilutes the use of the Advantage / Disadvantage system in this case.

Heh, I agree the original 5e Tool system was a 'mistake'.

But it accidentally turned out to be the best crafting system that D&D has ever had.

The whole point of using the Adv/Disad system was to give an easy bonus to hand out when the players did something interesting and meaningful or came up with a really good idea. The DM would grant them Advantage for their creativity. But when a DM now hands out Advantage for free just to plaster over the Tool system doubling-up screw-up... we lose that "good idea" bennie. Now it doesn't matter what the idea is the player comes up with for their character to do when they need to make a herbalism-related check... they already get their Advantage bonus just because the designers created both the Survival skill and the Herbalism Kit tool proficiency in the first place and did not think about what that doubling up was ultimately going to mean.

Ah, I see. You want the Advantage mechanic to be exclusively for 'situational bonuses'. I agree.

It is probably balanced to make the skill-toolset reinforcement become Expertise instead.

There is logic where the two proficiencies simply double the Proficiency bonus.

Gaining Advantage should be because you or your character DID something to gain it... not because the game gives it to you for free.

Yup.

 

[Yaarel]

Musical Instrument proficiencies: heh, I hate it when something that is important in reallife is worthless in gameplay.

My (Norse and Celtic) Bards typically do magic by using words to focus magical intent − via commands, impromptu chants, or spoken poetry. The Norse Bards never play music instruments (except some use a Sámi shamanic drum during a ritual). The Celtic Bards typically dont play instruments − they speak poems whether admiring or satirical − albeit some families are famous for playing musical instruments. I actually rarely deal with the mechanics of musical instruments in my games.


The Performance check is generally for any kind of esthetic beauty. Normally, when crafting an item, the player rolls an ability check to determine technical skill then if high quality also rolls a separate Charisma (Performance) check to determine its esthetic value for artistic beauty (and defacto how many gp it is worth).

The same principle applies to any kind of beauty. For example, performing a dance on stage rolls once for technical skill, here Dexterity (Athletics) check for rhythm coordination and high jumps, then if high quality, rolls again for the artistic beauty of the dance, Charisma (Performance). The Performance check determines the crowd pleasing and the sense that audience got their moneys worth for the ticket price. A gem cutter would make a Dexterity (Nature) check to cut the gem, and work around its irregularities, then the Charisma (Performance) determines its beauty, and gp value. Even magic items benefit from exquisite beauty − perhaps especially so, given the charm factor inherent in the feeling of magic.


Back to musical instruments. The game mechanics of 'wasting' a tool proficiency on a musical instrument is outrageously expensive. Heaven forbid the character knows how to play two or three instruments! There has to be a better way!

Musical instruments are more like knowing language. They arent actually 'worth' a skill proficiency, but normally characters shouldnt know all languages infinitely either. The idea is, the language is free but is gated behind some other game mechanic, and for languages it is the Origin design space, along with choosing Abilities, Background, and Species.

Not sure what to do with music.

Maybe 'Music' is a skill, that starts off with knowing one instrument per bonus from the chosen mental ability? So a player can take the skill, reasonably inexpensively, then choose whether Charisma, Wisdom, or Intelligence determines how many instruments one masters.

Possibly, music can be a toolset proficiency, but only if the proficiency has actual mechanical benefits, plus one can use music as a tool to gain Advantage (or Expertise) during various kinds of skill checks. Even Medicine healing checks, Insight psychology discernment, Persuasion prestige benefits from townfolk, and so on.

 

[Mistwell]

Have people found the Study and Search actions to come up enough to justify that change?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Have people found the Study and Search actions to come up enough to justify that change?

We don't bother with "actions" outside of combat, so neither of those have mattered in my games. If someone does something that requires a skill check outside of combat, they just make it whenever it is applicable.

 

[DragonLancer]

I am finding the D&D 5.24 skills a little too broad. Some concepts don't fit in my head very well. For instance, Acrobatics and Athletics, to my mind, are both Dexterity related and I fumble between the two of them. Also, why is Swim not a separate skill? Which brings up a discussion I had with my players a few weeks back, where I would say Swim is Dexterity based and they insist it would be Strength.

Investigation is way too broad. I get it if the characters are researching in a library about an artifact or asking around town about that mysterious stranger who rode in three days ago. But what if a player just asks what their Druid knows about the distant Shadow Isles? Investigation seems the wrong skill for general knowledge like that. Same recently in my campaign where a player asked if the scaffolding holding the lighthouse up was actually safe to walk on or climb up?

 

[Yaarel]

ENDURANCE - A constitution skill, this allows you to push beyond normal limits and avoid negative repercussions such as exhaustion from certain causes. It is a slippery slops skill as players want to use anytime their PC might suffer a consequence for pushing themselves too hard, but that allows potential abuses.

I am normally opposed to 'wasting' a skill choice on Endurance.

But now that 5.24 has new rules for Exhaustion ... that DM doesnt need to feel guilty about enforcing ...

Maybe Exhaustion can be a routine − sometimes even fun − part of the game. So the Endurance skill that can (among other things) play around with the Exhaustion, might now be worthwhile having.

My "expanded skills" house rule includes four components: Bonus Skills, New Skills, Old Skills Subsuming Tools, and Perception Saves (I'm omitting the last one as it's least on topic, more contentious, and a whole other conversation).

Bonus Skills
Gain an extra number of additional languages or skills equal to your Intelligence modifier (a negative modifier is treated as a 0). Each class also grants an extra skill. At 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th levels gain one additional language or skill of your choice.

This is cool. I want to see 'background' continue to develop at higher levels. I am also curious about how the Bastion system can relate to skill usage and development. Here the old school goals of build a Wizard Tower, Temple, Fortress, Thieves Guild, work well with the Bastion concept, and with application of skills.

New skills include:

• Alchemy (INT) alchemist’s supplies, poisoner’s kit, potion-brewing and lore, immortality lore.

I tend to use Nature for too many different things.

I might add an Alchemy skill drawing inspiration from European (hellenist) and Asian (daoist).

Alchemy also relates to the Five Elements (Ether, Fire, Air, Water, and Earth), and their respective planes. (I might treat Plant/botany, as if a kind of element, and in this case, the Material Plane is the plant realm, understood as a living amalgam of the other five Elements.) Additionally, Alchemy handles chemistry and physics, as well as earth sciences, like geology, and so on. I keep Medicine, but there is some overlap with Alchemy and Medicine beyond the quest for immortality.

I am now using Arcana only for spellcasting, magic auras, and magic items. The planar knowledge will split off to other skills, but I am still working on that. I will definitely give knowledge about the Astral Plane, including Celestial and Fiend, plus Aberration, to the Religion skill. In my head canon, the Astral Plane is a collective archetypal mindscape that cultures form within the Astral. Then Aberrations are a kind of 'Anti-Astral' Plane. Alchemy gets the Elemental Planes, including Ethereal. I might give Fey and Shadow to a different a skill.

• Airways (WIS/DEX/INT) airships, navigator’s tools, aerial lore, weather, rope use
• Commerce (INT) appraising, coinage, art objects, gems, origin of items, trade, haggling
• Craft (INT/WIS) artisan’s tools (choose one)
• Dungeoneering (WIS/DEX/INT) caving, fungi, slimes, underground orienteering, dungeon lore
• Endurance (CON) diving, holding breath, feasting, running, forced march
• Folklore (WIS) “2 truths and a lie”, superstitions, know a little about a lot
• Gaming (INT/CHA) cards, dice, chess, gambling
• High Society (INT) bureaucracy, heraldry, law, politics, nobility lore
• Mechanics (INT) thieves’ tools, tinker’s tools, engineering, construction, locks, unfamiliar tech
• Roadways (WIS/DEX/INT) wagons/carriages, caravan lore, trade routes, rope use
• Riverways (WIS/DEX/INT) boating, river lore, fishing, rope use
• Sage Lore (INT) choose one: art, architecture, astronomy, botany, chemistry, geography, geology, mathematics, meteorology, music, oceanology, philosophy, sociology, zoology
• Seamanship (WIS/DEX/INT) ocean vessels, navigator’s tools, maritime lore, fishing, rope use
• Skullduggery (INT/CHA) forgery kit, smuggling, black markets, criminal lore
• Streetwise (CHA) gather info, city lore, evade

Splitting Survival into Airways, Dungeoneering, Roadways, Riverways, and Seamanship, (aka Seafare, Seafaring) sounds legit. At the same time, these traderoutes also relate to Commerce, and may need coordination for what each skill is responsible. Maybe leave Survival strictly for wildernesses.

Skillduggery sounds fun, sounds useful. I guess both cops and robbers gain proficiency in it.
I notice High Society (aka Decorum) is the counterpart.

Endurance sounds like it might be worth having after all. Eventually I will look more carefully at how the Exhaustion mechanic feels in play.

For Sage Lore (Sagacity?), there is much overlap with other skills.
architecture → Mechanics (aka Engineering, Wrightcraf)
mathematics → Mechanics
art → Performance
astronomy → so far I have been using Survival, but might overlap with Nature and Alchemy.
oceanography → Nature, Seamanship
botony (I am leaning toward making Survival the 'botony' skill, relating to forest and wildernesses of various kinds)
chemistry → Alchemy
geography → maps? traderoutes? commerce?
meteorology → had been using Survival, might use Nature depending on what Nature is.
philosophy → Religion, in the sense of Astral Plane Planescape with different factions
sociology → History
zoology → Intelligence (Animal Handling)
Streetwise → I am happy with Persuasion to extract information

Craft, I love 5e artisan toolsets for crafting items

Gaming feels too narrow for a knowledge skill (might work as a toolset granting a player more than one game)

Folklore → I might need this for knowledgeability about Feywild and Shadowfell

Old skills that subsume tools (tool proficiencies are folded into skills):

• Deception includes using a disguise kit.
• Nature includes herbalism kit.
• Performance includes using musical instruments.
• Survival includes using navigator’s tools.

Yeah, that is what I have been doing too.

Note, I made Deception Intelligence (typically), in the sense of keen observation, extensive knowledgeability, and the ability to create a replica (in this case a disguise) that can fool experts. For a disguise, to pass as an anonymous person is just an Intelligence (Deception) check. But to impersonate a specific individual would be much more difficult, probably require an additional Charisma (Performance) check, and possibly other kinds of checks as well if the situations came up.