D&D (2024) 5e 2024 Skills

[Yaarel]

Not a fan of your idea for tying Dexterity to Athletics. Seems like you're exacerbating the dominance of that ability with that houserule.

Dexterity requires a serious redesign in order for the abilities to be equally useful. Until that happens, giving a minor perk like Athletics to Dexterity is negligible.

Athleticism and balance are inseparable aspects of gross motor skills. Splitting them up is wrong and ignorant.

Mechanically, the dislocation harms the game by crippling the agility tropes within the fantasy genera, by forcing multiple-ability-dependency to invest in both of the redundant Strength and Dexterity.

The current situation of agility is a perpetuating pain point. I want to see this resolved, at almost any cost.


There good reasons to give Athletics-Acrobatics to Strength, because D&D Strength is agile, wielding swords accurately, wrestling, and so on. There are also good reasons to give Athletics-Acrobatics to Dexterity, because one cannot Climb without Balance, nor Jump without Falling. Tumbling (somersault) requires significantly powerful high jumps. So on.

Ideally, Athletics becomes its own ability, distinct from both Strength and Dexterity. But between the two, Dexterity gains all Athletics, on balance. Strength strongly correlates Constitution and its Fortitude save, especially for brute tropes, where Strength and Constitution function as if synonymous. This leaves Dexterity with its Reflex save the best match for agile Athletics.

Reflex requires gross motor skills, sometimes jumping out of the way of an explosion, boulder, or whatever physical danger. Reflex = Athletics. Whichever ability gains Athletics necessarily gains the concept of Reflex saves and the skirmishing AC dodging and blocking bonus. Ultimately, it is Dexterity − specifically the aspect Balance and Reflex and AC bonus − that merits Athletics most.

 

[SteveC]

The single biggest thing I do with skills is to (largely) let players pick a skill for a situation. As long as I can justify it in some way, I just let it go. Unless you're lifting something heavy, I will let you roll Acrobatics for things you'd normally need Athletics for. I think the skill list overlaps and has oddly specific skills while having others be extremely broad. Frankly, I think it needs a complete overhaul.

 

[jgsugden]

I allow players to make up a skill and select it if it makes sense. There have been a lot of tool proficiencies created.

In terms of actual skills, the ones we have added are:

PSIONICS - Like arcana, but for psionic phenomena. Arcana, Divine and Nature magics work through the Weave in my game and share a common methodology ... meaning they often overlap. Psionics works quite differently.

SUPERNATURAL - Anything magical that is not Arcane, Divine, Nature or Psionics is Supernatural. This is a knowledge of Supernatural lore. It can help you learn the way a dragon flight works, tell you about ghost movement, or tell you about elemental mechanics. Generally intelligence.

CHESMISTRY/BIOLOGY/PHYSICS - This gives you information on how one of the fields of science works (you pick one). Generally intelligence.

DECORUM - Politics, business, and other skills are aggregated here. Generally used with intelligence. It is about knowing what to do in the world of social rules - and reduces the catchall size of persuasion.

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.

 

[Quickleaf]

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.

New skills include:

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

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.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Tools are no longer skills. Some skills require tools, depending on the task.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The 5e skill list is tight. It was hard to come with a skill that wasnt already covered by one of the skills in the list.

I am considering adding a Clockwork skill, for clocks, pulleys, gears, machinery, contraptions, traps, mathematics, and construction projects.

According to core, Investigation handles machinery, but I want to keep this for logic, intuition, discernment, research, and piecing clues together

Perhaps "Engineering" would be more fittingly generic than "Clockwork"? The latter name implies it's only about gears and mechanisms, while engineering can apply to all sorts of things--aqueducts and castles, for example.

Clocks, at least in the fully mechanical sense, didn't really exist until the very, very end of the medieval period (late 1200s to mid 1300s), and realistically not until the Renaissance (1400 and beyond). But "engineering", not by that name but certainly by the concept behind it, is many thousands of years old.

 

[Corinnguard]

The 5e skill list is tight. It was hard to come with a skill that wasnt already covered by one of the skills in the list.

I am considering adding a Clockwork skill, for clocks, pulleys, gears, machinery, contraptions, traps, mathematics, and construction projects.

According to core, Investigation handles machinery, but I want to keep this for logic, intuition, discernment, research, and piecing clues together

Level Up actually has an Engineering skill that would as @EzekielRaiden pointed out, fit better than a Clockwork skill.

Engineering. An Engineering check allows a character to know a fact or advance a project involving building, invention, or mathematics. The most commonly used ability score is Intelligence. A character might use Dexterity to construct a tiny device or Strength to build a wall without assistance. Specialties: architecture, chemistry, explosives, gadgetry, mathematics, mechanical traps, siegecraft.
Level Up also has a Culture skill.

Culture. A Culture check allows a character to know the customs, laws, trade in regional products, and etiquette of cultures other than their own (a character is presumed to know about their own culture and background without requiring an ability check.) Culture can also be used to communicate simple concepts with creatures whose language is unknown to a character. The most commonly used ability score is Intelligence. A character might use Wisdom to avoid social blunders, Dexterity to perform an unfamiliar dance, or Charisma to track down a seller of a hard-to-find item. Specialties: courtly manners, etiquette, laws, linguistics, regional goods, streetwise, trade.

 

[Yaarel]

Perhaps "Engineering" would be more fittingly generic than "Clockwork"? The latter name implies it's only about gears and mechanisms, while engineering can apply to all sorts of things--aqueducts and castles, for example.

Clocks, at least in the fully mechanical sense, didn't really exist until the very, very end of the medieval period (late 1200s to mid 1300s), and realistically not until the Renaissance (1400 and beyond). But "engineering", not by that name but certainly by the concept behind it, is many thousands of years old.

I was worried 'engineer' sounded too modern. But words like it are early, such as 'enginour' in Middle English, for similar words in Old French.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I was worried 'engineer' sounded too modern. But words like it are early, such as 'enginour' in Middle English, for similar words in Old French.

If you'd prefer a term with unassailable medieval English origin, you could perhaps use "Wrightwork", "Wrightcraft", or "Shapewrighting" which repurposes the Germanic-origin word that now mostly exists only in set phrases or specific crafts (e.g. "playwright" is "a worker in plays", and thus, a person who produces them.) But...well. "Wright" as a word for a builder of some sort has gone pretty well fully archaic at this point. It's not unusable, but it might not be better than "Engineering".

Guess 10th century Englishmen didn't have much need for a word for "the art of building buildings"!

 

[Yaarel]

If you'd prefer a term with unassailable medieval English origin, you could perhaps use "Wrightwork", "Wrightcraft", or "Shapewrighting" which repurposes the Germanic-origin word that now mostly exists only in set phrases or specific crafts (e.g. "playwright" is "a worker in plays", and thus, a person who produces them.) But...well. "Wright" as a word for a builder of some sort has gone pretty well fully archaic at this point. It's not unusable, but it might not be better than "Engineering".

Guess 10th century Englishmen didn't have much need for a word for "the art of building buildings"!

I love these suggestions!

I think I will go for "Wrightcraft", where the "wr" sounds as if suitably archaic, and the "craft" reminds the player what this skill is actually about.