D&D (2024) 5e 2024 Skills

[Yaarel]

Because DMs have total say about which skills to call for, when, and how to adjudicate them, even choosing whichever ability is most suitable for a particular skill in context − modifying the skill list is actually Rules-As-Written.

"The 5e skills is more what you'd call 'guidelines' than actual rules."

Even when a setting formalizes and formats a specific way of running a list of skills, this is only what will be typically true. There will still be situational circumstances where the DM will utilize a skill in an unusual way, or call for whichever ability is most appropriate for it.


Gross motor skills are an indivisible entity. The Reflex-Athletics ability is the same concept, and needs to be one thing in the same place.

I was pleased to find out at DNDBeyond, it is easy to customize a skill by keying it off a different ability. Namely Athletics is a "Dex" skill. Also use Athletics for landing a fall and balancing while climbing, or walking across ice. The gross motor skills easily reunify.

We can worry about balancing Dexterity separately. It is its own effort. But neither Strength nor Dexterity were satisfying the needs of the gymnastic genre.


For now, seeing all of the gymnastic Reflex-Athletics character concept in one place in the "Dexterity (Athletics)" skill check at DNDBeyond is a huge relief, a pain-point gone. A breath more easy. Athletics Dex is the right default to do.

 

[Yaarel]

I have been thinking about a "Vehicle" being a "tool proficiency", and by extension even referring to a "Mount", such as Horse − a living creature − as if a "tool proficiency".

At a deeper structure, we arent contrasting a "skill proficiency" and a "tool proficiency".

What we are looking at within the 5.24 skill system is a contrast between a proficiency and a specialization. Or perhaps verbatim, the skill system allows both "proficiency" and "expertise".

So the "Nature" skill allows a proficiency for a metallurgy check, such as to forge or repair a sword. But applying proficiencies in both Nature and "Blacksmiths tools" heightens the skill and success.

Differently, a gem cutter applies "Nature" and "Jewelers tools" to heighten the success for a lovely new gem.

The tools are different specializations within a same skill.


I would prefer if this kind of specialization granted "Expertise". But the 5.24 rules grant Advantage to the check when specializing, and I can live with that.

Consider. A character concept with Animal Handling who specializes in a Horse ("Riding Horse" or "Warhorse") for the kind of Mount, has Advantage when Handling it, but not when trying to Handle a Lion. There is a skill specialization.


5e 2024 seems to have evolved some 3e-isms for the skill system. The 5e skillers who are advantageously specializing (heh, perhaps called the "advants") are doing so in piecemeal fashion similar to 3e applying skill points to boost whichever skills in a piecemeal way.

The 5e broad skills are solid and useful, and the proficiency scales well across the tiers of levels. But the 5e specializations allow for heightened success within a narrow application of a skill.


An "expert" is a character that has skill "expertise". An "advant" would be a character with "advantage".