D&D 5E 5e Skills whats your opinion

[GX.Sigma]

In short, I find things are much better if I ignore most of the rules for them.

I feel this way about all TRPG rules.

 

[Lehrbuch]

In this part I was talking about knowledge skills (Arcana, History, Nature, Religion), not skills in general. I'm not sure how a player can engineer a situation of "maybe knowing something, but being uncertain enough that you have to roll for it," or how that would be as consistently helpful as a high passive Perception.

Pretty much wherever the PCs go and whatever they are doing, there should be something Arcane, Historic, Natural, or Religious that would be handy to know. And once the PCs start acting on that knowledge, they tend to find themselves in situations where it would be useful to know more.

It's true that your archetypical adventure is exploring and fighting in confined, unknown spaces. So it's no great surprise that Skills directly related to these sorts of physical activities are usually the most used. However, there's no great difficulty to imagine how it would be handy to have some knowledge (mitigating the danger of that unknown factor).

 

[Saeviomagy]

I feel this way about all TRPG rules.

Which is fine, but leads to the question "why did I pay money for this?"

 

[SailorNash]

I like skills. I like how they're always "maxed", instead of 3E where you had points but had to put them all into the same few to keep them useful. In theory it's nice to spread them around, but in practice half a skill isn't much better than no skill.

I don't like tools though. Seems to just be skills under a different name. Confusing whether you should use thieves tools or slight of hand, instruments or perform, herbalism or nature, etc. It would be simpler to just have "disable device" as a skill instead.

I like how only the skill monkey classes get Expertise, but in a few cases I'd expand this. Rangers should be Expert trackers, Druids should be Experts in nature, etc. Would help in cases like Barbarian where they want to be Intimidating but Iikely don't have the stats. Would also be nice for some of the seldom used skills, like the aforementioned Nature, to see more use. Rogues and Bards would get more Expertise skills, and could choose freely as they currently do.

 

[Xeviat]

I like skills. I like how they're always "maxed", instead of 3E where you had points but had to put them all into the same few to keep them useful. In theory it's nice to spread them around, but in practice half a skill isn't much better than no skill.

The DM and player in me agrees with you, so most of me. I have a small vein of simulationist in me that dislikes that someone can't be "a little good" in something. The only point of that in 3E was fishing for synergy bonuses, which were pretty cool. But half ranks in spot/listen didn't help you notice the assassin hide/movesilently upon you past the very early levels.

... Rangers should be Expert trackers...

Ugh, they are ...

Natural Explorer

You are particularly familiar with one type of natural environment and are adept at traveling and surviving in such regions. Choose one type of favored terrain: arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, swamp, or the Underdark. When you make an Intelligence or Wisdom check related to your favored terrain, your proficiency bonus is doubled if you are using a skill that you're proficient in.

So Rangers most likely have expertise in Survival when it's in their favored terrain.

Now, I would like to see methods for other classes to get expertise. Bounded accuracy slightly turns me off because the difference between appreciable minimum skill (-1, an 8 in a score and no proficiency) and maximum (+17, a 20 stat, +6 proficiency, +6 expertise) ... well I was about to say that it didn't seem like much but it really is. If there were more ways to gain expertise, that is.

Then again, part of me doesn't want too much expertise going around. I'd like for skills and saves to be on a similar track, so that I can have skills (like intimidation) oppose saves (wisdom? charisma?).

On a similar note, I think all passive skill uses should be saves, not skills. I think this because I fully agree that skill uses should be the choice of the player. I don't care that my barbarian doesn't have Arcana trained; I'm never going to ask if I know something about the Arcane. This would really change up Athletics and Perception from being the must have skills to being a little more reigned in.

 

[Samloyal23]

The Tool vs. Skill confusion comes up a lot, but it seems very clear to me. While there are corner cases where the concept doesn't hold universallly, a Tool Proficiency requires a physical object (ie a tool) to attempt a task, while a Skill does not.

Thieves' Tools is a tool proficiency, because if you don't have them (or at least something you can use as a rough approximation) you can't attempt to pick a lock or disable a trap.

Sleight of Hand is a Skill, because you're not using a tool (outside of situations like actually cutting someone's purse).


Musical Instrument is a tool proficiency because it involves playing a physical instrument.

Perform is a skill because it covers other things like Singing, Dancing, Oration, etc, where you only need your body and/or voice.

While some skills, such as Athletics to climb, can benefit from a tool (such as a climber's kit granting advantage on said checks) it's not required.

Likewise, someone proficient in Navigator's Tools could probably attempt to navigate without them, but would do so at disadvantage. Someone trying to pick a lock with a nail and some wire would likewise roll a Thieves' Tools check at disadvantage. Meanwhile, someone trying to pick the same lock without anything to approximate the tools couldn't make the attempt at all.

I think the 5E skill system is fine. It's a little rough around the edges at times, but it flows pretty simply and easily during play, IME.

Why even make this distinction? And what do you do about overlapping skills like Perform and Tool(Musical Instrument)?

 

[fjw70]

I like the 5e skill system. I really dislike the skill points of 3/3.5/PF. The 5e skill system is similar to the 4e one.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Why even make this distinction?

Because a tool is usually not applicable to as broad of a category of tasks as a skill, and is not closely related enough to any particular skill in order to be subsumed by it. I mean, knowing how to do carpentry is not nearly as broadly applicable as being a proficiently athletic person, and there is no skill that carpentry clearly fits into nor any related tools that could be sensibly combined with carpentry tools into a single skill.

Basically, because there is plenty of room for such a distinction to be made, and making that distinction has a clear benefit, so why not make it.

And what do you do about overlapping skills like Perform and Tool(Musical Instrument)?

Perform and musical instrument proficiency do not overlap.

 

[Pibby]

I'd say for any other game the skills system would be absolutely horrible. But because the entire game by design was meant to be easily picked up by new players I think it's okay. It certainly does suck when you want to train a new skill and you've already past the beginning of the campaign but that's the price the game pays for being streamlined. But because the mentality for this edition is to "just do what is right for your table" I'm sure there can be a good compromise between a reasonable DM and his players should this issue arise.

 

[Kite474]

Basically what Pibby said. Though I would toss tools into a fire because the way they are implemented and explained is just bad. The fact that half of them are useless is just salt in the wound.