D&D 5E Adding Additional Skills to the game

[The Mirrorball Man]

As far as I’m concerned, adding Streetwise, Culture, Bureaucracy and Dungeoneering feels essential to the Exploration pillar.

 

[Haldrik]

As far as I’m concerned, adding Streetwise, Culture, Bureaucracy and Dungeoneering feels essential to the Exploration pillar.

Streetwise - Persuasion
Culture - History
Bureaucracy - History
Dungeoneering - Nature

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Streetwise - Persuasion
Culture - History
Bureaucracy - History
Dungeoneering - Nature

This doesn’t work for me at all. Why not have just two skills: Knowledge and Doing stuff? To me, collapsing wildly different concepts into very broad skills sounds absurd.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Possibly, I might add Alchemy as a new skill, including metallurgy, stonework, construction, gems, and other things related to chemistry and material sciences.

So my civil engineering student is getting a degree in alchemy? Rad!

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Streetwise - Persuasion
Culture - History
Bureaucracy - History
Dungeoneering - Nature

How can Dungeoneering fall under Nature when dungeons tend to be the polar opposite of natural?

 

[DEFCON 1]

I always use the 'Alternative Ability Score' variant rule, where I ask for an Ability Check and the player can then possibly add a skill they are proficient at. By doing this, and seeing what usually got applied... I was able to determine which skills were unnecessary in this system, and what categories of stuff felt like they were missing. Thus I merged some skills and added new ones.

Animal Handling was merged into Nature; usually a Wisdom (Nature) check.
Acrobatics was merged into Athletics; usually a Dexterity (Athletics) check.
Intimidation was merged into Persuasion; usually a Strength (Persuasion) check.
Medicine was merged into Survival; usually a Wisdom (Survival) check.
Sleight of Hand was merged into Deception; usually a Dexterity (Deception) check.

New skills included:
Commerce (for interacting with merchants, appraising, haggling, and anything money related)
Dungeoneering (for everything related to spelunking, dungeoncrawling and the Underdark)
Etiquette (for interacting with things related to nobility, high society, castles and the like)
Folklore (for interacting with commoners, low society, and stories/lore that the common folk might know)
Mechanics (for things related to architecture, engineering, tinkering, and took the place of Thieve's Tools proficiency)

 

[DEFCON 1]

And my list of skills to merge or add can change depending on what the setting is like. For instance my Eberron game found Mechanics to be wholy important, but I didn't use it for my Curse of Strahd game. Likewise, as I prep a potential Theros campaign, I'm putting in a Warfare skill, as battle and war between the poleis is an important part of the setting. Yes, I could just use the Soldier background (and I have for other settings), but in Theros the knowledge of all facets of warfare is just too important in my opinion to not let other potential characters have access to knowledge and study of the art of war.

 

[CubicsRube]

I've been through a few list variants myself.

I would most likely remove animal handling and medicine and just put them under nature.

I'd actually remove deception and add convince as a skill. Then you can use convince (usually with INT) if you're trying to sway someone with logic, or persuasion of with emotion.

If you need to disguise yourself as someone, I'd use performance instead of the removed disguise.

I'd roll theives tools into sleight of hand.

Otherwise i wouldn't change to much for a generic setting.

 

[Minigiant]

I'd be very careful adding new skills to the game. You don't get that many skills, and the skills themselves are somewhat imbalanced (perception). I took the approach of adding new tools, which are easier to acquire and generally less powerful. A few things I had a hard time finding a "tool" for, and just called them minor skills. The exiting kill can include a lot of things, so not everything is necessary.

Again that that is my point, there are too few skills and PCs get too many as is.

There are only 18 skills and it's easyfora PCto be proficient in in 5 by level 3 via race, class, background, and subclass. The classic 4 PC party can easily cover every skill and have some overall.

I think parties having holes and knowing what they are in the skill side is as important as them covering gaps.

• Endurance is part of Athletics, you just need to make it a Constitution/Athletics check. It's easier to incorporate using alternate abilities than to add an entirely new skill.
• For most settings, Etiquette is best handled by Wisdom/Insight, as it's just about avoiding social traps. In a setting dedicated to crucial social etiquette, such as Rokugan or Kura-Tur, then Charisma/Performance seems more appropriate.
• Dungeoneering is currently used under Survival. I can understand the incorporation of this if you want to make a significant difference between wilderness survival and underground survival.
• Law and Nobility are a bit tricky, because they're nowhere near a good as a full skill. Arguably both could be used under History. My suggestion to handling this is to create a minor skill called "Cultural Lore." All characters are automatically proficient for their race or region they were raised (not both). It can be chosen and learned during downtime like a tool. Racial proficiency gives more broad information about the race as a whole, while the region gives very specific information, but only for that region.
• Streetwise can be handled in a couple of way. You could make it a minor skill, like Law and Nobility, but I'm not a huge fan of this. My method breaks it into separate options based on what the character's do. If the players are just trying to overhear gossip, it's Wisdom/Insight, and it will grant some vague information that might be followed up on. If they socialize with the locals to pick up information, it's Charisma/Persuasion, and it'll give information about a specific topic, but probably not detailed information. If they're trying to track down specific information about a specific topic, it's Intelligence/Investigation to put together the clues of everything they've overheard. The DCs for each are going to vary based on the information desired and the availability of it, but in general Insight is easier than Persuasion, which is easier than Investigation.

To me a 5e DM must either decouple skills and ability scores or add more skills.

The current skill(ability) couples are too few. Hard Skill(Ability) with less than 20 skills total should not be the default. The game skill system suffers too much with less than 20 hard skills.

 

[Minigiant]

As far as I’m concerned, adding Streetwise, Culture, Bureaucracy and Dungeoneering feels essential to the Exploration pillar.

I'm tempted to change Etiquette to Culture and add Bureaucracy and Academics.
To me, BaseD&D will have PCs dealing with the movers and shakers of the world eventually as adventurers are often used as spec ops in would with standing or levied armies. Once you get into Tier 2, it shuld cost effort to not be at least a subject in local or national politics and bureaucracy.

3-6 super killersroaming around. You think tons of folk with titltes won't want to be involved with ya?