D&D 5E Gaining Additional Skills

[Zinnger]

What are some of the ways that a character can gain new skill proficiencies beyond background and class? If you get 2 from background and 2 from your class, how can you learn more skills other than Feats and multiclassing to rogue, ranger, or bard? I see that you can learn to use new tools in your downtime but cannot find anything about new skills. I see that the DMG has a reward system on page 231 talks about receiving training as a reward where you can get skills or even feats but this seems to be something that is up to the DM and not something that a player can actually do to gain the proficiency. Any other ideas? The goal is actually to have a way for a rogue who deals with all kinds of traps be proficient with arcane (which is not a rogue class skill to select). the only background that gives this option is Sage. So does this mean that NO rogue can ever be good at disarming magical traps without help from the DM?

 

[Zaran]

The only way to get a new skill is if the class gives it to you as a feature like the Rogue or getting the feat that trains you in skills and tools.

 

[Shiroiken]

First of all, you can pick Arcana with any background (see the opening part of the chapter - you can freely switch stuff around). Your answer is available, without the problem you present.

As to the question: you can't, and I'm positive this is intended. Unlike in previous editions, skills are NOT a limitation on what you can do. One of the things I've despised about the last two editions is player's looking at their skills before thinking of a solution to a problem. If you limit yourself to just your skills and proficiencies, you are grossly weakening your character's potential.

Your character can do just about anything, trained or not. The only limitations I've seen are not on skills, but tools (i.e. crafting). Even a rouge without Arcana can still make the check, they just don't get to add their proficiency bonus.

 

[Zaruthustran]

Shiroiken said it. The backgrounds in the book are examples. You can swap around any skills you like. Or create an entirely new background.

Also, like he pointed out: 5e doesn't have skill checks. It has ability checks, to which skill proficiency can be added as appropriate. Seriously! Look up "skill check" in the PHB index. It says "see ability check: skill." So when your rogue encounters that magical lock, the DM will say "make an Int check to figure what's up with this glowing lock." To which you can reply, "does Arcana proficiency apply?" And if it does, you add your bonus. He might even rule the act of disabling the lock be based on an Int check instead of a Dex check, with Thieves Tools proficiency applying. Point being: ability checks, not skill checks.

All that said: human (variant human) and half elf grant skill proficiencies.

 

[Mistwell]

As to the question: you can't

Unless you're playing with multiclassing, or feats, or a class that grants them at higher levels...which actually is a lot of ways to get them.

 

[Shiroiken]

Unless you're playing with multiclassing, or feats, or a class that grants them at higher levels...which actually is a lot of ways to get them.

The OP mentioned those, and was looking for OTHER options. There really aren't that many ways, and it's unlikely for a character to have more than 1 or 2 good options.

 

[Zinnger]

Thanks for all the input. I think a custom background would work best.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Shiroiken said it. The backgrounds in the book are examples. You can swap around any skills you like. Or create an entirely new background.

Also, like he pointed out: 5e doesn't have skill checks. It has ability checks, to which skill proficiency can be added as appropriate. Seriously! Look up "skill check" in the PHB index. It says "see ability check: skill." So when your rogue encounters that magical lock, the DM will say "make an Int check to figure what's up with this glowing lock." To which you can reply, "does Arcana proficiency apply?" And if it does, you add your bonus. He might even rule the act of disabling the lock be based on an Int check instead of a Dex check, with Thieves Tools proficiency applying. Point being: ability checks, not skill checks.

All that said: human (variant human) and half elf grant skill proficiencies.

This ^. There are no skill checks, just ability checks which sometimes also let you add a skill prof bonus. If you want your rogue to have arcana, just make up a background that suits. Or take the skilled feat.

 

[PeterFitz]

I'm pretty happy with the way skills are handled in 5e; I've never been very fond of super-detailed and/or prescriptive skill systems, regardless of how "realistic" they may purport to be.

Having said that, I am quite happy for my players to set out to get training in new skills in-game, but those skills are specific, not general. For example, if a character without Survival as a proficiency wants to learn to track better they can, and assuming they spend the appropriate time learning from a knowledgeable tutor, they'd get to be able to treat Survival as a Proficient skill — but ONLY for tracking. Not for any of the other skills that use Survival as their base.

Likewise for climbing, swimming, poetry, and so forth.

What I don't do is allow players to improve individual skills based on generic skills that they're already proficient in. It's assumed that they've already had all the training in that skill-set that will do them any good — if they want to spend the time and money to say they've done it, fine. But it won't give them another bonus to their rolls.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Thanks for all the input. I think a custom background would work best.

Technically you don't even need a custom background. Just pick a background that grants a skill proficiency that you already have through your class or race, in which case the PHB says to choose any skill to replace it.

As an aside, the skill that my players seem to be most interested in is extra languages, since it turns out that "Common" (on their planet) is "Gith" to everybody else, and "Common" to everybody else is "High Elvish" to the PCs (due to the influence of the EIN). They ran into an NPC gnome last night and had to funnel all dialogue through the elven cleric (since the Bard with Tongues was offscreen) until the druid/monk said something in Terran and it turned out that the gnome spoke that language at home among his family. I use multiple languages for realism but it does have the interesting side effect of spreading out spotlight balance. Anyway, I told them that even though learning High Elvish fluently takes a year of training, they can learn simple phrases like "Don't shoot" and "I love you" just by asking someone who knows. Basically any phrase that they prep in advance can be used during the game even without having the language as an official "known language."