D&D 5E (2024) Guidance RAW reasonable expected skill applications?

[Voadam]

So in 5.5 Guidance is as follows:

Guidance
Divination Cantrip (Cleric, Druid)
Casting Time: Action
Range: Touch
Component: V, S
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
You touch a willing creature and choose a skill. Until the spell ends, the creature adds 1d4 to any ability check using the chosen skill.

It has a bunch of limitations, the big one being it only applies to skill checks made within one minute of casting (so not longer duration activities). It is a touch spell with a verbal and somatic component so often not really an option in social situations. Some skills are reactive so they won't often be predicted to cast it beforehand as needed (perception checks, insight checks, knowledge checks to see if you know something), a bunch of things will take more than a minute (crafting, a bunch of conversations for persuasion deception and intimidation, knowledge checks to do research, investigating and searching for clues that takes more than a minute, a bunch of climbing, piloting stuff, downtime activities).

So things I expect it to be validly and reasonably applied to RAW as my hypothetical caster grants this minor blessing on themself or a close adjacent ally or series of close adjacent allies as they do things one by one one-at-a-time:

Picking locks.

Looking for a trap on a small discrete area like a chest.

Probably disarming a trap.

A discrete short physical challenge like a jump or crossing a small narrow ledge.

Medicine checks to stabilize or rouse someone from unconsciousness, probably to diagnose as well.

Maybe intimidation on a prisoner.

Maybe animal handling to calm an animal.

Stealth to get by a single doorway or such (but be aware of the verbal component).

Do you have a different list? Things I have not thought of? Disagreements?

 

[Dessert Nomad]

For a medicine check to stabilize someone, you're almost always better off making your own DC10 attempt to stabilize, especially since the classes with guidance tend to have good wisdom. For diagnosing it works.

Guidance is usable in combat if you have a chance to cast just before combat starts and pick a good skill, it's not common that someone will want to do this but is not unheard of. If the PCs are pretty sure the enemy will have some kind of strange magical device to figure out, you can boost your arcanist's roll before you step through the portal to their lair, or you expect hidden enemies in the room you can boost someone's perception before you break down the door. You can cast it during combat, but there's basically always going to be a better use for your action (if nothing else, 'helping' the person to give them advantage is usually better than +1d4)

A few other things it's good for:
Any case where you're out of awareness now but will be doing something in under a minute. For example, if you know there's a guard behind a locked door ahead, you can guidance a little ways away, then come up and try deception to convince the guard they are supposed to let you in. If you're going to try to plant evidence on someone, guidance in a side room before the rogue slips in to do it.

Stealth/sleight of hand to hide objects, like if you're trying to sneak a dagger under your outfit at a ball. Really anything where you make a single roll now that applies later, but that's the main one I can think of.

Athletics check to lift/break/bend bars and doors.

Survival check to identify tracks - tracking usually takes too long, but 'identify the tracks we found' often is short and something you can anticipate.

Perception checks to try to spot hidden weapons on a prisoner/guest/etc.

There are three things I usually treat fuzzier than RAW:
I don't strictly enforce order of declarations, if someone says "can I examine this rune to see what it does, maybe with arcana?" it's fine if someone says "I'll help" and "I'll cast guidance on her" even though that's technically not the right order to say it in. (This is mostly because I find the old school 'recite the steps of your routine for examining objects each time you do it and I'll laugh of you forget a step' style of play annoying.)

I'm fine with a PC offering guidance for a specific task even if they don't know exactly which skill roll it will use - if you're not sure if what you're examining is going to require an arcana or investigation or perception roll to figure out, but you know someone is about to examine it, you can just say 'guidance that' rather than guessing the skill. They need to be not in a time crunch and fine with visibly and audibly casting a spell, and need to be doing something where they're taking an action.

I generally allow it on things like Arcana, Nature, History, and Religion checks to figure out a specific thing - not the 'do you recall this' type, but the 'I want to examine this rune/animal/architecture/altar and see if I know what it does or was'. I don't think this is technically RAW since it's kind of fuzzy how that's declared, but it makes sense to me story wise and a lot of the times those checks are just an excuse to lore dump anyway.

 

[Charlaquin]

I feel like the most obvious uses of Guideance that are non-reactive and able to be completed in under minute are door forcing, lock picking, and trap disarming (though the latter two might take longer than a minute at some tables). Could probably work for a lot of physical tasks like climbing, jumping, swimming. An attempt to apply or escape from restraints. Some, but not all, active search checks. Personally, I’d actually be ok with it in social situations, I’d just require a Deception check from the caster to pass it off as a mundane blessing rather than a spell.

 

[Distracted DM]

I've OK'd its use in crafting ability checks and other long-term checks where either the caster themselves are the one making the check, or if the caster wants to help someone else and devote their entire downtime to adding that d4 to the check- while the crafter is crafting... OK yeah go for it.

The point against this ruling is "casting a cantrip every minute for 8 hours is exhausting and impractical," but the point for it is "holy crafting, 'my god guides my smithy hammer'" sort of thing.

 

[kigmatzomat]

For us, its anytime a cleric can genuflect and say some variant of "do with (god)'s blessing".

Someone points and says "what's that?" Priest casts guidance on the bard without looking. Likewise "we need to schmooze that bartender", priest casts guidance on bard. Group has to climb a cliff? Casts on everyone so it at least covers the first minute. Heck "can somebody dispel that (5e2014) magic wall?!?" Gets a guidance (or enhance attribute) cast on somebody.

We don't use it for crafting (enhance attribute helps there)

 

[aco175]

I think the most problems is from the player/DM interpersonal things. I do not have problems with casting it when there is a reason or need or maybe more meaningful. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say, but you are all around the table and the DM is doing his thing and tells about a lock or door that looks trapped or something and someone casts Guidance, ok, fine.

The DM starts talking about the door and a complex lock and - Guidance on the rogue walking to find traps. Guidance on the rogue to listed at the door. Guidance on the rogue to disable traps. Guidance on the rogue to open locks. Gets old fast when one player keeps jumping in. Some is a player thing, but it is also a spell thing.

Using it to boost Athletics to help everyone swim across a river, fine, or just say everyone can cross because the players are saying this and that to help them out and there is not any danger from attacks or something.

 

[Piperken]

...Do you have a different list? Things I have not thought of? Disagreements?

Reading through the conversations about this spell, Guidance is a lot like that moment in pop culture when an appeal is made to someone (a particular power), before you attempt an act.

Like, Wonder Woman in the comics, often asks a divine power for assistance or support (not that she needs said aid ofc).

 

[Stalker0]

One of the big questions about guidance is when do you make the check? Technically there is no rules language on when you make the check during the action you are performing. Is it at the beginning, the end, the middle?

Here is the rules passage for context:

An ability check tests a character's or monster's innate talent and training in an effort to overcome a challenge. The GM calls for an ability check when a character or monster attempts an action (other than an attack) that has a chance of failure. When the outcome is uncertain, the dice determine the results.

One table might have the duration go through, then make the check to see what happens. Another might make the check at the beginning so the character can play out the results of the success or failure.

That decision changes what checks are guidance eligible quite a bit.

 

[Ancalagon]

I think it can also be applicable for knowledge checks and puzzles. The artificer is trying to decipher a complex arcane rune. The party druid gives them guidance to help a little bit.

 

[pnewman]

The way that I describe it to my players is that a tiny translucent spirit of the Cleric's god appears on the subjects shoulder and gives them helpful hints; so for Athletics it says "Lift with your legs, not with your back" etc. (For Druid's it is a tiny nature spirit, like Jiminy Cricket, and for Artificers it is a short YouTube style video.)
Thus it will always be obvious that the spell is helping but other than that and the 1 minute maximum, caster must concentrate rule I don't place limits on the spell.

Of course if you are casting Guidance on a Deception check you are probably doomed because the person the target is lying to can see and hear the spirit saying things like "Look her directly in the eyes and smile when you're lying to her."