D&D 5E How can i obtain a proficiency in a musical instrument if im not a bard

[Son of the Serpent]

Assuming your DM allows you downtime, it is almost always optimal to use Skilled to pick up actual skills, because you can't officially learn those as a downtime activity like you can learn tool and language proficiencies.

Well there is one odd quirk of the dm which is relevant here. He allows nearly no down time. And even travelling on foot between regions hundreds of miles apart he says it takes at most a couple days to make the trip. This is obviously unrealistic but he just wants to dm it that way. My guess is he just really doesnt like the idea of characters aging a ton. I havemt voiced any disagreement on this method choice because i think it would cramp his style and its really a minor quibble at most considering how minor the weirdness is. Doesnt effect play a whole lot. I guess some dms just dont exactly like down time. Oh well. My thought is there are far worse flaws a dm could have.

Does anyome know if skilled can be taken multiple times or is it a one time thing? Can it be taken any time you would experience an ability score increase instead as a feat as per the alternate rule?

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Well there is one odd quirk of the dm which is relevant here. He allows nearly no down time. And even travelling on foot between regions hundreds of miles apart he says it takes at most a couple days to make the trip. This is obviously unrealistic but he just wants to dm it that way.

Unrealistic, yes, but to be fair, even if that travel took a realistic amount of time it wouldn't be downtime. You can't really buckle down and do work when you're on the road.

Does anyome know if skilled can be taken multiple times or is it a one time thing? Can it be taken any time you would experience an ability score increase instead as a feat as per the alternate rule?

I'm away from my books so I can't check myself, but if you can take a feat multiple times, the feat will explicitly say so. If it doesn't, you can't.

Even if Skilled doesn't allow this, if you're human or half-human, you can still take Prodigy on top of it.

 

[Salthorae]

Unrealistic, yes, but to be fair, even if that travel took a realistic amount of time it wouldn't be downtime. You can't really buckle down and do work when you're on the road.


I'm away from my books so I can't check myself, but if you can take a feat multiple times, the feat will explicitly say so. If it doesn't, you can't.

Even if Skilled doesn't allow this, if you're human or half-human, you can still take Prodigy on top of it.

It is an interesting point. There isn’t anything in the Feat section that talks about taking a Feat more than once. But there are feats that specify “ you can take this feat multiple time”, like Elemental Adept.

I would never assume that skilled couldn’t be taken more than once.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Unrealistic, yes, but to be fair, even if that travel took a realistic amount of time it wouldn't be downtime. You can't really buckle down and do work when you're on the road.


I'm away from my books so I can't check myself, but if you can take a feat multiple times, the feat will explicitly say so. If it doesn't, you can't.

Even if Skilled doesn't allow this, if you're human or half-human, you can still take Prodigy on top of it.

Thanks and i partially agree that its not exclusively down time. But realustically it mostly is even if not completely. Travel is a lot of idling even with other stuff thrown in the mix. Hazards are less common where low density of factors abounds and most stretches of travel are realistically lower density in many factors with only some things being higher.

 

[Samloyal23]

I miss proficiency slots. Remember those? Not perfect, but simple and straightforward.

 

[Umbran]

Music lessons in Faerun are apparently staggeringly expensive!

Given that they turn you into a fully competent player of the instrument in 2 and a half months, they are also stunningly effective. So, don't complain too much

 

[Salthorae]

Given that they turn you into a fully competent player of the instrument in 2 and a half months, they are also stunningly effective. So, don't complain too much

A week in Faerun is 10 days. So 10 weeks for anyone Int 10 or less is 100 days of training, not 70 days as I think most people assume when they see "10 weeks". In FR it takes those people 3 months and a week to get proficient, so a quarter of a year.

Either way, personally I think the PHB rule makes more actual sense. 2/3 of a year to become proficient in a skill that you're only sort of practicing on a daily basis makes more sense to me than 3 months, but that's why both sets of rules are there, so the DM can choose their favorite.

Personally I use a mix of the two. 250 days base - 10xIntMod (yes I penalize for negative modifiers). So an Int 18 character can learn something in 210 days, a full month and a third faster than baseline. An Int 8 takes 260 days to learn it as they're a bit on the slower side.

 

[Umbran]

A week in Faerun is 10 days. So 10 weeks for anyone Int 10 or less is 100 days of training, not 70 days as I think most people assume when they see "10 weeks". In FR it takes those people 3 months and a week to get proficient, so a quarter of a year.

That... kind of raises a point that "week" is not a fixed time period across settings. The game rules don't stipulate the length of the week, as far as I know.

Want to learn how to play faster? Do some planar travel, and go to a world with a different calendar!

 

[Sword of Spirit]

There aren't "weeks" in the Forgotten Realms--there are "10 days". I'd still count a week's worth of training as 7 days.

 

[BlivetWidget]

A week in Faerun is 10 days.

I don't think this is true for 5e. I'm familiar with the concept of 'tendays' as a unit of time in FR, but I think now that's just a vestige of past editions. I don't remember anything in the PHB or DMG mentioning it.

The game rules don't stipulate the length of the week, as far as I know.

For 5e, unless a word has been specifically defined, it retains its plain English meaning. So a week in the rules always refers to 7 days.