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Message: <blockquote data-quote="humboldtscott" data-source="post: 5515326" data-attributes="member: 51403">What professions did you come up with that are not covered by existing skills? What new skills did you create to replace profession?This has always bothered me, and I like your solution. Why is there say a Profession (Caravaner) skill (I run al-qadim) and how is it different from knowledge (geography), handle animal, use rope, and ride?How is profession (butler) different than diplomacy?It's always a struggle as a DM to figure out how useful to make these skills. At one extreme they have no value except to make small amounts of money during downtime. At the other, some DM's give 1-5 synergy bonuses, or let profession(whatever) take the place of another skill check (why have both?). Sometimes I've given synergy bonuses to other skills for having a profession. That plus the money.Other people can be diplomatic, but Profession (diplomat) makes you a trained one, granting +2 to diplomacy.Use rope lets you tie knots but profession (sailor) helps you do so under distracting condtitions, thus +2 use rope.Basically, I ask the player to define their profession and 1-3 synergy bonuses that it might provide. I've varied in the number, never sure I've gotten it right.At times I've used the professions for knowing the trade lingo, and the social norms of the profession. For example, if you don't have enough profession (sailor) ranks, the guys down by the docks won't talk to you. I tend to assume that people will defer to other professionals with more ranks.This would explain profession being a trained skill and allowing you to make money. Part of the skill is knowing the professional jargon, knowing how to make money, knowing how to interact with others in that line or work and potential customers, etc.I've worked as a "professional" with the profession (what I was doing at the time) and I've worked in places where I had all the skills needed for the job but didn't have a profession skill appropriate for the job. Example: being a self-taught tech guy and working for a large corporate bank.Not sure how to translate that into DnD always. I've worked a lot on developing the social class, contacts, apprentice, houses, and guild rules from cityscape. I haven't changed much, but I've linked social class to a modified Station statistic (see Al-Qadim for the idea seed) I worked up, There are 5 social classes (Pariah, Low, Middle, Upper, Ruling) and people will generally deal with people at there social class, or one level up or down. So the low class thief can have friends in low places and the High class paladin can take to ruling class nobles would would never let the rogue in the front door. I need to think about how professions might interact with that expanded social system.Anybody ever seen or made a big list of craft and profession skills that ARENT already covered by other skills? If there are many professions, then scrapping it seems a bad idea, but I can't think of any reason it is needed. Every time I try I think of a existing skills that cover it, or at worst, some combinations of feats, class abilities, etc (profession hunter = ranger, for example). Once a player tried to get around item creation feats by listing craft (magic item) and profession (magic item dealer) on his sheet, arguing that it DOES say the crafts and professions provided are just examples, a non-exclusive list.</blockquote>

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