D&D 5E Professions in 5e

[wingsandsword]

Okay, as I'm trying to learn 5e, and coming from a 2e and 3e heritage, I'm seeing a HUGE gap as I read through the Player's Handbook.

Are there no skills/proficiencies at all for a character to know a profession?

There is the short list of very broad skills for characters, and craft skills (and many thieving skills) seem to fall under proficiency with the tools of that trade. . but what about professions that aren't centered around a toolkit?

For example. . .

If a player or DM wanted a PC or NPC to be proficient with soldiering, to know how to function as a professional soldier, to know drill and ceremony, military procedure and bureaucracy, they had options in previous editions.

In 1st and 2nd edition, they could have a Soldiering Non-Weapon Proficiency or a Soldier Secondary Skill.

In 3rd/3.5 edition, that would fall under the Profession (Soldier) skill.

4th edition didn't have Profession skills because WotC infamously said they "weren't fun" and that any games using them weren't fun. That sort of attitude was on the long list of reasons I ignored 4e.

. . .but I'm looking at 5e and trying to see how this would have any sort of profession related skill. The closest I can see for my example is the Soldier background, but that doesn't give any special proficiency on any skills related to soldiering, and there's no way to gain anything like this after beginning the game. There's the training option for languages and tools, but that wouldn't cover a profession.

It seems like a gaping hole in the skills system. So, is there an option I'm overlooking? Is there some rule I'm missing?

 

[commandercrud]

Because all PCs in D&D have the Adventurer profession.

 

[iserith]

You establish your character as a soldier prior to becoming an adventurer, possibly taking the Soldier background.

When you want to perform a task that has something to do with soldiery, you describe what you want to do, explaining with reasonable specificity that you're drawing on your training and experience as a soldier. The DM will then ask you to make an ability check, if there's an uncertain outcome to the task and a meaningful consequence for failure. He or she may grant you advantage to the roll (or lower the DC) if your approach to the goal is particularly suitable.

 

[wingsandsword]

You establish your character as a soldier prior to becoming an adventurer, possibly taking the Soldier background.

When you want to perform a task that has something to do with soldiery, you describe what you want to do, explaining with reasonable specificity that you're drawing on your training and experience as a soldier. The DM will then ask you to make an ability check, if there's an uncertain outcome to the task and a meaningful consequence for failure. He or she may grant you advantage to the roll (or lower the DC) if your approach to the goal is particularly suitable.

So, there's no rule really, just ad-hoc making it up?

Sounds like a monumental U-turn in game design compared to actually having a skill system that could handle things players wanted to do, instead of relying on arbitrary DM fiat for everything. I thought D&D had evolved beyond that.

 

[Fenris-77]

Well, I guess it depends on whether or not you actually need a mechanic for that sort of thing or not. The combination of background and skill choice, especially with tools added in, gives some solid variety of professional type skills. Based on background, I would just allow the character to use backgrounds plus lifepath info essentially as tags that can be invoked to summon up knowledge that the character might possess that the player doesn't. Maybe based on an appropriate stat plus proficiency.

I don't personally think that 5e needs to devote design space to this sort of thing. Not every character has a 'profession' separate from their class, so the design space to add that in, but not for all characters, isn't immediately obvious. If you have a specific example that isn't covered by some combination of background and skills, and that example is important to the character concept and will also have an actual mechanical impact on play, I'd probably just create a new background feature to cover it and move on. In most cases I don't think that profession, separate from class, background and skills, is going to mechanically important on a regular basis, not regular enough to warrant additional rules anyway.

 

[the Jester]

There is the short list of very broad skills for characters, and craft skills (and many thieving skills) seem to fall under proficiency with the tools of that trade. . but what about professions that aren't centered around a toolkit?

For example. . .

If a player or DM wanted a PC or NPC to be proficient with soldiering, to know how to function as a professional soldier, to know drill and ceremony, military procedure and bureaucracy, they had options in previous editions.

In 1st and 2nd edition, they could have a Soldiering Non-Weapon Proficiency or a Soldier Secondary Skill.

Neither of these were a thing. Unless you inserted them as a DM... which you can certainly also do in 5e.

. . .but I'm looking at 5e and trying to see how this would have any sort of profession related skill. The closest I can see for my example is the Soldier background, but that doesn't give any special proficiency on any skills related to soldiering, and there's no way to gain anything like this after beginning the game.

It's simple- if a character makes a check, and you think his background should allow him his proficiency bonus, you let him use his proficiency bonus.

 

[GlassJaw]

Sounds like a monumental U-turn in game design compared to actually having a skill system that could handle things players wanted to do, instead of relying on arbitrary DM fiat for everything. I thought D&D had evolved beyond that.

3E, 4E, and Pathfinder did exactly that.

And now 5E is the most popular edition of D&D EVAR.

Funny how that worked out.

 

[Fenris-77]

Sounds like a monumental U-turn in game design compared to actually having a skill system that could handle things players wanted to do, instead of relying on arbitrary DM fiat for everything. I thought D&D had evolved beyond that.

It's a feature IMO, not a bug. I don't need listed skills for farming, green grocing, candle making or double entry book keeping. At what point is the character going to have to test that skill in a way where the consequences actually matter? If they have a profession they know stuff about it, there doesn't need to be a rule or especially a roll.

 

[iserith]

So, there's no rule really, just ad-hoc making it up?

Sounds like a monumental U-turn in game design compared to actually having a skill system that could handle things players wanted to do, instead of relying on arbitrary DM fiat for everything. I thought D&D had evolved beyond that.

Players don't make "skill checks" in D&D 5e, nor should they want to since success is better than trusting a swingy d20 to see you through. Players describe what they want to do. The DM then decides if there's an ability check which may or may not have a skill proficiency that applies to the check, based on their stated approach to the goal. Once resolved, the DM then narrates the result of the adventurer's action.

 

[prabe]

The closest thing to "profession" proficiencies is the tool/vehicle proficiencies, which have options in Xanathar's Guide to Everything for using more broadly. I myself have used INT (Mason's tools or Carpenter's tools) to allow characters to figure out how to bring down a building, so there's room for creativity, here.