D&D 5E Professions in 5e

[Parmandur]

Bookkeeping alterations are covered in INT (investigation) and helped by forgery kit proficiency per XGtE. A background related to bookkeeping might accomplish the same thing based on using backgrounds for proficiency.

There are rules for creating magic items in XGtE as well, and they do not include rolling to make high quality items. It's a given.



The only thing the soldier background gives that isn't already available is the rank. A person can learn languages and tool proficiencies via downtime already, and a feat for skilled (or prodigy) adds the same skills if they are not already present. Recognizing military rank is something that takes very little time to learn.

A DM determines if the actions a character takes needs a check and what contributes to that check. IME, standard proficiencies plus situational background proficiency is pretty common. If a person wants to "add a background" then the skilled feat covers 3 skills instead of 2 while languages and tools can be learned. Any additional background feature "from a lifetime of..." becomes situation as a boon up to the DM.

Backgrounds are also examples. Make a custom background and use that to make your profession working with your DM.



Which explains why it's reasonable for someone with no training to make untrained checks if the DM warrants it getting back to PC's having seen military ranks and processions at some point as an assumption.



Which gets to another point -- what the profession actually does. INT (history) would cover precedent while CHA (persuasion) would argue the case. Make a lawyer background and use those as the proficiencies. A feature might be similar to the sage in knowing where to find the legal information.



Some of those are examples of checks made without proficiency. Urchin enhances navigating the city while gathering rumors is a CHA check right on the list. I think most DM's just RP those out, however, ime.



Minor correction. DC 22 does exist. Not all DC's go up by 5 such as spell DC's or opposed checks. The difficulty DC's step by 5's.

Mind you, that doesn't change the fact 5e checks work for me. All I need is to have my character perform actions. It works or it doesn't or the DM says roll (x proficiency applies). If I want to soldier or lawyer it's not hard to build something to concept. ;-)

Indeed, highly flexible.

 

[nomotog]

If you're a soldier who knows how to solder, then you get proficiency in solder. In the 5ed playtest there were no skills everything was just proficiency I internalized this and never let it go even when the playtest ended and the game no longer worked like how I imagined it. I definitely think they should have kept it. It's a very flexible system because you can have things like broad or narrow proficiencies, you can have overlapping proficiencies, you can also easily mold things to different setting by introducing new proficiencies.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

It's not that hard to add new Tool/Vehicle/Profession proficiencies that can be taken instead of the regular tools.

I must confess that, until this thread, I hadn't even noticed that the tools list was suppposed to be exhaustive by RAW. I always read that the list provided was examples of tools, like the equipment list, which is obviously not designed to be the exhaustive list of everything you could buy in any d&d world. The absence of bacon shouldn't be meant to imply, IMHO, that bacon is unavaiable but simply that the goods list was just indicative and not complete. Same with tools: the general desciption is that "a tool helps you do something you couldn't otherwise do" and that "proficiency with a tool allows you to add your proficiency bonus to any ability check made using that tool". Then the list of many craftign tools is presented, as an illustration of possible tools. So in my mind, it wasn't even a house rule to add, say Lawyers Tools to the list if needed (either because during downtime the PC elects to study or practice law or to give to an NPC the PC could want to hire). It's only when checking, while reading this thread, that Xanatar uses the exact same list as the PHB, that I realized that it could be understood as an exhaustive list. But I am pretty sure there are millers or thatchers in D&D world despite the absence of mention of said professions' tools.

5e just wasn't design with the intent to fulfill every corner case. They gave us some trade and artisan tools, some specialist tools (cartographer, navigator, forgery kit, etc) and vehicles proficiency, but they didn't make a giant list of all possible job your character could have had.

That's exactly how I read it. If someone defines his character as a drilll and ceremony professional, it would be covered by being proficient in the soldiering tools and you could roll INT to know about military customs or DEX or STR (?) to succesfully execute a drill under pressure.

Which gets to another point -- what the profession actually does. INT (history) would cover precedent while CHA (persuasion) would argue the case. Make a lawyer background and use those as the proficiencies. A feature might be similar to the sage in knowing where to find the legal information.

One of the complaint that was made in this thread was that a lawyer character built this way would be equally good at estimating the likely outcome of a trial based on precedent (INT+history) and at remembering the list of the Roman emperors, and he'd mechanically need to be a very good haggler (CHA+persuasion) as a side effect of him presenting a case in front of a judge. I think having him be proficient in tne tools of the lawyers resolve that problem (as it narrows the proficiency to a specific field while broadening it to several key "skills").

 

[MichaelSomething]

5th Edition doesn't have Profession skills: No one bats an eye
4th Edition doesn't have Profession skills: Everyone goes mad

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Y'know, after 9 pages, I think we are all missing one very salient point: It's a game.

Honestly...we all seem to be intent on "making rules and stuff to try and mimic reality". I don't think that needs to, or even SHOULD, be done in regards to the design goals of 5e. That goal being to facilitate a more "easy going game of make believe with friends and family". With 5e, the removed much of what 3e had in terms of "modifiers and situational specific rules" in favour of a more "your PC grew up as a Soldier....so you know soldier stuff" with any specifics of just how much of a bonus you get for the thousand and one things that a Soldier may need to learn or become knowledgeable with (re: Drills & Ceremonies, for example).

So, everyone...take a breath and look at the goals of the game. They are not, imnsho, to "mimic reality" but to simply be "fun to play and encourage everyone to use their imaginations".

You want specific skills for every little thing? There are better games for that. You want a game that says "you know soldier stuff" and leave it up to the individual Player and DM to decide what boundaries that entails? Then 5e will do just fine.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[billd91]

5th Edition doesn't have Profession skills: No one bats an eye
4th Edition doesn't have Profession skills: Everyone goes mad

Backgrounds, baby. Backgrounds.

 

[Undrave]

I must confess that, until this thread, I hadn't even noticed that the tools list was suppposed to be exhaustive by RAW. I always read that the list provided was examples of tools, like the equipment list, which is obviously not designed to be the exhaustive list of everything you could buy in any d&d world. The absence of bacon shouldn't be meant to imply, IMHO, that bacon is unavaiable but simply that the goods list was just indicative and not complete. Same with tools: the general desciption is that "a tool helps you do something you couldn't otherwise do" and that "proficiency with a tool allows you to add your proficiency bonus to any ability check made using that tool". Then the list of many craftign tools is presented, as an illustration of possible tools. So in my mind, it wasn't even a house rule to add, say Lawyers Tools to the list if needed (either because during downtime the PC elects to study or practice law or to give to an NPC the PC could want to hire). It's only when checking, while reading this thread, that Xanatar uses the exact same list as the PHB, that I realized that it could be understood as an exhaustive list. But I am pretty sure there are millers or thatchers in D&D world despite the absence of mention of said professions' tools.



That's exactly how I read it. If someone defines his character as a drilll and ceremony professional, it would be covered by being proficient in the soldiering tools and you could roll INT to know about military customs or DEX or STR (?) to succesfully execute a drill under pressure.




One of the complaint that was made in this thread was that a lawyer character built this way would be equally good at estimating the likely outcome of a trial based on precedent (INT+history) and at remembering the list of the Roman emperors, and he'd mechanically need to be a very good haggler (CHA+persuasion) as a side effect of him presenting a case in front of a judge. I think having him be proficient in tne tools of the lawyers resolve that problem (as it narrows the proficiency to a specific field while broadening it to several key "skills").

The REAL problem is that they never leaned into that concept and never bothered to expend the list of tools and non-skill proficiencies. I think it's kind of a lost opportunity. You could probably bang out a full UA article on additional tools and backgrounds. I dunno if 'lawyers tools' would be a thing, maybe I'd name it 'Legal Texts'?

Hiya!

Y'know, after 9 pages, I think we are all missing one very salient point: It's a game.

Honestly...we all seem to be intent on "making rules and stuff to try and mimic reality". I don't think that needs to, or even SHOULD, be done in regards to the design goals of 5e. That goal being to facilitate a more "easy going game of make believe with friends and family". With 5e, the removed much of what 3e had in terms of "modifiers and situational specific rules" in favour of a more "your PC grew up as a Soldier....so you know soldier stuff" with any specifics of just how much of a bonus you get for the thousand and one things that a Soldier may need to learn or become knowledgeable with (re: Drills & Ceremonies, for example).

Oh I totally agree. There's aalso a certain strata of roleplayers, however, who HATE to think of the game as an actual game with designed abstraction, gamist solutions and le gasp BALANCE in mind. Mostly the Wizard players (j/k)

 

[nomotog]

Hiya!

Y'know, after 9 pages, I think we are all missing one very salient point: It's a game.

Honestly...we all seem to be intent on "making rules and stuff to try and mimic reality". I don't think that needs to, or even SHOULD, be done in regards to the design goals of 5e. That goal being to facilitate a more "easy going game of make believe with friends and family". With 5e, the removed much of what 3e had in terms of "modifiers and situational specific rules" in favour of a more "your PC grew up as a Soldier....so you know soldier stuff" with any specifics of just how much of a bonus you get for the thousand and one things that a Soldier may need to learn or become knowledgeable with (re: Drills & Ceremonies, for example).

So, everyone...take a breath and look at the goals of the game. They are not, imnsho, to "mimic reality" but to simply be "fun to play and encourage everyone to use their imaginations".

You want specific skills for every little thing? There are better games for that. You want a game that says "you know soldier stuff" and leave it up to the individual Player and DM to decide what boundaries that entails? Then 5e will do just fine.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

I don't think it's so much about mimicking reality as much as it is about letting people make a wider range of characters. Profincites are way more important then many people think because outside of combat they are the main way players and characters express themselves. When you mark down a proficiency you are saying here is something I am good at and want to do. I don't think you need to stat out a proficiency for every possible thing in the player handbook, but it should crack the door.

 

[Krachek]

5ed put in place an adaptative attitude toward skill. The rules tell us to use alternate ability and use common sense.

in 3.5 with skill list much more wide and detailed we were still screw because there was always a case that was not covered. The designer call was more like :we will add more skill.
my comment at the time was:
A skill to tie your left shoe, and a skill to tie your right shoe!

 

[wingsandsword]

5th Edition doesn't have Profession skills: No one bats an eye
4th Edition doesn't have Profession skills: Everyone goes mad

I think it's because the people who got irate about 4e not having a profession skill (among it's MANY other shortcomings, of which that was only a very small one), generally got off the edition treadmill with 4e because we were generally happy with 3.5 and didn't need a new edition.

That's what I did. That's what most of my gaming friends did.

This entire thread is because I decided to take a look at 5e, my first time seriously looking at the current D&D offerings since about 2008. I'm seeing it with "fresh" eyes of someone who didn't spent years playing 4e and wasn't around for the switchover from 4e to 5e either.

I'm coming into 5e with the mindset of a 3.5 fan, someone who posted very regularly on ENWorld from circa 2003 to 2008 or so and was a huge 3.x fan (and d20 system in general). . .and hasn't been a part of the online gaming community and is getting some rather intense culture shock of seeing a place that used to love 3.x and love the intricate "fiddly bits" of gaming somehow become hostile to it. This is the shock of someone who would have been a "typical" ENWorld poster with pretty typical, mainstream attitudes towards D&D and game design about 15 years ago waking up to see what has become of D&D.