D&D 5E (2024) Rank 5e skills from most useful (1) to least useful (18)

[Amphytrion]

Like many bits in this game, this ranking is entirely DM-dependent.

At my table, I try my best at making all skills relevant and to not have some outshine the others. I fail at this often.

I run investigative adventures often, so Investigation ranks very high.

If I have a religious character or if the adventure features religious NPCs or fiends (which is fairly often, especially the former), Religion becomes extremely important. I use Wisdom (Religion) for meditation and prayer and Intelligence (Religion) for learning and knowledge.

Insight is probably the most relevant social skill at my table. It is mosty used to ascertain mood and a NPC’s ties to other people and organizations (e.g. Bob becomes agitated when talking about Alice). This is an important source of clues.

 

[Neonchameleon]

most replaceable, really? as compared to Stealth v Pass Without Trace, SoH v Knock, or Charm v Persuasion?

Charm lets the victim know. Knock has side effects like a loud noise and smart foes use two or more locks on anything important. Pass Without Trace I'll grant.

And athletics? Vs fly, 2024 jump, spider climb, or enlarge person? Unlike PWoT a good athletics roll won't remotely do what one of those spells used appropriately will.

 

[TiQuinn]

I think the number one thing that I’m guilty of when I look at this list is not having harder lines in my game between what gets an arcana roll vs religion, history, and sometimes nature.

 

[Plaguescarred]

1. Perception
2. Investigation
3. Athletics
4. Arcana
5. Stealth
6. Persuasion
7. Deception
8. Insight
9. Medicine
10. Survival
11. Intimidation
12. Nature
13. History
14. Religion
15. Acrobatics
16. Sleight of Hand
17. Performance
18. Animal Handling

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This is ranked by how I think the game's rules directly tell you they operate, not how I think GMs should run things, nor how I have seen 5e GMs (with the exception of my current GM) run it, which to be clear isn't better than the rules as written.

1. Perception
2. Persuasion
3. Insight
4. Stealth
5. Deception
6. Acrobatics
7. Athletics
8. Investigation
9. Sleight of Hand
10. Arcana
11. Nature
12. Religion
13. Intimidation
14. Medicine
15. Survival
16. History
17. Performance
18. Animal Handling

It's worth noting, despite being a clean numbered list, the gaps between these vary wildly. Perception >>>>>>>>>>> Persuasion and Insight, which are almost co-equal. Stealth, Deception, Acrobatics, and Athletics are all of similar weight because I find they come up a lot--though I usually use Persuasion where others would use Deception because I don't, personally, like telling lies.

Investigation, Sleight of Hand, Arcana, Nature, and Religion are all in the "sometimes useful, not very important" category. Sure, sometimes you'll find something where picking a pocket or knowing some dead god's rituals will be insanely useful or even essential, but most times, it's not that big a deal. Arcana edges out the other "knowledge" skills because it has uses for identifying stuff.

Everything after Religion is in the "Kinda Garbage" category. I almost never see checks for these. Intimidate would be lower, as in by far the worst skill in the game, if I were basing this on how GMs actually run stuff, because Intimidate is the "Do Social Things Extremely Badly With Horrible Consequences" skill in most GMs' eyes, whereas Persuasion is neutral on good-vs-bad consequences and Deception is good consequences unless you fail or your lie is revealed, then horrible consequences.

Survival should be more useful, but it just...isn't. History, Performance, and Animal Handling are functionally useless fluff skills which only exist to give players who like to roleplay a thing to invest resources into. I can count the number of Animal Handling checks I've ever seen made in 5e on one hand. And I wouldn't even use all of that hand's fingers.

Had I my druthers, we'd collapse some of these skills together (e.g. Animal Handling -> Nature), cut at least one entirely (Performance), and rebalance some of the remainder to actually have concrete positive uses....and to have a clear definition of how to implement them, so that GMs have at least been told how to use these skills in ways that don't make them hidden deathtraps waiting to spring.

I'd also turn Survival back into Endurance from 4e. Because having at least one skill keyed off of Con by default was, in fact, a positive thing.

 

[Stormonu]

I'm sorry, I do not actually understand what any of that means. You can attack someone with manacles? Nice idea but, since I almost never use humanoid opponents, it won't come up. Heck, even as a player, again, since 3e, I am the only person I've ever seen whose character has manacles. No one I've ever played with has even looked at them.

/edit after reading the spoilers that @Distracted DM kindly posted. Ahh, you need to grapple the opponent first, then you can restrain them with manacles.

Does anyone actually do that?

Funnily enough, my Sorcerer/Rogue manacled an opponent last session, while the Orc Monk was doing the grappling. We were in town, bringing a rival rogue to justice.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm sorry, I do not actually understand what any of that means. You can attack someone with manacles? Nice idea but, since I almost never use humanoid opponents, it won't come up. Heck, even as a player, again, since 3e, I am the only person I've ever seen whose character has manacles. No one I've ever played with has even looked at them.

/edit after reading the spoilers that @Distracted DM kindly posted. Ahh, you need to grapple the opponent first, then you can restrain them with manacles.

Does anyone actually do that?

I've seen it.

But not in 5e.

 

[Stalker0]

I think the number one thing that I’m guilty of when I look at this list is not having harder lines in my game between what gets an arcana roll vs religion, history, and sometimes nature.

I would argue one of the reasons for that is, when your in a single campaign, its the rule of fun right. So when a player with a big history wants to make a check about some magical X, the DM might finangle it a bit to make that history so the player can enjoy their bonus rather than arcane which the DM might have preferred to go with. That's fine, even encouraged.

But then in campaign 2, someone has a high arcane check. Same scenario comes up, DM calls for an arcane check. Another player raises their hands, confused....but in the last game that was a history check, sorry I'm confused. And now the lines blur more between skills. And then over lots of campaigns and games in the dnd metaverse where two skills have been used for the exact same scenario again and again, it gets blurred even more for online discussions.

I think that's a natural consequence of DMs using skills to help with the fun of their players.

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

Frankly this question is impossible to answer without explicitly knowing what type of play you are specifically doing for your game.

At our table? Perception is by no means an "s-tier" skill despite what others in this thread have said. If anything Diplomacy is probably the highest skill. But we do not do dungeon crawls. We also do not allow perception checks to find hidden clues or traps because that is literally the point of Investigation. Other tables may vary.

If your DM is running a Gygaxian meat grinder? Well, first of all, my condolences to you because that sounds like a nightmare and absolutely terrible game to me. But in such a situation Diplomacy or any other sort of roleplaying skill is utterly worthless because the base assumption of such a game is only combat and loot matters. Frankly in such a game Stealth is near useless as well because even if the party's stealthy member tries to stealth ahead ultimately the answer will always be the same: a room filled with monsters and/or dangerous traps. All stealth actually does in such games is either get the rogue killed when he fails the stealth roll or waste the rest of the party's time as they twiddle their thumbs waiting to ultimately just kick in the next door and roll for initiative anyway.

If you're doing a wilderness crawl? Survival is king and again roleplaying essentially doesn't matter that vast majority of the time.

Are you doing a political intrigue game? Best hope you have Diplomacy, Deception, Insight, and/or Sleight of Hand, or at the very least no fear of potentially failing dice checks; otherwise you're just going to sitting against the walls of every fancy ballroom (like the coward of a wallflower that you are) watching the Charisma characters do all the work and have all the fun. Don't just do what your character is "good at" and avoid the rest, folks. It's obnoxious and makes your DM want to pull out their hair. Failure and luck are a part of the game!

Does your DM allow players to blatantly metagame? Congrats, all Intelligence checks are now worthless! Otherwise, Arcana, Nature, History, and Religion are all amazingly useful skills that essentially allow you to gain insights and information about the DM's world that actually open up roleplaying or combat options otherwise your character would likely not be aware of. Again, unless you are cheating and using knowledge your character shouldn't have.

Does your DM (stupidly) allow spell casters to hide/conceal spells with sleight of hand/deception? If so either skill is WAY better (and certain abilities like Subtle spell are then made completely worthless).

Even the very ruleset you are using matters. Are you playing 2024? Athletics and Acrobatics are less useful because of the changed rules to Grapple/Shove.

This question isn't really possible to be answered reliably or consistently without limiting the scope of the question. Even my own 5 different campaigns using the same ruleset and house rules, I would have wildly different orders for skills for each game. It also completely ignores tools and languages. In a game where the DM actually allows downtime for crafting I would much rather have alchemist tools or smiths tools than sleight of hand. In a game where the DM actually uses different languages I'd rather have extra known languages than most of other skills. Sure I could use the comprehend languages or tongues spell, but the same argument could be made for borrowed knowledge with skills, or using downtime to train. And that is before taking into mind any sort of specific character you wish to build. To a character who is pitched as a chef/cook or runs an inn? Cook's Utensils and Brewer's supplies are the two most useful and important skills/tools. What is "s-tier" is not universal to every character.

 

[BenjaminPey]

For me the best skills are the ones the current characters are proficient with. I've seen and DMed games where Performance was king. Well, maybe not king. Prince.
Same with Animal handling, Survival, and Investigation.
So, my rankings will follow this method: how easy is it to come up with scenarios wherer said skill is checked?

S-tier: super easy, almost all scenes could have one check
Perception
Investigation

A-tier: quite easy. Every campaigns will have multiples of them.
Arcana
History
Nature
Survival
Animal Handling
Acrobatics
Athletics
Persuasion
Stealth

B-tier: not that hard. They will be common in some campaigns, rarer in others.
Religion (because in a strange place between Arcana and History)
Sleight of hand (rare if you don't have a rogue or a bard in the party)
Deception (because many players are reluctant to use it, others love it)
Intimidation (same)
Performance (because very DM-dependent; I tend to use it a lot, though)