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

[Parmandur]

I'm not going to let someone strongly Stealth. If you want to jump, get the jump skill and don't dump the jump stat. Acrobats would have both skills.

Re perform, are you letting them roll this to basically deceive someone? "I pretend to be the tapestry inspector?" I cant possibly see many other situations where it would come up often otherwise. I don't make people roll to impress the barmaid with their singing.

Mu players like to perform, I mean what can you say...? "No, you can't roll your Skill for the action declaration you made..."?

 

[I'm A Banana]

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 personally think the whole skill subsystem needs to be yeeted. It's such a weird little grab-bag of verbs that all do such different things. 5e24 has Actions for almost everything, and part of me wonders if that's a better foundation for these little character distinctions. And, I think there were some virtues to the Secondary Skills and Proficiencies systems that should make another appearance (for the first, one broadly applicable "is this my vibe?" skill, and for the second, defined things that having the skill allowed you to do that other characters couldn't do).

It was a wonderful innovation in 2000, but it's become clearer to me over the years that, like, Stealth is not something that fits snugly into the "make a check and move on" pacing, and that Knowledge skills like Religion or History should work more by pushing from the DM to the relevant players, not pushing from the players to the DM, and that these aren't really a good fit for the same subsystem.

Athletics ranks very high in games I run because I use a lot of obstacles and terrain. If you can't climb, swim, or do various other Athletics based things, your character is going to struggle at my table.

Athletics is A-tier for me, but there is always room for someone to dump STR and rely on everyone else to get them around. Squishy mages and cloistered clerics and feeble princelings are too fun as character concepts to just rule them out by making everyone an athlete.

 

[Gradine]

I really don't think there's any "self-fulfilling" about it.

Performance checks have never been common in any game I've played. Ever. Doesn't matter what system. I've literally never even heard of a GM calling for lots of performance checks prior to @MostlyHarmless42 saying so just now in this thread.

Likewise, as noted, Intimidate is avoided like the plague for a very, very good reason: huge swathes of GMs view it as the social skill which makes people hate you forever and instantly try to fight against you the moment they aren't under your direct supervision. Like I've personally seen that several times, enough times that I learned, "Oh. Don't take Intimidate. Doesn't matter if I have good Cha and a racial bonus. Never take Intimidate. It'll essentially always screw you over." That has nothing whatsoever to do with its charop potential. In 4e, Intimidate was an extremely highly-rated skill because it had combat applications--and I still saw people avoid it like the plague, very specifically (as in, they told me explicitly) because of their knowledge that GMs actively punish the use of Intimidate as a skill.

This is, in part, why I very much preferred both the skill list, and the explicit rules about how skills were used, from 4e. 4e skills are CHONKY. Getting only four skills in 4e doesn't feel like a huge loss, because every single one actually has lots of uses, even the academic ones like History--and they encourage the GM to be as open-minded as possible. (Ironically, the text for 5e actually isn't super far from 4e on this; it's less strident, but the same idea is there. The vast majority of 5e GMs just.....don't do that, and instead run the skills as though they were carbon-copied from 3e, even when this directly contradicts the text.)

I definitely agree with some of the folks here that there are certain contextual elements that can boost or weaken skills. But we can take an overview across a broad swathe of games, considering how the rules themselves present these things--and some skills, like Perception and Investigation, simply come up far more often than things like Performance or Animal Handling.

Every thing you're talking about here is exactly what I'm saying. It's (a) anecdotal and (b) entirely self-fulfilling. Optimizers go out into the wild and tell stories about how GMs never call for these skills (never mind that skill usage is entirely on the players, if you want your GM to call for Performance or Animal Handling rolls then you need to be out there performing and handling animals) so you should never take those skills, and what do you know, players never take the skills so they don't take actions that would call for those skills so GMs never call for those skills so players never take skills and what do you know we're back in the vicious circle again.

I desperately do not want to start an edition war here because there are lots of things I adore about 4e, but how it handled skills was probably the thing I disliked the most about it. Skills shouldn't be "chonky"; they are the purest representation of who and what your character is and how they interact with the world. For all that the various ways that 3.X&Friends skill system was extremely cumbersome and convoluted, it at least understood that much. Better than even 5e, if we're being honest. And the people who are saying to never take Performance or Animal Handling now are the same people who were saying you should never take a Profession skill. They were wrong then, they are wrong now, and it makes the game worse.

I think Intimidation is an interesting example of a skill that does, genuinely, get a bad rap. I know I avoid it when I make my face characters, generally, but that's more to do with the kinds of characters I'm more likely to play. And I think there's a certain style of adversarial DMing that sees Intimidation as a great excuse to punish players, but that's ultimately a DMing problem, not a character build problem. And again, I think that framing it as a character build problem does more harm than good. It lets those DMs off the hook, almost like saying "you know what, that's fair, I shouldn't ever use this skill, sorry, won't do it again". And that sucks. Is there an Intimidation problem? Yeah, I think there is. Is the solution "just don't ever take that skill"? No, absolutely not.

As someone who has been playing and DMing for decades now, I can honestly say that I can think of plenty of use cases for each and every skill from both a player and DM perspective. And that includes situations where Intimidation would ultimately be the best "social" skill to deploy. There doesn't need to be a skill ranking at all, with of course the notable exception of the game baking in Perception to so many things.

 

[ECMO3]

Thieves Tools were always used for opening locks or disabling traps.

In 2024 it is usually a Slight of Hand Check. Having proficiency in Thieves Tools gives you proficiency on the Slight of Hand check and having proficiency in both the tool and the skill give you advantage.

 

[FrogReaver]

One thing I don’t see discussed very much with skills in general

1. Impact of success vs Frequency
2. Individual or party rolls
3. Downsides to failure

As an example, Perception is almost always rolled by all characters. So even though its impact is solid, there’s too much redundancy there to make it top tier.

Some skills can come up often, while rarely having a big impact on success. Sleight of hand would be a prime example. It also happens to have a potentially very bad fail state.

 

[FrogReaver]

My list

S Tier
Arcana

A Tier
Persuasion

B Tier
Perception
Survival
Insight
Athletics

C Tier
Deception
Nature
Acrobatics
Investigation
Sleight of Hand

D Tier
Animal Handling
Intimidation
Stealth
Religion
History

F Tier
Medicine
Performance

*Note some even D Tier skills can still be very important in specific campaigns.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Skills shouldn't be "chonky"; they are the purest representation of who and what your character is and how they interact with the world.

This is part of what makes me very suspicious of the D&D skill system.

How your character is defined and how they interact with the world? That's HUGE. That's a question that should be answered by your CLASS, the most significant mechanical choice you're making when you are building a character. THAT should define them and how they interact with the world.

D&D's skill system in all of its iterations (even as proficiencies in 2e) feels less designed to be definitional, and more designed to be supplemental. Most of what you do is Wizard, but then you're also maybe sneaky and stealthy, so now you can do a bit of hiding (even if hiding is MOSTLY a Thief thing). Or, you're a Fighter, but here's something you can do when you're not putting swords in things (you can now also know history!). It's a way to round out you character with what they know and can do outside of their big mechanics. Which is genuinely a useful thing, just...not a great home for everything that's been thrown into it over the years.

Is there an Intimidation problem? Yeah, I think there is. Is the solution "just don't ever take that skill"? No, absolutely not.

Intimidation tends to be a trap because DMs tend to resist things that just end their carefully planned encounters with a single die roll. You can't just roll well and have the necromancer-king piss himself, I had a whole fight planned out. No, of course the king doesn't react well to your insinuation that you're going to kick his ass if he doesn't do what you say, why is this the way you're deciding to try and contribute, Joe Pesci? Yes, of course the threat of violence is going to make things violent, and no, threatening torture ISN'T a good way to get information. It's very binary, and honestly making it a skill is mostly just giving people an opportunity to be disappointed that their skill isn't working very well. It also gives players a sort of misanthropic skill that doesn't feel very heroic to use very often.

IMO, the best use for an intimidation mechanic in a typical D&D dungeon crawl is as a way to avoid fights. Successfully intimidate the goblins, they'll leave you alone instead of trying to pick you off. It's kind of a way to force an early morale check. And of course it is easier on weaker creatures and "dumber" creatures.

So kind of like 4e's combat application, but maybe we give "intimidating" people a special trait that says when a character tries to intimidate foes, they need to roll a WIS save or flee.

But to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe, and to allow a character to intimidate a group of grunts out of a fight you must first invent a version of D&D that isn't precious about its fights.

Intimidation isn't very useful when you're up against something that isn't already hostile, so it's not a great fit for the Interaction gameplay. Maybe some niche uses where the hostile parties have a reason to not immediately break into a fight, but that's not an every session kind of situation in D&D. In the cinematic, narrative-heavy style that D&D is often played in, there's not a good opportunity to do an actual intimidation.

 

[Chaltab]

Intimidation isn't very useful when you're up against something that isn't already hostile, so it's not a great fit for the Interaction gameplay. Maybe some niche uses where the hostile parties have a reason to not immediately break into a fight, but that's not an every session kind of situation in D&D. In the cinematic, narrative-heavy style that D&D is often played in, there's not a good opportunity to do an actual intimidation.

I'm not sure that tracks. If something's already hostile then intimidating it is likely to just provoke Initiative rolls unless its outnumbered or obviously outclassed. Intimidate works best against neutral targets that you'd prefer didn't pick a side, IME.

 

[Parmandur]

How your character is defined and how they interact with the world? That's HUGE. That's a question that should be answered by your CLASS, the most significant mechanical choice you're making when you are building a character. THAT should define them and how they interact with the world.

Skills are what make this Elven Wizard different from another Elven Wizard. That's why they come from Background and then a Class based list.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm not sure that tracks. If something's already hostile then intimidating it is likely to just provoke Initiative rolls unless its outnumbered or obviously outclassed. Intimidate works best against neutral targets that you'd prefer didn't pick a side, IME.

Hmmm....not sure I follow.

If the goblins want to kill me, and I say "You all might get lucky enough to kill me, but how many of you will die before you get lucky?", I might be able to Intimidate them into thinking it's a bad idea. They respond, "Yeah. Sod off, then, we ain't seen nothin'."

If the local banditry is pretty neutral about my life, and I call their attention to me and say "You all might get lucky enough to kill me, but how many of you will die before you get lucky?", I'm making a target out of myself. They respond, "The hell are you talking about? We just wanted to take these horses. You wanna be a pincushion or something?"