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

[Maxperson]

15-17 History, Religion, Nature mostly just lore dumps, what can Nature do that Survival can't?

A ton. Survival tells you nothing about plants, terrain lore, animals, the weather, and natural cycles. Survival is for things like hunting, avoid hazards like quicksand, etc.

 

[Maxperson]

Giving it a bit of thought, I would rule it something like this:

Action - Force Morale. Make an Intimidate check DC=8+ the CR of bloodied opponents. If successful, opponents have the Frightened condition. If opponents are already Frightened, they surrender/flee (DM's option).

Or, you might add in the Wisdom DC 10 saving throw after the Force Morale check. If the target saves, it's not Frightened. Frightened targets have disadvantage on the save.

That would largely solve a lot of the problems IMO.

I get the appeal of a system like this, but it really wouldn't work for me.

I'm one of those DMs who looks at 1) who the person(s) being intimidated are, 2) who the PCs are, and 3) the circumstances of the moment.

Going with number 1, Obolg the Fearless, champion of the king, will not be intimidated by a group of 5th level yokels. Breegan, one of the king's guard puts on a brave face, but has a deep down cowardly streak. Not only would that 5th level group have a chance to intimidate him, but he probably won't even need to be bloodied, though that would make it easier for sure.

Then I check number 2. A first level group isn't going to be nearly as impressive as 10th level heroes of the realm. It would be hard for them to stare down an ogre, but the 10th level group might not even have to roll.

The last check deals with the circumstances of the moment. Even Obolg the Fearless might run if the king is dead and the castle is burning and collapsing around him.

I don't want to be constrained to needing NPCs to be bloodied before intimidate can work. Nor do I want to be constrained to needing the NPCs to be frightened before they will surrender or flee.

 

[Maxperson]

Not really since, by RAW, any attempt to find secret doors, traps or anything "hidden" comes under Perception. Investigation only comes into play if there is something tricky about how to open/disarm/somehow monkey with whatever it was that you perceived in the first place.

IOW, you will always need perception. Investigate? Not so much.

Depends on how you run the skills. For me perception is to notice things right out of the gate. You walk into a room and look around, do you see the trapdoor outline under the rug. If no and you search the room, you roll investigation. During your investigation you might lift the rug and find the trapdoor.

I use both skills very heavily in game play.

 

[Maxperson]

In one of my groups there is a player who regularly plays a Barbarian or Tough guy fighter and he always dumps Charisma and has no Charisma skills, yet he always wants to be the guy talking in every social encounter.

DM: "Ok roll Persuasion to see if you can convince the townsfolk the suspect is innocent and not to burn her"
PC: "I rolled a 10 minus 1 for my Charisma so that is a 9"
Meanwhile my Rouge is sitting there with a +11 and Reliable talent and banging her head on her hand.

It can be rather frustrating.

That's excellent roleplaying. People very rarely sit silently while one person does all of the talking everywhere they go. Everyone likes to talk and interact, even those with low charisma scores.

Critical Role does it very well. They all talk and interact with people, but often there are low charismas and untrained persuasion checks being rolled. Sometimes they have negatives to the d20 roll. Great roleplaying.

 

[Tonguez]

A ton. Survival tells you nothing about plants, terrain lore, animals, the weather, and natural cycles. Survival is for things like hunting, avoid hazards like quicksand, etc.

I'd put weather prediction, terrain lore, wayfinding, finding water, identifying edible/medicinal/poisonous plants and knowing cycles under Survival - If I'm in the wilderness hunting then I need to know where its safe to go, what the weather is doing, what plants I can eat and what to avoid, where the animals are going to be, etc etc all so I dont die.

Maybe I dont know that the Sekwaka Tree thrives in limey soils and tend to grow in clusters of 7 to 15 plants, but survival lets me know if I can eat its fruit when theyre yellow but not when they develop purple spots

 

[Horwath]

Depends on how you run the skills. For me perception is to notice things right out of the gate. You walk into a room and look around, do you see the trapdoor outline under the rug. If no and you search the room, you roll investigation. During your investigation you might lift the rug and find the trapdoor.

I use both skills very heavily in game play.

I would say that Perception cannot be "circumvented" by clever roleplay. You either notice something or you dont.

Investigation can be worked around.

If there is a secret door under the carpet and someone says I lift the carpet and the door is not expertly hidden they will "find" it.
No need to ask for Investigation.

Investigation is rolled when someone says; I search everywhere in the room and it's without any focus or idea what needs to be searched for.


Similar to some social checks;

if there is some info gathering at the tavern, that roleplay with patrons will usually not require a charisma check as long as questions are somewhat regular. Something more spicy might require a check.

On the other hand, if the players want to skip the "boring" part of taverns(I don't know why they would want that...), and get to the next thing on the list, one can always ask for Persuasion check to see what was found out in a tavern of two.
If they spend few gold on buying drinks they can get an advantage on Persuasion roll for gathering information.

 

[FrogReaver]

Kind of feels like survival and nature should be one skill.

 

[Maxperson]

I'd put weather prediction, terrain lore, wayfinding, finding water, identifying edible/medicinal/poisonous plants and knowing cycles under Survival - If I'm in the wilderness hunting then I need to know where its safe to go, what the weather is doing, what plants I can eat and what to avoid, where the animals are going to be, etc etc all so I dont die.

Maybe I dont know that the Sekwaka Tree thrives in limey soils and tend to grow in clusters of 7 to 15 plants, but survival lets me know if I can eat its fruit when theyre yellow but not when they develop purple spots

That's a house rule, though. lore is explicitly Nature. By RAW, nature is used to know about that fruit.

If you look at the skills, Survival would let you know that there is quicksand in front of you and help you avoid it. That's it. Nature would let you know if there's likely to be more in the area, how deep quicksand is likely to be in terrain like this, how long it takes to sink, what the best ways to get someone out of quicksand are, and so on.

Nature is knowledge about natural things. Survival is just hunting, avoidance, other natural things that don't involve knowledge about nature.

You have blended the two into survival to the point of making Nature useless and that's fine, but it's not how the skills are supposed to be used as written.

 

[Maxperson]

Kind of feels like survival and nature should be one skill.

I don't agree. The differences are distinct enough and we already have too much blending of skills. Getting rid of one more wouldn't be a good idea.

 

[Maxperson]

I would say that Perception cannot be "circumvented" by clever roleplay. You either notice something or you dont.

Investigation can be worked around.

If there is a secret door under the carpet and someone says I lift the carpet and the door is not expertly hidden they will "find" it.
No need to ask for Investigation.

Investigation is rolled when someone says; I search everywhere in the room and it's without any focus or idea what needs to be searched for.

So if the outline of the trapdoor was possible to be seen in the rug and the perception failed, you would not allow the PC to lift the rug and find the trapdoor? But if it wasn't possible to see and the investigation failed and the PC wanted to lift the rug, you'd allow it?