D&D 5E Should each class get its own version of expertise?

[Tectuktitlay]

Yup...this is like the Variant rule using flexible ability mods for actions. If it makes sense to use Wisdom or Intelligence, that may work out. The one that gets thorny is for intimidate. For some, allowing Strength bonus to intimidate seems pretty logical. "I grit my teeth, scowl and flex my muscles while cracking my knuckles." But...substituting Strength for Charisma is a huge bonus for most fighter types.

But there's actually nothing particularly wrong with having that huge a bonus for a pretty limited skill. It makes a lot of sense for an incredibly stupid, mind-numbingly uncharismatic, 6'8", 275 lbs of muscle brute to be REALLY FREAKING INTIMIDATING the moment they bring their prodigious strength to bear, and suck royally at anything else relying on their force of personality. Even just a side-eyed sneer by someone that physically massive can provoke a fearful response.

So I see zero problems with allowing Intimidate to work with Strength instead of Charisma.

Isn't the least bit thorny, imho.

 

[Tectuktitlay]

I do the same about Knowledge checks.

But I don't actually see the issue you mention. It is not at all a problem that a Wizard (or a Rogue) knows a little bit more than a Cleric, when they are all trained in Religion. Why shouldn't the char with higher Int learn faster than the char with lower Int? There is nothing that makes a Cleric inherently more entitled at Knowledge (Religion). The Cleric could be inherently entitled on knowledge about her own religion, but not the religions of others.

Well...here is where it gets dicey, imho: You are basically forcing clerics to be focused on Wisdom, because their core mechanic, spellcasting, uses Wisdom. You are immediately putting any cleric that wishes to be on par with the other characters from a mechanical sense into a Wisdom bottleneck. You are saying, from the get-go, that all clerics are going to be more insightful, more perceptive, better with animals, better at medicine, and better at survival. Across the board. Just like all wizards will be better than clerics at religious knowledge if they are equally trained, simply because there is a severely strong incentive to not pump your Intelligence as a cleric.

The problem is that you are, right out of the gate, eliminating a ton of very common types of characters throughout fiction, and throughout history for that matter. Because clerics, to function properly within the mechanical framework of the game, really have to invest in being wise. Else, they'll be hamstringing themselves, like a fighter trying to work with a 10 Strength (assume a non-finesse fighter). Can such a fighter do stuff in the world, including succeed in combat? Sure. But they are going to be dramatically worse at it than a fighter who has invested in Strength.

And actually, I think you are wrong about how someone versed in religion, even mostly their own, would not be better at understanding other religions inherently.

It's like language. Linguists get a few disparate languages under their belt, a core language from a region of the world, and they hit a flashpoint of being able to swiftly learn new languages with commonalities with all the languages they do understand. By virtue of understanding the foundation of how language tends to work to begin with.

Similarly, a person well-versed in their own religion, or more likely in a handful of disparate religions, will have a much better idea what to expect from any new religion they come across, than the most intelligent of individuals who are not particularly well-versed in religious studies.

 

[mrpopstar]

While I agree with you about what passive checks are meant to be used for, this comment isn't actually accurate:

If you are using passive checks for expediency, the difference between a +0 modifier and a +5 modifier when attempting a DC 10 task is that the former fails if disadvantaged during the attempt, but the latter still succeeds.

LOL Sure.

If you rely on passive ability scores for the sake of expediency, there's no difference between a +0 modifier and a +5 modifier when attempting an easy (DC 10) task (unless the ability check is modified by a special situation, which is an exception-based consideration, but is important nonetheless).

Yeah?

 

[Rhenny]

I don't really like passive checks. I avoid them as much as possible. If I need to use them, I never use a static DC. I roll d20 behind the screen to determine the DC. That way, even a high passive score isn't fool proof, and once in a while even the plundering moron will have success.

 

[Li Shenron]

Because clerics, to function properly within the mechanical framework of the game, really have to invest in being wise. Else, they'll be hamstringing themselves, like a fighter trying to work with a 10 Strength (assume a non-finesse fighter). Can such a fighter do stuff in the world, including succeed in combat? Sure. But they are going to be dramatically worse at it than a fighter who has invested in Strength.

IMHO, here's your first misconception. You don't really need that much Wis, not nearly as much as you needed it in 3e, where the Wis score put a hard limit on the level of spells you could cast (if you didn't have 19, you would never cast 9th level spells in 3e), and determined the number of spells slots per day. Those are gone in 5e. Now the spellcasting score only affects how many spells per day you can prepare, and the save DC. They are of course important, but you don't need a necessarily high score unless you're focusing on offensive spells. [I played an 8-Int Wizard in 5e, and her only serious problem was that at low levels she really could prepare only 1 spell per day, so she was all about Sleep+cantrips]

And actually, I think you are wrong about how someone versed in religion, even mostly their own, would not be better at understanding other religions inherently.

It's like language. Linguists get a few disparate languages under their belt, a core language from a region of the world, and they hit a flashpoint of being able to swiftly learn new languages with commonalities with all the languages they do understand. By virtue of understanding the foundation of how language tends to work to begin with.

Similarly, a person well-versed in their own religion, or more likely in a handful of disparate religions, will have a much better idea what to expect from any new religion they come across, than the most intelligent of individuals who are not particularly well-versed in religious studies.

And IMHO this is also a misconception. A Cleric is a priest that generally doesn't care about any other religion than her own, just like a Wizard could only worry about her own spells, in fact in 5e Clerics aren't automatically proficient with Knowledge(Religion) and Wizards aren't automatically proficient with Knowledge(Arcana). 5e went a long way separating proficiencies from classes for good reasons. You still have class proficiencies to choose from, to represent what they are more commonly proficient, but none of them is strictly necessary, especially when you consider how those Knowledge checks are really used in the majority of games, which is to gain clues rather to directly win a combat or challenge.

You are right in saying that "it's like language", but your misconception is that "Linguist" is not a class but pretty much a set of language proficiencies, and so is "Scholar" i.e. a set of Knowledge proficiency. There is also the "Sage" background and a feat for that. The Cleric class is not that, even though it offers you the Religion skill (and some more) as a choice.

If Wizards are on average more intelligent, it means they are naturally more efficient at learning any academic knowledge than anyone, period. They are just faster readers than Clerics on average. Why should all low-Dex Rogues be better acrobats than high-Dex non-Rogues? If they are the kind of Rogues that use dexterity every day, then this would be represented by a high Dex in the first place, and so the scholarly Cleric would also have (or develop) high Int.

 

[GreyLord]

I can see both sides of the point.

If it were a limited thing, and NOT the expertise of a Rogue, I think the Rogue may still have it's niche protection. Part of the reason for Expertise as I see it, is because the senseless reduction of the Rogue's key arena in prior editions. Individuals would think Rogues were not needed or useless because they could replicate anything a Rogue could do with another class.

Expertise makes it so the Rogue is the skill expert.

Rogues also were able to be the trapfinder, lockpicker, pickpocket, and other Theif/Rogue type ideals in AD&D. However, in later editions this wasn't necessarily always the fact. With Expertise, the Rogue has the option to become the default on these, as with their intial skill choices, the Rogue is more likely to have expertise in a field that is a traditional Rogue field if the player has that desire.

If we limit the other classes to things like this to ONE area or ONE skill where they could do the same thing as expertise, but with that ONE skill only, I don't see a problem. Perhaps the Cleric could have that as Religion, the Ranger as Survival, the Barbarian as Intimidate.

That also allows those classes to accentuate what has been their forte in the past. It's goes along with how their classes were described, and allows them excel in checks.

If one simply says, if you have the skill you succeed, I see it as also undermining the Rogue. What's the purpose of expertise if you never roll skill checks in the first place? If you ONLY make the Rogue roll, the Rogue will soon feel that you are unfairly applying skill checks to Rogue skills and no one else.

Having a VERY limited idea of Expertise for other classes in their traditional skill focuses means that skill rolls and expertise still have value, but that each class also has their traditional areas where they are the best...remaining.

On the otherhand, I can see a problem with this. Who decides what skills represent each class? What is to prevent a fighter from saying...this should be applied to their Attack bonuses or Weapon Proficiencies? Afterall, the argument could be made that this is where the Fighter has traditionally excelled, and I've seen it as a complaint in regards to Bounded accuracy occasionally (the old, wizard gets the same weapon proficiency bonus as martials type thing).

What if one doesn't agree intimidation is the Barbarian skill, or Religion isn't a cleric arena (as we have actually already seen in this very thread). Furthermore, doesn't this start to undermine Bounded Accuracy if we grant everyone a way to do this, even if it's a limited basis.

Why didn't we just go with a +4 to +12 in the first place, if this is the case.

I can see the benefits of the idea where you apply a type of expertise ability to key skills for a class and I think it has merit. I also can see how this can disrupt the spirit of Bounded accuracy and especially start trouncing on the Rogue's key arena.

At the end of the day, I think if I had to make the choice, a LIMITED form of what the OP suggests doesn't trouble me. I would rather have the option to do so, or MORE options available, than less. I think it will be difficult to decide exactly WHAT skills or abilities that applies to, and in some ways it could be controversial. For that reason I think it would be fine to houserule such an idea, or if WotC wants, to suggest it as an option, but I'm not certain applying it in the official rules is the best idea for a default class setting.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

I'm in total agreement. One (or maybe two) class-defining skills would be perfectly appropriate to grant expertise without stepping on the toes of the Rogue or Bard. In fact, I love this idea and may adopt it.

 

[TheLoneRanger1979]

A number of posts in other threads mention randomness in D&D, and how that might be off-putting to some, and in some situations it just plain goes against the story.

For example, someone used the example of the cleric that has a 10 intelligence. For that cleric, even at mid level, his trained religion check would be only a 13 or 14 while even an untrained wizard of the same level would most likely be equal to or better (depending on Intelligence score of course). This is only one example, but many others exist.

So, should each class have an expertise mechanic (like the rogue or bard) so that key checks can double the proficiency bonus? (Like Fighters can pick from Athletics, Acrobatics, Intimidate; Rangers pick from Animal Handling, Perception, Survival, Nature, etc.) Perhaps choosing 1 every 4 or 5 levels?

Or, should there be a feat that grants a few so that anyone can gain expertise if the table uses feats?

Or, should a DM just let PCs that seem to have key requisites succeed without rolling at all? (i.e Cleric with training in Religion should be able to automatically succeed on a DC 10 Religion check -

What are some other options people have to address these situations where a PCs should be better in a key proficiency?

As i mentioned in a previous thread about attack bonuses, it is my general feeling that training should matter more then raw talent, both in skill checks and attack checks (damage checks can be a different discussion). As such i would either favor a flatter bonus from ability scores when compared to proficiency bonus, or some kind of expertise points that could be applied to some skill/attack checks based on class (a la 2E). Probably a bit of both actually, as i think having 2-3 options to go with your expertise points per class will give otherwise same-ish "class builds" more customizing options AND more chance to define a concept, but a flatter ability bonus to prevent a low (or no) level character outmatching a trained specialist "just because" they have a high relevant ability and no training in the said skill at all.