D&D 5E (2024) Skill Mastery as an idea

[Kobold Avenger]

Now that there's Weapon Mastery, what about there being an option like Skill Mastery?

What I envision them being is something like cantrip or weapon mastery, expect that it's a special effect that happens when taking a certain type of action. For example:

Read Opponent
Skill: Insight
Action: Study
Until the beginning of your next turn you a creature you study gets disadvantage on attack rolls against you.

Disrupt Magic
Skill: Arcana
Action: Help
Your help can grant the subject advantage on their next saving throw against a magical effect.

Something that uses a particular skill and a type of action to make an effect or benefit. Maybe some of them require rolls using the skill and some of them don't.

There would be at least one for every skill, and some skills might have more than one mastery associated.

And the idea of how one could get a Skill Mastery is that they may take one in place of a weapon mastery or cantrip.

Could they even be viable as full actions? Unlike weapon mastery it's not with a single attack but a full action, and do they need to be comparable to actual cantrips?

Any more thoughts on this concept?

 

[AlViking]

The concept is fine but Read Opponent sounds an awful lot like the 2014 version True Strike. Too costly to ever be used. If you make it a bonus action it might be too overpowered (I'd have to try it out) and you need to set a DC or opposed check.

Disrupt Magic needs a time limit of some sort. I'd maybe consider a religion check for it as well as the person using the skill is praying fervently for a blessing.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

The concept is fine but Read Opponent sounds an awful lot like the 2014 version True Strike. Too costly to ever be used. If you make it a bonus action it might be too overpowered (I'd have to try it out) and you need to set a DC or opposed check.

Disrupt Magic needs a time limit of some sort. I'd maybe consider a religion check for it as well as the person using the skill is praying fervently for a blessing.

These are initial concepts and I'm quite aware how some of the being actions might not be as powerful.

The initial idea for "Disrupt Magic" was about those continuous "Save to end the effect" spells like Hold Person. Which I probably should have put "before your next turn".

As for a Skill Mastery being attached to more than one skill, that's also a possibility to explore in these concepts.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If it was me... I would not have any Skill Mastery affect combat-related rolls at all. That defeats the purpose of them being specifically about Skills. We already have Weapon Masteries that affect weapon-using characters in combat, and Cantrips that can affect magic-using characters in combat. So combat is taken care of. What Skill Masteries should/would do would be to impact skill checks in the exploration and social pillars.

But to be honest... I'm a DM who just lets players try things in exploration and social situations just as-is and will assign a skill check to the player if I think it's needed. And I don't need "special rules" to allow these opportunities to occur. Once you start introducing Skill Masteries, you begin siloing off specific uses of skills that require Masteries to attempt. Which to me is kinda pointless.

If I want to let a player perform a surgical procedure in the field, I don't want to require a PC to have a Medicine Skill Mastery to do it... I'm just going to let them do it using the standard Medicine skill.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

This sounds somewhat like "Skill Powers" from 4th Edition. Here's a quick summary via ChatGPT.

What Are Skill Powers?​

Alternative to Utility Powers: Instead of taking a class-based utility power, a character can choose a Skill Power tied to one of their trained skills.

• Support Customization: Skill Powers let you express your character’s background, training, and roleplaying concept in mechanics.
• Tiered Design: Available at Heroic, Paragon, and Epic tiers, matching the level range of standard powers.

---

How They Work​

• Prerequisite: You must be trained in the skill associated with the power.
• Use Categories:
  
  • At-Will: Often give passive or constantly usable benefits.
  • Encounter: Typically more impactful or situational.
  • Daily: Provide major advantages but limited use.

---

Examples by Skill​

Here are a few sample Skill Powers to give you a flavor:

• Athletics – Sudden Leap (Encounter): Jump without a running start, often used to escape danger.
• Stealth – Concealed Shift (Encounter): Move and hide in combat.
• Diplomacy – Timely Diplomacy (At-Will): Use Diplomacy to calm enemies and gain bonuses in social situations.
• Arcana – Arcane Mutterings (At-Will): Use Arcana to substitute for Insight or Bluff checks.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

In theory, I really like the concept of Skill Masteries. I wouldn't exclude combat (I could see it opening tactical options like feinting, tumbling, leaping, poisoning, dirty fighting, etc) but I would put more emphasis on the social and exploration pillars. However, that would require social and exploration to have a rules framework that's more like combat. For example, every challenge might have something like hit points (or "failures vs successes" in 4E parlance) that need to be overcome. And that's a whole other kettle of fish with pros and cons. Cool design space but it gets complicated, fast.

 

[Muh]

If it was me... I would not have any Skill Mastery affect combat-related rolls at all. That defeats the purpose of them being specifically about Skills. We already have Weapon Masteries that affect weapon-using characters in combat, and Cantrips that can affect magic-using characters in combat. So combat is taken care of. What Skill Masteries should/would do would be to impact skill checks in the exploration and social pillars.

But to be honest... I'm a DM who just lets players try things in exploration and social situations just as-is and will assign a skill check to the player if I think it's needed. And I don't need "special rules" to allow these opportunities to occur. Once you start introducing Skill Masteries, you begin siloing off specific uses of skills that require Masteries to attempt. Which to me is kinda pointless.

If I want to let a player perform a surgical procedure in the field, I don't want to require a PC to have a Medicine Skill Mastery to do it... I'm just going to let them do it using the standard Medicine skill.

I'm vaguely sympathetic, but the problem is that the reverse situation is also just as likely: What if you have a GM who won't let you do cool things because they argue the things you think are cool are not realistic (or not possible for other reasons)?

This is why spells kick ass and why skills suck. You can't rely on skills because they have no concrete rules and as such you can't reliably use them for anything unless you have an explicitly cooperative GM. Any beginner can pick a wizard and they know that unless there is explicit counter play by the GM that beginner's wizard will be able to cast teleport once he reaches a sufficient class level.

A diagram of the situation is something like this

Player states intent to use spell to do X -> GM says OK -> X happens

Player states intent to use skill to do X -> Complex and uncertain negotiation ensues -> Things might possibly happen... Or not... Who knows?

 

[DEFCON 1]

I'm vaguely sympathetic, but the problem is that the reverse situation is also just as likely: What if you have a GM who won't let you do cool things because they argue the things you think are cool are not realistic (or not possible for other reasons)?

This is why spells kick ass and why skills suck. You can't rely on skills because they have no concrete rules and as such you can't reliably use them for anything unless you have an explicitly cooperative GM. Any beginner can pick a wizard and they know that unless there is explicit counter play by the GM that beginner's wizard will be able to cast teleport once he reaches a sufficient class level.

A diagram of the situation is something like this

Player states intent to use spell to do X -> GM says OK -> X happens

Player states intent to use skill to do X -> Complex and uncertain negotiation ensues -> Things might possibly happen... Or not... Who knows?

I find it is ultimately better to just find a good DM than it is to play a game that requires so many rules to be included in it so that you are always able to be allowed to play no matter what it is you wish to accomplish. A game run by a quality DM trumps any game trying to "protect" players with just rule after rule after rule.

 

[Stalker0]

I'm vaguely sympathetic, but the problem is that the reverse situation is also just as likely: What if you have a GM who won't let you do cool things because they argue the things you think are cool are not realistic (or not possible for other reasons)?

This is why spells kick ass and why skills suck. You can't rely on skills because they have no concrete rules and as such you can't reliably use them for anything unless you have an explicitly cooperative GM. Any beginner can pick a wizard and they know that unless there is explicit counter play by the GM that beginner's wizard will be able to cast teleport once he reaches a sufficient class level.

A diagram of the situation is something like this

Player states intent to use spell to do X -> GM says OK -> X happens

Player states intent to use skill to do X -> Complex and uncertain negotiation ensues -> Things might possibly happen... Or not... Who knows?

If your DM doesn’t run the game in a way you like, more rules won’t help you.

It was the big revelation in 5e. 3e and 4e tried to fix the “bad dm problem” with lots of very codified rule sets covering as many situations as possible.

But with 5e they realized that it just doesn’t work. DMs are the core of the dnd experience, you can’t bypass the dm with rules, you can only try to teach DMs to be better.

And so 5e pulled back the rules quite a bit. The game assumes the dm is constantly making ad hoc rulings based on a more limited ruleset. It’s baked into the 5e slogan “rulings not rules”.

Skills to me is the heart of where that lies. They are basically made for the “hey dm can I do x?” Motif. The more you tried and codify explicit things for them to do, the more you push away from the 5e philosophy

 

[Kobold Avenger]

This sounds somewhat like "Skill Powers" from 4th Edition.

3.5e had "tricks" or something similar that was introduced in some book like Complete Scroundrel. So that's where my thinking sort of came in.