D&D 5E Skill Ranking

[Minato]

In my experience the line between Acrobatics and Athletics gets blurred most annoyingly.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I'm in the camp that any skill will be just as useful as the table - especially, the DM - allows/wants it to be. Some will certainly come up more than others during play but that doesn't mean, IMO, that any of them are necessarily "useless" or "the worst".

I think this is highly group dependent. The DM and players are empowered to make any skill relevant and valuable.

This. The players are free to have their PCs attempt most any activity in an effort to achieve some goal. Assuming there is a chance for failure/success and a meaningful consequence to failure, any ability check can be called for by the DM. And if the DM calls for just an ability and encourages the player to choose the skill, all the more likely that a broader array of skills will come into play.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but I do think some of this is DM specific. (While also acknowledging that I've absolutely seen DMs who run the way you've described.)

In my games, Arcana covers magical processes and creation, Religion covers pretty much anything extraplanar or otherwordly, and History covers everything to do with current or past material world civilizations. There isn't a ton of overlap, and I often don't allow checks unless the character is proficient.

Likewise with Acrobatics; most DMs in my groups are very firm that Acrobatics can NOT be used for climbing, jumping more than a small amount of height, or swimming.

I agree here. Perhaps some DMs make assumptions for what skills mean - maybe even assumptions held over from playing prior editions - rather than leaning on the rules/guidance provided in the 5e DMG.

The worst skill, by far, is perception. It’s so overused it’s a meme. Save me from referees who make you roll perception for everything and players trained to automatically roll perception for everything.

This is a really good point, too. Again, DM specific where some DMs are leaning on their own definition of Perception rather than what the game calls for... namely spotting/hearing/detecting the presence of something that is concealed, obscured, or otherwise not obvious (examples in the DMG include: conversation through a closed door, eavesdropping on a hushed discussion, spotting stealthy creatures). Perception should never be used to set up gotchas for things that should otherwise be obvious to competent adventurers - obvious things that should be given as part of the description of a scene per Part 1 of the Play Loop.


All that said, I will concede that not all skills are evenly weighted b/c some are a bit more niche (say, Medicine or Animal Handling) while others are broader in application (like Perception or Athletics). It may makes sense for a skill system to segment accordingly, much like 2024 has done with Feats (Origin vs General) and/or like 2014/2024 have done with Saves (the big 3 of Dex/Con/Wis vs the minor 3 of Str/Int/Cha).