D&D 5E Skills: Religion, Arcana and History

[Don Durito]

Heh, there is just one skill called ‘lore’: Intelligence!

Just like Athletics...aka "Strength".

 

[Charlaquin]

Since some time, I have deleted the Religion skill. It is either redundant with Arcana for planar knowledge or else redundant with History for cultural beliefs and customs.

I don’t see this redundancy. Cultural beliefs and customs are more the subject of anthropology than history. I use history as the knowledge skill for historical events, and religion as the skill for cultural practices and beliefs about prehistoric events.

 

[S'mon]

I generally let players roll on any relevant-looking skill and not worry about overlap. Arcana tends to be more powerful than History but it works ok.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I have found that using the Variant Ability Score variant rule has increased the amount of times the traditional "knowledge" skills get used in my games, as now many interactions with people from the fields of arcana, religion, and nature get made with CHA (Arcana), CHA (Religion) and CHA (Nature) checks.

I think your re-categorization will work well for you, but if you were looking for additional ways to use Religion, CHA (Religion) checks for interacting with religious workers or individuals could also give you more options.

 

[gyor]

History can include rescent history, so you can use it like streetwise, in addition to historical knowledge factiods.

Arcana in addition to using it to know spells, it would know the laws of magic.

Religion knows scriptures, what they mean, the underlying philosophies of religions, symbols. So if you character can figure out what the moral action in a situation would be have them make a religion check. Other uses sermons, both mortal and immortal hierarchies of Gods, the domains of Gods (as opposed to the less deified regions of the planes), crafting holy symbol and temples.

 

[Yaarel]

For me,

History includes sociology, anthropology, archeology, popculture, knowing ones way around town, and whos who.

Insight includes psychology, motives, ideals, alignments, bonds, flaws, and empathy.

 

[ChaosOS]

Generally speaking I'm not a fan of knowledge rolls... If I want player/characters to know something, I'll tell them. If I don't, I don't. To me a good knowledge system would tie into the setting & background system, where different backgrounds would give different collection of knowledges. Give "smart" classes (aka Wizard) bonus selections, while still spreading the love for who knows things. The war-vet fighter knows different things than the scholarly cleric who knows different things from the street-smart rogue.

 

[Maxperson]

To me Arcana is for knowledge of arcane forces and areas, spells, dragons and other magical creatures, etc. Religion would be specifically for things pertaining to religions and gods, as well as angels and demons, and undead. History is for those things which fall into history classes. Ruins, old books, cultural artifacts, etc.

I could not get rid of religion. It's used more than arcana and history combined.