D&D 5E Some thoughts on skills.

[Tonguez]

Personally, I'd like to see weapon* and armor** use become skills. Maybe magic*** too. I miss the like of the fighter's quick attack advancement and just being better in melee combat than the other classes.

* I'd go with groups, like Blades, Axes, Bludgeons, Bows, etc. rather than individual weapons.
** Being proficient with armor in this case would let you add your PB to AC, and maybe allow for certain stunts, along the lines of Shield Bash/Rush and such
*** Probably broken down into groups, such as Abjuration, Necromancy, Earth, Geomancy and the like. Could make skill checks replace save DCs (caster becomes active, needing to beat enemy's static save DC) and Spell Attack rolls.

This is exactly the system Ive been thinking about, havent got down to refining it yet, but spell techniques and traditions are evolving

 

[Clint_L]

Every day, we stray yet further from the light of objective skill DCs. That's just a return to 2e background professions with arguably even less rules.

Yes, exactly. Less rules is good.

 

[clearstream]

At least according to the poll I put up recently, Skills are the single most agreed upon mechanic for D&D. Thinking about the way 5E uses skills, I would like to propose some ideas for how I think they could be better utilized in the game.
1) Skills need to be defined as a specific thing, not treated as an afterthought of an ability check.
2) Skills need to be disconnected from ability scores. there is already a rule that makes this possible, but it needs to be explicit.
3) there should be a penalty (disadvantage? -2?) for using any skill untrained.
4) Skills need to inherently outweigh ability scores on the d20 roll.
5) the skill list needs to be expanded and more skill points need to be provided to all characters.
6) Backgrounds should determine how many base skill points you get, modified by class.
7) Tool proficiencies need to go away and having or not having the right tools should modify skill checks.

In addition, this is a more general rule, but I think advantage and disadvantage should stack from different sources and cancel each other out on a one for one basis, AND if more than 1 "level" of advantage or disadvantage remains, you roll multiple additional dice and take the bester/worst of all of them.

EDIT: For clarity, I am "liking" posts because I am glad people are engaged in the topic, not necessarily becaaue I agree with you lot.

8) A set of default DCs should be given for each skill.

 

[Minigiant]

On Tool Proficiency.

Tool Proficiency was more or less Lower Tier and Lesser used skills like Profession and Forgery.

These skills are really not worth returning unless you group skills by tiers.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Personally, I'd like to see weapon* and armor** use become skills. Maybe magic*** too. I miss the like of the fighter's quick attack advancement and just being better in melee combat than the other classes.

* I'd go with groups, like Blades, Axes, Bludgeons, Bows, etc. rather than individual weapons.
** Being proficient with armor in this case would let you add your PB to AC, and maybe allow for certain stunts, along the lines of Shield Bash/Rush and such
*** Probably broken down into groups, such as Abjuration, Necromancy, Earth, Geomancy and the like. Could make skill checks replace save DCs (caster becomes active, needing to beat enemy's static save DC) and Spell Attack rolls.

So a long time ago I played around using the old VtM system + feats for D&D which is very similar in some respects to what you have proposed here. Introduce Archery + Melee and Spell Schools for Disciplines. And add feats for the cool powers.

 

[Stormonu]

On Tool Proficiency.

Tool Proficiency was more or less Lower Tier and Lesser used skills like Profession and Forgery.

These skills are really not worth returning unless you group skills by tiers.

Don't agree, but as I was redoing the skill list I realized that tools don't have a uniform ability score they would be tied to. For example Land Vehicle would probably use Dexterity, whereas Carpentry Tools might use Intelligence or Strength.

 

[amethal]

Cross Class skills penalty just rubbed me the wrong way if I'm to be quite honest. And I just liked the condensed/combined skill list makes applying skill points less annoying.

I also like that you can get extra class skills, through the use of traits.

I wasn't sad to see the back of skill synergy, although for some reason you still get +1 AC when fighting defensively / using full defence if you have 3 ranks in Acrobatics. Maybe they just missed that one.

 

[Pedantic]

I also like that you can get extra class skills, through the use of traits.

I wasn't sad to see the back of skill synergy, although for some reason you still get +1 AC when fighting defensively / using full defence if you have 3 ranks in Acrobatics. Maybe they just missed that one.

Probably because it wasn't listed under the skill synergy rules heading specifically, but just as a weird quirk of Tumble.

I've been thinking about a 3esque skill system lately...should classes give you skill points as a class ability? I'm imagining say a rogue that (in addition to their open skill choices) gets 2 skill points a level to spend on Sleight of Hand, Disable Device and Stealth, ensuring they will have two of those maxed. Then you can do an archetype or subclass connected one to skill up a burglar or con man or whatever. Combine that with earlier skill check modifying class abilities, like Taking 10 under stressful situations, or even Fantasy Craft's "any roll of less than Level+20 in this skill becomes level+20" and you could move more of a class' expected skill roll contribution ot the class chassis itself, and make skill selection more of a character driving customized thing.

 

[amethal]

Probably because it wasn't listed under the skill synergy rules heading specifically, but just as a weird quirk of Tumble.

I've been thinking about a 3esque skill system lately...should classes give you skill points as a class ability? I'm imagining say a rogue that (in addition to their open skill choices) gets 2 skill points a level to spend on Sleight of Hand, Disable Device and Stealth, ensuring they will have two of those maxed. Then you can do an archetype or subclass connected one to skill up a burglar or con man or whatever. Combine that with earlier skill check modifying class abilities, like Taking 10 under stressful situations, or even Fantasy Craft's "any roll of less than Level+20 in this skill becomes level+20" and you could move more of a class' expected skill roll contribution ot the class chassis itself, and make skill selection more of a character driving customized thing.

For my own fantasy heartbreaker, I'm not currently using skill points - you just pick some skills to be trained in (I think that's what Star Wars Saga edition did).

And whilst the Rogue entry might say something like "pick any 8 skills from the following list" (there are all kinds of rogues, after all), the wizard entry says "you get Arcana, plus any 3 of the following". Similalrly with Bards and Perform.

Basically if there is a skill a class needs to operate properly then I don't see the point of making it optional. Just give it to them.

 

[Minigiant]

Don't agree, but as I was redoing the skill list I realized that tools don't have a uniform ability score they would be tied to. For example Land Vehicle would probably use Dexterity, whereas Carpentry Tools might use Intelligence or Strength

The issue is that tools are a lot more niche.