D&D 5E There's one thing about 5E I don't like...

[Jeff Carlsen]

Even before getting the DMG, replacing proficiency with a simple skill point system would be easy. Multiple the number of skills you have proficiency in by your proficiency bonus. You have that many skill points that you can place into skills. No skill can have more points than your proficiency bonus, and you get more skill points whenever your proficiency bonus increases.

My hope is that the DMG has weapon groups roughly equal to skills, so that it's easy to use skill points for all weapons, skills, tools, and saves.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I'm contemplating a house rule that says, "Once every X levels (haven't decided how often), you can choose to devote time to study other than combat techniques. You gain proficiency in one skill of your choice, but do not gain hit points or a hit die for this level."

As I said, though, still contemplating. I haven't worked through balance or other ramifications yet.

 

[Viridian]

My big issue with the skill system is that it doesn't scale well with party size. In a small party, you really feel any skills that aren't covered by someone in the group, and probably don't have the resources to devote to skill boosting abilities. In a larger party, not only do you probably have everything covered, but you probably have enough coverage that you have someone to "help" with nearly every ability check, and someone in the party has probably taken Guidance. Suddenly you go from making straight ability checks to making nearly every ability check with advantage and having an additional 1d4 added to nearly every check. Not only does this make most of them superfluous, it adds an extra layer of annoyance as every ability check is either handwaived by the dm to include the extra bonuses, or requires that every ability check comes down to reminding people to help you. You end up with a system where skill checks are important in a small party, and mostly an annoyance in a large one.