Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Get Better At Skills With These Feats

The latest Unearthed Arcana from Jeremy Crawford and again featuring guest writer Robert J. Schwalb introduces a number of feats which make you better at skills. Each increases the skill's primary ability score, doubles your proficiency bonus, and gives you a little bonus ability. "This week we introduce new feats to playtest. Each of these feats makes you better at one of the game’s eighteen skills. We invite you to read them, give them a try in play, and let us know what you think in the survey we release in the next installment of Unearthed Arcana."

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[Ovinomancer]

That's cool, your players had fun and that was a cool way to run that lock.

Really speaking, it's just a difference in playstyle my players still have fun even if they are automatically making skill checks. I don't have any players that can make a DC 20 check automatically, at most it is just the DC 10 checks for stealth and lockpicking which only the rogue can make automatically at the moment although she isn't coming up against many enemies with a DC 10 passive perception, most seem to be a couple of points higher requiring her to roll and of course opposed checks can show up as well.

Ah, still low level, then. Expertise works fine until you hit around +4 proficiency bonus, then it become apparent that it's breaking down the bounded accuracy assumptions. Especially on opposed skill checks.

 

[Monayuris]

I disagree with both assertions. I dont think we need more examples of what mormal skill usage entails as I like it being nebulous (with a few exceptions) and left for tha DM and players to define wiithin the parameters of their campaign...

I also think the special abilities of optional feats dovetail with this nicely... if what we would consider superhuman feats are already allowed by the DM through regular usge of skills... well then he just disallows skill feats because they are redundant in that particular campaign. However for those of us who don't (which I would argue is probably the majority) well then the skill feats are useful in allowing and regulating that type of skill usage beyond regular proficiency and applications.

Agree. The best move the game made was to explicitly make feats optional. If a group wants to regulate beyond the norm skill usage, feats allow the feats allow them to claim these abilities. If a group wants to run skills in a more nebulous manner, these feats aren't needed.

I'm more on the spectrum of letting skill use be determined based on situation and player imagination. For example, I wouldn't require a martial character (especially with a soldier Calvary background) to need to take a feat to be able to fight effectively while mounted.

i also would probably allow a lot of the beneifts of these skill feats based on the on-game narrative. Except for
the cantrips, which feel tacked on just to 'power up' the feat.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Pretty potent feats but appear to be a lot of fun. The Survivalist one has a lame add'l ability. Should be something akin to finding more food/water or gathering more info from a creature's spoor or the like.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Also, survivalist should get a cantrip in addition to alarm spell.

I suggest Move earth cantrip from Elemental Evil.

That's being saved for the forthcoming Gravedigger feat.

Gravedigger
* You get +1 strength.
* You gain proficiency in with the shovel tool, or you may add double proficiency if you are already proficient with the shovel.
* You can cast the Move Earth Cantrip.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Since this is the Enworld 5e forums, and everything revolves around the sorcerer and warlord: I will say wins for both. The sorcerer can now know more spells, and someone playing one of the pseudo-warlord subclasses can be better at wardlord-y stuff while not getting any better at stabbing people (which makes it a double win).

And speaking of classes that have spawned many threads, animal handler makes the BM ranger's life much better, although it pretty much precludes hunter's mark.

 

[Mistwell]

Maybe they should have something that directly benefits grappling then? Like counting as a size larger when it is beneficial?

That would be a handy way to give gnomes greatswords at least.

Er...how does double proficiency in Athletics not directly benefit grappling?

Oh, you're saying it's a broad benefit that benefits all athletics checks as opposed to just grappling? If so, yeah I can see that. Fair point. I think I will put it in my feedback to the survey on this.

 

[Mistwell]

Oh I didn't mean to imply double proficiency isn't a great feature.

But at the end of the day, its just more numbers.

Double proficiency kind of like the skill version of the +10/-5 combat feats.

And that to me is pretty boring.

But if Brawny is for grapplers, why isn't it called Improved Grappling or something that actually tells you what its designed for instead of smoke screening the intent behind Athletics?

Thats bad design of a different breed.

So how would you re-do these feats? After all, we have an opportunity to comment on them in the survey (and they do seem to listen). I would appreciate commentary. In fact, I often copy advice I like into my survey responses.

 

[Corwin]

I'm particularly curious what other people think about the doubling of proficiency bonuses.

My minor concern, with the way the feats are presented, is the possibility that a PC might already have expertise in a skill before they have access to the feat.

I mean, presume a player wants his rogue to be a great acrobat. So at 1st-level he takes the skill and expertise in it. Then, at 4th-level finally has an opportunity to take the feat. But gets less for his efforts.

EDIT: Now that I've bothered to read the thread, I see others have voiced my same concern. Nevermind...

 

[Hussar]

Ah, I see I misunderstood the medic feat. Limited to one HD? Why? What's the rationale for that? Seems pretty lame to me. If you're going to spend a feat, let the medic max out HD.

 

[Mistwell]

In each case this is 1 ability point, a proficiency, and a nifty ability. Assuming that most of us will have already taken proficiency in the skills we care about, this basically comes down to trading one point of a stat for a nifty ability.

Is that a good trade?

Well assuming you already have proficiency means you get double proficiency. That's how these feats are written. I'd argue that's often the most powerful aspect of these: double proficiency, which is not that common an ability and previously often required multiclassig to get it.