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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[Oofta]

Doesn't that seem counter to how the skill system and action economy work, in general, though?

Special movement normally requires an Action.

The unwritten rule seems to be that skill checks which are an active thing you do, and which give you a direct benefit on a success, are an Action unless specificied otherwise or unless you've a feature that says otherwise.

I'm just explaining how I handle it. I'm ok with letting my players getting away with some cinematic/creative things if it make sense. Sometimes the dextrous guy can parkour up the wall, sometimes the barbarian can just bull her way through the brambles that should be slowing her down.

A lot of these kind of effects for thing like difficult terrain is just set dressing anyway. Making it a bonus action works too, but I don't always want to get bogged down in action economy. My players tell me what they want to do and I tell them if they can or if they can try (and potentially risk failure). I'm not too worried about running an "official" game for my home campaign, the D&D police haven't knocked on my door. Yet.

 

[Hussar]

I'm just explaining how I handle it. I'm ok with letting my players getting away with some cinematic/creative things if it make sense. Sometimes the dextrous guy can parkour up the wall, sometimes the barbarian can just bull her way through the brambles that should be slowing her down.

A lot of these kind of effects for thing like difficult terrain is just set dressing anyway. Making it a bonus action works too, but I don't always want to get bogged down in action economy. My players tell me what they want to do and I tell them if they can or if they can try (and potentially risk failure). I'm not too worried about running an "official" game for my home campaign, the D&D police haven't knocked on my door. Yet.

But, again, this is perfectly fair for your home game. But, as you say, you're already off the ranch a bit when it comes to adjudicating how skills work. Not that this is bad. I probably do the same thing myself. And no worries.

However, there is a problem here. WotC can't design for your table or my table. They have to design for the game as it's written. And, as written, we're not actually following the rules. Thus, we get these feats.

 

[Oofta]

Umm, you can't really complain about blandness and then come up with a feat that is even more bland. +1 to stat and 2 proficiencies. And this is different from the existing Skill feat how? Oh, right, 3 proficiencies and no stat bump. Not exactly rocking the boat.

Isn't the point of a feat to do something no one else can? Isn't that how most of the feats work? Sharpshooter and GWF. Alert (cannot be surprised), and others. I mean, let's compare to a standard PHB feat shall we:

I never claimed to be a game designer, just that I think these feats are lacking.

Maybe I could think up something better if I spent more than two minutes thinking about it I could come up with something better. If these feats get published as they are and our group wants to use something like them, I probably will.

Now, you're telling me that the acrobatics feat, where you can cross difficult terrain is going to have an impact on your game, but, the fact that anyone with this feat can jump their strength, as part of their movement, anytime they want. Kinda negates most difficult terrain penalties when I can simply jump 15 feet. And I would think that climbing thing would come up rather often.

I'm thinking that the Athlete feat is likely the baseline for skill feats that they are looking at.

Huh? I'm not sure what you're saying. Using an acrobatics check to get around difficult terrain is something I already allow. I don't need a feat to do that. The same way I don't need a feat to allow someone to distract the guards with a song and dance routine.

A handful of them [picking one at random] like the animal handler make sense. Cool. A way to control friendly animals in addition to a proficiency in a skill that doesn't always see much use.

The others? Meh.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm just explaining how I handle it. I'm ok with letting my players getting away with some cinematic/creative things if it make sense. Sometimes the dextrous guy can parkour up the wall, sometimes the barbarian can just bull her way through the brambles that should be slowing her down.

A lot of these kind of effects for thing like difficult terrain is just set dressing anyway. Making it a bonus action works too, but I don't always want to get bogged down in action economy. My players tell me what they want to do and I tell them if they can or if they can try (and potentially risk failure). I'm not too worried about running an "official" game for my home campaign, the D&D police haven't knocked on my door. Yet.

Ah, see I assumed you were speaking to the value of the feat.

 

[Hussar]

I never claimed to be a game designer, just that I think these feats are lacking.

Maybe I could think up something better if I spent more than two minutes thinking about it I could come up with something better. If these feats get published as they are and our group wants to use something like them, I probably will.

Fair enough.

Huh? I'm not sure what you're saying. Using an acrobatics check to get around difficult terrain is something I already allow. I don't need a feat to do that. The same way I don't need a feat to allow someone to distract the guards with a song and dance routine.

A handful of them [picking one at random] like the animal handler make sense. Cool. A way to control friendly animals in addition to a proficiency in a skill that doesn't always see much use.

The others? Meh.

But, this is more to the point. You allow acrobatics to get around difficult terrain. However, that's not something that's in the game, just in your game. They can't design feats for your game. There's nothing in the description of acrobatics that allows it to avoid difficult terrain. It's not there. Now, it's not a bad extrapolation, I agree. But, again, they have to design feats based on what's actually in the game.

 

[Oofta]

But, this is more to the point. You allow acrobatics to get around difficult terrain. However, that's not something that's in the game, just in your game. They can't design feats for your game. There's nothing in the description of acrobatics that allows it to avoid difficult terrain. It's not there. Now, it's not a bad extrapolation, I agree. But, again, they have to design feats based on what's actually in the game.

To me, "using skills in combat" would make a fine optional rule for DMs.

Something we discussed frequently while playing 4E was that for a variety of reasons people took more of a board game approach to combat. We concluded that a reason was powers. There were powers/abilities for just about everything. If you let someone do something that was listed as the benefit of a power that they had you were taking away the cool factor of someone else's character.

I see these feats being the same. I describe a section of terrain as being difficult terrain because you have to carefully wend your way through thorn bushes to avoid getting snagged and I let anyone do it, then the person who took the feat effectively gets no additional benefit. All they get is the extra proficiency bump.

It also feels less creative? More mechanical? More I use my Performance Card? I dunno. But if you have a feat to distract someone with performance, you are just looking at it as another spell. There's no need for RP/dramatic flair or describing the scene.

Can you describe the scene dramatically? Sure. The same way in 4E that I could have described my fighter's "Come and Get It" as hurling insults at my foe and challenging them. The point is that I never did that. It just became a card in my deck of powers that could be applied under certain circumstances.

For the most part spells, and certain class abilities are always going to have the same kind of feel. The barbarian rarely describes how their blood is boiling, they just rage. But use of skills, particularly in combat? That's always been more "I start singing a song of bravery and courage to the soldiers in order to distract them while Flinx sneaks into the barracks." At that point I can ask for a history check to see if someone can think up the most appropriate song for this regiment (granting advantage if successful) and ask for a performance check.

It feels more organic, more natural then "I have the perform feat so I distract the guards" and "I have the history feat so I assist".

Can I take the former approach and not the latter even with the new feats? Sure. Will I? Based on my experience with 4E, sadly no. Will most DMs allow the former if they use the feats but the people haven't taken them? I doubt it.

 

[Satyrn]

Even arcanist would be better with expansion of what Arcana can do, than gaining cantrips, imo. Turn it into Soellcraft, 4e Arcana skill, and Use Magic Device skill, more or less.

I see I did a terrible job of explaining to you what I dislike about the Menacing and Diplomat feats

An expansion of what Arcana can do, locked behind this feat, would send me into a rage.

 

[OB1]

But, this is more to the point. You allow acrobatics to get around difficult terrain. However, that's not something that's in the game, just in your game. They can't design feats for your game. There's nothing in the description of acrobatics that allows it to avoid difficult terrain. It's not there. Now, it's not a bad extrapolation, I agree. But, again, they have to design feats based on what's actually in the game.

Would like to quibble with this a bit. The game says that you describe what you want to do and the DM narrates the results, sometimes asking for a die role if the outcome is uncertain. So I would say that if a player says I run up, jump, plant my foot on a wall and backflip over the difficult terrain, or tumble my way through, assigning that a DC, defining what success and failure means, and asking them to roll an acrobatics check is well within the rules.

My problem with these feats, is that by codifying those actions into feats, the game is strongly suggesting that you can't attempt that action without the feat. The rules are now deciding instead of the DM. That's what I meant when way upthread I said that these feats shrink the game instead of expanding it.

I would much rather see a single Skill Feat that gives expertise, adds 1 to the corresponding ability, gives prof in 1 other skill with the same base ability, and allows you to use the skill as a bonus action any time it would normally take an action.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I see I did a terrible job of explaining to you what I dislike about the Menacing and Diplomat feats

An expansion of what Arcana can do, locked behind this feat, would send me into a rage.

It's more a description of what they should do. None of it is even hinted at in the description of Arcana.

But, like the other feats, it would need to also improve the action economy, or otherwise upgrade from what the system assumes is a normal usage. Like being able to use wands even if you have no spellcasting, or something, or do it as a bonus action, etc.

 

[Hussar]

Would like to quibble with this a bit. The game says that you describe what you want to do and the DM narrates the results, sometimes asking for a die role if the outcome is uncertain. So I would say that if a player says I run up, jump, plant my foot on a wall and backflip over the difficult terrain, or tumble my way through, assigning that a DC, defining what success and failure means, and asking them to roll an acrobatics check is well within the rules.

My problem with these feats, is that by codifying those actions into feats, the game is strongly suggesting that you can't attempt that action without the feat. The rules are now deciding instead of the DM. That's what I meant when way upthread I said that these feats shrink the game instead of expanding it.

I would much rather see a single Skill Feat that gives expertise, adds 1 to the corresponding ability, gives prof in 1 other skill with the same base ability, and allows you to use the skill as a bonus action any time it would normally take an action.

Does Sharpshooter prevent your players from shooting into combat when allies are in the way? It certainly doesn't do that in my game.

Does the Actor feat mean that your players never try to disguise themselves?

Do you players never try to jump or climb unless they have the Athletics feat?

Do they only attempt to grapple if they have the Grappler feat?

Does the existence of Martial Adept mean that no one every plays Battlemasters?

Does the Mobile feat (which negates difficult terrain) mean that no one tries acrobatics to move through difficult terrain?

Does the Sentinel Feat mean that no one ever readies an action to stop something from moving?

Sorry, I'm belaboring the point here, but, this stuff already exists in the game. We ALREADY have skill feats, in a slightly different form. And, they haven't caused any problems. If these skill feats were an issue, why haven't we been hearing how these other feats are a problem? These aren't new feats. They are simply extrapolations of existing feats. New twists on a well established idea.

I really don't see how any of these are actually going to cause an issue at the table. Not when you already have all of these. Battlemasters and Open Hand Monks both get a trip attack. Does that mean no one at your table ever tries to trip anything? If codifying maneuvers was a problem, then why aren't all these other facets of the game a problem? There are a boat load of codified effects, from spells to purely martial actions, that different classes get. Why are these any different?