D&D 5E Using different skills in 5e

[CubicsRube]

It seems to me that one pf the most fundamental or radical ways you could change the feeling of 5e without recreating the wheel would be to create a different set of proficiencies for characters to select.

Consider something like the below:
1. Athletics - climbing, swimming, jumping, falling, using brute force
2. Hunting - tracking, ambushing and stealth in natural environments
3. Skullduggery - stealth in caves, dungeons amd and cities, pickpocketing and eavesdroping
4. Arcana - knowledge or various magics, abberations and monstrosities
5. Religion - knowledge of religions, celestials and fiends
6. Nature - knowledge of natural beasts and flora, animal handling
7. Heraldry - knowledge of politics, law and court ettiquette, gain entrance to see important people, argue the law in your favour
8. Mercantilism - valuation of treasure, ability to sell at a good price, finding sellers of unusual or exotic items, knowing how to find people
9. Herbalism - create healing poultices and potions, identify illnesses
10. Alchemy - create alchemists fire, poisons and explosives
11. Coerce - intimidate directly, frighten or trick others into doing what you want. Can be subtle or blunt
12. Charm - getting others to like you, and asking them to do you favours
13. Inspire - boost morale of those around you and appealing to others better natures to act or aid
14. Empathise - to understand others emotions and to detect lies
Some items have been combined and split in different ways (such as two ways of doing stealth etc). Now I'm not suggesting the above set is better than 5e and it's not what I would settle into and use as a final set, but I feel like it would encourage a game with these proficiencies in a different direction. What do you think?

A more radical system would include something like:
1. Arctic - physical movement, stealth, knowledge, survival, etc
2. Coast - as above
3. Desert - as above
4. Forest - as above
5. Grassland - as above
6. Mountain - as above
7. Swamp - as above
8. Underdark- as above
9. Nobility - charming, intimidating, deceiving, insight, knowledge checks, etc
10. Peasantry - as above
11. Military - as above
12. Guilds (merchants and artisans) - as above
13. Travellers (including artists and bards) - as above
14. Criminals - as above
15. Woods people (including druids) - as above
16. Clergy (all religions) - as above
17. Wizardry (including cults) - as above
The mix obviously could be adjusted per campaign, but it would i think create a massive shift in thnking about how the game was played and tie it in to the world. One character may be a specialist in talking to nobles while the other is better and dealing with criminals etc (so it's not always the bard doing the talking), one class may he the best tracker and at stealth in coastal areas while another is better at moving around and surviving in a swamp.

I'm not expecting people to like this way and I'm not suggesting that it be adopted. Im curious in fact with what kind of crazy or different proficiency sets you would all come up with.

So. What would you come up with?

 

[DND_Reborn]

For the most part, our table is pretty happy with the skills listed as they encompass most things a character can do. The only skill we added was Etiquette.

Looking at your list, I think Heraldry would be a good addition as well for a medieval fantasy setting.

Otherwise, the only important thing I can say for people using skills in 5E is to encourage cross-over with ability scores. If you limit a skill proficiency to only one ability score, it severely limits what your character can do IMO.

 

[Krachek]

I don’t see so much ”new” in your list.
you rename skill and merge or separate some but overall it is pretty much the same skill list.
Skullduggery is a mix of stealth and sleight of hand,
Mercantilism can be replace with investigation.
Heraldry can be use with a mix of history and persuade.

 

[GlassJaw]

Of the issues I have with 5E, the skill list is way, way down the list. Sure you can tinker with it and make a case for one skill over another, but in general, the existing list is as good as any.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I've got very little interest in adding skills to the existing list. Simply put, the more skills you add, the more you pigeonhole tasks. Adding skills makes it increasingly less likely that characters can apply their proficiency bonus. It devalues skill proficiency because it will just never come up. If there were 500 skills, PCs would still only get 4-8 of them at the beginning of play. Proficiency would just never come up.

I think that Intimidation, Persuasion and Deception could probably be merged into just two skills.

If the game completely discarded the rule that a skill is tied to an ability score, then several skills could be merged. Nature and Survival could be merged into a single skill, with Intelligence (Nature) being for academic knowledge and Wisdom (Nature) being for survival skills. Similarly, you could do the same with Investigation and Perception. You could use Intelligence (Detection) for finding something, Wisdom (Detection) noticing something, and Charisma (Detection) for trying to get information by asking people for it.

 

[GlassJaw]

I've got very little interest in adding skills to the existing list. Simply put, the more skills you add, the more you pigeonhole tasks. Adding skills makes it increasingly less likely that characters can apply their proficiency bonus. It devalues skill proficiency because it will just never come up. If there were 500 skills, PCs would still only get 4-8 of them at the beginning of play. Proficiency would just never come up.

I think that Intimidation, Persuasion and Deception could probably be merged into just two skills.

If the game completely discarded the rule that a skill is tied to an ability score, then several skills could be merged. Nature and Survival could be merged into a single skill, with Intelligence (Nature) being for academic knowledge and Wisdom (Nature) being for survival skills. Similarly, you could do the same with Investigation and Perception. You could use Intelligence (Detection) for finding something, Wisdom (Detection) noticing something, and Charisma (Detection) for trying to get information by asking people for it.

Good analysis BB.

To play devil's advocate slightly (although I'm not countering your post), having a list of "skills" allows for the skill system to exist, if that makes any sense. You could separate skills from abilities and consolidate, but you then lose granularity of the system. If you want to preserve the depth of choice of the current skill system, I don't think it can withstand attrition.

If anything, I think 5E suffers from lack of skill choice more than too much. For example, Stealth and Perception are close to must-haves. However, I think that has more to do with the frequency that certain skills are used by other systems than the skill system itself. That's especially true in the case of Perception.

Tool proficiencies are nice to flesh out skills and provide creative uses but tend to be underused in my experience.

My "fixes" to the skill system would be twofold:

1. Provide more examples of uses within each skill. XGtE did this would tools and it's a great springboard for coming with new tool uses. 4E did a good job of this for skills, although like most things in 4E, went too far and provided so much detail such that it became confining rather than broadening.

2. Expand the modifier scale. Currently a character can be untrained, trained (proficiency), or have Expertise (double proficiency) in a skill. This doesn't allow for much variety across different characters. PF2E has made some interesting innovations in this space.

This may result in increasing skill DCs (although perhaps only at the top), or instead of Expertise doubling proficiency, create additional levels in between with flat modifiers. So the top level modifier becomes +6 (same as Expertise at level 17) and levels of +2 and +4 in between.

Or expand the range so it goes to +8 and +10. Lots of options, although expanding the system like this requires revising other systems so these additional levels can be obtained.

 

[Shiroiken]

For the most part, our table is pretty happy with the skills listed as they encompass most things a character can do. The only skill we added was Etiquette.

I'm generally not a fan of something like this, because it's only used in situations in an attempt to trip up players who's characters should probably know better. I think an unskilled Intelligence check for odd situations would be the only time I'd use something like this.

Looking at your list, I think Heraldry would be a good addition as well for a medieval fantasy setting.

I added this as a tool proficiency (book of arms) which gave information about the various royal/noble families. I thought a Skill was too valuable to spend on it, but a tool proficiency and language was about right.

Otherwise, the only important thing I can say for people using skills in 5E is to encourage cross-over with ability scores. If you limit a skill proficiency to only one ability score, it severely limits what your character can do IMO.

This is huge. During the playtest, one of the options they offered was the DM instructed the players to make an ability check, then the players offered up skills they thought might apply. This way a player might figure out a way to use a skill with an odd ability, being able to help more. Instead, they felt this system was disruptive, as players would try every skill they had to get the bonus. Using the DM option of variable abilities with skills is a good way to keep players on their toes, but also reward players with unusual skill situations.

 

[CubicsRube]

To be clear, the 5e skills are fine as is. And I'm not proposing a fix (i thought that was clear from my original post).

I was curious what skills people would add in, modify or remove if any for their home game.

Thank you to those who addressed this.

 

[CubicsRube]

I don’t see so much ”new” in your list.
you rename skill and merge or separate some but overall it is pretty much the same skill list.
Skullduggery is a mix of stealth and sleight of hand,
Mercantilism can be replace with investigation.
Heraldry can be use with a mix of history and persuade.

Skullduggery is stealth in urban and cave environments. Hunting is stealth in the wilderness.

Mercantilism would also cover social interactions with merchants and trader. As a replacement to social skills, you would use whichever skill corresponds to the group you are talking to. So not everyone is good at talking to everyone. The fighter might be best to talk to guards, where the bard might best talk to nobility.

The second set of points listed in the original post are entirely seperate to the first set, and would replace the original 5e skills. That is, they would be exclusively used.

 

[CubicsRube]

For the most part, our table is pretty happy with the skills listed as they encompass most things a character can do. The only skill we added was Etiquette.

Looking at your list, I think Heraldry would be a good addition as well for a medieval fantasy setting.

Otherwise, the only important thing I can say for people using skills in 5E is to encourage cross-over with ability scores. If you limit a skill proficiency to only one ability score, it severely limits what your character can do IMO.

I find that it's one of the options provided within the core rules that few players use. Like custom backgrounds (which i use all the time as a player).

I'm running a Shadow of the Demon Lord campaign which uses a background proficiency that I quite like as a DM. It may feel too open for the players however. Time will tell.