D&D 5E What skills are used most in your game?

[77IM]

Perception, hands down, is the skill used most at my table and in the games where I'm a player. It's so bad that I kind of wish Perception was not a skill, but just a thing, like Initiative, with the occasional bonus from class features or feats.

The least-used skill by far is Medicine.

Most other skills see a moderate usage; I tend to see more Arcana checks than Religion, more Survival than Nature, more Persuasion than Performance, more Athletics than Acrobatics, more Deception than Sleight of Hand, more Investigation than Insight, more Intimidation than Animal Handling... BUT the difference is not so large as to make the less-used skills imbalanced or weak. Like, the party might be rolling the "good" skills 3x as much as the "weak" skills, but that's still enough to make those skills worthwhile to the PCs.

The rogue player at my table also rolls Stealth every single round, but that's kind of anomalous; most other characters don't roll it any more often than any other skill.

 

[TonyP]

Perception - easily

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Having run the game regularly for most of the time since it was released, I've seen it go like this.

All the time
Perception

I'm not sure if session has gone by without at least referencing someone's passive Wisdom (Perception).

Frequently
Athletics
Acrobatics
Arcana
History
Religion
Insight
Investigation
Stealth

One or more of these generally every session.

Occasionally
Persuasion
Intimidation

They come up enough to be valuable.

Rarely
Nature
Survival
Deception

They haven't come up much, because of the nature of the adventures.

Never
Animal Handling
Performance
Sleight of Hand
Medicine

I'm not sure if I've ever actually seen these used in my group.

Now that I look at it, it kind of bugs me that we haven't seen more use out of some of those skills. I'll have to see what I can do about that.

In general, a lot of it has to do with the adventures and party composition. For instance, we haven't spent much time in urban environments (Perform), nor in distant wilderness environments (Nature, Survival), there has always been sufficient magical healing (Medicine), nobody has bothered much with pets or fancy mounted tricks (Animal Handling), and most of the PCs are on the honest side (Sleight of Hand, Deception).

On the other hand, we refer to Arcana, History, Religion (and Nature theoretically, though it just hasn't come up as often) to determine what characters know about life, the multiverse, and everything (identifying creatures, cultures, magic, etc). I also use languages spoken and tool proficiencies to determine whether they know related information and can roll with their proficiency bonus (in the case of tool proficiencies this is in direct defiance to the rules as written, because it is a superior way of doing it).

And then there are the other common ones that pretty much everyone uses regularly.

In my current campaign, I expect to more of the skills get used, since we'll have plenty of everything, including wilderness, urban, and a bard PC. Medicine is still going to take a bit of thought to make useful though, and most of the time Animal Handling and Sleight of Hand are really down to whether its something the players and their characters have any interest working with. I'd call for an Animal Handling to calm a hostile animal they came across, but otherwise they probably have to choose to deal with animals.

 

[Giant2005]

Perception, Persuasion, Arcana, and Nature are basically the only skills that I have seen used on any consistent basis. Stealth and Athletics get used too if we have anyone that specializes in their use (a Rogue or Shield-basher mostly).

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Perception and athletics/acrobatics, definitely. Next to that, arcana comes up frequently (though it can be tough dealing with attempts that would infringe on detect magic/identify).

I do try to throw in open-ended skill challenges, to allow PCs to get creative with their skill use (and to not put the more cerebral characters always at a disadvantage with physical challenges). For example, I might ask how the PCs escape the flames that are rapidly spreading through the arcane mists. One could use acrobatics to tumble out of the way, while another could use arcana to sense the path of the mystic fire.

 

[Lidgar]

Top 6 in order:
1. Perception
2. Perception
3. Perception
4. Stealth
5. Athletics (we climb lots of stuff for some reason)
6. Investigation

 

[ThirdWizard]

Used Every Session
These are constants. They are used all the time, multiple times a session usually. In a year, I think every one of these has come up every single session we've played.

• Arcana
• Deception
• Insight
• Perception
• Persuasion

Used Almost Every Session
These are used just less than the above. They might have been used in 90% of sessions.

• Investigation
• Religion
• Stealth

Rarely Used
These come up every once in a while or were used heavily for one or two sessions in the past year.

• Athletics
• History
• Survival

Used Once or Twice
These might have been rolled once or twice in the past year. They were at least acknowledged at some point as skills on a character sheet.

• Intimidation
• Medicine
• Nature

Never Used
In the past year, none of these have even been rolled. If they disappeared, I wouldn't realize it for a long time.

• Acrobatics
• Animal Handling
• Performance
• Sleight of Hand

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

You must not have any barbarians or rangers in your group. I swear, it seems like they’ll try to use Animal Handling on any animal encountered, no matter how hostile. Nevermind that it's not a charm spell...

Never Used
In the past year, none of these have even been rolled. If they disappeared, I wouldn't realize it for a long time.

• Acrobatics
• Animal Handling
• Performance
• Sleight of Hand

 

[Giant2005]

I've noticed that you all seem to rate Nature as a rarely used skill. What do you guys use to identify the type of enemy you are facing and its strengths/weaknesses?

 

[Psikerlord#]

I've found perception is the number one skill by a wide margin. After that, knowledge checks, athletics, acrobatics (we enjoy tumbling theatrics), arcana. We have a thief who likes to go around picking pockets so sleight of hand sees a bit of action (and lots of rolls on an online pick pockets generator).

Unused skills: medicine and nature are the worst offenders. I forgot about both to be perfectly honest! Nature stuff just gets lumped into survival instead.