ThinkDM recently wrote a blog post discussing the skill list in 5th Edition called 5 Skill D&D. His two main points are,
First: The optional rules that allow you to roll any Skill + Ability combination should just be the way that the game works rather than an optional rule. I enthusiastically endorse this: Not only is it basically a no-brainer to take advantage of this flexibility and utility, but if you DON’T use stuff like Charisma (Investigation) checks then there are some glaring holes in the default skill list.
Second: Once you’re using these optional rules, it becomes clear that there are many skills that don’t need to exist. The most clear-cut examples of this, in my opinion, are Athletics and Acrobatics. One of these is Physical Stuff + Strength while the other is Physical Stuff + Dexterity. If you can just combine a “Physical Stuff” skill with the appropriate ability score, then you clearly don’t need two different skills for this.
Concluding that the game, therefore, has a whole bunch of superfluous skills, ThinkDM aggressively eliminates and combines skill to end up with a list of just five skills:
- Fitness (Athletics, Acrobatics, Endurance)
- Speechcraft (Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation, Performance (oration))
- Stealth (Stealth, Deception (passing a disguise))
- Awareness (Investigation, Perception, Insight, Survival)
- Knack (Sleight of Hand, Medicine, Animal Handling, Performance (instrument))
(Note: He eliminates the Knowledge skills – Arcana, History, Religion, Nature, Medicine – entirely.)
While I agree with the general principles here, I have some quibbles with the, in my opinion, overzealous implementation. So let’s take a closer look at some of these decisions.
I’M SOLD
I’m sold on Fitness, Speechcraft, and Stealth.
Stealth is fairly self-explanatory: Most of the conflation here actually happened before 5th Edition was even published, which – as I’ve discussed in Random GM Tips: Stealthy Thoughts, among other places – is something I’m fully in favor of.
Lumping all the social skills into Speechcraft might initially seem too reductionist, but it’s another good example of how ability score pairings can be used to distinguish different uses of the skill and differentiate characters: Charisma + Speechcraft can be used for making a good first impression, seducing someone through sheer sex appeal, or swaying a crowd’s opinion through an emotional appeal. Strength + Speechcraft can be used for physically threatening someone. Intelligence + Speechcraft can be used for witty repartee. And so forth.
I’ve also found that this kind of conflation can sidestep the conceptual difficult of trying to figure out which skill is appropriate when someone tries to, for example, persuade the local garrison to join them by lying to them about the goblins’ intentions while subtly threatening to expose the garrison captain’s dark secret. (Logically the debate about whether this is Perception, Deception, or Intimidation should just shift to which ability score is the most appropriate; I’m just saying that, in my experience, this doesn’t usually happen. Don’t really know why, but people just seem more willing to let the muddy reality of most social interactions default to any appropriately invoked option when it’s ability scores. This also frequently flows in the opposite direction, with players moving away from one-note presentations of “this is my deception” or “this is me persuading her” to more nuanced portrayals within the broad rubric of a skill like Speechcraft. Your mileage may vary.)
I particularly like the name of Speechcraft. It has a nicely fantasy-esque feel to it; evocative, but not binding.
By contrast, I don’t like Fitness as the name for a skill. Fitness is not an action, but rather a state of being, and I don’t think it clearly captures the spirit of most such tests made at the table. I’d stick with Athletics.
AWARENESS
As I discuss at length in Rulings in Practice: Perception-Type Tests, I think there’s a lot of utility in clearly distinguishing between noticing things and actively investigating things. This becomes even clearer, I think, when you start combining them with different ability scores: Charisma + Investigation is canvassing information and rumor-gathering. Perception + Wisdom/Charisma, on the other hand, is reading body language and the like.
Lumping Survival in here doesn’t make any sense to me at all. The skill is a lot more than just following tracks and, in my opinion, should be important enough to most D&D campaigns to merit its own silo.
KNACK
Knack is all too clearly “here’s a bunch of skills I need to arbitrarily glom together so that I can hit an arbitrary clickbait title.” There’s little reason that the pick-pocket should also be the party’s best healer. Conversely, not everyone who is good at riding a horse should automatically be great at picking pockets.
So split those back out.
KNOWLEDGE
My personal proclivity is that not only should there be at least enough knowledge skills that everyone in the group can have a distinct expertise (which often means more knowledge skills than party members), but that there should be enough knowledge skills that it becomes quite likely that any given group will, in fact, have holes in their knowledge.
(Why? Because that forces them to either work around the gap in their knowledge, do research, seek out an expert, and/or set a personal goal to become the expert they need. And those are all interesting outcomes.)
As I mentioned above, ThinkDM eliminates all knowledge-type skills. He offers a contradictory hodgepodge of reasons for this (for example, “no one knows everything” but also “the GM should always just assume the PCs know everything”) which I could discuss at more length, but honestly I’m tired of explaining why failure is narratively interesting and delayed gratification is satisfying.
What I really want is for a knowledge skill list to completely cover the fields of knowledge in a setting. This doesn’t mean getting super granular in the distinctions (quantum mechanics vs. electromagnetics vs. optics). Often the opposite, in fact. When a question of knowledge arises in the setting, what I want is for there to be a clear skill check that can answer the question.
This is why I really dislike the incomplete fields of knowledge in 5th Edition’s current skill list and much prefer 3rd Edition’s comprehensive list. (3rd Edition was also designed to let people custom-design knowledge categories, although a surprising number of people never understood that.)
If we want to slice down the knowledge-type skills, I’d say start by saying that Backgrounds should grant proficiency in any related Knowledge checks.
And then my list of knowledge-type skills would be:
- Arcana
- Religion
- Lore
- Knowledge: (Specific Location)
With Lore here covering the entirety of mundane knowledge.
Thus we broadly distinguish between mystic shit, god-stuff, and everything else. This gives the opportunity to spread Knowledge around the table (instead of just one guy who’s a smarty-pants) and gives players the ability to flavor their character.
We’ve also given people a chance to say, “I know this city or forest or whatever really, really well.” It’s a skill type I often reach for as a GM (regardless of system) and I think it can be very flavorful for players looking to define their characters or give them a unique niche.
THE BIG LIST
- Animal Handling
- Arcana
- Athletics
- Investigation
- Knowledge: (Specific Location)
- Lore
- Medicine
- Perception
- Religion
- Sleight of Hand
- Speechcraft
- Stealth
- Survival
If you want an even tighter list, you can:
- Merge Investigation with Perception
- Fold Medicine into Lore
- Drop Sleight of Hand into Stealth
To give you a nice, notable number with 10 Skills.
TOOL PROFICIENCIES
In 5th Edition, of course, skills are only half the story. You’ve also got tool proficiencies.
You don’t have to muck about with these, but I think there’s definitely some conflation here that would be valuable, although it’s a lot more fidgety. (This is somewhat inherent in the decision to use tool proficiencies in the first place.) 5th Edition already sets precedent for this, however, with things like Vehicle (Land) and Vehicle (Water) proficiencies which cover a multitude of specific tools/vehicles.
The question I have is why other obvious candidates likes Musical Instruments and Gaming Sets weren’t similarly grouped together into a single proficiency.
At a certain point in staring at this, though, you realize it probably makes more sense to just create a list of skills that require tools to use:
- Alchemy
- Art
- Craft
- Gaming
- Music
- Thievery
- Vehicle (Air/Land/Water)
With the following notes:
- Navigator’s and Cartography Tools would be conflated into Survival.
- Forgery Kit would be conflated into Stealth or Thievery.
- Disguise Kit would be conflated into Stealth.
- Herbalism Kit is conflated into Alchemy.
- Poisoner’s Kit is conflated into Thievery (although you could make a case for a separate skill).
To make this actually work, of course, you’ll have to do additional work on how characters gain skills. May not be worth the headache, so keeping this short list in a separate silo (which can be trained) may still make the most sense.
I’ve always wanted to do one of these different skill hacks because i really fo think the skill list in 5E is one of the worst ones I’ve seen, just a mish mash of really broad skills that everyone gets proficiency in and really specific skills that not really anyone does.
The thing that usually stops me is that you need to design the character sheet completely differently to reflect this change. Because if you don’t everyone keeps forgetting the new way is the way and you slowly go back to the old way because it’s easier to do so with the sheet.
About knowledge – when you mention Lore, do you mean Lore as a single skill, or Lore as a skill that has to be specialized should player take it (As a survival lore, or occupation lore, or anything else like that)?
Because just conflating everything mundane under Lore means that you get 3 knowledge skills that cover everything – something that was explicitly opposed earlier in the article – and either Arcana or Religion (or even both) might have reduced relevance in a particular campaign, leading to the smarty-pants guy scenario.
And what about eliminating skills altogether? What is your opinion of the “Ability Check Proficiency” variant (DMG p. 263)?
Great article, as usual!
I have also recently brainstormed quite a lot on the 5E skill list.
The context of my research was: “Make a simpler version of 5E, specifically for One-Shots with new-ish players”
My findings were:
– Aggressively remove skills that are not relevant for the one adventure, e.g. “Nature” in a city adventure, “Religion” in some settings
– I almost never ask for Performance checks, so I remove it, so that no player sinks any skills into it
– Knowledge checks remain, but “History” is a difficult one. I often use that one for “military knowledge”.
– Sometimes, knowledge checks prompted by the player give me as a GM the opening to place a clue, similar to a free roll on a rumour table. I like this and want to keep it.
– “Survival” is very broad
– The different level of usefulness makes some skills simply better than others (Perception, Stealth)
– I like the divide of Deception/Intimidation/Persuasion, but I thought about just using “Coax” from Tech noir
– Tool proficiencies in 5E are a big mess. For “simplified DnD” I just remove them completely. They are mixed up in the terrible, terrible crafting system, the wonky downtime activities (from Xanathars) and their usages are spread over at least 3 books and several pages within these books (Check for things that can be done with a poisoners kit, they are in the DMG (in several sections), in Xanathars (several sections) and I thnk also the PHB)
… I have begun to rant, sorry. 🙂
@Xercies: Not only the character sheet, but also character creation itself, Backgrounds, Classes and Race all offer skill choices. Modifying this is unfortunately rather messy (but I think also a good idea)
While I do agree that surviving should be a major part of any D&D campaign that involves any sort of travel, I think that being a single skill actually diminishes its importance. That’s why I removed Survival as a skill entirely from my game. Tracking? Is a Perception check. Identifying edible mushrooms? A Nature check. Improvising a camp? You have to search for materials (wisdom) and actually build the thing (a dexterity craft check), and so on
Also, I think that having different ways to approach a conversation (Intimidation, Persuasion & Performance) are more interesting when paired with any ability score. Making an impression on the Castle Sage should not use the same attribute than if you’re hitting on the Princess, after all
Also, kill Insight. With fire. It has no right to exist
… I could swear that I’ve read this article, or one very much like it, before. I thought it was a re-run at first. But you’re referencing an article from less than 2 months ago and I know I haven’t seen that article.
Pay no attention to me; I’m just unstuck in time.
I realize you’re keeping Speechcraft bundled, but something I’ve liked in my home game is refactoring social stuff to three skills
– Pathos (Appeal)
– Logos (Debate)
– Ethos (Impress)
By focusing the lens on the *method* of argumentation rather than the end result, it forces players to consider how they’re accomplishing their speechification. Of course, this method clashes a bit with the reductionist skill system of the article, as one of the advantages of this is that I put Debate as Intelligence-based.
Recent lurker, great stuff here. I have a meta-comment about this article, coming from my perspective as a mostly 1st Ed player (started with OD&D).
Starting with 3rd Ed., the focus of D&D shifted (in my view) toward character development and combat as the most important activities. Simply surveying current D&D articles generally, these do seem to be the preferences of many modern players, which is fine. One thing this does is focus players on improving characters so that they can do as much as possible on their own, with little or no help. This is understandable in a practical sense (how often can we get 10 players together?), but it also caters to the heroic way many players want to play, which again is fine.
Without getting into what’s good or bad, I’ll just say that this definitely was not the intent in older D&D. Not only were classes very focused in what they did well, but acquiring new resources was a key part of old play. And resources are not just things: they include people and expertise. If you want to port out that dragon horde, you needed bearers, lackeys, and wagons. If you want to hit wraiths, you need magic weapons. And sometimes, you just have to go and hire that animal handler, alchemist, or sage. These non-tangible resources were as important as treasure. If fact, the idea that players needed help, sometimes lots of it, was a key feature of old play. Controlling your own set of minions was even a late game goal!
It’s clear you know this, but I think it’s lost sometimes how different 0e/1e/2e are from 3e and beyond, not just mechanically (good or bad), but in the intent of play. This remains true even when proficiencies are added in late 1e, as these were designed to be very specific, and no character would have too many of them.
ThinkDM’s skill system is bad and he should feel bad.
He asks at the beginning of his article: “Why have 18 skills when you can have FIVE?”
And then he never addresses that question, taking it as a given that there’s something desirable about having fewer skill rather than more.
There are good reasons to have a non-trivial skill system. The thing is, they’re player-facing reasons, not DM-facing. Streamlining the skill system sacrifices player enjoyment for DM convenience.
First off, having a broad array of skills is valuable for creative expression, one of the “eight kinds of fun.” For players, character definition is one of the few reliable channels for creative expression. Sure, you can always say whatever you want about your character’s background, but backing it up with system choices makes those statements stronger. If I choose to allocate a limited resource (skill proficiency slots) based on character story, that makes the story matter. And the more you streamline away skills, the more you remove that choice.
On top of that, there are players who take pleasure in being Good At Things, and the longer the list of things they are good at, the better. This is so common there’s a name for it: the Skill Monkey. Having that list of competencies is part of the Skill Monkey’s immersive escapism; it’s the fantasy of being well-equipped for whatever life may throw at you. Mechanically it may be isomorphic to having no skills at all and just saying “okay, roll with proficiency for anything related to your class,” but it doesn’t *feel* the same. It’s not actual utility that matters here, it’s being able to say “look what I can do!”
Finally, having granularity in skills creates challenge during play. There are players who really enjoy problem-solving, and who approach every situation thinking about what tools they can bring to bear and how they can be useful in this situation. If the skill system has been streamlined down so that they only have one tool to choose, that gets really boring. Negative space matters here: if I have a character who’s good at intimidation but not at persuasion, that places an interesting constraint on my problem-solving. These players need a toolkit of options to have their fun, not just a hammer.
I totally agree that using different abilities for a given skill depending on the situation should be core, not optional. And adding proficiency to any knowledge check related to your background is great, I dig it. Refactoring the skill system to balance things out, narrowing the overly-broad and broadening the overly-narrow skills? I’d love to see it.
But streamlining 5e’s already short skill list to shorten it even further, getting rid of all the interesting detail? NO! Bad DM, no biscuit!
@Leland Well Justin did mention this on his Twitter account a while back, maybe you read that?
I really like this. I think @Xercies is right, that getting a sheet that has these skills on is the most challenging part – especially for those of us who play on Roll20.
A slight tangent is that you mention possibly merging Investigation into Perception. It’s interesting to note that WotC often does this by mistake anyway. So many times in pre-written modules (Adventure League or Hardcover) do they ask for Perception checks for clearly Investigation type uses.
As an example from Lost Mine of Phandelver in a ruined Herbalist’s Shop (p. 33);
“All the reagents and concoctions here have long since been ruined, and the books are unreadable masses of rot.
However, a small wooden case is hidden in a compartment beneath the storage shelves. A character searching through the wreckage can find the case with a successful DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check.”
As we can see, this falls much more into an Investigation. There’s maybe a dozen similar instances in LMoP alone of Perception being called for rather than Investigation, let alone across all modules.
Much like optimization culture sprang out of the unexpected impliciations of 3E design, 5E design has unexplored implications.
If all skill checks are really Ability Check (Skill), we can remove a lot of Skill clutter on the character sheet. Characters get Proficiency in 2 Abilities, maybe 3 for skillmonkey classes. Characters are also Proficient in things their background would make them proficient in. As a class feature or feat, characters can take Expertise in one of a handful of specialized skills–Stealth, Performance, Arcana, maybe Silver Tongue.
that’s it. that’s the system.
@Dwerger: One Lore skill covering everything else. I note that I would personally prefer a larger set of Knowledge skills, but IF YOUR GOAL IS TO STREAMLINE THE LIST then this is how I would do it.
(Having a larger list of Knowledge skills would require a more seriosus revamping of how skills are gained in 5E, in my opinion. One option would be to treat them like a third flavor of skill and allow them to be trained like tool proficiencies.)
@Sarivar: Something I’ve talked about in the past is that in games with strongly paired Abilities/Skills (i.e., the check for a specific skill is always associated to a specific ability score), then there’s not really a categorical difference between the two. “Skills” are just a specialization. (And you can tier that specialization with Abilities, Skills, and Skill Specializations.)
So, yeah, you can absolutely ditch Skills and just use Abilities. It’s not a categorical difference; it’s just less specificity.
Other games recognize this and ditch Abilities (which are generally conceptualized as “talent”) and only use Skills (thus conceptually emphasizing what a character learns/trains/practices).
Of course, the reason Skills exist is because people WANT to get more explicit. They want a smart character who’s an arcanist to be distinguished from a smart character is a historian.
This is also why, in Ability + Skill systems, I generally like skills that aren’t strongly paired to a particular ability. Skills thus became conceptually separate from Abilities, which I find increases their utility and flavor.
@Rane2k: Great point about using player-initiated Knowledge checks as an opporuntity for permissive clue-finding!
@Leland: This most immediately grew out of a Twitter thread. I also briefly discussed some of this stuff in the last Patreon hangout, IIRC, as that post was percolating at the time. And some of it is stuff I’ve talked about previously (although I think I mostly back-linked when possible). Bunch of vectors for deja vu. 😉
@Xercies, re: character sheets. Definitely. Also, the desire to pre-calculate stuff on the sheets is also a factor in pushing for strongly paired Abilities/SKills.
One potentially interesting consequence of a very streamlined set of skills is that you could actually implement a grid on the sheet in a practical way — pre-calculate all ability/skill pairiings.
I think you meant to write “Fitness” rather than Athletics in the final streamlined list.
This is good stuff, though! Do you have any suggestions on how to rebalance the skills each class gets? I’d like to use this but the thought of modifying every class’s skill list (especially high skill classes like the Rogue) is daunting.
I don’t like how skills work in 5e, but I think some “knowledge” skills are useful.
You can ditch most skills by simply doubling the ability bonus (I would apply this to acrobatics/athletics, etc.).
http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2020/07/minimalist-d-iii-ditch-everything-but.html
However, there are a few corner cases where a skill would be useful; first case that comes to mind is low Wis barbarian that is an expert in survival.
Other examples are redundant for adventrues, IMO.
So, anyone with high Str could be good at athletics, same for Dex and acrobatics, Cha and persuasion, Int and lore, etc.
I pretty much agree with everything TRay said. I think 18 is a good number of skills. It provides another avenue for making characters of different classes feel distinct from one another, while avoiding the minute specificity of something like GURPS, or AD&D 2e’s non-weapon proficiencies.
Also, shortening the list — especially in the ways suggested — aggravates the existing problem that some skills (*cough* Perception) are simply more useful than others. (I suspect that was part of ThinkDM’s motivation in lumping the less-used skills together under Knack, although I don’t think that’s a great solution.)
Knowledge (specific location) also seems like a very niche skill that few players would take, since its usefulness is greatly reduced as soon as you leave that location. Personally I’d just make it a function of background.
However, I can definitely get on board with your list of “professional” skills as a replacement for tool, etc. proficiencies. A couple of points of clarification, though:
– Would Nature be considered part of Survival or part of Lore?
– Does “Vehicle (Air/Land/Water)” mean you’re suggesting a single proficiency for all vehicle types?
– Where did Insight go? ThinkDM suggested merging it with Perception, Investigation and Survival, but your list of 13 has all three of those separate.
“To make this actually work, of course, you’ll have to do additional work on how characters gain skills.”
I’m not sure I understand what you mean by this. Classes get few enough skill proficiencies as it is that I really can’t see any benefit in reducing the number even further, and I don’t think a slight reduction in the number of options they get to choose from would significantly affect class balance. (The big exception to this is the rogue. Of your suggested ten skills, the rogue chooses four skills from a list of four.)
If you were referring to the replacement of tool proficiencies, the only classes in the PHB that get any are the bard (3 instruments), druid (herbalism), monk (instrument or artisan’s tools) and rogue (thieves’ tools). These can simply be replaced with the appropriate professional skills. (Granted, it does seem a bit strange for druids to know alchemy — which is perhaps an argument for *not* lumping the two together. Perhaps instead, herbalism and medicine could be combined into a professional skill called Apothecary?) Admittedly, backgrounds can get tricky. For instance, the Charlatan gets Deception, Stealth, disguise kit and forgery kit. If that gets reduced to Speechcraft and Stealth, how do you fill the empty slots?
@Rane2k: “Knowledge checks remain, but “History” is a difficult one.”
What’s difficult about it?
@Igor: “Also, kill Insight. With fire. It has no right to exist”
Why? I’ll grant you that I’ve seen many people — including adventure authors who should know better — use Insight as a catch-all for intuition (a practice that began with 4e), but if you read the actual description of the skill, it’s clearly meant to be a replacement for 3e’s Sense Motive. If you’re using it any other way, you’re using it wrong.
@Otherworldly Foe: “I think you meant to write “Fitness” rather than Athletics in the final streamlined list.”
He said that he doesn’t like Fitness as a skill name.
I like your points about Knowledge skills and how it’s desirable for everyone to have distinct expertise but for there still to be gaps in coverage. There’s something else about Knowledge skills that I think is noteworthy, which is that they don’t function in quite the same way as the other skills in the game.
Most skills represent a character’s ability to take action. The player declares an intent to act, and if it’s a non-trivial thing that could fail, the DM has them make a skill check. The classic “roll dice to do the thing” type subsystem.
But knowledge skills don’t work that way; there’s no action to take.
Nevertheless, what I observe in the games I’m involved with (on both sides of the screen) is that even though there’s no action to take, players still use Knowledge skills proactively. They say things like “I’m proficient in History. Can I tell anything about how old this place is?”
Which is to say, players proactively use Knowledge skills to fish for details they can use.
What’s even more interesting is when that happens not during an investigation scene, but during problem-solving. And in those cases, they sometimes roll the dice first: “I got an 18 on Nature. Are there any unusual plants here?” And then, the DM’s answer will often depend on the result of the check: a 2 means, no, there’s nothing here, whereas if they get a 27, the DM thinks “hmm, that’s a high success, I should reward it. What might be here?”
What’s going on here? Because RPGs are played verbally, there’s a near-infinite level of detail left unspecified. It can be filled in on-demand by the DM, but it’s a lot of work. So what I see happening in these cases is Knowledge skill checks being used as an objective mechanism for moderating requests for improvisational detail. The players know they’re not always going to find something relevant, and the DM doesn’t have the bandwidth to grant every request for detail. So everyone tacitly agrees to let the dice decide.
(Note that this does not apply to important pre-defined details; it’s not that skill checks are being used to determine the solution to the mystery or anything like that. It’s an indirect request for narrative agency: a proposal that something useful be brought into existence in the undefined margins so that the player can then attempt to leverage it for whatever main task the group is focused on.)
I think that’s a valuable mechanism, and so I think it’s important to keep Knowledge skills, and also to keep the list of them broad enough for every character to be able to stake out their own space for narrative agency requests. (Which is not to say that only one character should be proficient in any given skill or anything, but that there should be enough room for each player to be able to make requests without total overlap with somebody else.)
I feel like we are almost back to a streamlined version of 2e proficiency. (And that may not be a bad thing)
Basically: Here is a list of things your character is good at, you get to add X value to a given ability check related to the things on the list.
@Wyvern:
Vehicle (Air/Land/Water) would work the same way it currently does (pick one).
Nature would probably fall into both.
Insight would be resolved with either Perception or Speechcraft (probably paired to Wisdom in both cases).
Re: Gaining skills. ” Classes get few enough skill proficiencies as it is that I really can’t see any benefit in reducing the number even further…” I’d argue for more skills, personally. But what I was mostly talking about is that the current system generally doesn’t give you any choice over your skills; having added seven new skills and eliminated the concept of tool proficiencies, you need a new method of selecting skills. That means either revamping every class’ and background’s skill list. Or (and this would be my preference) giving people control over their skill selection.
@Dr. Tectonic: I’d argue that there IS another skill that works like Knowledge skills. Perception.
But you’re right that (a) they’re different than other skills and (b) a lot of tables (and published books) don’t acknowledge this when it comes to Knowledge-type skills. This tends to do one of two things: Either the world becomes kind of cipher-like (with a lack of deep detail) OR Knowledge-type skills are heavily devalued because everything becomes trivia known to all.
In The Art of Rulings I mention that Knowledge should be triggered as part of passive observation.
In Rulings in Practice: Perception-type Tests I distinguish between passive perception, scanning (actively looking; i.e., when a player calls for a Perception test), and searching (physically interacting).
This broadly maps onto Knowledge-type skills, too (with “searching” mapping onto “research”). But you’re also right that things are weighted a little differently in terms of what players are looking for an how GMs can/will respond to it. (See “Innocuous Interest” and “A World of (Near) Infinite Interest” in Part 2 of the Rulings in Practice essay. GMs are far more likely to do this with Knowledge-type skills.)
A couple of corrections to my previous post (oh, how I wish for an edit function!):
First, when I said “I pretty much agree with everything TRay said,” I actually meant Dr. Tectonic (I got their posts confused because they were adjacent).
Secondly, when I said “making characters of different classes feel distinct from one another”, what I *meant* to type was “characters of the *same* class” (although the former also applies, naturally).
I preferred during the DND Next playtest when there were no skills. Areas of Lore granted by your background that gave a +10 to intelligence checks to Spout Lore.
Proficiency with a tool was necessary to even make proper use of a tool. There were no Saving Throw proficiencies to muck things up either. Save DCs were just 10 + Ability Mod.
@Justin: I think I see what you mean now. Personally, I *like* having skills tied to class instead of being totally freeform, because it helps reinforce class identity. And if you want a skill that isn’t on the list, there are ways to get it — by playing a (variant) human, by taking the Skilled feat, or by choosing a background that gives it to you (or one that gives you a class skill you already have, which lets you substitute a different skill in its place).
Anyhow, I don’t think there’s much conversion required if, as you suggested, you keep “professional” skills in a separate category and make them specific to backgrounds (with the exceptions I mentioned previously). The problem I identified with rogues could be solved by letting them pick freely, like bards do.
(A digression on terminology: I’d call the non-professional, non-knowledge skills “utility” or “adventuring” skills or maybe just “basic” skills since they’re all things that can be attempted untrained.)
Backgrounds would take more work, but given that many of the proficiencies they currently get would either be combined or eliminated, I think you’d could make it work by giving them three things rather than four, but with more variation as to what those things are (rather than the strict “two skills and two tools and/or languages” pattern that they currently follow). So for instance, a Soldier might get Athletics, choice of Speechcraft or Knowledge (local), and choice of Gaming or Vehicle (land), while an Acolyte gets Religion, choice of Perception or Speechcraft, and a language, and a Criminal could be “pick three from Stealth, Thievery, Speechcraft, Knowledge (local) and Gaming”.
All of this is with the caveat that I *like* the existing skill situation pretty much as-is. I think it does a good job of covering *most* situations that come up in the game, especially if you allow for attribute switching and background knowledge (e.g. sailors should have proficiency in rope use). I’m just talking about how I *would* adopt your abbreviated list, if I were going to. But personally the only change I think would really be an improvement is to streamline tool proficiencies into professional skills.
@Wyvern: “Knowledge checks remain, but “History” is a difficult one.” Maybe this is a “me” problem, as a DM I seldomly find myself asking for a history check. And when I do, it is usually because none of the other knowledge skills seemed worse.
Maybe this is a product of my DM-ing style or the campaign I run.
There is an exception, our Dwarf player loves the “Stonecunning” ability, which keys on INT (History).
@Rane2k: Do your PCs not explore many ancient ruins or tombs? I can think of plenty of uses for the History skill. Just off the top of my head:
– check to see if you recognize a particular coat of arms
– check to see if you can identify what ancient language an inscription is written in
– check to see if you know how the demon lord was banished the last time he invaded the material plane
– check to see if you’ve ever heard of Acererak
– check to see if you recognize the Arkenstone and understand its significance
– check to see what you know about the origins of a current political conflict in your campaign setting
– check to see if you can identify what famous battle is depicted in a frieze on the wall of the ruined palace
– check to see if you know anything about the long-forgotten deity the ruined temple is dedicated to
(Yes, some of these could fall under Arcana or Religion as well, but I don’t think they’re meant to be mutually exclusive. As I interpret the rules, you roll an ability check and add your proficiency bonus if you have any relevant skills. It’s possible for more than one skill to be relevant.)
Even if this knowledge isn’t directly useful in an adventure, I think it goes a long way towards making the game world feel like a real, lived-in place.
I could be wrong but I understood skills the way 11. John Bragg describes them. Everything is an ability check unless you have proficiency. Its pretty streamlined that way and you only need to list the proficiencies on the sheet.
@ruprecht that would also help stop the skill list appearing an exhaustive list, of the only possible actions. It also saves masses of space!
Also, I honestly don’t think adding two single digit numbers together is too much to ask for a skill check. This is because I fail to understand the desire to ‘calculate all the combinations’ – which 5e fails to even do on the sheet as has been pointed out by bother comments.
Are we really saying players and the DM can’t work out +2 to +6 plus/minus -5 to +10? If this is legitimately the case, due to disability then could an optional ‘skills matrix’ sheet optionally exist, alongside other (hypothetical) accessibility options, such as a high contrast sheet?
Great article!
On the note about Poisoner’s Kits. I’ve never understood why they were a separate tool kit in the first place. I lump the making of poisons under herbalism or alchemy depending on the materials to hand, and then the use of them based on stealth/thievery skills, i.e. slight of hand, deception etc.. for sneaky shit. Although most of the time they’re getting applied to weapons. So int check not to stab yourself when applying etc.. you get your prof bonus if you know your weapon.
If you were going to completely decouple the proficiency bonus from the ability scores, it would probably be easier to replace the proficiency bonus with a proficiency die (you can find this option in the DMG).
That way there is less head-math, and it is easier for the DM to tell if players are adding their proficiency die at the correct time.
To me trying to further reduce the number of skills is like replacing all the various coins and treasure with the single “gp”: it makes sense from an abstract game designer perspective, but makes things less flavorful and fun. Obviously this is a matter of personal preference.
In 5th edition, with all skills and tools lumped together under a single “proficiency” bonus that’s either on or off, I think it becomes less important to worry about skills being non-overlapping and equally useful. Let players use their navigator’s tools or cartographer’s tools to make survival navigation checks, let them use nature to forage, etc. In 5e proficiency becomes a very lightweight way for characters to differentiate themselves and the way they solve problems. DMs should make skills and proficiencies muddier and more baroque, not leaner and cleaner. Figuring out how their best ability + proficiency pair works to solve X problem is something the players should figure out and explain to the DM; it’s much less interesting to have the DM prepare a complete table of ability + skill combinations and the places they apply (reminds me of 4e skill challenges).
Again, these are matters of personal preference, but I think mechanically-overlapping but different-flavored proficiencies let characters distinguish themselves. For example, EB Farnum from Deadwood and Petyr Baelish from GoT are both perfectly capable liars, but they’ll never persuade anyone to _trust_ them, and Farnum at least is completely not-intimidating. Plenty of fictional characters are the exact opposite: a goody-goody who’s likeable but can’t lie to save their life. 5e half-orcs are proficient in Intimidate but not other CHA skills: obviously they ought to use STR or something but I think it’s a lot simpler to break out Intimidate as a new proficiency vs compared to trying to do something like “half-orcs are proficient in Speechcraft, but only if they’re intimidating somebody”.
I like your point about custom-designed knowledge skills. I’ve seen it said that in 5e the DM plays the character of “the campaign world” more than ever before, and custom skills, tools, and backgrounds would be a GREAT way for DMs to flesh out the world in ways that matter to their players. Unfortunately, the 5e DMG has variants for “ability score proficiency”, “background proficiency”, and “personality proficiency”, all of which throw skills out completely, yet as far as I can tell the book doesn’t have a single sentence on creating a new skill for your campaign world.
I think the single biggest problem is still that D&D ties skills to a single ability score, which shuts down improv from both players and DMs.
@Justin Alexander
“One potentially interesting consequence of a very streamlined set of skills is that you could actually implement a grid on the sheet in a practical way — pre-calculate all ability/skill pairiings.”
In testing this out, it occurred to me that you only need two columns: “Proficient” and “Unskilled”. All skills in either category share the same ability modifiers and proficiency bonus (or lack thereof), so there’s only two different sets of numbers.
For reference, players could just list their “Proficient” skills somewhere near the table. If listed, roll column #1. Otherwise, roll column #2.
I modified the default character sheet to use with steamlined skills. I’m posting it in case anyone else wants to use it:
https://docdro.id/mL6SkZY
The skill check modifiers are listed in the grid format described in my previous comment (Column #1 = skilled, Column #2 = unskilled).
There’s a section above it for players to simply list their proficient skills. The idea is that a player can first check if they are proficient, then choose the appropriate set of modifiers.
This method actually didn’t wind up occupying any additional space on the sheet. Both sections together fill the same area as the long vertical “checkbox” list for the default system.
@Jin: Awesome work!
Thank you Justin.
On the subject of Knowledge skills, another option would be to follow 3rd Edition’s model and institute a single “Knowledge (field)” skill with the field specifying the domain. As you’ve noted, 5th Edition sets a precedent with Vehicle (Air/Land/Water), and I think it also works well for Knowledge.
This would create the appearance of a cut down list, while in reality providing greater flexibility. It could also highlight the uniqueness of Knowledge, being the only non-tool skill with fields.
Most importantly, it would bring the count of non-tool skills to a nice round total of 10:
– Animal Handling
– Athletics
– Investigation
– Knowledge (field)
– Medicine
– Perception
– Sleight of Hand
– Speechcraft
– Stealth
– Survival
Existing knowledge fields would include:
– (Arcana)
– (History)
– (Local)
– (Nature)
– (Religion)
. . . plus whatever else is worth adding, to cover all domains and ensure that a party has some skill gaps.
@Justin and others
One problem I can see with this system is that some skills are just organically limited to one ability. Athletics can be tied to Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, but what about Knowledge skills? They all seem like they would be Intelligence based. How would you use something like Arcana or Religion with something other than Intelligence or Wisdom?
ThinkDM recommended using generic Knowledge with either Intelligence or Wisdom to distinguish whether the character obtained it through book learning or field experience. That doesn’t solve the problem, since there’s no in-game flexibility mapping to player choices. It’s just a feature of character creation.
If that’s not solvable, then it probably would be best to keep Knowledge skills siloed and simply allow more slots (making their effective cost cheaper).
Justin closed with it, but I suggest everyone pay particular attention to the last paragraph of the article. If you only modify the skill system but leave everything else the same it is possible to create a character that is now proficient in every skill. It also waters down certain class features like the Bard’s Jack of All Trades.
My two concerns with this idea are: 1) I’m not in the camp of wanting to change game mechanics in a system that have such significant rippling impact to how other things are set up in the system. YMMV.
2) At a higher level, I not sure simplification is the right solution for skills in D&D. It is a reaction to what was done in 3.x/Pathfinder, but I have yet to be convinced the 5e solution (much less simplifying it further) as the correct path to have taken to address concerns with what was introduced in 3.x/Pathfinder.
I think if you are really going to design a skill system, the first thing that needs to be done is assess what you want the skill system to accomplish — both from a macro- and micro-perspective. Doing that after the fact for a game system means you have to re-balance everything that touches the skill system. In 5e, that includes racial abilities, classes (both initial skill selection and certain class features), backgrounds, certain spells, feats, leveling up, and downtime activities like learning a new tool skill.
“If you only modify the skill system but leave everything else the same it is possible to create a character that is now proficient in every skill.”
One option could be to limit the total number of proficient skills. Past a certain point characters can only swap them, rather than add. Classes like rogues and bards can sustain a greater number of skills than others.
It makes sense that if your character spends 3 months learning to carpenter ships in a port city, their wilderness survival abilities will atrophy.
The same logic applies to learning languages. For a non-native speaker, infrequent practice will make you quite rusty.
@Jin Cardassian
The problem with the skills atrophying if you don’t use that is that is all story based stuff that the D&D skill system never handled. The GM can change DC numbers based on that but that adds more work to the GM’s plate.
@forged
In this case there’s a clear mechanical trigger. If taking a new skill would exceed your proficient skills cap, you have to eliminate something to make room. Skill atrophy doesn’t happen otherwise. It’s not just GM fiat.
Story wise, it’s just assumed that characters are practicing their existing skills if they’re not learning new ones.
I write this a couple years late to inform you that your skill list is overlapping:
Gather Information can be reproduced with Investigation + Cha or with Speechcraft + Int (or Cos if you’re trying to get your potential informant dunk or if you’re doing a long distance pub crawling on foot).
If you want to gather info by overhearing while being unobtrusive you can use Stealth + Wis or Perception + Dex / Int.
So you will need to redo you skill list to specifiy what actions exacly are involved if you want to avoid overlaps.
Literally no one mentioned “Gather Information” here until you did, LateComer.
>Literally no one mentioned “Gather Information” here until you did, LateComer.
You are missing the point. Gather Info is a good example to show your skill list is overlapping.
I wrote you because of your statement:
>When you do this, however, you end up exacerbating another problem that I, personally, have with the system: Overlapping skills.
https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/48414/roleplaying-games/1dd-the-5e-skill-system-is-bad
Maybe during these year you realized the inconsistency and corrected your dnd skill list homebrew, but to be safe I warned you.
Bye and thanks for you interesting articles on nodal clues.
LOL.
Yeah, I’m not sure how you came to the conclusion that my deep concern was 5E’s skill list overlapping with the 3E skill list.
But it’s very funny.
(It also overlaps with the GURPS skill list!)
> 3E skill list
> deep concern
>gurps
What I wrote does not involve 3rd edition or deep stuff or gurps.
I’m simply helping you by underlining incoherent stuff from this article to your subsequent statement about not liking overlapping skill list.
This way you can choose a better streamlined list for your 5e games.
You’re welcome and keep up the good work!
Great stuff. Poisoner’s kit is more about creating poisons than administering them (at least I think that’s how it’s presented in the PHB), so I would argue it fits better under Alchemy (or perhaps even Medicine, if we want to erode the silo distinction a bit).
Also, as much as I love the name “Speechcraft,” I feel like it might be a confusing name for the skill it describes. If we’re going to have one social skill, it’s going to include situations where words aren’t so important, and calling it Speechcraft makes that kind of inobvious.
The “one social skill” thing made me realize how much the official skill list overlaps in that area and now I can’t unsee it. But how could you divide up social skills (assuming you wanted to) without creating an overlap? Maybe a divide between public oration (Speechcraft or Oratory) and one-on-one conversation (idk what to call it) would be appropriate, although I’m not sure how often people would use the former.
Even within the premise of simplification, I would split Lore back up into Nature and History, but expand them so History includes current politics and situations (stuff like who the local lord is, or what the major gangs in Waterdeep are) and Nature is all knowledge about the physical world. Thus dividing all knowledge into mystic shit, god stuff, people shit, and proto-science. Maybe rename History to Society to reflect this. That way there’s more ways to spread knowledge around for the low, low price of just one more skill (which can be offset by dropping Medicine into Nature or Sleight of Hand into Stealth).
I also noticed you mention Survival as “its own silo” — did you mean its own separate category with multiple skills in it? If so, I’m curious what list of new skills you would create to comprise the survival silo.