When creating an NPC for a GUMSHOE game — like Esoterrorists, Trail of Cthulhu, or Night’s Black Agents — instead of giving them ability ratings (e.g., Infiltration 10, Scuffling 8, Shooting 6), instead give them an ability modifier:
+1 (skilled)
+2 (excellent)
+3 uber
You could also use -1 or -2 modifier to indicate incompetence. (Any rating lower than -2 would most likely mean the NPC automatically fails on those tasks.)
Health / Stability / Sanity: These and similar pools that are depleted via some form of damage are rated and used normally.
USING ABILITY MODIFIERS
As with an Alertness Modifier or Stealth modifier, because GUMSHOE defaults to being a player-facing system whenever possible, you will primarily use ability modifiers to modify the base difficulty of a PC’s check (which is usually difficulty 4).
Ability modifiers can also be used if the NPC makes a check, in which case the relevant modifier is simply added to the NPC’s die roll.
CHERRIES
In Night’s Black Agents, an ability rating of 8+ unlocks a cherry. Although most other GUMSHOE games do not have cherries, they similarly unlock a +1 Hit Threshold for any character who has Athletics 8+.
Most cherries are only relevant to PCs, but any cherries that may be relevant to an NPC (including the +1 Hit Threshold) are unlocked at ability rating +2.
OPTION: NPC ABILITY POOL
As an optional rule, you can also grant NPCs a small pool of general points:
2 (mook)
4 (default)
8 (boss)
This pool can be spent to enhance any ability the NPC possesses, as appropriate, to either increase the difficulty of a PC’s check or increase their own check result.
If using this optional rule, you may also want to give NPCs ratings of +0 in a skill (indicating that they normally don’t receive a bonus, but could choose to spend points on a check).
OPTION: THRILLER CHASES
In the thriller chase rules from Night’s Black Agents, pursuer and runner must make secret spends from their chase pool each round. Depleting the opponent’s chase pool is a key part of what makes these rules dynamic and fun, and that combines poorly with static NPC modifiers.
Option #1 – Chase Pool: For the purposes of the chase, ignore the static modifier. Instead, when the chase starts, form a chase pool equal to 3 x the NPC’s static modifier. These points can be spent in addition to the NPC ability pool (if any) during the chase.
Option #2 – Static Charge: By default, NPCs in a thriller chase always spend their static modifier. If they have a generic NPC ability pool, they can use those points to increase their spend. In addition, if they choose to spend LESS than their stat modifier, those points are added to a dedicated chase pool which can be spent on future rounds to increase their default spend.
DESIGN NOTES
Something I find frustrating while running GUMSHOE games is that it’s very difficult to use the mechanics to figure out whether an NPC can accomplish a task while taking the NPC’s skill into account. Several GUMSHOE rulebooks even go so far as to say that the GM should simply fiat all non-combat checks by the NPCs. (Which I, personally, find deeply unsatisfying and unhelpful.)
Even in combat, though, the problem persists: The PCs’ combat pools are balanced so that they can last an entire scenario and multiple combat encounters. The NPCs’ pools are given the same rating, but they can spend it all in a single encounter. The result, combined with the typical length of a combat encounter, means that you can either:
spend no points, which means skill is irrelevant when it comes to NPC attacks; or
spend enough points to auto-hit the PCs every single time they attack.
The latter is both devastating and deeply unsatisfying: As a GM it means I can’t just roleplay the NPCs and see how things turn out. I am instead always making a completely arbitrary decision about whether the PCs should be hit or not. (Which, ultimately, means that NPC skill is still irrelevant.)
I believe that using ability modifiers will both (a) make it easier and faster to create NPCs (by eliminating the false precision of, for example, choosing between a pool with 10 points or 12 points) and (b) allow you to actually use the mechanics of the system while having NPC skill be relevant.
In assigning ability modifiers, you’ll generally just be choosing between unskilled (no rating), skilled (+1), and excellent (+2). PCs generally have a 50% chance of succeeding on a check with the default difficulty of 4. A +1 modifier gives them a one-third chance of success. A +2 modifier means they have to roll a 6 on the d6 to succeed. A +3 modifier means the check will be impossible unless the PCs spend points — it’s not necessarily inappropriate for an NPC to have such a rating, but you’re definitely making a very strong statement about them.
DM: As you’re crossing the completely empty, 20’ x 20’ room, your foot hits a pressure plate. A huge fireball engulfs the room! Give me a Dexterity saving throw!
Player: 18! And I have evasion!
DM: Somehow, while standing upright in the middle of the featureless room and taking no defensive action whatsoever, you’ve managed to completely avoid the raging inferno!
That’s weird, right?
But we’ve all come to just kind of accept it as a weird trope of D&D. It’s not even an intentional trope. It’s just a weird artifact of turn-based actions, locking our characters onto a grid, and requiring specific abilities or effects to declare any sort of positional change.
Partly we can address this by just loosening up a bit and giving ourselves a bit more creative leeway when narrating outcomes in a scene like this. (There’s nothing inherently wrong with describing a PC diving out of the room in the nick of time.) Even if we want to remain more firmly locked to the grid, the reality is that the 5’ x 5’ square is an abstraction that can cover a multitude of sins, particularly in a typical room.
(Seriously: Tape out a typical room of your house in 5’ x 5’ squares. You’ll discover that pretty much any square has some bit of furniture or a door or some other form of cover that you could imagine an evasive monk finding cover behind in the event of an unexpected explosion your living room. This is a useful lesson in general: Even if your dungeon map or battlemap may make most squares look wide open for the sake of legibility, that doesn’t mean you can’t weave unillustrated details into your descriptions of the action.)
Of course, many of our fantastical adventures will take us into quite atypical rooms — barren rooms, vast vaults, and so forth.
Regardless, we might find a slightly more formal system useful in any case. For better or worse, I’ve frequently had players object to bits of flavor text woven into action descriptions (e.g., “you stagger back a step” or “you leap out of the way”), and you may find a little formality can help grease those wheels.
DYNAMIC RESPONSES
When a character has to make a Dexterity saving throw in order to avoid an area effect (or any other effect where the DM deems it appropriate), they can describe a dynamic response that explains why/how the saving throw is being made.
Examples include:
falling prone
ducking behind a large shield
getting behind cover
moving out of the area of effect
Other options are certainly possible, particularly in specific environments (e.g., diving into a lake). Players are encouraged to be creative in the dynamic responses that they create.
Guidelines for resolving dynamic responses:
Not a Reaction: A dynamic response is not a reaction. If a character cannot take a reaction, however, they also cannot make a dynamic response.
No Response: If no appropriate dynamic response is attempted (or can be attempted), the character makes their Dexterity saving throw with disadvantage.
Movement: Characters can move up to 5 ft. as part of a dynamic response. Alternatively, they can move up to 10 ft., but they must fall prone at the end of the movement. (In other words, they’re diving for cover.) This movement provokes attacks of opportunity normally.
Duck and Cover: Simply falling prone and covering up can be a sufficient dynamic response, but this renders the character prone.
Design Note: Dynamic responses essentially create a wider spectrum of mechanical response to area effects. You can have no adequate response (disadvantage), actively seek to avoid the effect (resolve normally), or be well-prepared and take the Dodge action (advantage).
ABUSING THE SYSTEM
“Hey! What if my players start dropping area effects on each other just so they can ‘dive out of the way’ and get ‘free’ movement across the battlefield?”
You have a few options:
Simply disallow it.
Limit dynamic response movement to once per round.
Allow it, with the rationale that the area effects are creating enough chaos and confusion that people are able to move around a little more freely than they usually could. (Or whatever other rationale makes you happy.)
Only require/allow dynamic responses to trap effects.
Sigh… fine, dynamic responses now require you to use your reaction. If you don’t have a reaction left this round, then you’re stuck making your Dexterity saving throws at disadvantage.
In 5th Edition, you can take either a short rest or long rest to recover from your adventures.
When taking a short rest a character can:
Regain and use abilities that indicate they require a short rest (e.g., a warlock’s spell slots).
Spend Hit Dice, one at a time, to regain hit points (up to their maximum Hit Dice, which is equal to the character’s level).
When taking a long rest a character with at least 1 hit point can:
Regain and use abilities that indicate they require a long rest.
Regain all lost hit points.
Regain a number of spent Hit Dice equal to half the character’s total number of Hit Dice (minimum 1).
Reduce their exhaustion level by 1, if they have also ingested food and drink.
Spending Hit Dice. When spending a Hit Die, roll the Hie Die plus the character’s Constitution modifier and restore that number of lost hit points. (This cannot increase the character’s hit points above their maximum hit point value.)
REQUIRED REST TIME
Setting the amount of time required for short rests and long rests will have a significant impact on the tone and balance of your campaign. Use this interval scale to set required rest times:
5 minutes / 1 dungeon turn
1 hour
8 hours
1 week
1 month
Usually a long rest will be one interval higher on the list than a short rest (e.g., if short rests require 8 hours, then a long rest will require 1 week). You can, of course, increase this gap (e.g., short rests requiring only 5 minutes, but long rests requiring a week). Note, however, that classes rely on different balances between short rests and long rests for using and regaining their abilities. The more divergent the period between short rests and long rests, the more you will tilt the balance to favor one set of classes.
Interrupted Rest: In order to rest, characters can only engage in light activity (eating, drinking, reading, tending wounds, standing watch). If characters engage in strenuous activity (which can include fighting, casting spells, walking for a significant distance, or similar adventuring activity), the required rest period is extended by twice the next lowest interval (or double the rest period if at the lowest rest interval).
(For example, if a rest requires 8 hours and a character casts spells during the rest, their required resting period will increase by 2 hours to a total of 10 hours.)
At the GM’s discretion, each distinct disruption to the rest may additionally extend the required resting period. (For example, if you get into a fight during a rest, it will extend the rest. If you get into another fight later in the rest, the resting period may be extended again.)
Design Note: The standard rules for restarting a disrupted rest are replaced here with rules for extending the rest.
Option – Limited Long Rests. The GM may limit the number of long rests a character can take in a given period. (For example, if long rests require 8 hours, the GM may limit characters to taking only one long rest per day. If a long rest takes 1 week, the GM might only allow long rests every other week.)
Option – Narrative Rest Time. Instead of associating rests with a specific amount of time in the game world, you can instead pace your rests based on the narrative structure of play.
For narrative long rests, it’s recommended that characters benefit from a long rest either at the end of a scenario (for episodic campaigns) or at the completion of a major goal (for multi-threaded campaigns).
For narrative short rests, give the players X number of short rests that they can use during the scenario at any time of their choosing. The number of rests will depend on the length of the scenario. As a rule of thumb, grant one short rest for every 5 encounters in the scenario.
Alternatively, allow the players to take a certain number of short rests per session. (As a rule of thumb, allow one narrative short rest for every two hours of play. This is particularly useful for multi-threaded campaigns where the PCs may be engaging with multiple scenarios simultaneously.)
You may or may not want to require the whole group to take their narrative short rests at the same time.
POOR REST
If a character is resting in poor conditions (too noisy, too cold, a slightly caustic atmosphere, random interruptions, a newborn baby in the house, etc.):
Double the amount of time required to achieve a short rest.
When taking long rests, the character must take two long rests (instead of one) to gain the normal benefits of the long rest.
Design Note: The distinction here becomes meaningful when you’re limiting the number of long rests characters can take – e.g., you need to rest 8 hours one night and then 8 hours the next to get a long rest; you can’t just rest for 16 hours straight. It also becomes significant if rests are being interrupted.
LACK OF SLEEP
If you get less than eight hours of sleep in a night, you must succeed at a Constitution saving throw (DC 20 – twice the number of hours you slept) or gain a level of exhaustion. (If this aligns with a long rest, the level of exhaustion is applied after the effects of a long rest.)
Elven Trance. Elves only require four hours of meditation in a night. If they get less than four hours of meditation, they must succeed on a Constitution saving throw (DC 20 – four times the number of hours they meditated) or gain a level of exhaustion.
Jet Lag. If a character rapidly shifts to a different time zone (or the equivalent thereof) due to teleportation, dimensional travel, flying carpet, or jumbo jet, they must make a Constitution saving throw for sleep deprivation even if they get 8 hours of sleep. Once a character succeeds at two consecutive sleep deprivation saving throws, their circadian rhythm has acclimated to the new time zone and they are no longer affected by the jet lag.
If the time zone shifts more than 4 hours or if the destination has a day/night cycle of a different length (or no day/night cycle at all), then the saving throw is made at disadvantage.
Characters using magical or pharmacological aids — like a sleep spell — to force a rest period that’s properly synched with the local time zone gain advantage on the sleep deprivation saving throw due to jet lag.
Taking your shoes off and scrunching your toes into the carpet also grants a +2 bonus on sleep deprivation saving throws due to jet lag. This bonus rises to +4 if you happen to do it during a terrorist attack.
(If you’re the sort who doesn’t like dragons passing like an express train and bursting over Bywater, you might choose to refer to this as “dimensional wildering” or “teleport lag.”)
Casting Time: 1 Range: Touch Components: V, S, M Duration: 10 minutes or instantaneous
When cast on a character suffering from jet lag, circadian effector immediately removes the effects of jet lag. (It has no effect on other forms of exhaustion.)
If cast on a sleeping character, circadian effector immediately acclimates the character to their current time zone. If used in this way, the effect is instantaneous (which means it does not wear off and cannot be dispelled, although a character can be subjected to fresh jet lag if they move to yet another time zone).
The spell can also be used to induce the effects of jet lag on a character not currently suffering from it for the duration of the spell (Constitution saving throw negates). Or, if cast on a sleeping character, the spell acclimates them to a time zone of the caster’s choice as an instantaneous effect (presumably causing them to suffer from jet lag in their current time zone).
OPTIONAL RULE: NATURAL HEALING
When using the natural healing optional rule, characters do not automatically recover all of their hit points at the end of a long rest. Instead, long rests, just like short rests, allow a character to expend Hit Dice (including the Hit Dice they just recovered).
OPTIONAL RULE: RESTING IN ARMOR
Resting in light armor counts as a single interruption to the rest period (extending the required rest period accordingly).
Resting in heavy armor is considered resting in poor conditions.
OPTIONAL RULE: LONG RESTS & DOWNTIME
Under this optional rule, downtime activities do not count as strenuous activity for the purposes of interrupting rest.
Alternatively, the GM might prep a specific list of allowed downtime activities. (Although it should be noted that many downtime activities are already allowed under the guidelines for interrupting rest. It’s only necessary to implement this rule if you are allowing downtime activities which might otherwise interrupt rest.)
Design Note: The goal of this rule is to encourage the use of downtime activities. If long rests require 1 week and more or less the only thing characters can do with that time are downtime activities, that will almost certainly guarantee a lot of downtime activities being used in your campaign.
Special thank to the Alexandrian Discord crew for their invaluable feedback on this article during its development.
Kaiju already exist in D&D. And, using the rules, you can already fight them.
But these mechanics tend to shrink the scope of these creatures. You can square off with a tarrasque, for example, in basically the same way you would with an ogre and poke at it with a spear until it dies. It doesn’t really matter how many squares the tarrasque takes up on the battlemap; it doesn’t feel like you’re fighting something that’s truly enormous. (Particularly if you picture the scene and realize you’re really just tickling its toenails.)
Which is particularly notable, I think, because it features kaiju on both sides of the fight, with human combatants wedged between them.
In each of these fights, there are also common elements that jump out for me:
Ranged attacks obviously feature quite a bit. (Although they can usually be described as bouncing almost harmlessly off the creature’s thick hide, unless a particular weak spot can be hit.)
In order to be effective, characters have to literally be on the kaiju.
The fights feature lots of terrain being casually devastated… including, frequently, the places where the PCs are standing or were just standing a moment before.
Finally, for something a little different, let’s add literally this entire game:
Shadow of the Colossus has a very different pace from the other examples, which I think is useful for keeping in mind when considering the breadth of what kaiju encounters can be.
HEY! I DON’T WANT THAT!
Some of you reading this are undoubtedly thinking, “I don’t want humans running along dragon spines! It’s silly! I want grounded, gritty fantasy! It’s not realistic to think that a normal human could solo Smaug with a sword!”
Short version: These rules are not for you.
Long version: Neither is D&D. By which I mean that the unmodified rules for D&D already let high-level characters solo Smaug. So if that’s not the sort of thing you want your D&D characters to be doing, you’re already having dissonance with the system. Check out E(X): The Many Games Inside the World’s Most Popular Roleplaying Game for an approach that will let you dial in the experience you want.
DEFINING YOUR KAIJU
There are a lot of big monsters in D&D. What counts as a kaiju?
Some key things that I, personally, would think about are:
Is this monster big enough that it’s basically part of the scenery? A very active part of the scenery, yes, but basically the size of a building or even bigger.
Is this monster so large that it’s difficult to imagine someone standing on the ground next to them even being able to reach their vital organs?
Is this monster capable of trivially destroying human-scaled objects while barely even noticing that they’re doing it?
I think the lowest cut-off that makes sense to me (again, speaking only for myself personally) would be at least the size of a storm giant. (Storm giants stand 26 feet tall, are probably 6-7 feet across at the shoulders, and their knees would be about 8 feet above the ground.) And I’d probably want to aim a little bit higher than that.
So as you’re looking at the kaiju rules below, think about what scale of creature they feel right for. Here are a few options to consider.
OPTION #1: GARGANTUAN CREATURES
The simplest metric would be to just declare all Gargantuan creatures to fall under the kaiju rules. This conveniently includes all our likely suspects: tarrasques, rocs, dragon turtles, ancient dragons, and purple worms.
Using this option, the rules for fighting kaiju would only apply to Large or smaller characters. (Huge or Gargantuan characters are close enough to the kaiju in size that no special rules need apply.)
OPTION #2: THREE SIZES LARGER
Alternatively, we could extend this logic to say that any creature three size categories larger than you is considered a kaiju. This would mean that Small creatures would have to treat Huge creatures as kaiju.
This makes a certain amount of sense. If we use our previous example of a 26-foot-tall storm giant, its size relative to a halfling would be like a 50-foot giant relative to a human. (This would actually be the same height as a tarrasque!)
The drawback, of course, is a practical one: PCs can be both Small and Medium size. When encountering Huge creatures, some of the PCs would consider them kaiju and others wouldn’t. You might consider this a feature (and even a great roleplaying opportunity), but it would undoubtedly add the possibility for confusion and probably some potential issues with balance.
OPTION #3: TWO SIZES LARGER
This is the option that treats storm giants and treants as kaiju-class foes for human opponents. However, it would also mean that Large creatures would be treated as kaiju for Small PCs, and Large opponents are actually quite common in D&D. So this would almost certainly result in the kaiju rules being used frequently.
OPTION #4: BESPOKE KAIJU
It’s a kaiju if I say it is.
You might choose this option if you want to include specific corner cases (like storm giants, who are near the high end of the Huge class). This can also be appealing if you just want to include the occasional kaiju-themed encounter in your campaign, but then not worry about the kaiju rules every single time some big monster shows up for a tussle.
THE KAIJU RULES
In order to engage a kaiju, you enter its space while moving or as a reaction to being the target of a kaiju’s melee attack. This usually requires some form of check (e.g., a Strength (Athletics) to jump onto the kaiju from above or a Dexterity (Acrobatics) to grab on as it flies past). This check is contested by the kaiju’s Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to avoid the little pests.
Being engaged with a kaiju usually means that you are physically on the kaiju in some way. Being engaged is an exception to the normal movement rules preventing you from willingly ending your move in another creature’s space. As long as you are engaged with the kaiju, you will be carried with the kaiju when it moves.
Characters who are not engaged with the kaiju suffer disadvantage on their melee attacks targeting the kaiju. Characters engaged with a kaiju gain advantage on their melee attacks targeting the kaiju.
Shake Loose: As a special melee attack, a kaiju can attempt to shake off anyone currently engaged with it. When they do so, all engaged characters must succeed on a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check contested by the kaiju’s Strength (Athletics) check. On a failure, the engaged character is shaken loose into an adjacent space of their choice and is no longer engaged with the kaiju. They must also succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or suffer 2d6 falling damage (or more if the creature was flying at a height greater than 20 feet).
Siege Monster: All kaiju are given the Siege Monster ability. They deal double damage to objects and structures.
Kaiju Destruction: All kaiju are given the Kaiju Destruction ability. They can deal damage to structures within reach as a bonus action.
Design Notes: These rules are deliberately quite simple. Our goal is not to weigh the system down with a lot of detailed mechanics, but rather to provide a straightforward prompt for DMs and players to dynamically describe these battles.
ADVANCED KAIJU RULES
Flying Characters: Flying characters and characters on flying mounts do not suffer disadvantage when making melee attacks against a kaiju.
Engage with Vantage: If circumstances allow a character to attack a kaiju’s vulnerable areas, then, at the DM’s discretion, it will not be necessary to engage with the kaiju in order to avoid suffering disadvantage on melee attacks against it.
For example, a character might be located on a wall or in a tower that the kaiju is passing by. Or they might be riding another kaiju.
Such vantage points do not grant advantage on attacking the kaiju, but may grant advantage on skill checks to engage the kaiju.
Hey! I Was Standing On That! When a kaiju destroys a structure that a PC is standing on, they can attempt a DC 15 Dexterity check as a reaction to land on the kaiju and immediately engage it.
Helping Others to Engage: This can be done with a standard Help action, granting advantage to the aided character’s skill check to engage the kaiju.
Knocked Off: If a character is knocked off a kaiju, the DM may allow them a DC 12 Dexterity saving throw to grab hold of a lower point on the kaiju and remain engaged. In addition to deliberate enemy action (kaiju gnats or other allies fighting the PCs on the kaiju’s back), the DM might also call for such saving throws (possibly at a higher DC) in response to environmental conditions — when the kaiju smashes through a wall or flies through a waterfall, for example.
ROLEPLAYING KAIJU
Nothing in the rules of 5th Edition requires motion, but these creatures are simply massive and even a single step that might only be a small adjustment for a human-scale character can easily chew up significant distance.
So you’re under no compulsion, but describe your tarrasques not only staggering back from mighty blows, but actually moving across the battlefield as they do so (and even chewing up their bonus action to unintentionally smash through a wall along the way). Have your ancient dragons constantly swooping back and forth across the battlefield.
Also keep in mind that these gargantuan creatures may not immediately pay any attention to the PCs, or simply disregard them as irrelevant. (In much the same way that we might see a chipmunk or sparrow in the woods and just… not care that much.)
This, in turn, sets up the moment when the kaiju is suddenly VERY MUCH PAYING ATTENTION TO YOU. That’s a big moment. Play into it.
It’s not unusual for the property damage inflicted by a kaiju to unwittingly prove its undoing: Leave large, heavy, sharp objects dangling precariously and then let the kaiju linger under them for a round or two.
REVERSE KAIJU ADVENTURE
The limited range of size categories in 5th Edition (compared to previous editions) prevents this idea from being directly supported by the rules, but it might be fun to frame an adventure or encounter in which the PCs are the kaiju.
Their opponents might be diminutive Lilliputians or perhaps a scurrying mass of anthropomorphized mice. Either way, the kaiju mechanics work the same in both directions, and you can describe the little folk clutching the PCs’ hair or scurrying inside their armor.
Another option along these lines is to give the PCs temporary (or permanent) control over a gargantuan construct, which can benefit from its status as a kaiju-class combatant.
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:
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.
