Skill Ranks for D&D 5e

Skill ranks simply put is an overly complicated system designed an in attempt to make skills feel more specialized to individual players. I've always found that having skill bound to players character level didn't make them feel special as they leveled up. A Barbarian gets the same bonus to Stealth as a Rouge does when they level up. The characters get no control over this.

How does Skill Ranks work?

Skills now have an additional property called rank, and this rank varies from Untrained (0) to Legendary (5). Instead of gaining proficiency in a skill, you choose to gain a rank in that skill skill. Having any rank above Untrained in a skill, makes you proficient in that skill. Skills Proficiency Bonus is now based off this new rank instead of your character level. Use the following table to find out the bonus each rank grants you

How do I gain ranks?

When you gain a skill proficiency, you instead gain a skill rank. Let's use Yaror Axeguard our Dwarven Fighter with the Solider Background as an example. At level 1, Yaror gains 2 skill proficiencies from his class of fighter, and 2 skill proficiencies from his background of Solider. These proficiencies are Yarors, skill ranks. Yaror automatically gains the rank of Knowledgeable (+2) from his background in both Athletics and Intimidation, but that leaves him with 2 ranks he can still spend. Yaror then chooses to spend one rank in Acrobatics granting him the rank of Knowledgeable (+2) and his last rank in Athletics bumping his rank from Knowledgeable (+2) to Trained (+3).

How do I level up my skills ranks then?

Each time you level up after level 1, you are granted 1 skill rank to spend to spend on any skill you would like. You can choose to increase the rank of a skill you already have ranks in, or you can choose to pick up a new skill.

Additionally at levels 4, 8, 12, 16, 20 you gain 2 additional skill ranks for a total of 3 skill ranks at that level. Assuming you start with 4-6 Skill Ranks at level 1, at level 20 you should end with 33-35 Skill Ranks. This means you could be knowledgeable (+2) in all of the skills but that would only leave you with about 15-17 skill points to spend on your remaining skills, allowing you to level up max out 4-5 other skills or having a variation of other ranks. Keep in mind, Skill Ranks do not use your Class Proficiency Bonus. Spending your points out like this might seem great but could really limit your character on their other skills.

How does Expertise work?

Exactly the same, it simply doubles whatever your Skill Rank Proficiency Bonus is. For example, if you have Expertise in a skill with the rank of Trained your Bonus doubles to +6 and if you have it in Legendary it doubles too +12

What happens if I take the Skilled Feat?

You gain additional skill ranks instead of skill proficiencies? The system is designed to work with most of the core of D&D5e but just so that skills have their own Proficiency Bonuses instead of being tied to the characters level.

Alright, but what about Jack of All Trades?

Well, you finally got me, this one is a little tricky. Jack of all trades sets your minimum proficiency bonus to half of your character level proficiency bonuses regardless of your rank in that class. Meaning if your Rank would be lower, you will be at least at the value of Jack of All Trades.

Edit: Cleaned up the post and made it more organized

How does this fit with the Half/Twice Proficiency mechanic baked into features like Jack of All Trades and Expertise? Or did I miss that?

Double proficiency/expertise doubles your rank proficiency. So if your knowledgeable it's +4 or expert would be +8

Half proficiency is a little trickier. The idea I have in mind is half of your character level proficiency or your rank proficiency which ever is higher.

It's certainly a lot more complex and I don't think it's for everyone, but I like it. A couple suggestions:

• A lot of people want INT to factor into skill acquisition. It would give the stat a bit more importance and it makes sense. Maybe you get extra ranks based on your INT mod or something.
• For Jack of All Trades, I'd add a +1 rank ('Familiar' or something), and then just say that when you get JoAT, you are at least Familiar in everything. Then you bump that to Knowledgable at level 9 and Trained at level 17.
• While bards and rogues start off with a couple more ranks, those initial benefits don't scale as powerfully as they do in the current system. I would probably toss them a few more ranks here or there since being skill monkeys is kind of their thing.
• Where do tool proficiencies fit in? Should they be totally separate from skills? Artificer is another kind of Expert class, but specializing in tools rather than skills.

I am implementing it via a module in foundry vtt... So even though its more complicated, it'll be mostly automated for my players. Because yes, its more complicated, but I love this idea more then core features.

• I was thinking of adding an optional rule for INT. For example, at levels 4, 8, 12, 16, 20 levels instead of getting +2 additional skills you get a number of skills ranks equal to your intelligence modifier a minimum of 1. 
• Half proficiency (Jack of All Trades) is a little trickier. The idea I have in mind is half of your character level proficiency or your rank proficiency whichever is higher. This basically keeps this scale in mind, it also removes the check for if the player is proficient and instead just uses whichever is higher, then rank or JOAT.
• Tools are skill proficiencies in my mind. If my players wanted to spend a skill rank on improving a tool rather than a skill, I would allow that. Though I'd have to think more on it though, as that would mean you are eating more of your skill ranks for tools if you include them.

Just figured it might be easier to make JoAT a flat stated bonus so you don't have to do extra math or compare values, but you do have to check for ranks so I guess either approach takes some consideration.

I think WotC wants to present tool proficiency as equal to skill proficiencies, but in my experience they have a much smaller, more focused scope and are certainly less defined in what they can do. I think if I did a system like this I might keep it altogether separate because they really don't feel equivalent without significant DM intervention.

Yeah I am sorta cheating on the math, I use foundry and am making a module that handles this for me... So alot of the math isn't really a concern for complexity. But if you were doing pen and paper, its a little more complicated. But honestly, its just the PF2e system essentially, so it can be done, lots of people play that system.

Yeah, I do think introducing tools will spread out your ranks far to much, but it would be interesting to find a way to handle them if possible. I think focusing just on skills is my main purpose for this system right now.